Trouble

By Matt Wild

Asked why he decided to dismantle The Pixies, frontman Frank Black once replied that when another bandmate’s lifestyle “starts to irritate you,” it becomes virtually impossible to be in the same room as that person, much less share a stage together. Black was no doubt referring to bassist Kim Deal, whose unexpected mainstream success with The Breeders almost certainly drove him absolutely ape-shit. Likewise, my recent source of irritation – my very own Kim Deal, if you will – has been nothing less than this entire city. I’ve been irritated by the constant closing/opening of restaurants, the conversational shorthand brought on by winter weather, the unspoken disdain of friends and colleagues. I’ve been annoyed with the shoddy state of local weeklies and bored to tears by the meager accomplishments of our hipster elite. I’ve been so desperate for a cure, so anxious for an all-purpose salve that I recently decided to face my fears head-on. Like those episodes of Maury where he cures a guest’s irrational fear of mustard with – you guessed it! – a giant fucking bowl of mustard, I decided to break my anti-Milwaukee funk by attending the single most irritating event I could find: a home-brewed burlesque show.

Following a few hours spent at the Nut Factory open house (Kyle Fitzpatrick’s paintings – all the size and texture of burnt-out Buicks – are particular standouts), I’m dropped off at Mad Planet for the Pixel Pussy Ski, Sky and Stage Show. Sponsored by Blam! Blam! – a local publication that provides readers the unique pleasure of seeing full color photographs of their friends and former roommates giving each other head – the scene is pretty much what one would expect: some low-rent fetish gear, a bunch of free lube and condoms (so naughty!), awful music and a $10 cover. No matter, I think, a few stiff drinks and a sharp blow to the skull will be all that’s needed to spice things up. Hell, maybe I’ll even strike up a conversation with the guy wearing a top hat and a strap-on. Notebook and camera in hand, I decide to hang up my coat and dig in for the long haul.

It’s then that I see the sign: “Coat Check Begins At $10.” I stare at it dumbly, unable to process a $10 Mad Planet coat check, much less one that begins at $10. In fact, what kind of coat check begins anywhere? Are there better options – sturdier hangers, perhaps – in the $12-$15 range? Complimentary lint-removers? Free pony rides? And what is it about this sign – and now, suddenly, these people, these costumes, these affectations – that seems so horribly wrong, so overwhelmingly depressing? Out of respect for both Mad Planet and my own well-being, I decide to do the only thing a rational person would do after just forking over $10 to get into a local sex show: I leave.

Flee, escape, haul ass is more like it, the bitter irritation of another botched evening following close behind. Knowing that my friends are nearby, but not knowing their exact location and being thoroughly unequipped with one of those fancy cellular telephones, I decide to duck into everybody’s favorite brightly-lit, old-bastard bar – The Polish Falcon – in an attempt to bum a call from a cell phone-wielding patron. But no, no one’s going for it – another nagging annoyance. It’s an emergency, I tell them. I just fled an S&M bar and need to find my friends! They could already be dead! “Sorry dude, I’m not a payphone,” is the only response I receive.

The next hour is spent in a frantic, futile search: sticking my head into Stonopa and catching a few pleasant seconds of the Candliers; warming my hands at The Pub and catching a few terrifying seconds of Edgar Allen Cash; taking a shot with a group of bleary-eyed strangers at the Riverhorse; winding up at Bremen Café and finally borrowing the proprietor’s phone, only to find that my friends, of course, have just settled in at the Polish Falcon.

With the extremity-threatening weather as my guide, I head back to the Falcon, where the only thing left to do is drink. Amidst bar dice and Willie Nelson songs on the jukebox, I detail the non-events of my stillborn evening to no one in particular. My friend Joe sits next to me, listening patiently, then suddenly takes the notebook from my coat pocket and scribbles a quick sketch.

This is what he draws:

“Trouble,” he says quietly. Taking a cryptic pull of his beer, he turns away. Trouble indeed.

I continue drinking as well, long into the night, and now there’s a girl sitting next to me, trying to convince me to leave with her. She’s saying something about living dangerously, about cracking this city wide open and falling in love; she wants to go now – right now! – but no, tonight I’m not buying it. Tonight I’m taking Joe’s drawing as a sign and cashing in my chips. Tonight I’m going home to my bed, home to a fitful four hours of sleep, in the hopes that perhaps this casual cynicism, this city-wide irritation can be wiped clean – however briefly – and that everything will reclaim the warm, untroubled glow of the frightfully new in the morning. VS

Matt Wild is ¼ of the rock & roll band Holy Mary Motor Club