Chapter 1:

Horn intro

I came into the world during the beginning of the information revolution, in the early days of Motorola's first cell phone, when microsoft launched the world's most popular processing program, and to the creepy, voyeuristic lyrics of Every Breath you Take by the Police.

I have been told, I was the easier pregnancy of four. For that reason, my soundtrack doesn’t begin with Sting’s new wave rock, rather, it begins with Cantaloupe Island by Herbie Hancock, you’d recognize it when you hear it - you know, it’s the one with a smooth jazz ensemble playing behind Herbie’s extraordinary ability to play the piano with unmatched versatility and ubiquity.

US3 did a cover, Cantaloop … dip trip flip fantasia … it featured more horn than piano.

I have always loved when a band adds some gnarly horns to a modern song.

I don’t like US3’s cover, despite the horns.

What’s my point … you’ll find yourself asking that a lot if you continue …I love music.

I loved making mixed tapes as a kid. Recording jams off the radio and CDs was a childhood hobby.

My mom has told me that I was a really well behaved kid. I guess, invisibility can make you a good boy , I guess. Sit boo boo sit.

Back to horns: I like all horns in the horn family, but the trumpet, the trumpet has always been my favourite.

Remember great songs like The Nationals Fake Empire , the climaxing taratantara casting hairs to stand and shivers to course over your body.

Songs like that, man songs like Fake Empire, and songs like New York State of Mind by Billy Joel, are beautifully able to ignite the amygdala and hippocampus in my brain, making me feel something more than myself through the sultry mellow deep sound of a horn.

My brain references above make me sound scientific. I’m not a scientist. This next statement will confirm that.

Songs like that have also made me think I am special … run Forrest.

I know that sounds retarded or weird or desperate or pathetic or corny, but the deeper the connection I have to a song - you know songs that weren’t on the radio, songs that nobody else loved - the more special I felt I was.

You know the sayings, “that’s my song” or “that’s my jam”.

To find a good song was easy, but to find a great song …. I needed to feel like I was transforming - changing into something more interesting. Or like I was becoming someone more desirable. Or like I was forced to be more bold. Or like I was so well read that I was super refined.

For a song to be great, I needed to feel like I was Pip from Great Expectations; you know, a tortured artist balls deep in Gwyneth Paltrow.

In a way, older now, I wish a song could still give me that feeling. You know, the feeling of excitement, bestowing me with the imagination to be great and the desire to change, to grow, and to get my balls deep in someone beautiful.

But shit, I am the same guy. I mean I still dream about wet dreaming.

Growth in real life however, was never easy for me. Maturity was never obvious to me. I fucked up a lot. No one is perfect, right.

I know.

But sometimes, every once in awhile music made my life perfect, perfectly sad, or perfectly romantic, or perfectly anxious, or perfectly aggressive. I know now the perfection wasn’t me, it was the song itself.

I remember the first time I heard tonight tonight by the smashing pumpkins. That song made me splendid and excited. I was moved by Billy.

While a song like disarm made me faultlessly sad. Again, I was moved by Billy.

You see, those songs are perfect. They are lyrical and poetic. More importantly, they are evolutionary.

I mean sometimes you can recognize when music is shaping your life. Sometimes a song makes you so emotional that you can’t imagine living or ever dying, you can’t imagine any moments after the song is over. Sometimes a song can even create the ideal lie about your own shitty life - the perfect cover up.

What this all about.

About my 20’s.

You will have to excuse my tendency to ramble, however, while we’re talking about music: the first time I listened to the album good news for people who love bad news, I was 20 and I thought I was in-fucking-vincible.

Each song on this record was perfect. the pink cover was gnarly.

But what I loved most about the album was it made me feel extraordinary. The lyrics saw through me. Saw my hate. Saw my ambivalence. Saw my inability to connect to the world around me. The lyrics could see that I just kept lying.

At the same time as the album analyzed me - I was dancing. I was drinking. I was fucking. I was lying. I was immortal.

I was everything I wanted to be, a heartbroken loner with confidence and lots of friends.

I have goosebumps remembering the first time I heard the album: you know the kind you get when you take a really good shit - you know the kind you get when the moisture of a hottie's mouth first lubes your swollen member - you know the kind you get when you are sitting in a cold basement in the middle of winter, lonely as fuck - you know.

