Rocket From The Tombs And Other Stuff

Last night I headed over to Southpaw in scenic Park Slope to see Rocket From The Tombs (Rocket From The Crypt got their name from them, in case you were wondering), the legendary new wave/punk-type rock band from the same town I am from, Cleveland. They rocked balls.

I have been a big fan of singer David Thomas, who went on to form Pere Ubu after RFTT split up, for a long time. He’s a super-talented and- as best as I can tell- super intense dude. A few years ago, one of my rock bands, Uptown Sinclair, opened up for one of David’s projects, David Thomas and Two Pale Boys, at the Beachland Ballroom in Cleveland. David was kind of a dick to pretty much everyone in the building (to be fair though, the crowd hadn’t shown up yet, so I’m only talking about like seven people really) before the show, but when he went on later that night he was so awesome I didn’t mind his earlier dicky behavior at all; which is not to say being an awesome artist gets you off the hook for being a dick- it’s just that he was so great he could have walked off the stage and kicked me in the nuts and I wouldn’t have minded too much just as long as he kept singing while he was doing it. Anyway, here’s to art. Or something like that anyway.

Yesterday during the day I was busy with my various plots for world domination but I did find time to do a little laundry while I was at it. In between cycles I wandered over to the park in my neighborhood, where I happened upon the dead bird in the photo above. I’m not sure whether he got sick and keeled over, got run over by a car, or maybe just lost his will to live somewhere along the line. I like how- even in death- he looks like he’s flying though. You can’t keep a good bird down I guess. Not even one whose head is starting to rot. Speaking of dead birds though, sometimes I wonder why we don’t see more of them lying around. Where do they all go? This is one of the many things that keep me up at night.

Also at the park, I happened upon these two pairs of shoes on a park bench. I looked around for their owners but they were nowhere in sight. The woman’s shoes are Nine West, a reputable and affordable brand it is my understanding. Normally I would think two pairs of shoes sitting alone on a park bench was a sign of something gone wrong. But in this case they feel more like a sign of something gone right. Really right. I’m not saying the couple who left the shoes behind ran off for some hardcore boning or anything, but maybe it was fun walking home barefoot. It usually is (unless someone has stolen your shoes or something, which has never happened to me but I could see how that might suck, especially if you had just bought a sweet pair of Air Jordans or something). Then again, maybe the couple woke up the next day and were all like “What the fuck? What happened to our shoes? And you're not Danny!” Then maybe they went and got breakfast, eggs maybe.

Dave Hill