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Post by muzzleofbees on Feb 23, 2021 3:55:00 GMT -5
Well hey, yeah, there's some compelling stuff in there. I gotta be honest, I've listened to "Thrashing" a fuckton but I don't think I ever caught that line about "the assistant hitched us into the harness." That bit, coupled with the spray-paint mattress, and the "oh dude, they made a movie starring you" is (to me) a clearer line to the sexual assault possibility than the lines that Skeptic provided above. Still not convinced (I'm still hearing "they made a movie starring you" as a connection to "we make our own movies" and the movie-resurrection), but it definitely merits further thought. I'm not really here to convince anyone either, and these things is beyond anything anyone can "prove" (in both a wide and a strict sense of the word). I posted the You Did Good Kid parts just to show that there's plenty of lyrics that, if you listen to them with a given perspective, takes on a whole different meaning. And being open to hear it in that sense, opens up different possibilities. And you start to hear other parts of other songs different. With the way Craig write, a single line could mean x, but also y - but when you listen to it with a different mindset, also z. It doesn't mean any of these readings are true/"true", and it doesn't mean that only one of them can be true/"true" either. It just opens them up. That's how it is for me, anyway. The Here Goes narrative as presented by skepticatfirst could still be "true", even if some of the lines describing the Metal Bar beatdown also have a double meaning suggesting something sexual. Just as Slapped Actress both can be a song about the kids heading down to the party pit to put up a show, while it at the same time can be a self-referencing song about The Hold Steady as a band. When Craig talk about the rocks, he might be talking about the rock, but he's also talking about the icecubes and the frozen water. And when Craig talk about "rock problems", he's talking about the rock'n'roll, but also the rocks (or the icecubes or the frozen water). All of these things might not be possible to boil down to a singular story each of its own, but that's not really the point either (again, at least not to me). But if there are enough references to a beatdown also being sexual, enough times "suck" are used in a way who sounds sexual, then I think it's interesting to try to listen to other stuff with that perspective too. Damn, it's hard to talk about this shit the way I like - this is where I would like to switch to my mother tounge.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Feb 23, 2021 8:11:55 GMT -5
I'm not really here to convince anyone either, and these things is beyond anything anyone can "prove" (in both a wide and a strict sense of the word). The Here Goes narrative as presented by skepticatfirst could still be "true", even if some of the lines describing the Metal Bar beatdown also have a double meaning suggesting something sexual. I still like the idea of just aiming to present an account that is complete and coherent, or as close to that as I can get; it's not "proof," but if well done I think it can satisfy the desire to understand what's going on. Some of what's in Here Goes is, I think, in fact invalidated by these new discoveries (violation of the standard of coherence). But you're right that, in Craig's world of multiple meanings, some of it is just added to. Damn, it's hard to talk about this shit the way I like - this is where I would like to switch to my mother tounge. I can sympathize with your Ragnarök and roll problems! But don't feel like you're coming through muddled; you're definitely holding your own.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Feb 23, 2021 8:13:59 GMT -5
PARTY ZERO VS THE RETURN PARTIESAs we get into the details of Party Zero, we're going to see lots of references to "parties" plural, as opposed to singular, and to activities on the part of the kids that are habitual, as opposed to a one-time thing. It's worth noting at the outset that these references to "parties" are literal. Party Zero ends in terror, but the Nice Nice is where the drugs are, and meth is a terrible drug; to make a long story short for now, the kids end up going back for more of the same. I want to call those subsequent parties "the Return Parties" to distinguish them from Party Zero. This distinction will make it easier to clarify how an activity expressed in the continuous present and one described in the simple past can both cast light on the same original event. ***There's another note on method that we probably want to draw out explicitly, now that we've recognized the close parallels between the homosexual gangrape scenes in LP Party Zero on the one hand, and the THS metal bar party on the other. These two parties are the anchoring events of their respective stories: Party Zero is the first big event of the LP story, the metal bar party is the first big event of the THS story. The characters involved in these two parties are different, but not very different (both involve a mixed group including the Narrator and the alpha girl). The kids go down to the brewery bar to get high (before "that changed" [SPayne]) and they get gangraped. That's an awful lot in common. As noted upthread (see NICE NICE above), we have to be careful about bringing THS evidence to bear on the LP story. But in cases like this, where multiple elements in common make it clear that substantially the same event is being described in both places, we may find ourselves able, with due caution, to exploit the THS evidence to shed light on what's happening in LP, and the LP evidence to shed light on what's happening in THS. Examples of this to come.
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Post by star18 on Feb 23, 2021 10:16:10 GMT -5
Thanks for the thoughtful responses, both of you! Just so we're all on the same page, I don't expect a big response or full explanation to every little idea I bring up, it's mostly just grist for the mill. I respect that you're trying to lay this out in a specific order, so if I'm asking about topics that come up later, I'm happy to be patient. In fact, would it be easier for if we made a seperate "Alright Alright Reaction Shots" thread, so that we're not disrupting your overall flow from chapter to chapter? Hah, as I said before I've read the "Here Goes" thread twice now, I'm definitely not going anywhere. I think the level that you're engaging with this stuff is positively brilliant, and the fact that I'm not 100% convinced of some parts actually makes me more likely to keep reading, because I do believe there are still mysteries to be solved, and trying to piece them together with friends is more fun than just having everything perfectly laid out for me. Any critiques I offer are solely to offer an alternate perspective, not to try to invalidate or poke holes in your story.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Feb 24, 2021 9:06:00 GMT -5
THE RIDETo come at the next point sideways: in a 2015 interview with Slate ( link), Craig said something odd: It's worth reading that back and forth a couple of times, just to follow the progression of thought. The idea that driving a long way to get to a party, as such, could be foundational to AKM and SS is pretty far from self-evident. But that's what Craig seems to be saying. ***Putting that observation on the back burner, let's continue with Party Zero. The account that we drew from Prescription Sunglasses (see PARTY ZERO above) begins: - The Narrator and his date go to a party/rave with meth dealers from the Scene (the Nice Nice) in the brewery bar.