More than anything though, I thought discovering this album also exposed me. Exposed: My flaws. My excuses. My lack of ambition. My shitty attitude.

Fuck the goosebumps.

You see, music makes me remember everything I felt during break-ups, pity parties, party parties, intercourse and just fucking. It makes me remember agonizing times and happy times, and times of self discovery (and I am not just talking about masturbation, though I am talking a little about masterbation). Music makes me want to live all over again.

Back to the point.

My life's soundtrack, started with Herbie as I grovely slithered out of my mom’s ovaries completely tearing her vaginal walls… big ol baby head and brain.

Good news. Modest mouse’s most publicized and criticized album would bare the responsibility of my 20’s.

And from listening to the Horn Intro to the Good Times are Killing Me, songs 1 through 16, I was a devout Modest Mouse worshipper. this album was destined to shape the next decade of my life. if only I knew what the decade had in store, maybe I would have stopped listening. maybe I would have gave The Killers Hot Fuss another turn.

But I didn’t.

first, Weird choice of words there, worshipper, sounds like I am a bit pathetic, like I am a Hanson or One Direction or Taylor Swift fan club member. Not to mention that word is way too fucking synonymous with religion for me.

so rather, I love Modest Mouse because of how their music confirms that I was a fucking deranged, narcissist, degenerate who was fucking up big time in his twenties.

so, For people who love bad new. read on.

before we begin, let me be clear: this album provided the soundtrack for my troubling 10 year sojourn as an asshole. but this story isn’t about music. it’s about A peregrination that took a decade - marked by arrogance, selfishness, and by contradictions and deceptions. and highlighted by a relentless desire to be liked and to be loved and to fuck and to love.

By the way, I had to look peregrination up in the dictionary. College words. Fuck, that last prose made me sound like a pretentious cunt. That’s better.

Oh, and while we are being honest, I don't know shit about horns, about trumpets, and really any instruments you blow into for that matter (unless you consider gina an instrument).

Wikipedia however knows shit about, well about everything, and writers for the site say the trumpet has the highest register in the brass family.

Another digression, but for that reason, the trumpet is some sort of a signaling device.

Well, in the infancy of my 20’s I wish someone had their closed lips pressed tight against the brass of a trumpet, like a well intentioned 16 year old girl on the dick of the first boy who showed her attention, signalling my drunk as fuck pilot to stop - as we barrelled down the street in pursuit of my backup pussy plan.

I think they call that negro lipped.

Instead the only horn that buzzed the air that night was the faggy sound of a late 90s Hyundai as I was gazing into the high beams.

soon after, my cracker lips were ripped open.

Jesus fucking christ, first peregrination, then faggy.

Another terrible word, faggy, but goddamn-it, it’s just a word, right? So suck it up, or you’ll never get through this.

To the point, I was introduced to my twenties by Modest Mouse and a few days later by a car accident that should have ended my life.

Undoubtedly, I am lucky to be telling this story - undeniably, you’ll wish I didn’t tell you most of it - understandably, I can’t remember much of the accident. I assumer, however, I was able to see the other car coming directly at my face.

Again, who the fuck knows if I was paying enough attention to notice the homosexual (more politically correct) hyundai greet the metal passenger side door, with it’s fiberglass hood. You see, my body was filled with liquor and I was so consumed with thoughts of two naked youthful bodies coming together inappropriately - I am talking about fucking of course - I probably didn’t notice the silver Jap mobile speeding into us. Crash into me.

I fucked Sam, short for Samantha, to that dave matthews song.

Now for the power of positive thinking (Oprah Winfrey you are the goddam devil), thank god the lap belt I had on was able to fold my body in half. Compressing my 150 pound, twenty year old frame underneath the dash of the Chevy Nova, because I am still alive.

I’d tell you more about the Nova, I think it was a Nova, but I can’t. I can’t because I don't know jack-shit about cars. Nor do I care that I don't know fuck all about cars.

in case you were wondering, my lack of knowledge about the car I was in is not because the accident made me retarded or anything like that.

first the n work. then the r word. i’ll watch my language. such a sensitive generation.

to the point, I want to tell you why we needed a backup plan.

First.

