Late Night Taco Trucks and a Band Named Faggot

So, once again, I am off to the well-lit and piss-stained kingdom of downtown to participate in a puppet show. How I became a rogue, blood-spotted, amateurish puppeteer is well beyond the grasp of my mental abilities. To put it simply, an old friend who happens to be a professional puppeteer has for one reason or another pulled me into his fold. He gave me a wooden therapist puppet which I was to lovingly ass-rape a disturbed adolescent puppet with in front of a room of tattooed, pierced, and black-clad people who for the most part displayed haircuts that would be better off referred to as cataclysmic mistakes.
So tonight, our second show, shadow puppets, spraying blood, and the public beheading of Donald Rumsfeld were on the slate for The Dictionary of Blood Puppet Theater. Things went off without a hitch and we settled in to watch Amps for Christ and a few other bands whose names I could not remember as I am not fluent in the diabolical arts of goth/industrial Latin phraseology. I was interested in seeing the last act, a band from Minnesota called Faggot. Their name, when I saw it on the flier (which is where I also found out that we were performing), caused me to laugh out loud. It was absurd and offensive, not to mention juvenile, and that is exactly where my heart is these days.
So I sat through 3 hours or so of parenthetically self-indulgent ($29 to the first person who can explain this term to me) music that is no doubt more entertaining to make than it is to listen to. I am guilty of this crime myself, and at one time wet my pants over the idea that the audience is laughably insignificant. In fact, I too have been in a fistful of bands who have for the most part been totally oblivious to the fact that there is a room full of people who would appreciate hearing something with some attention paid to the listener. But as I get older, and beer money becomes scarce, and my time more precious, and my hearing closer to disappearing forever, and my patience slimming down to a mere sliver of its former self, music like this by and large just wears on my nerves. I will give it credit for eschewing the verse/verse/chorus/verse/ chorus/chorus methodology, but that does not mean I want to stand against a brick wall in an unheated warehouse listening to it for hours on end.
So I left, took a break, my mood dire and not fit for public consumption. I walk over to one of the many late night food trucks that thankfully dot the Portland downtown area. These small converted trucks are a godsend to the drunks and mildly successful panhandlers that wander these streets and alleyways. This one, the yellow truck on Burnside, happens to be one of my favorites, making some of the best tacos I’ve ever had. The man inside is happy to see a customer, and he tells me he is doing some heavy duty cleaning because business is slow. This makes me question the motivations of the universe as the food here is so good and so cheap that he should have a line stretching off into the horizon.
But there is no justice, and I fear he will fade away, only to be replaced by another small vehicle peddling orgasmic flavors and carbs over nourishment. He calls me miho and talks as though we have known each other for years and this makes my mood inch up a notch or two. I stand aside and wait as he busies himself with whatever it is he has to do to create my food. A prettier than average girl is making her way across the street towards the truck, my sanctuary from humanity. She is attractive in a non-intimidating way, someone who probably doesn’t need to spend 12 hours prepping in the bathroom before going out. She is just a normal, attractive human being.
Now, I know that I had hoped people would flock to this particular truck and begin throwing money about, but I forgot to add that I would like for them to wait until I was gone.
No such luck.
She walks up, stands by me, and orders her food as I try to look anywhere else but at this moment in time. But I can’t drift away as I have food on the way, so we are standing there, two strangers in a lonely city, late at night, with supernaturally similar desires and hunger pangs that brought us to this same not-so-desolate location, for the same reasons. That alone would be enough reason to say something to one another. Hurray for solidarity! Call it coincidence, synchronicity, chaoism, whatever.
While looking this way and that, I notice she is doing the same, with an expectancy in her face. Nothing serious, just a, "Hey, say something. We’ve got nothing else to do." Our eyes clash in the ether once or twice, clanking silently as sightlines collide.
All I wanted was a taco and some alone time. I am aware that there is a beer or 2 and 30 ounces of coffee in me, and that my mood is not quite black, but definitely a greyish color, but I know that this just isn’t some slight intoxication impression. Words are expected to be exchanged, and I’ve got nothing. And upon realizing this it also dawns on me that this is getting carried too far in my head, one of those times when I wonder if this is a natural human condition, this sporadic and intense aversion to human contact, or if I am in the running for a long term prescription to one of those magic medicines that I see advertised in shitty magazines.