The brewery is in a pretty remote location. We've already taken note of several lines alluding to the non-trivial matter of getting there and back, like run across the river liquor lasts a little later [HDaD] she's creepin out of the East End [ILtL] creepin back to the East End [NN] This raises the question: how did the alpha couple actually get to Party Zero? As it turns out, allusions to their journey there are all over the LP and THS lyrics. To keep things interesting I want to touch on just a couple points of evidence now and push ahead, but we'll catch up with the rest soon enough. ***Of all the various references to what happened, the least obscure is the one reported in Rock Problems, where the sequence of events leading to that song's "cornered in the kitchen" moment begins: The girls want to go to the party, but no one's in any shape to drive So we called up your guy, and when he comes we're gonna ask for a ride [RP] where "your guy" is "your drug dealer" (compare "the guy" Jesse calls up [40B], "the number" [HH], "your boys" [Smidge]). To be clear, these lines describe an event late in the THS arc, not the opening act of the LP story; but the detail is all recycled from original LP material. In short, Party Zero begins when the alpha couple hitch a ride with a drug dealer down to the brewery. ***Much more to say about just these facts, but let's keep pushing. This drug dealer running an impromptu taxi service --- do we have any more information about him? As it happens, we do: on the trip back from the "East End" reported in I Like the Lights, mention is made of his metaphorical "taxi": and i like the lights and i like em pretty bright and he pulled out a pipe in the taxi and i like the lights and i like em pretty bright and he took off my tights in the taxi [ILtL] after which the song Nice Nice (compare also Manpark) tells us the name of the guy with the pipe behind the wheel: remember jenny back from i like the lights she said well i like you dwight but i don't like the pipe the things that you put in your pipe like your life now jenny missed her ride and she's takin off her tights in the back seat of some taxi [NN] So to restate, filling in the names (for Jenny=Juanita, 'alpha couple'=Juanita+the Narrator, and the LP:Juanita::THS:Mary analogy, see THE GIRLS and THE ALPHA COUPLE above): Party Zero begins when the Narrator and Juanita hitch a ride with Night Club Dwight down to the brewery. ***We'd already identified the "chef" in "got pretty screwed by the chef and the chauffeur" [TS&tT] as one of the meth-cooking-gang gangsters (see THE KITCHEN above); the "chauffeur," as it turns out, is the THS drug dealer reflection of Night Club Dwight. This brings us to one of the more terrifying rereadings in You Gotta Dance: The Gangster Disciples knocked me off of my bicycle. It was midnight down by Selby and Griggs. I shouldn't have gone down there but it was too late to switch. You gotta dance with who you came with. [YGD] Ignore the bicycle for the moment (which for the rest can't be read in literal consistency with "who you came with"); we'll get to that shortly (see THE GREATER TRIP DOWNTOWN below). The THS Narrator went down to St. Paul to a late-night meeting with some gangsters. It proved to be a bad decision, but it was too late to do anything about it: he had to "dance" --- in the full-blown sexual sense of the LP metaphor (see DANCING above) --- with the drug dealers from whom he got a ride. ***Distant corroboration of this account of the ride comes from a 2012 interview that Craig did with the Guardian, in which he talks briefly about the THS story ( link): What's the story? "There's three characters and they went off and did something and came back." Craig's allegedly talking about THS here, but there was never a clean match for "three characters went off and did something" in the THS story; consider that - the first time the kids go down to the brewery (the metal bar incident), there are four of them (Gideon, Charlemagne, Narrator, Mary).
- the second time they go down (for the crucifixion), there are three of them (Charlemagne, Narrator, Mary) *and* the contingent of Skins on the crosstown bus [LA].
But with our growing understanding of the THS story as a rework of the LP story material, things come into focus: in the original account, there are indeed precisely three characters on stage (the Narrator, his date, and Night Club Dwight), and it's with their long drive to get to a party at the brewery that everything begins.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Feb 25, 2021 7:27:11 GMT -5
STRANDEDLet's keep going. Hitching a ride with a dealer to a party in the back of beyond involves risk. One potentially underappreciated risk is that when you're ready to leave, you may not be able to leave. This is one of the THS details that Here Goes never had a good explanation for --- there are explicit allusions to being "stranded" in HaRRF and Smidge, as if it had been experienced by the characters as a real problem; but at no point in the story does being stranded figure decisively in the chain of events. The explanation for this turns out to be that being stranded is carried over with the rest of the reworked material from LP, where it's crucial to the unfolding of Party Zero. Let's look at a just a few examples that we can tie to what we already know about the party, and come back to the rest later. *** the linedance starts, it pounds along with your heart and you're stranded [Bears] The Narrator is stranded, and ends up getting gang-raped (going through a line of "dances" in the sexual sense, see DANCING above). *** yeah stranded on the couch with the super mario [BiB] Again, stranded, and fucked on the couch (the gang-raping Bears too "came from under the couch and they jumped in" [Bears]). The significance of "super mario" is that the gangsters are "powered up" on speed. Compare "they were all powered up on some new upper drug" [MN]; compare also the Gideon-gangster-voice "You should have seen all these portals that I've powered up in" [HSL], and for a more direct connection to the gangrape, "They powered up and they proceeded to jam, man" [YGD] (for "jam" in a sexual sense see THS REVISITED above; by the same token, compare "you gotta make do with what they gave to you" [YGD] to "I did everything they'd give me" [MPADJs]). *** the liquid tan and lemonade, made love to the waiting game [TMS] There's lots of drugs ("Tan"=heroin; see LISTED, also FRUIT above); someone who's waiting around ends up making some "love." *** slip and trip and hang around [SBackwards] Hanging around leads to a bad confluence of drugs and sex, with a definite overtone of assault (see SLIP AND TRIP above). *** And if she scared you then she's sorry, she's been stranded at these parties [HaRRF] Being "stranded" specifically refers to being stranded at a party (for "parties" plural, see PARTY ZERO VS THE RETURN PARTIES above). *** Now we're stranded on the south side So sick of waiting on your boys [Smidge] Ignore the "south side" bit for now; being "stranded" specifically refers to waiting for "your boys," that is, the dealers (compare "your guy" [RP]). *** Number two, it really sucks when you get stuck here with these Trevors This was supposed to be a party [BBlues] This one's spectacular. The Narrator got "stuck" at something that was supposed to be a party but didn't turn out like one, and in fact ended with "really sucking" (sucking off gangsters). But who's Trevor? T-Shirt Tux tells us about a drug dealer who a) gets his supplies from a wholesale outfit in a secured building, and b) is, for lack of a better word, a doofus, as described here: He's got a t-shirt tux and a piano key tie. The rest of us were rolling our eyes. At the handshake he did with the doorman. But thats how he gets the stuff that makes him feel so important [TSTux] We recognize in this passage the "knockoff necktie" [HM] and incompetent drugdealing [OwtB, YGD] of Charlemagne. But the more interesting part with respect to the BBlues line is that "Trevor" is a doofus name (h/t muzzleofbees ) --- and so is "Dwight." The THS Narrator getting stuck at the "party" with the "Trevors" is a THS reflection of the LP Narrator getting stranded at the party with Night Club Dwight. (More about the surprising mapping of bad guy Night Club Dwight to relatively sympathetic Charlemagne later; we have to get through the story first.) *** I was waiting for my ride and I got jumped from behind I got punctured [YLHF] This one brings all the evidence together, the waiting for the ride *and* the getting jumped "from behind," i.e. anally raped. In Charlemagne's case, "punctured" literally means stabbed, but there's clearly a "penetrated by a dick" subtext here too, which reinforces the idea we had that "stabbed" in Math is Money is a metaphor for raped. The fact that we're still getting new information out of Your Little Hoodrat Friend is pure bonus.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Feb 26, 2021 9:36:37 GMT -5