To me dudes who know about, and love cars are the worst kind of dudes. You know, guys who have male influences in their lives, have little to no emotions and seemingly bang a lot of randoms; at least where I grew up. I hated guys who talked about cars. For that matter, I hated guys who fucking drove their cars to school and hung out in them for smoke breaks, and lunch hour, too cool. Jealousy.

I never had a car in school. Too fucking poor.

Consequently, I never relied on a car to get ass. My mouth. That was my weapon of choice. And boy could it go, like a Shelby, or some other fucking muscle car - you get the point.

I can tell story after story. Some true, most false. Who cared? I didn't. Okay, Dr. Seuss.

My fictional life was my answer to not having a car. To not having someone tell me about cars. About engines. About oil changes. About mustangs. About any of that bul-shit. I was a Storyteller, and good at it too, like an old Indian in a teepee.

or Like the aforementioned Dr. Seuss.

Two Dr. Seuss references, what the fuck, but he was a favorite. We’ll talk more about the Doc later. mcfly.

For now though, more about me.

I loved making up personas, because maybe deep down I didn’t like who I really was. Nah, I fucking love who I am. But maybe I didn’t when I was twenty. Lonely. who knows.

But really, who cares about this self deprecation …

back to my mouth. God damn thing of beauty. I don't mean plump lips or delicious anatomical proportions. In fact after the accident my mouth was nowhere near anatomically correct. It actually resembled the mouth of a stroke survivor, or victim for that matter.

I shouldn't joke about strokes. My grandfather had a stroke when he was in his early 60s, I was in grade 7. He was a victim. I wish he was a survivor.

Grandpap’s was a 6’3” behemoth of confidence and personality. And he was my fucking hero, at least I thought he was. What the fuck did I know? I was the most naive mother fucker ever, back then...

Everything was wonderful. Especially me. Especially my Grandpa. We didn't hang a lot. He was more of an idea, a concept, a role model like the ball player who you would never meet. Like Rickey Henderson. I knew nothing about either of them, in reality. But I wanted to run like Rickey and be like my grandpa.

I digress. Who cares about my life from birth to day 364 of my 19th year? I don't. I did dick all. Boring as fuck. No dad, no money, no hobbies, no talents, no life. Came home. Played, mostly alone. And went to bed. Everyday. Whoop-d-fuck. Too normal to matter. Super vanilla.

What I am saying is, I was a boring kid, well, aside from my imagination, and storytelling. Well, aside from the carnival of anomalies that entertained my home. Well aside from …let’s try to stay on the edge of your seat and not ruin the ending...

But me, I was nothing. As unremarkable as Mr. I love guns.

I’ll tell you more about the very ordinary Mr. I love guns soon enough.

Funny story, one time I spray painted my shoes blue, to make them not look so fucking cheap. K-mart specials. I once went a whole winter, in the prairies, in like a hoodie and spring jacket because my winter one was too fucking embarrassing. it crinkled like a fall leaf under your toes.

being poor made me tough though.

In winter, where I am from, you're cold half the year, and if you’re not, you're one of the those pricks who likes cars and snowmobiles and pilsner; and you bang chicks, but get married young; and aside from the multiple DUI’s and the occasional line dance dust ups, you are super boring from 20 on. More jealousy?

So where was I, oh yeah, that little piece of Jap shit Hyundai, careening into the side of Chad's Nova.

Chad and I weren't best buds. In fact he annoyed the shit out of me. But I annoyed the shit out of a lot of people too. My beautiful mouth.

Chad was a super obnoxious drunk, like me, just like 10 to 100 times worse. Fucking scales.

He wasn't funny, or perverted, or interesting. He was just fucking goofy. Sober, I wouldn't have lasted a half hour with him. Drunk, he made me look ordinary. So because I saw him mostly when I was drunk, he actually made for good company.

The night of the accident was just like every other night. Except the heroes of the gridiron played and lost. Our local football team. They were the toast of the town, they were actually worshipped in a biblical sense.. Fuckin lame, I know, but the city was always buzzing for home games.

Like cars and snowmobiles and pilsner, I could have cared less about these pricks. Even more jealousy!

I was better than them anyway. My ego.

I have become pathologically brash, you’ll soon find that out.

