Then suddenly last summer the days now rolled back. Rooney looked much different that just a year ago, Roon now like some darlinged new wave hooker dashed in crinoline.
And Rooney wouldn't ever be caught dead in some Bad Brains shirt—bc that's just some post hipster normie shit and you can't never fool Roon.
And what the page had said, her words like hymen, I was baffled by, — I just wanted to know exactly what, where it all came from—there would be no way of knowing really, and although I wanted to press Rooney so, I really just didn't, or I just accepted or accepted it coming from somewhere in her mind, like, as if from some somewhere from edge of the universe.
Fish have no feet,
So steap me like tea,
Rent me apart,,
Outside on wooden pavement,
In September you can't drink sluce grape juice mashed,
White as lapland,
Not really ever a Narc,
But she got a style,
Whenever she never turnstile turns.
Stars like stones,
Forget my sins,
Two-tonged,
And
Shawling,
Like a gong bombilating,
A bizarre piece of paper,
Never to be red.
Spitting and snarling,
Longing and lisping,
Hustling and missing,
In shut laces where you noticed to mask,
Like never wanting to be seen again.
He pawns her off
On you
It's a No,
You pawn her off
On him,
It's always go.
He pawns her off
On you
It's a No,
You pawn her off
On him,
It's always go.
Generating words and lyrics for Rooney was like just something she did, or you had some impression she had occupied herself this way, say perhaps, in front of the parlour nightingale wainscotting when she was younger—and when most or all female writers seemed to be stuck on their self obsessed narrow voice, I always appreciated how Rooney was able to stretch her words into some vague semblance, even into some masculine kind of bent or sympathy, which seemed to draw her lyrics further more into their forlorn star lane weight.
And to the wingless, the Archies had well broken up by now, the archive got replaced by index, and it was all just so death of author, birthing a wrench out of events administrators, shitting duck admins, all the like, all so masters of ceremony. Braying post-rock littered the shaled air, false consciousness skulldruggeries party music that was so un-party to the confidence of legion, avec stadiums of sixty thousand losers all bouncing up and down in some shorn fjord-ed unicen. There's a photo of Woodstock, where the band implodes to legion of fans becoming the band—vampire hordes taking on the band's dress cues, but now so we, so far in future, even all that that seems quaint. What punk didn't never know or couldn't never ever tell, was the dead end come crashing once the audience becoming a participant was taken well past beyond it's conclusion, to where user generated ecosystem of the network, ostensibly democratizing—only became inversion, and the worst rose to assendance, and anything reputable and needing protection faced grave misuse through constant self-reinforced distraction of inattention caused by infructuous second cousin hat drop color-way grey market content.
But here were Roony's words now like bulwark against the bore secular, Ronnie's fear signal handwriting sitting on the paper clattering out and moving us back into some tremulous semblance, somewhere back grounded—at least that's how it felt, or how I felt, or that's the best way I can try to describe it.
Hackett, Jim, Melinda and someone else were talking in the makeshift break space out over in the course corner, saying something about some stepdaughter from Nogales apparently, they weren't really paying attention to me anyways now—Rooney was probably outside or something, and I looked at the page out on the ganged vinyl fold out table, right beneath the book.
Tom Sachs Job Application
I'm doing a song about Picasso's muse,
Cause she must have been a real piece of work,
She kept her pony tail too long,
And never deigned a thong,
At least that's what I had heard
About Picasso's girl.
Did you hear the news about Picasso's muse,
I read somewhere, they weren't even allowed to kiss,
When it was time to paint her late cubist nude,
He had to do it all alone and use his imagination.
Towards the dorms she'd had fled,
That's what the curator said,
Don't so much touch her on the shoulder in the studio,
Paint her with a big bobble head,
And she'll still look much better than you,
Cause there was no messin' around with Picasso's girl.
I know Picasso painted his studio assistant,
She didn't even need no Tom Sachs job application,
Though she looked like a wreck out at the French discoteque,
Late into night she danced nose glue'd and wide awake.
She was never impressed,
Was famously always depressed,
They even complained about her giant
Sculpture out in Rotterdam.
They say she's not much into older men,
Even if they are short, bald and fat,
Or at least that's what I know,
About Picasso's muse.
Ten was the hour of appointment for our studio session today—in sky child's haste, Roon jumps into her motorcar, as the half hour marks slip to conspire and expire harried on circle jerk off of clock's face—another plate of cold porridge surely R's punishment for such infraction and yet again—and when, whenever shall R learn? When will R ever learn?—you want to know when R learns? Never, never and never shall she ever.
A tenuous authority always wanted to seize itself in the studio, Fork over the lyrics, Joa in a productive impatience, towards Roon now.
Ya know, it takes 4 or 5 five political leaders, or 7 or eight hack writers, artists just to send us all, all the the way back, back a half century, I brayed saying to Kate, Kate, who had kind of become my new buddy maybe crush during the sessions.
Con-yeah South West by North Normie West, avant-normie—Joaquin preoccupied at the deck, but still registering what I said, sounding like an electrician making clinical observation.
That's so, yeah, Roon taking a drap drag, accidentally blowing smoke in her own face, wiping away the immediate air.
Those pale buttons don't mean a thing Jim Jim, but don't touch them, still, Joaquin steeping up command now, really coming into himself in the studio—the studio activating, pulling something out of Joa.
Joaquin rushed back to the floor from behind the bay, went over to the piano, standing up to hanging mic leveled to mouth, Okay, okay—we ready to go, let's take it here from the top . . .
Joaquin summoning boogie woogie from the piano press, for Paul's Boutique like tiny fragment.
R: I got a nickel!
J: And I got a dime!
R and J: So let's go to the store and buy some wine!
Great. That was kind of good actually—you know, we do have extra time leftover today, so let's, let's—we just may as well, well—let's just do it again shall we?, just for fun—
Joa in on the spot distraction of release, pounding on the keys in a completely unrelated though complex melody, now sounding like a saloon from the 1920's, OK, a one, two, a one, a two, a three, a four—
R: I got a nickel!
J: And I got a dime!
R and J: So let's go to the store and buy some wine!
Again.
So let's go to the store and buy some wine!
So let's go to the store and buy some wine!