LANDSDOWNE STREETOf all the reasons to resist hearing the LP story as a Twin-Cities-only story, the biggest was the presence of so much graphic Boston material in the songs, with Lie Down on Landsdowne being the principal showcase. But as it turns out, "Landsdowne" is just a Boston metaphor for the problem of going out to party and getting stranded in downtown St. Paul. ***In his 2009 Vulture interview discussion of Lie Down on Landsdowne, Craig said ( link): Here's a map that shows what Craig is talking about: On the left of the image, you can see where the 'B', 'C', and 'D' branches of the MBTA Green Line run past Boston College. On the right, you can see where all three branches come together again north of the Fenway (the neighborhood of the Fens) in downtown Boston. That green trapezoid below where the lines meet is Fenway Park, home of the Red Sox of baseball; Lansdowne street (still full of awful bars, as in Craig's time) is the street running along the north edge of the ballpark. This trip is a legit student institution: Steve (Craig's Boston College roommate) immortalized the connection between the train and the street in the Hawaii Show song Pine Manor ( link; the Green Monster is the high wall between Fenway Park's left field and Lansdowne street): Take the Green Line To the Green Monster For the Boston College partier, the last 'B', 'C', and 'D' trains back out to campus leave downtown before 1:00am ( link), making it trivially easy to end up stranded. Statements to this effect, with specific reference to the Fens and Lansdowne Street, are found in both the THS and LP lyrics. ***In For Boston, it's stated explicitly that the girl needs a ride home: She stumbled down Lansdowne, she lost her left shoe, And she lost all her friends, and she's crying and she needs a ride home [FB] Here "lost all her friends" recalls Jenny: you just slipped and missed your ride from your girlfriends [ILtL] while losing her shoe (see SHOES AND SOCKS above) recalls Gideon getting raped: no shoes [BBlues] and the Narrator kneeling in surrender: took ten bucks and my tennis shoes [YGD, compare CSummer] Just as Jenny solves the St. Paul ride-home problem by taking off her tights in the backseat of a taxi [NN], Juanita solves the stranded-in-the-Fens problem by taking off her tights on the 'D' train, the southernmost of the Green Line routes between the Fenway and Boston College alluded to above (ignore the fact that being stranded means, by definition, that the train isn't running; see THE GREATER TRIP DOWNTOWN below): now i've done it on the d-line and bathed in all your basslines [BiB] As we've noted earlier, it's here called the "d-line" (properly the 'D' "branch" of the Green Line: link) in a football allusion to the defensive line, and to the gangrape scenario described in The Bears (see THE BEARS above). ***Viceburgh is plainer in connecting the fact of being stuck in the Fenway with sexual exploitation: missed the train and we walked around the Fens found some beds and went down on them again [Viceburgh] Having told us that the kids are walking around downtown because they missed the train, in the next line it tells us what "lie down on Landsdowne" really means: it means going down on the gangsters, lying down on their "beds" (for a "defeat," as Craig called it in the interview, in the sense of "sweet lord I surrender" [DMN]). "Some beds" doesn't mean just one or two, either: love's a lot like Landsdowne street the H and the K, the way we get with every guy that we meet [LDoL] It's not one or two; it's "every guy"; it's the whole gang. The metaphors here are packed: On the one hand, H and K are drug references (to heroin and ketamine respectively; see LISTED above). On the other, keyed by the presence of Fenway Park on Lansdowne street, they're a baseball reference, to the 'H' notation for hit ( wikipedia) and 'K' notation for strikeout ( wikipedia). This secondary "hit/miss" reading is confirmed a few lines later by hitched to the hits and the misses gettin hitched [LDoL] where the sexual angle is indicated by "hitched"=married ( ahdict); compare The spiderwebs with the legs and eggs and eyes They creep up from behind ... They slip their tongue and they hitch onto their host [ASD] Once the assistant hitched us into the harness The wolves all started actin kinda sheepish Woke up in a bed with a spray-painted mattress Drippin wet with the emotional weakness [YDGK] In other words, as the parties become a habitual thing (see PARTY ZERO VS THE RETURN PARTIES above), the kids end up regularly working their way through the batting lineup (compare "linedance" [Bears]), hoping for a "hit" of drugs (see THE QUEUE below).[*1] ***It's a short hop from attaching "the Fens" to a line about missing the train, to actually describing downtown St. Paul as if it were downtown Boston. This is for the rest something we've already seen Craig do in Hostile, Mass ( heregoes), both in the name of the song itself, and in the reference to Swede Hollow as "the Back Bay Fens" [HM]. ***Similarly, the allusion to Fenway Park via its address on Lansdowne, in Boston, parallels the allusions to the Metrodome via its address on 11th Avenue [11AF] and 5th Street [TFatBF], in Minneapolis, as it slots into the list of Nice Nice stadium metaphors (see NIGHTCLUBS above). ***A final note on names. There are two streets in the Boston area with almost identical names barely a half a mile apart: Lansdowne Street (spelled without a D) flanking Fenway Park in Boston, and Landsdowne Street (spelled with a D) across the river in Cambridge. The name of the song is Lie Down On Landsdowne, with a D, but the Cambridge street is not the one that's meant (unless the ambiguity is deliberate, in allusion, say, to the empty industrial character this street had back in the early 90's). As is obvious from context as well as the interview, Craig means the one in Boston. In fact, the spelling of "Lansdowne" is often confused, not only because of the actually existing "Landsdowne," but because of its fame (in baseball broadcasts and Boston advertisements) as the place where balls hit out over the Green Monster in left field "land." It's possible that Craig --- whose "errors" in naming the the Pantheon, Sonoma, Modesto, etc. are deliberate, but who's a pretty indifferent speller --- is making that mistake himself; but it's just as likely that he means to refer to the "landing" (compare Entitlement Crew) of coming down after a hit.
[*1] The definition of "hit" as a puff, tablet, injection, etc. of drugs ( gdict, ondcp) probably doesn't need documenting, but the definition of "jag" as an 'extended drug spree' ( gdict, ondcp) is likely to be useful for parsing the closing lines of the song.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Feb 26, 2021 13:17:09 GMT -5
Just dropping by here to express the obvious, how much I love this walkthrough.
I'm currently on a run of beers, and also re-listening to every Hold Steady album in chronological order, and the amounts of "corner(ed)" popping up is pretty astonishing, when you're aware of it.
