Bone of Contention

Twenty years ago, I wanted to be in Fishbone. Not Fishbone per se, you understand. A dorky, white, Midwestern goober would've fit in with them about as well as a giant radioactive lizard. But a Fishbone-like band -- one that played ska and punk and funk and rock and any other kind of music they pleased -- would've suited me to a T.

There were a bunch of bands like that at the time, actually. In the Midwest alone, you had Johnny Socko, The Pacers, The Siren Six!, MU330, Wild Kingdom, Gangster Fun, The Urge and Blue Meanies. And those are just the good ones I can remember off the top of my head. There were a thousand horrible ones I've forgotten, most of them with names like The Kooksters!!! and Ska & Order.

In fact, I just remembered: I was in one of the horrible ones, briefly kinda-sorta. We were called The Mennonites and we existed as a band for about a year, during which we practiced five times and never managed to play a gig at all. (Hence the "briefly kinda-sorta" and the fact that when I began this post I truly had forgotten I'd been in a band.) I played the trumpet horribly and sang even worse. Our last practice was our best. I'd written a new, terrible Operation Ivy ripoff, and I got to jump around shrieking the lyrics for an hour, playing front man for the first and last time in my life. Then I went outside, threw up in the gutter and spent the next three days in bed.

Was it the flu or the only appropriate response to the sound of my own "singing"? We'll never know. 

(O.K., we will. I had the flu. Still -- I'm sure my singing didn't help.)

In hindsight, I'm grateful that I sucked so hard at the thing I wanted most to do: make music. Because when I finally gave up and sold my cool black trumpet to a dude in a mariachi band (no joke -- he showed up to get it in his rhinestone-studded outfit and sombrero) the thing I turned to next was writing. For about seven seconds, I thought I might move to L.A. and try to break into television, but I'd heard enough about writers' rooms and studio notes and network Standards and Practices to find the idea simultaneously terrifying and nauseating. So I started writing short stories instead. A mere 10 years and a million rejections later, I was a published novelist. Good thing I'd ended up barfing that one day or I might not have turned my back on music, and then where would I be?

I started thinking about all this after watching the new-ish documentary Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone. It's a fascinating film whether one's partial to ska-punk-funk-rock or not. Sure, it follows the trials and tribulations of one specific band, but most of the things that tear Fishbone apart -- egos, iconoclastic (and conflicting) artistic visions, corporate shortsightedness -- are also faced, in one way or another, by every creative person you admire. It's not just musicians who'll watch Everyday Sunshine and nod knowingly and groan, "Oh, yeah...that crap." It's writers and directors and actors and painters and sculptors and mimes. 

Well, maybe not mimes. They get to live in little invisible worlds that they create themselves. If a mime says there's a wall in front of him, dammit, there's a wall in front of him. He doesn't have to mime-argue with a mime-designer about how tall and wide it should be and whether to use mime-bricks or mime-plaster to mime-build it.

I'm not jealous of the guys in Fishbone anymore (though it would still be fun to have even the slightest sliver of their musical talent). I think it's the mime who appeals to me more now. Not that I'm going to slap on greasepaint and start working on my walking-against-the-wind routine. I just like the idea of one imagination creating something and offering it up to the world, with no second-guessing or bean-counting -- no one else's crap -- getting in the way.

Time to stop beating around the bush and say it: I'm thinking about ebooks here. I just finished my next novel for a traditional publisher and I love it and can't wait to tell you about it, but it took me a year to nail down the deal and it'll be another year before the book comes out. What am I going to do in the meantime? As much as I can, that's what! I'm not going to bog myself down with more pitches and proposals and crap when I can go Marcel Marceau on your ass!

Well, not on your ass. More like Amazon's ass.

Wow. This whole mime metaphor just turned horribly awkward. Let's drop it and go back to music.

No, I'm still not a musician. But maybe I am finally ready to rock.

UPDATE: My old pal/fellow Mennonite Shyloh Wideman has popped up to let me know there's a recording of the song I sang so hard I puked. It's called "Kid," and it's online here. That's not me singing it, though: It's Shyloh with his post-Mennonites band Evil Villain Types. Listening to "Kid" again after all these years, I think it's obvious I was destined to become a writer. That song's got waaaaaaaaaaay too many words....

Comments

[Adam McFarlane]

Do you have any details on a possible e-book? I'd love to read anything you have to offer!

[Shyloh Wideman]

Glad you found your muse but that song did live on and your songwriting was sorely missed! Played it in the Evil Villain Types (EVT) ska band out in Seattle up through 1998. You can check out the 1995 demo tape version at http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=283708. Was sick when we recorded but with not quite the after-session repercussions that you had. ;) - Shyloh

[Steve]

Thanks for asking, Adam! I've got a new story collection in the pipeline as well as (finally) a print edition of Naughty. I'll be giving both a soft launch in the near future, with subscribers to my e-mail newsletter getting a heads up first and the rest of the world clued in a couple weeks later. I've also started my first original-for-epublishing work: a novella I hope to have ready by early summer. After that...well, I've got a ton of ideas, and it's hard to say which one I'll run with next. It's a brave (not to mention kooky) new publishing world out there, and I'm trying to stay flexible!

[Steve]

Thanks for the link, Shyloh! It's good to know that the song lived on after my barf-fest. Horrible a singer as I was, it would've been great to perform it at an actual gig just once. Sigh....

[Jeff Q.]

This is great news! More Hock at a faster pace is always a good thing. Any hope of revisiting your Indiana characters? I'm blanking on her name, but I always enjoyed the adventures of the girl Christmas elf. Kind of a Midwestern Veronica Mars. Good luck in your ebook adventures!

[Steve]

Funny you should mention the Midwestern Veronica Mars (a.k.a. Hannah Fox), Jeff. She just made her return in a short story that'll pop up in an anthology later this year. And I've been thinking about the book I wrote about her years ago. It was my first stab at a novel and it was as flawed as first stabs can get, but I still love the premise and characters. Perhaps a rewrite is in order....

Oh, and my next collection includes a megadose of River City, Indiana, home of Hannah Fox and various other characters you might remember from my AHMM and EQMM stories. Stay tuned for deets!

[gutenbergsson]

The Hannah Fox stories were favourites of mine while reading Naughty! I'll be waiting for that next anthology with bated breath.

Okay, well, seriously, I need to breathe, so I'll be waiting with anxious anticipation. Yeah, that sounds healthier.

The idea of a book about her is something I'd buy into.

[Jeff Q.]

A novel that's already written and just needs some sprucing up? Sounds like a great ebook experiment! And since I'm not a writer I'm sure any sprucing is no big deal...

[Jonathan Turner]

Oh, you sly devil, you. Sneaking a phrase like "I just finished my next novel for a traditional publisher" deep in the post is bad enough, but then telling us you can't tell us about it? Must you taunt us so? Do our admiring glances, our pleading looks, mean so little to you?

Perhaps think of yourself as Rhett Butler, eyes rogueishly a-twinkle, toying light-heartedly with our fancies. Faugh, I say, faugh! Permit me to I warn you, sir, that this sort of behavior puts you in peril of being ... yes, I dare say the word ... a cad. Perhaps even a bounder, if that's not too strong.

[Steve]

I don't mean to be a scalawag, rascal, blackguard or rogue, Jonathan! I'm just being cautious. I'll fill folks in once all the publishing ducks are in a row. If I'm lucky, that'll be soon. If I'm not so lucky...well, those publishing ducks can be mighty hard to herd.

Thanks for the thumbs up to the Hannah Fox novel, Jeff and G! The "sprucing" would probably take me two or three months, which is the hangup. So many ideas, so little time....