I decide it is normal. I base this on no solid science, but out of sheer laziness. The idea of trying to maintain a non-recreational pill regimen is beyond my grasp.
If you weren’t aware of it, or hadn’t noticed, I was born with spinal meningitis that almost killed me and a serious social-skill deficiency that promises to finish the job, to succeed where the meningitis had failed. I can usually be civil and sincere, crack wise and fumble with polite smiles and generally sub-par small talk, but during times like this, when my mind is all akimbo, I seize up and hope for an apocalypse to distract me from the heartbreaking fact that I am socially retarded.
My food comes, on a plate as I had requested, and I stand at the small table (where the hell are the chairs?) and eat quickly. Happily, the prettier than average girl gives up on trying to engage me in conversation and takes up with the proprietor. He is en forme, and I find that she has wit and charm that, had I been in a normal mood, still would not have been able to keep up with. I don’t know why, but this realization makes me feel better about myself.
I finish eating and head back to the club, well fed and lips on fire from some potent homemade salsa. I pass 4 men sleeping in doorways, one man who I suspect is going to murder me, and 47 well dressed people standing in line for a club that I have absolutely no desire to enter.
Back to our club and Faggot is setting up. 3 men in assless chaps and speedos are setting up equipment. Bass, drums, and guitar. These 3 elements give me a modicum of hope that I will at the very least be hearing a song before the night is over, no matter how rudimentary. Anything to make up for the feedback drones and insistent knob twiddlings that have no discernable effect on the wall of hell that is dumping out of the speakers.
Finally the band takes the stage. The aforementioned three men who have the hair and mustaches of an Mississippi Creedence cover band are barely dressed and driving me to assume that with the images of their skinny mono-asses and inner thigh sideburns, misshapen and well advertised packages dancing through my head that I will not be having any ‘alone’ time when I return home. Imagine a naked, hungover, and coked-out Doug Clifford that hadn’t slept or trimmed his mustache for about a week. That’s what I was looking at. Then, kind of thankfully, four girls come out, similarly attired, with various words written across their lower backs and exposed midriffs: slut, AIDS, faggot, etc.
All but one of the girls are close to appearing malnourished and obviously are actively boycotting hair stylists and all related hair-care products. One girl though is a bit meaty. I remember her from the bathroom line. She entered the queue behind me and uttered a "Jesus" at the amount of people waiting for one toilet. She caught my eye as I was doing all I could to keep the two pints of urine I was struggling with from blowing out all over the floor and wall. She looked normal then, but backstage had transformed into a go-go ho with something to the effect of "More Fun" written on her backside and offensively teased hair that reached for the sky in a manner that was not inspirational.
But even with that un-make-over, that deconstruction, she was still cute.
Then the band started and as far as I could tell the only words to the first song were, "Fuck you." I was not intrigued. The second song started and I believe all they said was something about wanting or being on drugs. The music was rote gutter punk tripe that never really had a heyday and the vocals were nothing to keep me interested. They were billed degenerate scum punk or some such business. I’m all for degenerates, and scum, and punk even, but this particular recipe had no effect on the palate so I up and left. The only thing I could give them was that they weren’t putting on a show... I sensed no irony. This was who they were, fucked-up and tore-up. Props for authenticity.
That said I was not elated as I had just spent five hours of waiting around to see a cheap GG Allen sideshow with go-go dancers and no blood, shit, or hepatitis..
I would allow that if I were hanging out with them, snorting coke out of the dancers cleavage and sucking whiskey from their belly buttons, screaming along to lyrics written by maladjusted 14 year old, that they would be the best band in the world. But it gets back to what I said earlier, about some things being more interesting for the creator than the observer. A lot of art and music falls into this category and I don’t begrudge the creators their happiness. It’s awesome to be able to get paid in money, drugs, or free beer to be obnoxious, and there are plenty of people who can sit through a show like this and think it is the best thing since internet porn, but sadly, at this point in time, I haven’t the patience.
And that’s where I am. I won’t say that the whole night was a wash, because it wasn’t. Indeed, any night that I can sum up with the title of "Late night taco trucks and a band called Faggot" is undeniably an awesome night. And knowing that much put me back in good spirits, on top of the world, and back at home, late at night, with a much loved album on the stereo, rain on the skylight, beer in the liver, and these keys at my fingers...11/26/2006- 3:05 AM