So let's go to the store and buy some wine!
Months prior, we started out in the music room just fucking around about on the piano. Joaquin had these like real silly and hilarious and quite very devilish boogie woogie fragments he could just toss and loss out, noodling, rolling lolls he learned from when perpetually grounded in trouble stuck home as teengenerate, probably. At his studio in Lauren's Canyon, Joaquin just started recording these fragments or fragments with us, but they didn't never end up really yielding nothing—no major basis for any of the songs or the songs, though—some were cut in or ended up in as tiny iddy biddy flourishes, which stylistically, really didn't much effect the over-all of the recordings. Recording Dormers, like cooking an elaborate twelve course dinner, and starting with growing the parsley sprigs first or picking out the minty after dinner mint chocolate.
Rooney is not Jet Girl, but I thought about Jet Girl a lot during the sessions. There's no song Jet Girl, but there should be. There are Jet Girls though—and no, it's not about jet setting. It's closer to motorcycle, or 1970's motorcycle, even though motorcycles are objectively Nissan leather Skywalker jaket normie lame. It's not motorcycle necessarily though, but long tall Sally Jet Girl is certainly renegade. Jet Girl is Rock N' Roll only. Jet Girl is the ultra economic bohemia avant la lettre real deal-y deal. Jet Girl is rainbow grease chrome New York Trawmps honky tonk metal machine rouge 70's Dickensian destitute pauper's pier, menacingly—a characteristic potent dystopian N. Sponge hipness that at one point it's so hip that it's not even hip anymore. Jet Girl, a spike chain so gritty grim dripping oil so, that such would beckon one wanting to retreat back to their own original Wanksta provinces. You can't be friends with Jet Girl—maybe no one can be friends with her except a couple of people, like a couple of gay dudes, but probably not even them by some point, and even they are weary and got burned by her in the past. And don't go celebrate Jet Girl ever. Don't fan out on anybody—but especially, do not ever fan out on Jet Girl. It would just seem that being unassuming and sceptical would be the best approach in interacting with Jet Girl—distancing herself so she comes to you. But she's still going to make fun of you somehow, she's still gonna put you in your place. She may go out of her way, unprovoked in an insensitive getting ahead of herself overstimulated charismatic dumbness, especially when you are out with other people. You won't never get no credit with Jet Girl, and it's worse than that, because she could very well incriminate you by pointing out something about you that is inaccurately applicable, or she may take something and call you out on it, and it's all wildly exaggerated or overblown. Because her voice is loud, anything she may say will have sway. Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball. There's nothing fair about Jet Girl—that's the price and toll to be in the place in next to her. Jet Girl is Kierkegaard aesthetics over morality, tough as burnt teflon, though very essential in it's own right—in a city where otherwise everyone lame else you know, who's nice as kind, but again, lame in comparison. Jet Girl is: you are an outsider, but she's queen of the outsiders, and you are ostracized from even the outsiders now. That's Jet Girl. Jet Girl doesn't mind putting you out of business, and after she's done, it's doubtful she ever on her own will think about it or you ever again. I don't know who I prefer. Actually, gun to head always, I'll Jet Girl.
Rooney wasn't Jet Girl. Rooney was too far into stable upbringing, and on the street where Rooney lived. Rooney was metaphorically our little piano playing champ (Roon couldn't play a lick of any instrument). Rooney was the end and center of the universe. Rooney was the barrier of creation you would dead end on. Rooney is all splendid possibly dead ending right at her. All splendid possibility is possible in theory, but all splendid possibility is actually not possible, because of always the actual conditions of everything. The limits of body against the yearn of soul. I stop at Rooney. There's no getting past that something in myself that prohibits me from interacting with her just like some normal person, let alone speaking to her with actual charisma I am sometimes known to little possess in front of people I otherwise care not to impress. In such respect, I am disabled in self inspection in the teeth front of Rooney. Rooney sitting on the sofa, her dress over knees, her silks, scissors scissor as scissors legs. People make you feel a certain way and people turn you into something else—but with Rooney, it was always just . . . me—Roon, so naturally, wildly existing all against all my own limitation and temperament. I'm not even talking about becoming best friends with Roon, though also I kind of am—I barely crawl to otherside of the Roon room of valley, stammering off any bit of any of our causal interaction.
The studio chambermaid gibbered over the playback uselessly, over some otherwise virtually imperceptible technical issue, which gave one quite such impression she was just imposing her jaded attitude onto us needlessly and so needlessly in her own little micropolitical channel of control way—but for some reason, we had to humor her, or at any rate we just did, just sheepishly went along with it out of harried distraction, when maybe we should have otherwise taken back control over the session and told her to exit—it was almost as if the chambermaid was creating some atmosphere problem that jammed us up, out of some formed over time sense of stingy knowingness and studio jade that she now foisted upon us on the very time we were paying for—kind of like the girl bartender at Yellowjacket.
No, one more time, or do it again . . .
Manny says, we gotta go, on a train to Mehico, but it looks, but it looks, but it looks like, looks like I won't see you tomorrow—
Again,
Tomorrowww—
Tomorrowww—
You lie, and lie, and lie, and lie, and lie and lie, Roonlooking like some frieze like arrangement, giving it her all in front of the recording mic, really her full commitment and emotional risk of no holding back on full display here. Even for someone like Rooney, it was apparent this still took a wind of courage.
I stepped outside of the front of the studio—clouds were muddy and violet and consumed the desire entire sky, I walked to the street and looked down the boulevard, it was as if we where on a hill looking off towards a beach and looking out at the sea visibly close and unfolding forward above in the sky, but instead of being the ocean, it was just the sky.
I came back in and Roon and Joaquin were working in their very characteristic way.
I had four, or four dice pairs . . . , Roon taking off her bolero, darting it all the way back behind her.
An enormous task surely, Joa the mountain stabilizer of the studio now, Joaquin, who in direct regards to Roon, would have made John Gregory Dunne look like Ike Turner.
Oh, I shall sink to the bottom of the sea, if this can't get sorted, Roon despairing almost unnecessarily.
Roon, it's fine—not if, but when, or when is like an hour, twos tops—
I'm just, I'm meantime, don't know what to do with myself.
