The Golden Age of Cancer

 
"The Golden Age of Cancer"

                         The Golden Age of Cancer

I have an interest in the stock market. A fascination, self-developed in high school prompting a younger me to waltz unannounced into a small brokerage office on Main Street, Ventura, California, at the age of 17 to ask the surprised suit-wearing inhabitants about their business.

 I remember them asking me if I was doing a report for school. When I said, “No, I’m just curious,” they (three middle aged white males) dropped their guard and invited me to have a seat behind a desk and offered me a soda or coffee or ice water (they had an arsenal of drinks and snacks). This was 1988, pre-internet boom by a few years, their prime weapons of choice were telephones, lots of telephones, blinking lights and odd sounding micro printers, a strange atmosphere of high energy stress and casual lazy coffee drinking. I was duly impressed by the multiple clocks, showing key time zones labeled neatly in black block lettering underneath, New York, London, etc… strung across the undecorated office walls.

The place felt like a time capsule, something left over from the sixties that couldn’t die. Powerful, effective methods of making money resist change like oily duck feathers. Just three extremely similar men, working in this cave, making calls in suits and polished leather shoes. They each had large, heavy, hard wood desks. I saw signed golf balls displayed under clear plastic cubes, complete with the obligatory kinetic steel balls, tiny bull statues and calenders featuring aerial shots of Pebble Beach. I had to wonder about the suits. I suppose if I had wandered off the street and saw people in Hawaiian shirts and sweat pants, I would have kept on walking. I suppose I can see the logic behind a funny costume. 

One of these fellas was between calls, and was kind enough to fill me in on the day to day operations of a real live stock trading outfit, a real eye opener. I was impressed and left with a head full of entrepreneurial thoughts, grown up thoughts of money and stuff. 

A weird, California version of the business, connected by physical wires across the country to Chicago and Wall Street herself. 

Trading stocks was one of the few vocations I could ever see myself excelling at, I had something close to a real interest. 

A brain at a desk appealed to me, thoughts converted to cash with zero physical movement, air conditioned magic. 

Behind the obvious set design was something close to Palmistry or reading chicken entrails on a stump… and possibly the promise of a BMW. 

 

Yesterday morning (twenty years later), I was having coffee and decided to have a look at the talking heads for shits and giggles.

The CNBC gang of soapy affiliates were shiny and groomed like pure bred Dobermans trotting the fake, green, grass of dog show hell.  The stock ticker ran its usual cycle and informed me of losses and gains (both imagined and real) while I simultaneously checked my email messages and poured a second cup of french roast.  The professional narcissists were talking, but I wasn’t listening, I know better. They are reliably full of it. We all know it. 

Three cups and a ball is all grown up and swindling in shifts.  

 Some of my personal strategy hinges on deducing fake smiles and reading uncomfortable micro expressions in order to turn them to my advantage. The social aspect is interesting to me, a language I can somehow traverse. A giant, mega media corporations awkward on-camera pause is a leaf on the breeze and a botched segue leaking snarky unintended audio into the world is an OPPORTUNITY large and tall, “The Cattleman’s Code.”  But…

I’ve said all that to get to this.

 

The busy mumbling in the background came sharply into focus on the last sentence, before the raging volume-boosted Cadillac commercial assaulted my senses.

This is what I heard.

Mumble mumble mumble… something something something, 

“The Golden Age of Cancer.” Smiles all around, swooping left to right boom camera, out of body experience angle, cut to commercial.  

“The golden age of cancer?”  You gotta be kidding me…I had to focus a little to remember what I was just witness to.

They were talking “Big Pharma,” a fuzzy pet name they give to their favorite auntie.  

In spite of the overall country’s flat-lining economy, the nation’s largest drug companies are having a good time.  Selling overpriced cancer treatments to dying people is the new gold rush, has been for some time now I gather.

Psychopaths. 

I’m still feeling ill from it. Those words I can’t throw up, the message I’m unable to purge, the camaraderie and the smiles I can’t seem to unsee… a monster with soundtrack and a graphics team.  

  

Just another great success story crawling out of my television. 

I guess that’s where we are now… Clubbed over the head when we weren’t expecting it.

The whole country woke up chained to the Black Pearl, singing songs and driving Cadillacs.

Whooping it up in the Golden Age of Cancer.

             

                                      

                                  B.E.B.  June 4, 2014

Mary Magdilinium

 http://brandonearlbristow.bandcamp.com/track/mary-magdilinium

 

 

Testing....1,2, is this mic on? this is my loose attempt to connect the dots.

Two sordid years of computer problems and I am just short of going caveman on the modern world.