I know you quoted the most clear line from YLHF, but it's worth mentioning it also has "some nights the bus wouldn't even stop", just to rub it in.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Mar 1, 2021 4:31:34 GMT -5
What about "Europe," "Greece," and "Coney Island" in Sublet? The one to start with is Greece; the full text is and i got your postcard, it was from the pantheon it was the first peek at greece that i'd had in weeks [Sublet] There's an obvious problem with this, namely that the Pantheon is in Rome, not in Greece. Craig has been accused before of geographic illiteracy --- of intending "the Sonora" when he wrote "the Sonoma" [MoC], some Southern California city when he wrote "Modesto" [MINTS], etc. --- and here too the obvious thing is to suggest that he meant the Parthenon, not the Pantheon (see for example the genius.com comment: link). But no; as in those other cases, Craig knows exactly what he's doing. That he does mean the Pantheon here is confirmed by the characterization of the clubs as "domes" in Sherman City, and by the other ongoing references to Rome that we've catalogued upthread (see THE FIRST FIVE TRACKS above). The Pantheon is, and for almost 2000 years has been, the largest unreinforced concrete dome in the world: In short, the Pantheon = dome = club = Nice Nice. If "the Pantheon" is deliberate, the next question is, why "Greece"? That had me stumped for some time, until, in an offline message, muzzleofbees suggested to me that it's a pun: "Greece," pronounced "grease," is the home of the "greasers" of Bruce Bender (like the cosmetics metaphor, this is a riddle whose solution is deliberately provided in the context of the same album; see PHARMACY GOODS above). [*2] Now that I finally know the lyrics for ODP well enough to get my thoughts sortet, I remembered this little gem, which I think proves I was onto something with the Greece/grease thing Smoking at the swimming pool, combing out the grease She showed me the postcard he sent from overseas
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Post by skepticatfirst on Mar 1, 2021 10:59:57 GMT -5
Now that I finally know the lyrics for ODP well enough to get my thoughts sortet, I remembered this little gem, which I think proves I was onto something with the Greece/grease thing Smoking at the swimming pool, combing out the grease She showed me the postcard he sent from overseasThat's awesome. I hadn't noticed that but you're clearly right --- the "postcard" seals it.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Mar 1, 2021 11:07:47 GMT -5
THE GREATER TRIP DOWNTOWNWith the unpacking of the Landsdowne metaphor, other ambiguities clear up quickly. For example: i'm sick and tired of being stranded by the subway trains [TLaDiLBI] We've already worked out (see AIRPORT & LBI above) that "LBI" is The East, the brewery zone. There's no subway train in the Twin Cities, but by overlaying the metaphorical Green-Line-to-Landsdowne route on top of Lake-Street-to-the-brewery, everything resolves into one crisp Twin Cities thumbnail: like Holly, Juanita's "been stranded at these parties" in downtown St. Paul. ***The car becomes a train or a taxi, St. Paul becomes Boston or New York; what's common to all of these framings of the journey is that it's always about taking intoxication-suitable transportation downtown in search of drugs: - a train ("he took the L he went straight to hell" [DMNails], "missed the train and walked around the Fens" [Viceburgh])
- a bike ("bicycle ... Selby and Griggs ... shouldn't have gone down there" [YGD])
- a bus ("crosstown bus" [SPayne], "on this bus ... crosstown ... down to the railroad yard" [LA])
- a car with another driver ("the East End ... her ride" [ILTL], "going down in Lowertown ... taxi to the club" [MPADJs], "called up your guy and when he comes we're going to ask for a ride" [RP])
Then the transportation fails somehow, and the kids get stranded: - a train ("stranded by the subway train" [TLaDiLBI], "missed the train and walked around the fens" [Viceburgh])
- a bike ("knocked me off of my bicycle" [YGD])
- a bus ("some nights the bus wouldn't even stop" [YHLF])
- a car with another driver ("missed your ride from your girlfriends" [ILTL], "waiting on my ride I got jumped from behind" [YLHF])
There are many more references to this trip beyond just the above ("take the train downtown" [SWH], "so hike up your hitchhiking shorts, we're roadtrippin" [MTape], "When the band went into Caravan" [TLTtSTtM], etc.), but this base set serves to establish that there is in fact one fateful trip to which the constantly reframed metaphors refer.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Mar 2, 2021 10:49:51 GMT -5
KIDS START LEAVINGSo far, Party Zero looks like this (see PARTY ZERO above): - The Narrator and his date go to a party/rave with meth dealers from the Scene (the Nice Nice) in the brewery bar.
- The party goes on for a considerable time.
- It's time to leave, but Dwight's not leaving, and they're stranded.
- At some point colored drinks with roofies in them appear, and the couple are knocked out.
- Both kids get raped; the guy gets severely injured.
We know all the lines about how the party goes from ice-cream social nice to something less nice; in THS, we're told that These parties they start lovely But they get druggy and they get ugly and they get bloody [HaRRF] which is accurate, in that it's drugs that turn things ugly. Not that drugs weren't part of the appeal of the party in the first place; but there's a difference between recreational drug use It started recreational [HSL] and end-stage ugly druggy. So how *exactly* did the transition from nice to ugly happen? ***The first change for the worse we hear about is that people start leaving the party. The (Brokerdealer) Do Me Nails version of the events in the corner (see PARTY ZERO above) started with And kids are forming posses but the gunshots got higher velocities and the posses start to shrink and the smoke turns into drink [DMN] The "posses" of kids are defined in connection with parties in Nice Nice (the song): yeah we don't go on dates we go out in big groups [NN] The posses, that is, the big groups out at parties, "start to shrink" as other kids start to leave. These departures are alluded to in a few places: she lost all her friends [FB] missed your ride from your girlfriends [ILtL] everyone left and now the crash is contagious [NN] Unlike the other kids, the Narrator and Juanita are still around, and they're still flying high. But the crash is coming.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Mar 3, 2021 7:37:36 GMT -5
SUCKING OFF EACH OTHERThere is a final positive development we hear about before things go bad, namely that the Narrator and Juanita, still sparkling, and ignorant of the change coming over the party, get sexy with each other. We have to lean on THS analogies to fill out the picture, but the evidence we have is that he goes down on her first, then she goes down on him. ***The opening verse of Sublet, "guess it all started" etc., is about Party Zero, where everything in fact starts. The fourth line of this verse (skipping past allusions to details we haven't considered yet): i put my mouth up against her halo [Sublet] describes the Narrator going down on Juanita. ***We're told about Juanita returning the favor only through comparisons and recollections, but there are a few of these to consider. The first is in Double Straps: i was feelin kinda lucky the queen of spades just fucked me [DStraps] These lines foreshadow the bad shit about to happen; in hearts and other card games, whoever draws the queen of spades is in fact fucked, not lucky at all ( wikipedia). But they're also a literal description of the fact that she fucked him, with a strong suggestion that it was for the first time ("lucky"), and that she as the agent ("fucked") went down on him. ***This reading of Double Straps is confirmed in the retrospective of Sherman City, when the Narrator explains his interest in getting back to "rome" (the brewery bar; see THE CITY above) despite the bad things that have happened there: i know that rome's the place she always goes down on me, and it's not just gravity [SCity] He wants to go back because he wants her to go down on him again. In general, it's the hope of sex that leads him to follow her around the Scene --- he wants to go down on her again, too, regardless of the gangsters there ("jettin off": see SHARKS & JETS above): jettin off to the coast where the girls all taste like toast [MTape] ***Finally, the bad outcome associated by Double Straps with her going down on him ("the queen of spades just fucked me" [DStraps]) is associated by Back in Blackbeard with him going down on her as well: yeah stranded on the couch with the super mario and the papercut tongue from lickin on the centerfolds [BiB] ***The analogies of the LP and THS worlds help to fill out the picture. In the THS story, the LP alpha-couple-go-down-on-each-other-for-the-first-time scene is repackaged into the prom night episode of YGD/MN/OWL. The evidence of these songs ( heregoes) is that the Narrator goes down on her first: 1) he starts with "I was down on my knees" [MN] 2) after which he "hit it again on the south side of the gym" [YGD] ("again" is the key word) 3) where she's led him "onto the field" to blow him [OWL]. To be clear, this is only analogy as far as the LP story is concerned; but it does provide external confirmation of the order of events suggested by coherence. ***Additional THS evidence is found in the Stuck Between Stations opener, which doesn't come with details of time and place, but confirms both the fact of this event and its central importance in the LP/THS order of things: Boys and girls in America, they have such a sad time together Sucking off each other at the demonstrations [SBS] ***It's really been an incredible party. And now the kids are ready to go home.