Go drug a Nehi. Better yet, just sit, sit,—sit with me while I tackle these tabs, Skink.
I noticed earlier when Roon said out loud that she wanted this next track to be treated more as a foley session than the proverbial melodic application—I mean, it basically was still recorded in a fairly conventional way with instruments and all anyways, but it was like you could kind of tell the chambermaid wanted to counter whatever Ronnie said, and was making great pains to stay quiet, the chambermaid subtly arranging her face in the knowingness of muted condescension. And I know Rooney definitely picked this up immediately, if not Rooney predicting this in her head ahead of time.
The chambermaid dimly retreated in self important wrapping the wiggling cable in quiet and careful and over methodical reverence, as if saying that Shangrillah D Studios was just some fount of resource that she had to so ceaselessly, so selflessly, just all the time maintain behind the scenes unsung—protecting the space from whatever abuse the people actually paying to use it were of course always going to inflict upon it's so pious sinkhole quarters. The other day she was wearing a Ramones shirt and I know Rooney kind of felt sorry for her, and maybe out of pity, we all kind of just allowed the chambermaid to very subtly longhouse our sessions.
Water never bleeds, Rooney extemporizing in mist of sewer tunnel echo of dentist drilling feedback, sweaty black bangs cutting a curtain helping push out her mouth, vocals like she was having Rose Mary baby.
Water never bleeps, Roon seeped again, in the grey space of the Hawaiian decorated vocal fried booth.
Water never bleeds, carried itself amplified throughout the live room, regnant in promise, as if the space was activated by pre chorus now birthing itself.
The irksome chambermaid certainly didn't seem much impressed now during playback with something that otherwise was to us happenstance revelation and a true miracle, and indeed she was just killing the mood, and increasingly more so now, and then more and more, whittle by whittle, whenever she was around now in bothersome merry go round—the chambermaid ramping up, giving us something to now to kind of strain against whilst performing. She was like some outdated Misfits logo'd computer machine, who's sole purpose is to make sure the user's soul is eventually destroyed by ghosts.
A Paris Texas blues Rooney, slumped like a ply-ed of shore, sat next to Joaquin practicing his bass part tabs to now calm her overstimulated self. She sat in front of the optimistic wall wall-papered in the doo wop neapolitan like stripes of sparkle vinyl—a thick stripe of pink glitter next to a slightly less thick band of ochre glitter, next to a skinnier band of icterine yellow sparkle, and perisimone yam orange glitter, and then another pink glitter band that ran widest and finished off the rest of the wall. Over the wall paperhung vintage kitsch carved frames containing pictures of sixties advertisement bee-hive and Ford Buick models. The studio's decorated thematic motif was in line with the Riverdale Archies soda pop surf rock we were now approaching, some pizza parlour devilish riff of 1950's ideal, and 1950's devilish still—devilish, the 50's aesthetic was, as if it's shadow-self beyond the clean cut idealism also projected that people also were always going to be excluded, people were always going to be excluded from even the outsider's revelry of motorcycle rev drag race of ditching pep rally ideal as well, even—or especially, people always excluded next to the stands outside of friday night football game of dark, and the, then 1950's then also considered too skinny girls who in the modern era would no doubt now be seen as beauties, even these beauties were discounted and underrated back then—but it was still seductive as hell though, and that Banana Split's California Manson teen scene menace 1950's goulie groovie groove was pretty much the sound of our songs now, kinda. Rooney knew. Rooney knew whatever era, whichever mookish era it would be, it would always all be a scam.
Though Joaquin was a card most of the time, in the studio I saw him rise like overlord to occasion the whole entire time—Joaquin, now like big brother calls Roon Dogg over to settle her in new distraction.
Look, babe—this time, this time, she goes one time zero times down on Avenue E . . . Open E,
And a seven, seven, five does she go on down all the way to Avenue A . . . Look—seven, seven, five.
Love me five times turns to six times and then turn to seven up on Avenue D. . . Five, six, seven—easies.
E5, 7 7 A, 7D, 7A again, E5, 7A—3A, 5 5 D,
The next part is a little tricky— A zero, 5 5 D, 5 avenue G, 5D, 3A—then of course . . . 5D again.
Well, I do like how your fingers look fretting—that's a good sign, Rooney distracted in some tiny relief being able to locate now, if not just but a sharp shard of optimism.
The chambermaid apparently wheeled her eyes right when Rooney made such observation, which in the thick of moment I had missed—the chambermaid was exactly like some irksome mid-range lesbian girl, the kind of girl who would try to needle her way into your date out on the patio bar, your nearly impossible date, which you had otherwise spent weeks of painstaking emotional work and work to cultivate. The pathetic chambermaid reminded me of that middling mid architype, the one who weedled in on your date, and your date now whom you can't quite tell exactly how passive your date is being, in what is otherwise a total casual threat and assault to all your most tender interiority, the needling date crasher with her stupid Spindoctor, nose ring.
What. Rooney, wide eyed, lapsing through mashed teeth at the chambermaid, What sucking all air out of the studio room, jumping me to attention. Roon in total shift before all our tired eyes, now in full razorcake form, that which had now clearly been suppressed all along.
Nothing, the chambermaid deflecting in superficial innocence.
No, it's not nothing. Say it now Bitch!
Well, just hearing you talk in the studio, I can now kinda say maybe I have heard it all, the chambermaid now, worse than portuguese autotune rap on Brazil Instagram.
Is that what that little tattoo around your wrist tells you everytime you look at it?, Roon at the full breadth of her merciless cruelty, which was kind of awesome to witness, and actually super hilarious in retrospect.
Neither I nor Joaquin, nor square-necked Dave the engineer, said anything in intervention. It was as if Toluca Lake Dave could do little else but just see it all play out like a bad song he produced, Dave now like some enfeebled pedestrian in his own studio.
Theresa in full display of all her own owlish cynical knowingness, Your sound is flat that's all. But, Hey don't worry Honey, maybe you'll get it better, better next time. Maybe, after your next movie.