I wish I could be a snob and insist on touring and pressing records with zippers, wiggle pictures and pop up cartoons inside but alas me pockets reflect a different approach to audio production. So be it. WE assembled and cut this song in about a half an hour. Based on a riff I had been noodling for twelve months without resolve. (my attempt to emulate African guitar styles without fancy retuning) Eric has a great ear and launched into a great rhythm almost immediately, After some vocal overdubs,  guitar and some bass she was allset to sit on a shelf till I could figure out how to move the audio over to bandcamp... Better late than never. 

Peace, B.B.

 

Its Mary Magdilinium
she pretends to work a pendulum
she mix a little bit of magic and dance to make the folks swing and sway

what they say? well its all right its all right yea
its all right if I say that I love you

Its Mary Magdilinium
she pretends to work that pendulum
when you get them tongues wagging you got to hear what they say

what they say .. what they say?

Well, a penny earned is a penny saved
and that's what they tried to tell you when she's out there on the biggest wave

Mary Magdilindium...
its all right....Its all right if I say that I love you.

credits

released 04 August 2012
Eric Clemow on drums Lyrics and other noises by Bristow

Dude Where's My Drummer? or Bill Ward Where Are You?

Loyalty                                            

I Love (old) Black Sabbath....  BUT.....Let's talk about (new) Black Sabbath! "13" for a moment.

I would love to give two shits about this release!

I have an issue.

"WHERE the HELL is BILL WARD?"

Not including the original Black Sabbath drummer is like removing the concrete foundation from under your house.

The inevitable question pops up...WHY?  Maybe he lost his groove? maybe he's really into Hello Kitty and needlepoint these days and can't be bothered??  NO.    Somethings rotten in kitchen here.

Greedy pricks are everywhere. Please prove me wrong. Until then. FUCK YOU Tony Iommi and FUCK YOU OZZY!  Hey,  Geezer Butler...are you part of this debacle?  Then fuck you too! 

I am truly curious about this new "Black Sabbath 13" but without Bill Ward I am afraid I will be forced to purloin  it....Just to send a message. I like Albums and Cd's and physical product.. I like to support my favorite Artists....

I Will BUY "Black Sabbath" when Black Sabbath is good and present.  

LOYALTY fellas......   Google it.

B.E.B.

The Price

                                                                        The Price 

           
  An old poet can say with a sly grin to an audience of cats and a stray ear from over/btween the fencing, that he never "really lived" .... Expectations fold up their wares and roll to greener pastures, a bird takes flight.... No sale. 

But wait, come back.... A salesman, a neighbor, a rambunctious boy, they turn attentions elsewhere...UNIFORMLY...predictably...

 The sly grin increases.... The eye secretly sparkles.... He goes back inside to be alone with his books, some tea, a dry oak fire,  a table,  a chair..."I never fully lived" repeats a self refracted tone.... Ha h ha ha... Only the cats hear me these days... What say you then, kitty? The old man opens a reluctant, rain soaked window and lets the cold pour in... He stands up straight with his feet apart to address the now vacant street, planted there like an oak himself, looking younger than five minutes prior,

"I'll never fully die!"   

A window shuts, a shade drops, a cat curls up by a fire.  

B.E.B.

Perfectly Appropriate

PERFECTLY 

APPROPRIATE 

Once in a while I take a walk

Our road runs a little over a mile through a piece of gorgeous forest before it hits the highway

On these walks I take along the modern version of the "Walkman" 

Last week I was trying my levelheaded best to take my walk and simultaneously understand (at least partly)  the juicy science in an audio book by one of my favorite authors, Michio Kaku. This book is called "Parallel Worlds" (unabridged parts one and two) great stuff. 

My whole neighborhood is a dead end road. 

An island in the pines containing a handful of streets, a volunteer fire house and a pond. 

You learn to recognize the local characters by car, truck or quad. The people here have a lot of space and privacy but we share a common road out of the woods. Its nearly the only time I have to interact with my neighbors and its usually short and sweet how I like it. "Howdy Tom! fine weather we're having today, Yup, Catch ya later."  

I like to think my neighbors are on generally the same page insofar as forest appreciation goes but here and again I find, on a regular basis... Trash, on the side of the road. A Coors can here a Coke can there and occasionally a pile of cigarette butts in a perfect little pile of ashes showing that they stopped the vehicle, opened the door and dropped the vile cargo exactly inches above the scene of the crime. I am always trying to profile the evil doers in my head and it takes over my attention from the birds the bees and my main man Michio and his theoretical physics.  

An oncoming pickup with an elbow sticking out. 

Is it him? 

I just cant tell and short of dressing up in camouflage and hiding in a tree I may never catch the bastard or bastards...or bastardettes for that matter.

What the hell would I do if I did catch them?  I have a plan ....  It involves dumping my garbage in their vehicle or on their porch whatevers easier but something else has caught my attention. 

A plastic water bottle squished flat and weather beaten comes into focus in the dirt a foot or so off the blacktop.  

                                              Coyote shit is balanced perfectly on the bottle. 