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Mar 4, 2021 9:57:49 GMT -5
LP SHADOWSWe're going to need to finish the LP story before we can give a full account (not only the what, but the big-picture how and why) of all the reuse of LP material in the THS story. But even with what little we've seen so far, important patterns are beginning to emerge. ***Often, the reused LP material is simply adapted for THS by being cut free of its original context and rearranged to form a standalone new story. To take this latest example, we've identified two things that happen on the same night at LP Party Zero: 1) The kids go down on each other (see SUCKING OFF EACH OTHER above). 2) The kids get raped and beaten (see PARTY ZERO above). For THS purposes, these two events are teased apart and rearranged: #1 is written into the 1989 prom night episode [YGD, MN, OWL]. #2 is written into the 1996 metal bar episode [SPayne, BBreathing, etc.]. The story arc produced by this rewriting is *completely independent* of the old one; you don't need to know anything about the LP background to experience these events as organic parts of a new THS whole. For want of a better term, I've thought of these adaptations as "reflections" of LP events in the THS story --- not necessarily easy to see, but visible in the daylight and on the surface. ***In addition to and separate from these "reflections," there is also a steady undercurrent of LP material in THS that is *not* adapted to the new story. The pattern we see here is one of something unassuming in the lyrics --- a bit of concretizing detail, a quip, a commonplace --- that appears innocuous in the terms of the THS world, but that when seen through the lens of the LP story from which it originally comes, reveals a second and much darker level of significance. The experience of these things is of course exactly what is meant by "double take"; but I also want a term for them that describes their relationship to the original LP narrative. Again for lack of a better term, I've called them LP "shadows." ***One example of a "shadow" that we've already encountered is the "stranded" motif (something never worked into the THS story in an organic way, but full of implications for the real situation of the kids). ***Another easy one to spot is the "restaurant raids" of Killer Parties. There are no restaurant raids in the THS story: the cops stopped by when I was opening up [CF] doesn't rise to the level of a raid, and taxmen coming around the back [Knuckles] is mentioned as a hazard of living in the Middle Western States, not an actual plot event. But there are multiple raids in the LP story: here's what happened in the back of the restaurant ... pigs are comin outta the woodwork pigs are comin in through the windows [SWH] the busts they look just like the hey kool-aid commercial [TMS] the pigs came in so forcibly [LQ] The effect of this "shadow," too, is to add dark context to "another lover lost" [KP], but we'll have to wait until we come to the LP raids (see FIRST BUST and SECOND BUST below) before we can look at that. In the meantime, the fact that "restaurant raids" looks back at an LP origin is self-evident. ***The reason for pausing to consider "shadows" as a class here, right after talking about THS prom night, is that Massive Nights is unusually full of them. With what we know now, the "bathroom" and "dance floor" are instantly recognizable as the stage of a darker scene (see BATHROOM STALL and DANCING above). That's scary enough. But the really chilling one is the presiding "chaperone," who now comes into focus as a shadow of the alpha couple's *literal* escort to Party Zero (see THE RIDE above), namely, Night Club Dwight.
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Post by star18 on Mar 4, 2021 14:52:41 GMT -5
was really hoping you were going to tie in the six-legged dog, man.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Mar 4, 2021 19:38:09 GMT -5
was really hoping you were going to tie in the six-legged dog, man. Spam got deleted so this will make no sense to future generations, but: Oklahoma parties hard with puppy's paws (and plenty) ... AND IT ALMOST KILLED ME Edit: captured the same spam when it came up in the General board ...
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Post by skepticatfirst on Mar 4, 2021 21:17:49 GMT -5
To distract from the fact that I started drinking too early for the release party, changing the subject ... Craig just explained (introducing Riptown) that he's got a friend who says he's got a little "Ripzone" going when he throws a party, and that he imagined "Riptown" as "a whole city of ripzones, with like no space between them, like one giant ripzone." That reminded me of what he said about Sherman City ( link): I'd been wondering what Riptown might mean, and then I thought, well, shit; maybe rip is a drug reference? So I checked the ONDCP document ( link), and sure enough: Rip -- Marijuana Rippers -- Amphetamine Riptown = Sherman City!
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Post by tableinthecorner on Mar 4, 2021 21:45:41 GMT -5
That's wild — I thought of the exact same quote, but that etymological aspect of it went way over my head. Speaking of THE CITY, it seems like a convenient time to share this: www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8Gi5EpVehw if you haven't seen it. It's a promo for Hamm's including some footage from the St. Paul "brewery bar" featuring none other than Nick Nolte (of North Dallas Forty), who I believe had some ties to the Twin Cities at the beginning of his career. Maybe a coincidence, but I found it interesting.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Mar 4, 2021 21:57:47 GMT -5
That's wild — I thought of the exact same quote, but that etymological aspect of it went way over my head. Speaking of THE CITY, it seems like a convenient time to share this: www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8Gi5EpVehw if you haven't seen it. It's a promo for Hamm's including some footage from the St. Paul "brewery bar" featuring none other than Nick Nolte (of North Dallas Forty), who I believe had some ties to the Twin Cities at the beginning of his career. Maybe a coincidence, but I found it interesting. Oh man you thought the exact same thing I did! From Here Goes: Back when it was active, Hamm's Brewery had its own bar, called the "Rathskeller in the Sky"; after the brewery closed in the 1990's, the abandoned buildings, including the bar, became the scene of nighttime parties/adventures for local kids. ... <snip> ... Then, there's a fantastic promotional film of the brewery (from the late 60's or early 70's, starring Nick Nolte of "North Dallas Forty" no less!) with contemporary scenes from the bar on youtube: ... <snip> ... Crucially, at 0:29, you can see the "mugs up on the shelves" [GoaH] that used to decorate the bar. This, to me, is one of the convincing bits of proof that we've found the right place; the image is such a strange one, that *any* bar meeting that description is unlikely to be a coincidental find. The actual line from GoaH is "skull mugs up on the shelves"; I'm happy to interpret "skull" mugs as being either a reference to the ghosts of the mugs that used to be there, or else a nod to the "rock and roll club/ painted just like hell"; either way works for me. I've watched the bar scenes from that video frame by frame like 90 times. It's pure gold. The Nick Nolte thing is surreal.