Theresa! That's enough now. Dave the eunuch now intervening, in what one could only imagine was what he had to deal with working with the chambermaid on one on one basis. And why should Dave getting out of his comfort zone even now ever be worth the trouble, especially with us surely gone in next few weeks, and with Dave only left to then resume perpetual eye pawing and petting of Therese as she over-studiously wraps the control cords (yet again) knowing she's being watched even if by someone she's not attracted to, Theresa, knowing full well she's being watched like she was a gooey pair of panites on the floor—or what about Dave needlessly giving Theresa extra hours on the skeleton of weekly schedule that still existed, as she just re-organizes the pedal and microphone shelves next to where they keep the extra battered drum sticks, Theresa rearranging the American gypsy tambourines, Theresa taking inventory of the studio maracas—Theresa unnecessarily re-taping all the otherwise functioning tape labels on everything and replacing anything with written text in the office and out on the mixing board with her cute marker plump handwriting, Theresa's blimp script multiplying itself like how language multiplies, as all the while Van Nuys Dave thinks it could maybe, perhaps, maybe, somehow, possibly, hopefully, maybe perhaps go further with Theresa once she finally, finally ever breaks up with her stupid long time boyfriend who she moved all the way out here with—Sylmar Dave, operating in some slightly smothering, castrated cautious hope, that Teresa could if prompted by say some random twenty minute accidental lull in the otherwise steady stream of constant attention stimulation Teresa is used to getting, prompting maybe, maybe then, hopefully then, take to causing Theresa finally fuckingly, finally in deciding to maybe, perhaps lead to . . . cheat with him—Dave, hold your breath starting . . . NOW.
Our blessed Rooney activates in self actualization more succinctly than any old shoe of song now ever could articulate, Well, Girlfriend—the next time you are feeling sorry for yourself, which from the looks of your dirty blue jeans, will probably come too soon—might I suggest you should think about how terrible you yourself are being now, and maybe, and maybe, I don't know, you feeling sorry for yourself in the near future will be some liberty you will not so much be able to then so afford yourself.
I thought Song to Song sucked, Theresa biliously, naked in all the scourned comic-con fandom punishing of her Corvette-ing schlock of Anaheim attitude.
Theresa had apparently done it yet again, she conveniently exits the room like some self perceived expensive wino Minotaur, winning the day in the cheap little movie of her own private California.
Hey, I'm sorry about that, Tujunga Dave finally saying, in a way that was fifteen percent too relaxed, Dave laeden in his own very certain, but not so terribly surprising stagnant attic of self enabling anemia of all his own complacency, Van Nuys Dave saying in such manor, where it be apparent his friendly terms with Theresa (as much as friendly terms were really even possible with her), would probably not be too much affected by her unnecessary outburst towards us—against we, who are actual money paying clients in a recording industry that otherwise barely now exists.
Sorry about that?! Joaquin roaring like Leer.
Thinking Rooney may have fumed over to the green room—the green room, a ruinous shed that was otherwise decorated floor to ceiling in astroturf in the some of somehow disorienting Pee Wee's playhouse B-52s zaniness—but not to be found nowhere, was Roon.
Walking through the green room, I crossed the outdoor alleyway going out to the mariachi Cuban cabana tavern drink desert with the now non-working dry bar containing no alcohol. At the door jam on the ground, four or five wild full adult plump roaches were scampering in an orgy hive of repeating crawling circles—it would not have been so wretched and disgusting if you could tell they were just playing, but by the frantic cycles of their own self circling, you could tell they were fried by heat and teeming even more insane now after eating their own.
I found Roon in the tavern, rifling through drawers—not sure what she was looking for.
I stood about as useless as a teenager's sentimentality, for some while until I had the open air to say something.
Ramones shirt, I proffer lamely.
What, Rooney almost shouts, still touchy as hell.
Ramones t-shirt, Theresa—
Roon paid not attention, still rifling away through the drawers uselessly.
You said she was wearing a Ramones tee—but it's Enjoi, it's this like totally wack Enjoi shirt actually, or actually.
I don't understand—I never said nothing.
No, I'm sure you did . . . You—
Belane, I never said that. Your hallucinating.
Roon stopped looking through the drawers, leaned against the useless warped cabinet in pained resignation, took off her glasses with an air of perpetual dissatisfaction, which I could now see Joaquin was all but too familiar with.
With nothing to squeeze from the air, I thought best to leave Roon by herself, but suddenly she changes gear in optimistic aside,
I started using these reading glasses to be more enveloped into the text, but it messed up my eyes realll bad—I had to work my eyesies muscles out of the laziness jus to get them back . . .
Rooney took out a package of cigarettes from her oversized bomber, her oversized bomber that still had old stains on the sleeves that you could tell could have easily been washed off—Roon lit a cigarette in some fraught resignation of solidarity, leaned against the wall as if the dull color of the concrete brick wall was sucking any remaining vitality out of her.
Roon slaked her apprehension a bit, no longer seemed too concerned with the studio parlourmaid anymore. Rooney blew out Marlboro grey smoke in some typical holistic way as Roonie continues, Mike Nguyen told me about someone, or someone like his uncle, or it was his uncle, or something—he said though, that through, like through sheer perseverance his uncle lifted his eyes back to their original like strength . . . Muscles, you know eyes are muscles too, or did you know eyes were muscles. Well, they are, and you can or can like actually work them out.
Band side eyes like razor cakes, too super long—I immediately now had the impression of the time in-between activity is also a part of this, or is, and could indeed be ripe in potential to be quite burdensome—maybe even lethally so. Rooney was now doing the work of making this small moment somehow work, and that was refreshing in a way that I regarded as way too delicious. Roon really loosened up though, stubbed her stubb out on her boot, lit another parched cig, leading us into being mired in more tangle of totored side convo.
Roon's bully boy face loosens, letting itself be seen for once by me, as all faces expose themselves when you give them enough time, but her's now was non-threatening and disarming, Belaine, tell me about . . .
Tell you about what . . .
I mean I just says . . . Like fucking, fucking Beatles—whad did ya say?
Like the Beatles what . . .
I says, I says, I always just hated them, ya know, or it's just, just even their name, ya know . . .
Or what their name . . .
Herman's Hermits, like that sixties—that that thing . . .
Well, I mean— I guess, yeah . . .
Or know what,
No, whatever . . .