So back to me. Kidding, back to chad.

He came out of nowhere the night of the accident. I mean, he wasn’t with us originally. He wasn’t a fucking magician or anything like that. Ta-da.

I mean, he was with on the B-team, one of my back-up squads, you know the guys you hang out with when you really need something to do.

I was with Putz, a nickname, but pretty dead on, and Trevor. Also b-team members - but b-teamers with access to some better looking girls than Chad and his gang did.

We of course started at the infamous 1901. My parents’ house. Real winners were we . Neither Putz nor Trevor were my close friends.

You’ll notice a theme, when I am with people they are rarely, “close friends”.

that night, We were listening to a perfect circle and playing madden for playstation.

And of course drinking beer, hard booze and some reefer cigarettes. Nothing more than weed for me. I was more interesting drunk and a bit of a pussy when it came to other things, like hard drugs, so I mostly drank and occasionally blazed.

Ah, a life of booze for me. You know like Kendrick Lamar said, “Now I done grew up round some people livin their life in bottles”. I love music. I like his music.

Well, I did too Kendrick. But it wasn’t my mom doing the binging. You see, my upbringing actually was quite normal. I mean normal in terms of my family; but the fucks that kangaroo brought around made things interesting. These dudes would have fit well into Kendrick’s childhood, I am only assuming.

the marginalized always hate assumptions.

By the way, Kangaroo is my mom, if you didn’t piece that together. Holy fuck if you didn’t.

I Love her to fuckin death. We call her kangaroo because she had a shit ton of stuffed Kangaroos around the house. She has never even been to Australia. She also had a stuffed owl. that cock sucker’s eyes followed me everywhere. Fuckin weird.

Anyway, kangaroo, went through a period where she wasn’t too picky in male companionship, to put it politely. and There were more than a few: Brian, Al, George, Alex, Mark, Gerry, and the list goes on.

Come to think of it, they all seemed to have super generic names apparently - looking back - I hated all of them.

Looking forward: I am glad none of them are still around.

Oh yeah, how did I relate this all to Mr. Lamar: well through my assumption and because these fucks were feeding me beer at the age of 5, and drugs were often found in our freezer, on our table or in someone’s nose, I was ready for a cyclical life of alcoholism, abuse and failure. bring it on.

just so you know what kind of shit we’ll be getting into, Al showed my 11year old sister his cock - a bunch of times.

Me: fuckin naïve, cause al was actually the only guy I liked out of the band of fuckin misfit losers that paraded through our subsidized townhouses.

But I guess, what I am saying is, “I done grew up around some people who live there lives in bottles … causing them to show my sister their cock”.

The drugs and the losers, would eventually all leave.

Kangaroo, well she remarried when I was in my late teens. Dude she married was decent. Kind of unremarkable, other than he's a car guy and likes guns. "Guns don't kill people, people kill people". One of those morons.

Well, no shit mr. unremarkable, mr. I love guns - of course people kill people … with fucking guns, ya dip shit. fucking conservative coward.

he always put a sign on lawn - a vote against gun freedom is a vote for communism .

Ah well. He made my mom happy. And doesn’t flash his dick, outside of their marriage.

You know what else people can kill people with? Cars.

So the night of the car accident, in the basement of 1901, kangaroo and mister unremarkable were upstairs probably watching some god, bull shit, program on TV.

Oh yeah. The gun lover, was also a devout, unrelenting, preachy catholic cunt.

Well no shit, eh.

So our former mausoleum to abusive loser beer drinkers, flashers and pot heads was turned into a house of the lord. God is fucking gay, p.s.

For me, judgement day came every day.

Back to the fateful night I got a new chin: I can't remember what I was drinking, let's say some captains and coke. The wild stuff. I always dressed nice and always smelled good (fresh to death). I was always ready to bang one of my many unicorns.

My unicorns were a squad of girls that I was in love with the idea of being with. Actually, I was only in love with the fantasy of banging them. The fact they actually had lives and families and boyfriend’s meant nothing to me. They were myths, my pussy path to happiness. My utopussia.

Back to the topic, Mr. I love guns and Kangaroo had a fire earlier that evening, before taking their god fearing party in the house, so the air was filled with the smell of campfire … and excitement.