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Post by tableinthecorner on Mar 4, 2021 22:03:52 GMT -5
My bad, I didn't realize you'd already posted it. Might be time for me to re-read Here Goes. I completely agree, that video is a goldmine. Man, the more I learn about this brewery, the more mind-boggling Craig's lyrics get.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Mar 5, 2021 10:03:41 GMT -5
My bad, I didn't realize you'd already posted it. Might be time for me to re-read Here Goes. I completely agree, that video is a goldmine. Man, the more I learn about this brewery, the more mind-boggling Craig's lyrics get. No bad at all! it makes me seriously happy to get confirmation that others are independently following the same trails I am. And Here Goes really was all over the place --- lots of good stuff in there, but I get that it was not exactly optimized for retention. If there's something there that I want to draw on for this thread, for the most part I've linked it in directly; not to discourage you from rereading it, but hopefully that'll suffice. Edit: I hope that Alright Alright is making good on the intention of being easier to follow and retain. I know it's better organized, but it's still a ton of detail to absorb. This whole "Chapter 1" on Party Zero in particular is really long, but at the end (and at the end of every other chapter, too) I've got a post that does nothing but summarize the events of the literal-level story for the chapter in ordered bullet points, which I hope will help to keep it all in clear focus.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Mar 5, 2021 10:24:13 GMT -5
WALK AROUNDBack to the story, after the kids have gone down on each other. ***We're now at the point at which they tell Dwight they're ready to leave, only to learn that they're stranded (we'll come to Dwight's motivation for refusing to go shortly, see NIGHT CLUB DWIGHT below). We get evidence for this in Viceburgh, which refers a couple of times to the kids finding themselves stranded ("missed the train": see THE GREATER TRIP DOWNTOWN above) and then "walking around" the party: [*1] missed the train and we walked around the Fens ... we were hangin around just kickin "walk like a panther" [Viceburgh] In light of this, and having recognized that the THS version of the story is a repackaging of the events of the LP original, it's hard not to draw the inference that this "walking around" moment is the point at which Juanita says the LP-world equivalent of I'm gonna walk around and drink some more [PP] ***There is of course no record of Juanita, the LP character, having said any such thing. But we do have Craig's own commentary on this line, and his description makes a strong case for connecting it to her. In his 2014 interview with The Rumpus ( link), he says: We can break this summary down in detail: 1) The "bad place" is the brewery bar. Note the special emphasis on having "gone" there; a deliberate trip was required (see THE RIDE above). 2) At this point in the LP story, the Narrator and Juanita are still "seeing" each other (they "br[eak] up" only a little later in the party [SdS]; see DAWN below). 3) The lyrics have "She's going walk to around" in the song, and "I'm going to walk around" in the final chorus. Craig quotes the line as "we're going to walk around," with "we" rather than "I," like in Viceburgh; but he also clearly puts the girl at the center of the action, and she's the one who says it. 4) It's "really sad," because it's the last moment in the party, and in Juanita and the Narrator's relationship, where things are still good, before everything comes crashing down. That "seeing someone," the emphasis on "gone to a bad place," and the fact of "walking around" fit the LP Party Zero circumstances perfectly, in notable contrast to the fact that there really isn't a good way to make them fit the THS story. Even if we allow "gone to a bad place" to be a reference to the THS metal bar party, the "walking around" aspect of the party is missing, and an emotionally laden "seeing someone" doesn't fit at all (Mary is technically attached to Gideon at the time of the party, but their relationship is a transactional one, with no potential to be "really sad" about it). We've seen this same strange overlay of THS/LP framing once already with Craig's "very simple story" (see THE RIDE above); this quote too appears to be a case of Craig trying to summarize some aspect of the *THS* story for an interview, and ending up framing things in terms of the underlying *LP* story instead. ***As far as understanding the actual THS line in the context of the actual THS story is concerned, I do still think we have to decouple the line from Craig's interview comments and attach it to its proper place in the new story (which, again, is not the metal bar party, even though that's the principal reflection of Party Zero in the THS world). The song Party Pit itself first places the line after the kids crash the car into the Har Mar mall entrance; they've been drinking in the car, so that's a plausible reading ( heregoes). But I also believe there's a shadow of Juanita's *original* statement in the THS canon, namely in the reference to "the last time that she talked to me" [TLTtSTtM]. The first words of TLTtSTtM are literally "walked around," and the "last time" fits perfectly if "I'm going to walk around and drink some more" are understood to be her last words before the breakup, and worse, that follows (we've already noted Party Zero echoes in "When the band went into Caravan" [TLTtSTtM]; see THE GREATER TRIP DOWNTOWN above). There'll more to be said about this, and about the appearance of strong LP framing in TLTtSTtM, as we move ahead (see THS CHARACTERS below). [*1] "Walk like a panther" is a reference to LL Cool J, who's not only expressly credited with the quote from "Mama Said Knock You Out" (1991) in Cruised And Accused Of Cruising: she said hey my name's juanita but the guys they call me ll cool j cause i been here for years and you can't call it a comeback if you never even been away and i ain't never been no place [CaAoC] but is alluded to twice more via "Going Back To Cali" (1988) on the album "Walking With A Panther" (1989): i can't go back to cali, stuck in milwaukee [TCMaMG] we were hangin around just kickin walk like a panther [Viceburgh] Like other musical allusions, this one is metaphorical: the Narrator is "kicking 'walk like a panther'" in the sense of "acting like a gangster" (see RATS & CATS above).
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Post by skepticatfirst on Mar 8, 2021 9:51:54 GMT -5
ROOFIESJuanita does, in fact, "walk around and drink some more"; from the retrospective sadness of this line, we understand that the drink in question is the drink that somebody's spiked. ***The exact substance she's hit with is ambiguous; the sheer range of knockout drugs appearing in the lyrics (see LACED SUBSTANCES and LISTED above) gives quite a few to choose from. But the following points argue in favor of "roofies" [NN]: - Mentioned by name in the song Nice Nice, roofies are the best-known 90's-era date rape drug, and have become a generic term for such drugs (compare "roofied": link).
- Roofies are manufactured with blue dye to make them detectable in drinks (wikipedia); Juanita's drinks are blue/purple colored ("purple drinks were dynamite" [PSunglasses]; "her tongue it turned blue from the tropical drinks" [SdS]).
- A documented side effect of roofies is anterograde amnesia (wikipedia), of which Juanita exhibits signs ("said you might remember pretty soon" [PSunglasses]; "she said i don't quite know what happened" [ILtL]; "she can't remember where she slept last night" [SSC]).