The Frogs, The Trogs, The Centipedes, the Pixies
Centipedes?
Rooney got up snooping, opened the hardly gleaming white fridge, eyed the only thing in there, grabbed the sangria pitcher from the inside, placed it on the nonfucntioning bar, then eventually started gamely plucking out moldy slices of orange.
Like bands and all I'm jus sayin'—or way back when, that or that thing . . . Hey Jake—have you actually seen, or like, have you actually seen a centipede? They are revolting—you want to just—wipe it out, Roon now sucking on a rind in defiance of her self imposed sobriety for today. What I'm saying Belaine is, is, bugs . . .
Bugs . . .
This entire or you know this whole time, you know what I though . . .
Thought about what . . .
Beatles, the Beatles, Silly . . .
Right,
This time, or like this whole entire time, I thought it was, or just like, imagined like, just beetles, this whole entire time . . .
Beetles?
Or just like the buuuugs . . . , Rooney sucking on the mold of the rind in a casual earthy way, reminding me you really did have to keep an eye on her.
Allright . . .
No, but look—I just recently learnt, or you know what I learned Jake, I learned it's like Beat—Beatle like Beat, or like the Beats or just now . . .
Or just Beats . . .
Yeah, just Beats—that's what I'm saying—I just was just like thinking, thinking like this 60's British disney bugs this whole entire time . . .
Rooney found a couple of dusty cups, and poured me and her the anonymous alcohol sour sangria—I was weary of drinking it, but it felt more of a risk not to drink it and I didn't want to turn Roon off, or activate any of her disapproval. For some reason, Joa didn't come out for a while, and a room of time was seemingly and for once available for us alone now.
We got deep in the Sangria, as Roon insisted on topping off and you never refuse Sangria from Rooney Mara. Rooney is God.
Life is weird, Belaine. During my New York, or my New York days, really just a stint, whatever—I was, or I was there for winter, or just winter. Alex, who I knew from Exeter—I didn't graduate from there—or I was there for a semester before, or I left—but I had stayed in touch, kept in touch, stayed in touch with Alex anyways still. I mean, we really had gotten pretty close pretty instantly or right away honestly, ya know. I would not, or really, I don't know, honestly, what I would have done without Alex. I mean, we were attached at the hip practically, and she had a group of friends she well welcomed me into, because like, she had already been there three terms or semesters, whatever—I mean I, I never had close girlfriends—I always just had friends who were boys—not boyfriends, or just friends, ya know, and anyways, besides, with girls it was always just so weird. I could never get along with other girls—but Alex or Alex, I mean it just figures or it figures, I would have had to move all the way to like Oxford of all places to meet Alex. She even set me up with a friend in her group—Hayden, and Hayden was or he was perfectly pleasant, I mean he really was, he was great and all—I mean, I was just a wreck, though—or a total wreck—for one, I was just so terribly homesick, like right off the bat—and for two, I had a gap where I couldn't get my script in England, and I spent a considerable amount of time just tracking down a new physician—or like therapist in the city, which sucked away time I never really had in the first place, not to mention my courses or classes, which I was often late for and missed many days—anyways or anyways, throughout that all. Alex, but it was Alex who helped me maintain my very last brain wave of sanity, really. Alex was in New York now—but going to be working on this elaborate Pat Duffy catalogue raisonné in Cologne—she very easily could have been there indefinitely—because there were trunks and trunks or archival material and materials. Alex said a CR is like writing an encyclopedia by hand practically. But Alex, Alex had a place off Mort and Hester, right near Canal—which, don't ask me how she got it—her family had a lot of dough though, and I was basically trying to get my shit together at the time, and I've always wanted to move—live, New York—I mean, that, and that I've always wanted to like—live in New York—I mean, that was always like the dream right? I could stay at Alex's apartment—she could totally trust me to watch the place—and in the meantime, I could find a little job somewhere, have plenty of time to set myself up. She gave me, or she told her friend Lizbeth about me—who's father was, or I won't say who he was but he has paintings and sculptures or not sculptures but paintings at MoMA. The very first night I arrived—Lizbeth even contacted me, and I met her, first met up with her at Pondi Cherie, which I don't think is around anymore—but anyways, Lizbeth was striking, she really was. I mean immediately, like really striking—radiant, I must say, and it occured to me that like, of course Alex's friend would be absolutely not that kind of person you would typically get introduced to just anywhere—Lizbeth was certainly no Talladega mistress, let's just say—for one, she was an absolute like vision, for two, she was so steeped or rather by family, proximity, all the above, whatever—or you know, not to mention, with whatever with the brain, temperament, attitude, smarts, sense of humor, like all that, and when I was used to getting all the attention—now Lizbeth sucked out all of mine, had all of mine now too big time. One night we were all out late and Lizbeth said I may as well just crash at her place no big deal, like instead of the ordeal of getting back to Alex's alone, and like so late, but I slept in her bed with Lizbeth—I mean nothing really happened, but we slept in our underwear and did snuggle, annnd we may have had a drunken smooch—I had to be up the next day early for a job interview in midtown—but I felt good, or I was just feeling good for once—or responsible also too, or not responsible, just optimistically expectant or something, grateful to even have business in the city for once, that I myself had to attend to. I kissed Lizbeth, just a smooch, smooch on the lips when I left that morning. Lizbeth walked me out in her underwear, and I was feeling on top of the world or in high, stratospheric spirits—that is, until when I was walking out towards the door after we hugged, Lizbeth in her underwear, or I noticed, LIZBETH opened the door to her roommate's—Jessica's bedroom door, where she was, Jessica was sleeping and proceeded with what looked like, Lizbeth going to sleep the rest of the morning in bed with Jessica now in her panties—Lizbeth brazenly doing this. The apartment door closed and self locked behind me, a wave of terror hit me—I mean, this kind of thing is or was certainly no big