 

                                  Nature herself has sent a representative to address the situation. 

                                                      How perfectly appropriate.

 Now that I know I am working the case in cahoots with the forest dwellers I feel a whole lot better about my chances with regards to Justice, Karma and all that good shit.

Time to get back to eleventh dimensional hyper space, bird watching and a little jogging if the knee holds up.  

B.E.B.  

  

  

   

 

The Customer

On regular intervals

The bulls go over the cliff

The leaders posture

The young react

The old articulate 

Most of the wise, (I believe) are in hiding

An irascible clue unfolds on any Tuesday.

My shopping cart has a wobbling wheel 

Counting the carts in front of me to be about twenty with nearly the same number guesstimated to be distributed throughout the lot and Supermarket ......discounting the odd theft, I give myself high odds of using this very same bastard cart again in the calender year and resolve to break the spell, abandoning it beside the newspaper racks outside the electric doors. 

The next cart is much better, I pretend not to notice the poor fellow who has taken up the wobbly cause left aside the traffic of it all 

 "grow your own fuckin' tomatoes" I says to myself......well? What about soap?....  Hmm. You got me there, 

I buy four "Heirloom" tomato plants with flowers on them and place them in the south facing window of the kitchen when I get home. 

While I was there, at the grocery, I noticed the motorcycle magazines are beginning to outnumber the gun publications. Well, It's something. 

I buy an issue of "Motorcycle Classics" to help with some collective message. 

 Other magazines feature movie stars like a sorry bill of health pinned to society's weakest links, the word "imposter" comes to mind.
  
If you can see a rat in a maze and not feel a twinge of recognition. Good for you. 

If you can stand in line with another human standing directly behind you. Hazah! and praise the big cheese. 

If you can get through high-school without a deep unresolvable despise for institutions. You is the cats meow and you fit right in there, like a key in a lock inspecting the tumblers with the expression of the deeply resigned. 

 furthermore

If you let someone convince you that you need medication to help get over your stress, you are going off to the slaughter house under your own steam. I am suggesting that a thorn in your foot is to be removed, not discussed. Sand in your eye needs washed out, not a prime time special featuring football greats with bad knees. When you are confined to a pine box, don't entertain the thoughts of a silk box lining and a scented pine tree dangling in your face as a solution. By all means.... Kick like hell and get the fuck out of there.

When the music in your ears is offensive and the lights make you feel like you are in surgery and the people resemble monsters you are not mistaken. The Twilight Zone ain't got nothin' on the grocery store.  

As an experiment. I put on my blackest sunglasses and pull up ABRAXIS on my IPOD. 

This is the proper way to handle a crisis of conformity

and when they inevitably ask if they can "help" me, I sent them for a forty pound bag of dog food. By the end of my shopping adventure the bag boys and girls are perplexed and the manager is curious about the nine bags of Pedigree blocking the exits. 

I do my part. 

B.E.B.   (self elected anti-social skills professional)

 
  

    

My reply to Bob Lefsetz (Kelly and Clive)

                                             photo by Amber Lessing 

 I used to work for "a record company"  ( smooth jazz... yack.) A fly by night subsidiary of a much bigger fish. Maybe it was Virgin records...I forget...
  I was hired by a nice guy walking his dog who liked the drum beat I was playing inside my open garage door one day.  The whole company was situated cliffside on Birdview Ave. where the stars all live overlooking the ocean. (The neighborhood was not particularly happy about our presence.)

I was in for a serious education. In a nutshell, the acts are a product like a can of peas. I'm not being creative. Exactly equal too a can of friggin peas. 

And I am grateful for what I was on hand to witness. Being a musician / songwriter myself, what I wanted most on earth at that time was a record deal. 

1. Appearances are everything. In response to a bad financial year, what you do in Malibu to pull yourself up by the boot straps is wholly counter-intuitive. You fire 2 people, buy a new Beemer and start taking people out to dinner at an accelerated rate... 

2. All the artists coming in are suckers. They are wined and dined in order to have themselves on the Pitney Bowes mailing machine. It is all charged back to them with smiles, kisses and incense burning in front of a Buddha in a sand garden with the sun going down over the pacific. As soon as they were out of ear shot I heard with my own ears a proper gang of wolves snickering about how they would divide their next kill. A gotcha vibe overpowering the patchouli with little fragments of sentences that fell into my ears that I can never.... un-hear.  

 "We own the masters so fu%# em" 

After hearing a little gem like this one, I raised my eyebrows in shock, not saying a word. My expression was spied by a coworker on the higher end of this food chain. His response, leaning in close with one closed eye.... "and we’re the NICE record company" 

Long live the web. 

Brandon Earl Bristow 

P.S. I am now living happy and contract-free on bandcamp.com. It's FREE!  The new paradigm - I love it. 

http://brandonearlbristow.bandcamp.com/