Non-practice days:

       4:30 PM: Rudiments

       5:30 PM: Set run-through

      6:30 PM: Bike to apartment.

      6:50 PM: Dinner. Fish or tofu, rice, steamed vegetables.

      7:30 PM: Read. Philosophy, economics, criticism.

      9:00 PM: Unscheduled free time: socializing, etc.

      Midnight: Bed.

      * * *

Everybody had phones whenever I took the bus anyplace people always talking ten different conversations when I’m on the bus I want to read a magazine people talking to each other are okay when I can hear both ends it’s easy to blot them out with phones just the one side makes it worse can’t tell when’s next waiting for the other shoe impossible to read. At Dovestail we always had a landline5 easier that way if you weren’t home people couldn’t get in touch with you besides everyone looked so fucking dumb walking around with phones but I held out. Everyone knows I held out the longest anyway. Then Louis got this girlfriend she called and called all the time like seven in the morning three in the morning six in the morning I asked him to shut the ringer off or maybe get a new girlfriend he got all mad and said she needs me this is after like two months right when Bernie moved out such a great roommate we never had any issues his dad though. Jesus I shouldn’t be talking about this man I’m sorry.

      No. Go on.

      Are you sure?

      Go on.

      He was trying to streamline minimalize right when he started reading Ayn Rand playing drums said he wanted to get serious about being effective it was like okay good luck with that Louis he was a great roommate too real quiet which is funny because he always wandered back and forth on the stage stamping his feet like he was trying to bust through. Stomp stomp stomp. Stomp stomp stomp! Hey man what’s wrong you look like something’s bugging you did I say something?

      I remember the stomping. Sorry. Keep going.

Anyway he said she needs me I need sleep I said I can’t with the phone ringing all the time he said I love her I said maybe you should love her with the ringer off he got all mad then two days later he got a cell phone I’m not paying for the landline any more he said. I asked him how much it cost he told me it wasn’t that different from having a landline just a few bucks more long distance was free a phone was too. A free phone! So I got my first phone for free a piece of shit that barely worked after I dropped it walking back from the Dingo when everyone else was on like their third or fourth phone so when I got my second one which wasn’t too long ago I got one with a camera in it. I was like whoah there’s a camera in my phone it makes sense when you think about it but in a lot of ways it makes none if I told the guy who was me when I was eighteen there was a camera in his phone he’d say maybe you can put a tape recorder6 in your doorbell or something like that he’d be right.

      * * *

      The Dingo Concert Series, a name he imagined before he booked a single band there, lasted one show.

      Internet searches yielded the Pee Valves, a three piece alternating between feedback-drenched pop and complex songs which Ben thought willfully obtuse, and Stonecipher, a duo consisting of a girl on bass and a skinny bespectacled man in white behind the drums.

      The Pee Valves headlined. Their bass player Louis’ pacing stomps shook glasses on tables at the front of room, near the windows. They played all of two songs before a scuffle broke out in the back.

As time passed, the number of people who claimed to have been at the Dingo that evening swelled7: Max Caughin, who introduced himself to Ben before the show, had started the scuffle, planting two hands firmly on the press jockey who dared make fun of Max’s carefully assembled vintage Velcro outfit and heaving with all his might. Said jockey, caught off-guard by the push, fell backwards, arms windmilling, onto the pool table, sending a shower of ‘next game’ quarters and half-empty pint glasses onto the battered woodtile floor. Max smelled like a huffer, but had too much energy. Was he on speed? Pills? Something didn’t add up.

      And Stonecipher!

      They were terrible.

      The drummer never played the beat, not once. And the bass player, the girl, pounded away at her strings with her fist, yelling into the microphone. The room’s sound was awful—he was not asked to return; no big loss from an audience standpoint—so discerning lyrics was difficult. He wasn’t sure there were any, so much as there were utterances sandwiched by growls: “mouthbreather” and “second and long” and “I’m not a people person.” Songs began and ended seemingly on their own accord, with no structure discernable amidst the rumble. He had been mesmerized by the five or six fans in the front, fists raised, banging their heads to nothing.

      The duo loaded their gear into the back of a battered Nova parked in the rear lot. He asked if they wanted to smoke.

      I’m all set, the drummer in white said.

      Day shift tomorrow, the girl said as she hipped her amp into the Nova’s trunk. Thanks, though.

      Ben produced a quarter from his khakis and handed it to her, along with fifty dollars.

      What’s this?

      A sample, he said, of what’s available. And your take of the door.

      She opened and sniffed. What is this?

      The particular varietal I have today has no name per se, as it is my standard. On occasion, however, gourmet mircobatches become available.

      Amy opened the bag and inhaled deeply. This is standard?

      Ben nodded.

      Is this like a hundred grand an eighth?

      Forty-five, Ben said. Eighty for a quarter.

      That’s cheap, Amy said.

      Quantity, Ben replied. At any rate, thank you for playing the show this evening. I will be in touch regarding future performances. And please, don’t hesitate to contact me.

      * * *

(Excerpted from ArtScene magazine/pulsestream