deal—but I had, or I had this just sharp, paralyzing panic attack—which seemed incommensurate to the otherwise good and innocent and frankly, productive contact, Lizbeth, that I had otherwise made. Suddenly it occurred to me—I was on my way to an interview for an assistant position for an airplane peanuts package of production studio in mid town, and I then remembered Lizbeth said something, something snarky to me the night before, but in my drunken expectant bliss, I just like let it go—but now walking in the brittle cold anemia side walk morning light, I started obsessing about it, just really obsessing about it and turning it around and around in my head—and my paranoia and hangover and despair caused me to just spiral and I don't think I ever made it to the interview—an interview I was like so otherwise, like modestly proud of in front of Lizbeth, and foolishly so—but now I could see, to her it seemed, like, pedestrian, déclasse, and certainly not of her ilk that she and her coterie were steeped in. One night later, I was with Lizbeth and two of her guy friends she kept at bay, when suddenly Piper showed up—Piper was just terrible and maybe now Lizbeth must have sensed something—or no, she did sense something, and then the dynamic quickly soured, or really soured—any questions about me concerning my, or the immediate details of my present, I evaded—giving me even less to say—when surely, I should have been cool, or funny, or regaling my personality to my new maybe friends, which the energy, or that energy I just did not have, or have the power to even in the slightest project now. So we ended up going to Breech on Duane and it was like super packed. I went to the bar and finally got a vods—I remember downing it so fast, I needed another one like immediately, but it took forever to order, and I remember walking around holding the empty glass with just trying to maintain some shabby gait with at least holding something, and I looked around and around—surprised I had not seen even one of the people we were with, let alone Lizbeth, and then about forty minutes, I realized they had just left me. This was in the winter too. Lizbeth left me, and worse than a rebuff—and I felt truly cast off from the island of Manhattan. It's or it was, as if Manhattan just like put me in my goddamn place, well let me know of what order I was in here now—and I realized, I just realized, event hough I was friends with Alex—Alex was also of a higher order too—she was just terribly kind and lovely, but that was not an indicator of us being in the same set necessarily—I was a dropout, or just a wanderer, ya know—I had or I just lacked bearing, or direction, let alone not, not or not, what Lizbeth had been more, significantly or more acclimated, just too easily set up and assimilated, you know, steeped like English nepo tea. It didn't help that the heat went out in Alex's apartment and she was real sore about it all, and even blamed me for not turning off the heat and being gone for an entire day, like, at a time. And so then it went completely South with Alex. It was at that point, or not at that point, maybe it did take a while—but then I moved, moved to LA to be with Kate, and you know, I just got myself into a better place and then somehow I fell into an audition—Lizbeth, I mean Lizbeth now, or was or is just this new thing that just confuses people, like what she does as quote unquote artist or whatever an artist is supposed to be or do in this confusing everybody does everything like, time—you know some lousy article about her, Lizbeth that could very well be about the high modernist slop line paintings she putters and plies, that you know practically anyone one well in the know could concoct, all buyoed by her beauty and her privileged means and avalanching superficial popularity. Or you know what it could be? It could be an article about beauty products damn Lizbeth uses, or like the possessions with which she lavishes her house on like that's just somehow some big fat accomplishment, just some story worthy magazine article or whatever . . . She also has this stupid gallery with like Hana Liden, or that third rate hipster Dash Snow.
Trying too hard to over jump into sympathy, over listening to Roon in a river of yeah, yeah, yeahs, totalies, punctuating what she says, I reach around to say something to try to smack myself right on the page with her, Jacques Lacan or Lacan said of the phallus—if it is exposed it is just a penis. Lizbeth sounds like a major dick though—god I hate New Yorkers.
What I had said didn't register with Ronnie, Roon distracted, she parses, Ok look—if you begin to hunt for the melodies, the melodies begin to hunt for you? Don'tyathink? Do you believe, or do you believ that that can actually happen—maybe that's, maybe that's what that back there was, Belaine . . .
Was that, or was that our first heckler?
Rooney was certainly not an enemy to have—a hidden artist of singular talent, even well beyond what her viable acting demonstrated, which that in itself was extraordinary, and if not at all ever witnessed, could not have been believed. This, whatever this was, Population Ex seemed to be where she felt the most comfortable, and it was this let me be misunderstood world she sought to portray in her lyrics. You either got it or you don't.
The songs came out in some over linear quality, to which it would seemingly be quite a challenge to find accompanying visual imagery. You could try to trace in the tabs by beam and snorkel up the song—but then when seeing it fretted live, the song will still be ungraspable—like projecting a photo onto paper and trying to trace the line where the edges of the image bleed indecipherable.
Joaquim at the helm steering the ship—where now he was the captain of the sessions, to whom now I did not want to let down. Joaquim so cool, and I was thankful to be in creative partnership with, honored to be with him, really.
Joaquim the madd hatter whipping Rooney into shape,
Rooney, tell me about water—Ok go.
Not all water is created equal,
Okay cut. Rooney, tell me about the energy bill—Ok go.
Water and electricity always mix,
Okay cut. Rooney, tell me all that you know—Ok go.
Water never bleeds,
Okay cut. Tell me what you know—Ok, go.
Water never bleeds,
Okay cut. Tell me the only thing you know—Ok go.
Water only sheds,
Okay cut. Tell me, tell me, about the worst, the worst thing you have ever done—Ok go.
Water only buckles,
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Band
Population Ex
Title
Duck You On Like Gable Dormer EP
Cat. No.
MOLE 327
Label
Blue Medicine
Track Listing
Sharkie Machine
Sucker for a Pretty Face
Permanent Milk
Goin' Back to Art School
No Nite Stand
I'll Know It When I See It
Note: The above song titles are as listed on the sleeve.