***On the strength of "those purple drinks were dynamite/ i woke up" [PSunglasses], we've noted (see PARTY ZERO above) that the Narrator is hit with a knockout drug along with Juanita. That he's hit with something is certain; whether he drinks the purple drinks is a different question. His remark that the purple drinks were "dynamite" doesn't actually state that he drank them; "dynamite" here is a laced drug term (see LISTED above), which is also associated in the song Half Dead And Dynamite with the Narrator's different and more definitive statement, "somebody must have slipped me a sherman" [HDaD]. So while the insistent linkage of the alpha girl to colored drinks and the poignancy of "I'm gonna walk around and drink some more" make a very strong case for Juanita drinking a roofied drink, the drug served to the Narrator remains ambiguous, pending further consideration of the evidence. In the meantime, let's survey the additional evidence for the administration of these drugs with date rape intent. *** the positive youth's shootin hoops slippin roofies in your jungle juice [NN] The "positive youth" are the gangsters, with an ironic allusion to straight-edge sexual abstinence (compare "they've got a hardcore scene and no straight-edge bands" [MTape]; wikipedia; link). "Shootin hoops" suggests "scoring" of another kind, apart from landing a roofie in a glass. We noted above that "jungle juice" (see LACED SUBSTANCES) is slang for marijuana, which fits the "sherman" framing; but the suggestion of tropical-green juice also fits the "her tongue it turned blue from the tropical drinks" [SdS] / "purple drinks" [PSunglasses] pattern of unnaturally colored drinks. *** the punch is spiked, the soda's flat [DStraps] Here "soda" is a drug reference (see LISTED above), one linked by "sucking off a soda" [Bears] (see THE BEARS above) to the rape. *** and the crazy fruity drinks you made, the grey goose and the gatorade [TMS] Again, there's emphasis on the unnatural color of the drinks ("gatorade"). "Fruity" perpetuates the tropical/jungle theme and also makes a slang allusion to homosexual activity, seen more clearly in "flappers and fruits" [PJ] and "Barfruit" [BBlues] in THS (for "barfruit" compare "kooks in the kitchen" [EC]). In the 2000 Mike Daily interview, Craig characterizes the Nankin (one of the LP "clubs," i.e. the Nice Nice; see NIGHTCLUBS above) as a shady place where "you would get a fruity drink" ( link). ***We've already observed that Double Straps is an account of the Narrator going down to Party Zero and getting assaulted (see PARTY ZERO above). Knowing that, we can see now what's happening in the opening lines: well i came into the city the buildings made me dizzy [DStraps] The buildings are the brewery complex (see THE CITY above); he's dizzy from being dosed with a date rape drug. ***Like roofies, "mickey" is explicitly connected to sex: she put those lips like a leech up to the sex on the beach sandy, sticky, baby, mickey did the miss you [LiaL] ***The "sherman" too is connected to a "dance" in the sense of sex (see DANCING above): last dance and somebody must have slipped me a sherman [HDaD] The ONDCP definition of "dusting" ( ondcp): Dusting − Adding PCP, heroin, or another drug to marijuana makes the following lines a clear allusion to a "sherman" (a joint laced with PCP) as a date rape drug: And I've been dusted in the dark up in penetration park ... And I've been plowed [YLHF] ***The song Nice Nice has other allusions to knockout drugs apart from "roofies": hey bright eyes are your synapses dimed that's not just cork that's floatin round in your wine the drinks taste like pantene, the visine wipes clean all the bad dreams [NN] This description is interesting, because it starts to blur the line between victimhood and volition. The "cork floating around in your wine" is detectable, according to the Narrator, if you're paying attention; the amnesiac effects ("wipes clean all the bad dreams") are actually desirable in that they help wash away the memory of the sex (see THE FOAM above). In other words, this sex is presented as rape, but also as something that is part of an exchange wilfully entered into. Which brings us back around to THS. ***In THS, references to the roofie-laced drinks emphasize the kids' role as agents as well as victims, for example: we got dosed ... we put our mouths up to some dangerous drinks [SM] Here "we put our mouths up" puts the kids in the driver's seat, and also alludes to the sexual fallout, like Juanita's she puts those lips like a leech up to the sex on the beach sandy, sticky, baby, mickey [LiaL] where put our mouths up : puts those lips up :: dosed : mickey and the emphasis on the sex is even more explicit. ***In the THS world, there's a consistent emphasis on the fact that Mary *likes* the drug-fueled gangbang sex (long discussion beginning at heregoes). This emphasis is so strong that, in the Here Goes thread, I took the following lines of 212 Margarita at face value: and I believe in salt along the rims of the glasses, 'cause that makes us thirsty, and when we drink then we all fall in love [212M] without even suspecting the roofies subtext; but it's abundantly clear now that that subtext is there: The stuff that they put in the punchbowl tonight Makes it too hard to pay much attention [TSTux] Mary's green margaritas, with the emphasis on the unnatural color ("first Al Green and then Barry White" [CSunrise]), are Juanita's purple/blue tropical drinks (compare the suggestion of green in "jungle juice" [NN]). The additive "margarita mix" [BBlues] and the "salt" [212M] (meth rather than a knockout drug, but meth is what this all leads to, see LISTED above) on the rims of the glasses correlates with the "cork" [NN] floating around in the wine, placing these margaritas in the "sherman" category of laced substances. ***Two other close connections between the THS and LP drinks confirm this analysis: vodka ice and gatorade [C&N] replicates "the grey goose and the gatorade" of the "the crazy fruity drinks you made" [TMS]; both have the unnatural color of gatorade, and "ice" like "salt" is a meth reference (see LISTED above). In the middle of a mission I met Esther in the kitchen Drinking something blue. It looked like Windex [Esther] Here, back in the kitchen where we started, we make a return from green margaritas to the blue drinks of LP. It's a constant theme of both stories. ***In short, this was a second major Here Goes whiff: just as I failed to take note of the evidence of homosexual sex in the THS narrative, I failed to take note of the evidence of roofies and rape, which are in fact equally present in both LP and THS. This means, among other things, that Mary getting "pinned down" at the Party Pit *does* mean *both* that she got high (like "pinned" in Chillout Tent) *and* that she got raped (compare "the knife fights always pin me down" [TGatSD] in light of the suggestion that stabbings in LP refer to rape; see PARTY ZERO above). Note, finally, that the volitional ambiguity is emphasized in both stories, though to different degrees: Juanita's unsympathetic reference to the Narrator's "karma" [SBackwards] is an early precursor of Mary's kitchen scene admonition that "this is just what we wanted" [RP].