Campfires always gave me good vibes and great energy, says the rastafarian in me. But it’s true, some of my best memories were camping with The Kangaroo et al. I would escape to the woods and do a lot of deadly shit on my own. We would end every night with campfire and marshmallows and most importantly, the nights would end without any screaming or fighting or hitting or running away.

Anyway, to make the mood even brighter that night, I destroyed Trevor, with the dog killing Mike Vick’s Atlanta Falcons, in madden football. I only Play to win.

With the video game playing out of the way, we left my house and decided to go to a local pool slash dance hall - slash fight club - slash jean jam emporium. No jogging pants allowed.

When we got there, we were of course already half in the bag.

Of course that is the only way to get there. Liquid courage.

I was actually shy at one time in my life. You spend your 20s drunk and you are all of sudden courageous sober too.

also At this time in my life I was kind of seeing Kara, but not really, it’s complicated. See Facebook status.

Using women, a trait passed down from my dad.

Oh, yeah, my dad. I forgot to mention him. Well, he left my mom for her best friend, who he had been boning on the side for years before, just after I was born. Fuckin great. I didn't, and maybe still don't have a chance.

He was born in Germany. And comes from a super religious family. He met my mom in high school. They gave one kid up for adoption. The adoption was actually forced by my hero, my grandpa.

Here I am, still fucking naïve.

Back to pops. I can only image he had a velvet tongue, both for scoring trim and giving oral, because that is the only skill I have, that I may have got from him. other than cheating.

god will at least save him.

He now battles depression and is a real woe is me type. Pussy.

speaking of pussy, Kara was at the pool hall, the night I should have died.

I can't even remember the name of the place. So for our sake, let's call it the pool hall .

There’s my great imagination on display.

Kara was cute. Great in bed. Loved being on top and hated condoms. Risky. But awesome. She also had a hot tub and her parents were always away. Great. We banged a lot.

Maybe I really liked her, well of course I did. Maybe I used her, well of course I did.

thanks Dad. Thanks nature. c’mon nurture.

We would have made a great couple actually, Kara and I. But she liked me too much, and I didn't like that. There was only room for one person to be head over heels for me, and that was me. Plus she thought I was in school training to be an architect. awkward.

Oh Kara, anyhow, as the night progressed I got more trashed, and Kara and her friends left and went to the local college bar.

I think she left me that night on good terms, who knows.

what I do know is, as soon as she left, I was looking for Lisa. My most beloved unicorn.

I know I loved Lisa because she played hard to get. Well sort of. We boned a lot’

fuck I say bone a lot.

I only think she liked boning, sorry for being redundant, fucking me because she knew Kara and I were kind-a-sort-of-not-really it's complicated dating. Lisa and I never officially dated. That is to say, we never really talked about it. We just hung out and had sex, a lot.

That night, I found Lisa, it wasn't hard as she did come there to see me after all. when we locked eyes at the bar, she was flirting with some dudes at a pool table (whisper: they were blacks). she ignored me at first, naturally. so I ignored her. got another drink, and hit up the d floor. grindin. that got her attention.

she cut me off on my way to the next group of girls sweating off their day.

Lisa and I danced - dirtily, jeans a jamming, to some shitty 2000s dance music, like Hot in Herre or some Usher.

after, We had more drinks. Some fights broke out around us.

You know, the usual Saturday night.

Lisa left earlier than me that night. She had to work, or some bullshit.

I should mention she had a boyfriend too. So that might be why she left actually. but she left me with an open invitation to cum inside her the next night. Class acts the both of us.

She was a deadly lay though. I wouldn’t stop.

I hadn't seen Chad at all that night until about 15 minutes before we left. fucking David Blaine type magical, ta-da.

Trevor and I wanted to get out of the pool hall, but weren’t ready to call it a night. So, I suggested heading over to the apartments across from the college, because that is where Kara would be. Always lookin for some ass. motivation.

Chad agreed. He didn't seem that fucking drunk. He wasn’t obnoxious or overbearing. Or maybe I was just too plastered to notice or care.

Probably the later. Because as I laid on that hospital surgery table, unconscious, my body ripped apart. I must have been asking myself, “fuck! was chad drunk?” And fuck! I wish the horn on that shitty little Hyundai was as loud as a trumpet.