Japanese version includes bonus track—All The Right Pussy (Goin' To All The Wrong People)
Country of Issue
USA/UK/France/Japan
Format
Vinyl CD Tape Streamer
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When I received a promotional copy, of R Mara and J Phoenix's EP, Duck You On Like Gable Dormer, for their new band, Population Ex, I must admit I immediately winced at the prospect of such assignment—as any dogged Dogged Star project by actors carries a certain given and well assumed bathotic weight, my editor giving me the assignment, also knowing this—added when she handed it off to me, It's actually pretty decent. And after giving it a couple of listens—I will say, actually, it's good—it's really fucking good. On the surface, think Cass Mc Combs', I Cannot Lie, but Indier, like Nigh light Norhill Trebuchet or early Teengenerate, but then Indier than that, but also subterranean, dark and gangrene dangerous—like a bar alley knife fight. Roon doesn't hide behind a guitar capo with two or three miming barely playing left hand shapes to justify her singing (like the recent swell of de facto gen-Z women in Indy, which is more the status quo now)—Rooney doesn't play guitar at all, mostly she just sings in haunting contralto, seems to pen a lot if not all their memorable lyrics—there's something naive about her approach, root grounded and child-like, but also in the parlance of Population Ex's press release—It's not so much as an EP written or composed, then as more like some summoned situation rising like fog over a moist grave and Duck You On Like Gable Dormer listens like the result of such kind of culmination and happenstance social dynamic. (The outtake incidental banter alone, between in-between tracks is oblique and perfect, in a way that makes Wu Tang Clan's 36 Chambers between-song-banter seem contrived from out a comic book for nine year old.) If there's anyway, you will turn around, when you turn around, when you turn around, I'll know when I see—absolutely perfect— I'm getting choked up writing this—who knew there was Roon all along?? Who knew it was Rooney Mara??? And who knew that this would come out of Los Angeles and of all times NOW! Weather you are in love with it or not, this most definitely promises generative future activity and inspired action possibly re-booting the small LA scene. This is good news, this is very good news.
Rooney: This isn't—this isn't gonna be like some normie Ezra Furman Danger Mouse like normie shit.
Joaquin: No, no, no,
Roonie: Sharkie Machine, is or is incidental cinematic reference?—I saw or I saw Sharkie Machine somewhere or something like that and wrote it down, I think, or I saw something, maybe it was Shark or Shark or just Machine and I changed it on the spot when I wrote it down—anyways, it's the front loaded— track, really deliver right away. It's only incidental that it kinda references Bone Machine, but it's not explicit or purposeful, at all really I think. Bone Machine is about a Viperess, right? But the chorus is the title inverting on itself, to where the Viper is actually singing, assaulting straight like back at you that you have like a little member.
(Rooney singing) Your bone got a little machineee . . .
Joaquin: Sharkie Machine though makes, think—Jaws, Jaws, or the Jaws ride at Universal Studios, a fun LA kinda romp ride. But it's not that fun, or right Rooney . . .
Rooney: It's originally supposed to, or was supposed to be perilously frightening? Or supposed to be willfully frightening though maybe at first? A horror movie about swimming in the sea? Like, just stay out of the ocean! Or coming to Los Angeles just to get frightened. But the song does have a plushyness to it—like, or I was thinking about a souvenir of a plushy sharky. And it's all really not that scary—it is actually boring and mundane, like, right after you see it for the first time. I mean, you can only see it once?
Jake: I mean it don't sound anything like, thudding, Bone Machine. I mean that was, that was a miracle of a song, really if you think about it—but it's like the time and place we are at with Rn'R death right now, this recuperative, regenerative struggle phase—this or that song, or the song now ain't allowed the time or contemplation once given to a Bone Machine then, like at the time. And because songs don't have given emotional space, they cannot flourish like they used to, in a way we always expected to be given. The audience isn't conditioned, or not conditioned, but ready as the audience was then, when coming down off being bombarded by the pre indy hard arpeggio'd metal age, or how about, or what about, how collective temperament is forged? And actually it's bad now, or much worse, because there is no temperament—only divided attention crack hit braying hard hitting hissing user generated ant-anti-art bracing, in debilitating pluralism tandem—is all anyone got emotional time for.
Rooney: Well ant art is supposed to be good, right? Like ant art is regarded by like critics and theorists as automatically good.
Jake: Not ant art— termite art, I mean termite art. But yeah, your right.
Interviewer: Sharkie Machine, reminds me, or reminds me of the opening track My Bloody Valentine's Soft as Snow (But Warm Inside), the opener from 1988's Isn't Anything.
Jake: That's awesome!
Rooney: That's a pretty great compliment! Thank you!
Jake: Yeah, I could see that—we took a sound, or what, we made a sound that sounds like a starship reving up before imperial take-off, and used that looping as the theme, or main theme of the track—is that what that's called?
Joaquin: Yeah, we were thinking or were thinking, think of the album in cinematic terms also, obviously . . .
Rooney: Obviously?
Jake: The star ship sample, also tethered or was tethered to musical signature of the track—so it has like that immediate kind of rooooving.
Joaquin: Jumps out stereo.
Rooney: Like a building suicide—
Jake: Live like a suicide. Subsuming inside cathedral alien energy bank in another solar system,
Joaquin: Again, cosmopolitan pulsing. Or future cosmopolitan—like a different version of William Basinski's Disintegration loops—but the pop version, or some post post pop post punk post something version. It's really the—
Jake: City pulse, or the idealized city pulse, at least—some self churning abstraction.
Rooney: Yeah, yeah, some spiritual secular alien economic pulse that doesn't exist on earth, or like some more, more sophisticated ideal retail pulse that surely doesn't really exist—maybe it has somewhere, but it's probably has never existed here. (laughs)
Joaquin: It's kind of like when's you first arrive to a city on a trip—and you find yourself or find yourself lucky in the immediate inside crux cherry area of day.
Roonie: The actual sunny real estate corner of day—yeah, the juice of the day, like Joaquin said.
Joaquin: Right, you feel like, like— you are in it, definitely—
Roonie: It's expediency, or it's well expedient—but it's so short and then it's over.
Interviewer: Okay, Sucker For A Pretty Face,
Joaquin: Sucker for a pretty face is . . .
Rooney: It makes my think sloppy . . .
Joaquin: Yeah, just a sloppy joe kinda kisss—
Jake: Well, it does mean you are a sucker for a pretty face.
Joaquin: Yeah, but its shadow meaning, its real meaning, its true meaning, is is the pretty face is reserved for the sucker—the kook.
Jake: Right, like that beautiful girls are a kook magnet. Or a beautiful girl turns you into a kook?
Joaquin: Yeah, or also maybe, more pointedly—a beautiful girl can't be out foxed—foxier than her romantic partner.
Rooney: Bingo.
Jake: And it's only gotten worse.
Joaquin: Well, no wonder there's a reason Wonder Woman and Superman only made out in outerspace that one one time, had a quick fling only once.