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Post by skepticatfirst on Mar 9, 2021 8:18:36 GMT -5
MAGICIANSo who spiked the drinks? ***The opening line of Nice Nice answers the question directly: night club dwight can take a negative vibe and infuse it with the positive youth [NN] "Infuse" here is used literally in reference to the act of spiking a drink ( ahdict); "the positive youth" are the same ones described a few lines later as "the positive youth shootin hoops slippin roofies in your jungle juice" [NN] (see ROOFIES above). ***While slightly less explicit, Secret Santa Cruz puts the finger on Dwight as well: dwight's a magician, he gets sensible people makin' terrible decisions [SSC] What that "magic" consists in is alluded to a couple of times in THS. ***In Milkcrate Mosh, Gideon appears as a magician waving his cigarette "magic wands"; the implication is that, like shermans, the cigarettes are laced with "lit tips," where "lit"='drugged' ( ahdict; ondcp), inviting the recipient to an obviously sexual engagement in "suck on this": We were smoking to the drinking songs off Talking Songs for Walking. Waving Marlboros like magic wands. Listen up closely to the lit tips of your cigarettes. Can't you hear the serpent hiss? Saying, sweet baby, suck on this [MM] Note the shadow of the Party Zero scenario over the opening line: - "smoking": shermans.
- "drinking": roofies.
- "talking": "It was the last time that she talked to me" [TLTtSTtM] (see WALK AROUND above).
- "walking": "I'm gonna walk around and drink some more" [PP] (see WALK AROUND above).
***A second shadow of this moment darkens the THS prom scene in Our Whole Lives. The verse in which the Narrator goes down on Mary is interrupted by a dose of something "magic" from one of the other kids at the dance (for the "magic backpack" containing drugs, see DRUG SLANG above): Bang, bang, bang goes the backing track Some kid's coming around with a magic backpack I didn't know that you could dance like that I'm gonna have to ask you to take two steps back [OWL] Confirmation that sexual terms "bang" [OWL] and "dance" [OWL] (see DANCING above) refer to the Narrator going down on Mary is shown by the parallel account of this moment in Massive Nights, where "two steps back" [OWL] maps to "dancing too close" [MN] ( heregoes): I had my mouth on her nose When the chaperone said that we were dancing too close [MN] This parallel between the OWL and MN verses connects the interrupting "magic" kid with the interrupting "chaperone," who we've already identified as the shadow of Dwight upthread (see LP SHADOWS above). Similarly, the parallel between "some kid" in verse 7 with "some kid" in verse 4 connects the "magic" kid with the "saxophone" kid, who we identified as the visionary presence of Charlemagne in Here Goes (via the Hostile Mass sax-solo connection: heregoes). Charlemagne, as we've begun to observe in this thread, is substantially a THS reworking of the figure of Dwight (see THS CHARACTERS IN LIFTER PULLER? and STRANDED above). The "magic" kid who breaks up the alpha couple with his dose is animated by the shadow of Dwight. ***Dwight is the chauffeur who wouldn't let the kids leave, and who's going to have screwed them before the party is over [TS&tT] (see THS REVISITED and THE RIDE above). There's a backstory to his actions that we'll come to at the end of our handling of Party Zero (see NIGHT CLUB DWIGHT below); but in the meantime, the unifying thread isn't hard to see. It's Dwight who hits them with roofies to set up the rape.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Mar 10, 2021 10:15:59 GMT -5
WALKED INThe next thing we're specifically told about is this: the guys in the bathroom wanna meet my girl in the backroom [MTape] Juanita's intoxicated and under the influence of roofies, but she's not *really* high yet. This is the moment when Dwight, armed with the "strong stuff" [SPayne] and an offer of "something new" [LGI, MINTS], invites her to accompany him and three of the gangsters into the bathroom (see the "Jingle the keys" table in BATHROOM STALL above). [*1] In this, the original version of "gonna have to go with whoever's going to get me the highest" [HH], Juanita follows them into the bathroom stall, and blows them. ***The Narrator, who's also been "roofied" and isn't thinking clearly, sees them going into the bathroom together. So what does he do? He walks in after them, only to discover Juanita in the stall surrounded by the four guys (see BATHROOM STALL above): i walked into the walk-in cooler [SWH] i walked into the walk-in cooler, i bought in to the three day bender [MTape] walked into the bathroom and found the 4 horsemen [4Dix] The Mick's Tape line marks this, appropriately, as the moment when the Narrator becomes a full participant in the unfolding apocalypse of the "three-day rave" [PSunglasses]. ***The characterization of the guys in the bathroom with "you" (Juanita) as "four dicks" makes clear what the focal activity of the scene is, but there's more detail in the lyrics, especially under "pestilence": pestilence presented us with a kickass pen and pencil set it was excellent pitch a tent for pestilence, pitch a tent for pestilence [4Dix] where "pitch a tent" is slang for "get an erection" ( gdict), and " pen and pencil set" are the penises presented en masse for blowing. Note too that the object of the "presentation" [*2] here is no longer "you" but "us": the Narrator --- standing on the threshold between "Too many cracks in the bathroom" [EC] and "Too many kooks in the kitchen" [EC] --- is about to be drawn into the rape. [*1] That it's Dwight who jangles the keys and invites Juanita to the bathroom is consistent with his having hit her with roofies (see MAGICIAN above), but I'm going to spread out the actual evidence for that claim from here through the end of our Party Zero investigation (see NIGHT CLUB DWIGHT below). [*2] Note that this use of "presented" [4Dix] to mean "presented his dick for servicing" is still in evidence on ODP 20 years later (for "hit" used of sex, see SUCKING OFF EACH OTHER above): Another Sunday night locked in the bathroom Obsessing over minor abrasions And some local legend let her pick up the check Then he hit her with his whole presentation Be careful of the second location [Riptown] The "bathroom," to which Juanita goes with whoever's going to get her the highest ( link) is the original "second location" of the LP story. (Layered under Craig's multiple meanings are others: there's a "second location" where, sadly, she won't go [Lanyards], and another where she does go and, like at Party Zero, gets "stuck" [Riptown]. But we'll come to these later.) The "presentation" of The Prior Procedure is a little more obscure, but here too we recognize the lay of the land in "blew smoke" (see CASH MACHINE above), "nails"=spiked joints (see LISTED above), and the gangster "shark" (see SHARKS & JETS above): When we showed him our hand stamps He blew smoke on our nails Pointed out the projection A powerpoint presentation Of the chum and the shark He said it's just a reminder Love will tear us apart In this case it's not Dwight, but a particular gangster character who's dangling "chum" in front of the alpha girl in a demonstration of the weakness of the bonds of love ("gonna have to go with whoever's going to get me the highest"); but we'll come to this episode too as we get further (see SHEPARD'S MANSION below). With respect to the "presentation," note that it's "pointed," and note that it's made from the "power" side of the drugs-for-bjs covenant with someone powerless. I'm not sure a footnote is the right place for a 20,000-ft take on what's happening with all of this hot-off-the-presses material, or that it isn't too early in the thread to make this point. But I hope it begins to be evident that there truly is a "very simple story" underlying everything we're seeing here. The expanding THS universe, heaped to the heavens with modernities and superpowers and vaguenesses and scrambled sketches, is, all of it, the product of obsessive meditation on a prosaic original tale of specific, concrete things that happens to a couple of ordinary people. It's the story of Lifter Puller, and it's the lens that's going to bring everything else into limpid focus.
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