Jake: Well, it wasn't Superman.
Rooney: What, what wasn't Superman.
Jake: It wasn't or it seems like it wasn't his choice.
Rooney: Really! That's interesting! That's very interesting Jake!
Jake: I always thought Wonder Woman was like, or think about Madonna.
Joaquin: What, Madonna, oh yeah.
Jake: Madonna or I mean Madonna, you have no proof of believing she's heart broken, or broken hearted when she sings on her songs—I mean, the songs are still good, but, but you don't believe her or her pain, really I must say. Certainly. You never believe her pain, that's what I'm saying. Sean Penn must have really loved her, but was heartbroken having to break up with her because she was, or must have been so unbearable . . . .
Rooney: But, or dontcha think, it's as if she's almost miming pain for us mere mortals.
Jake: Probably.
Rooney: Right, like Madonna is too busy being surrounded by subjects, back up dancers—that's her romance.
Jake: Yeah, and the only titillation she can now identify with is falling in love with some seven foot black queer back up dancer—or she's trying to convince herself that she's into him. For Madonna, there's nowhere else to go. The backup dancer is a ever increasingly preverse morphology that's a bi-bi-product to the over the top, hyper economy of the mode of her production. In a sense, Madonna herself is still mired in subjecthood, despite being the object—her's is just different.
Rooney: Well, she was with Warren Beatty—
Joaquin: Yeah, she was with the main character from Shampoo! But now he's older now, and has lost his powers for the most part, so there's that, or that.
Jake: Right. Madonna is never gonna date River Phoenix, or Jude Law or Christopher Reeves.
Joaquin: Right, Madonna ain't trying to be with no Supermannn.
Rooney: That being said—Sucker For A Pretty Face is a short, blatant rip off of The Queers, Get Over You, also an Undertones cover.
Interviewer: Permanent Milk,
Rooney: Permanent Milk is lets see . . .
Jake: Permanent Milk was Rooney's song title.
Joaquin: Where does that title come from Rooney?
Rooney: Permanent Milk has a definite meaning—is a milk that you can put on a saucer outside in the sun and it never blanches or bleaches and bugs stay away from it and you can come back a year later and drink it and it tastes even better, like sugar cereal dregs.
Jake: But also Permanent Milk is what everyone in Los Angeles wants.
Joaquin: Yes, not to get out of bed until eleven at night before headlining a sold out stadium.
Rooney: Never have to work another day.
Joaquin: The song has a lot of defects, but knows how to conceal them all. Permanent Milk.
Interviewer: Goin' Back to Art School,
Jake: Joaquin was or he plays or he knows these little wooglie fragments on the piano. They're really silly and hilarious. The impetus for the EP is or was us just recording Joaquin play these really silly little piano parts, kinda honky tonky, ya know—and again, real funny too. You get a feeling Joaquin was just like grounded a lot as a kid for getting in trouble—he was a bad kid and he was always grounded and always bored and messed around on these piano parts. We only used a tiny sample—but recording these fragments was the impetus for Dormers.
Joaquin: I was grounded! But Going Back To Art School—it's like an artist that is getting no action. They are invited to nothing. They are in nothing. So out of a misguided doubling down and over-think—they decide to just go back to art school.
Rooney: Some people have a wonderful experience in art school.
Joaquin: Right, though—totally.
Rooney: They do, but that's in the past—the same old tool box.
Joaquin: A tool's toolbox.
Jake: At the end of the day, most artists just cling to that one thing they can do—or just double down on it.
Joaquin: You can't go back to art school!
Rooney: Right, and you can't go back to art school.
Jake: But really, the song is limitations or like limitations, and despite, or like our very best intentions and efforts, and all, we are our own barrier holding ourselves back unwittingly—as well as like other people too who also work against all our own best interests.
Rooney: Dadaism sought to abolish art without realizing it, Surrealism sought to realize art without abolishing it and all that jazz too . . .
Joaquin: Well anyways, that being said, after this EP drops, we are gonna be sending everybody . . . back to art school.
Interviewer: No Nite Stand,
Jake: No Nite Stand is a one night stand minus one one night stand . . .
Rooney: Only a mattress on the floor—like, or as if that's a bad thing. Women dog on men online now for having a mattress on the floor all the time now. I don't understand the fuss . . .
Joaquin: Heavy Metal skinny leather in 1980, morphing into all of James Hatfield's Von Dutch bro-totrcycle by the aughts . . .
Jake: What about when you are at a music festival out of town with a girl you are barely dating and you are also with other people the entire time and you listen, just have to listen, or to listen to the things she says out loud, which seems to vehemently exist outside of an awareness of you and even against all your intrigue for them. They may say something cute, that you want to appreciate—but you can't tell if that cute is even in synch now with your interests in a specific way, and you are a shill for trying to connect in good faith with whatever she says,. You keep doing this, because you are in a position where you are trapped and basically have no choice, and there's probably no room for you to be a dick, and you get slowly whittled down in front of the group, and are now as interchangeable as a sparkplug. Drained of life like a cold cup of coffee. Then before you know it she's spitting out, exuding all this wild shit that's a direct threat to your immediate interests—scoping people out openly, talking about who she fucks or wants to fuck—just looses all sense of decorum. The most lowly position to be in in a social setting, surely—No Nite Sand. A gun to your head they have, be too nice they pull it, defend yourself they pull it—they got a gun to your head, anyone besides you seems attractive, and when you gonna pull the trigger.
Interviewer: I'll Know It When I See It,
Rooney: I'll Know It When I See It, is Jake's, Jake's song—it was actually the last song we recorded, and we didn't never plan on recording it. Jake just chording in the studio on acoustic.
Jake: I'll Know It When I See It—yeah. It's the only song I can play in standard—I can't play standard, well it's standard dropped a half step down at least, I still can't play standard though.
Rooney: It's like, what, real . . . elegiac.
Joaquin: All the songs brought us to this bare stripped down ballad, that we didn't never plan on or never didn't plan on recording.
Jake: I'll know it when, I'll know it when, I'll know it when—that being said it's a blatant rip off of Jesus and Mary Chain's, About You— closer on Darklands.
Jake: Yeah—
Rooney: There's something bleed about the rain . . .
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