Animal Boy (1986)
I decided to rearrange all the displays at the Exchange today. Or as many as I could before the late crowd showed up. The city’s full of tourists this time of year, out and about for late evening performances or some shit. Culture. We’re the only place open at nine o’clock at night that doesn’t sell food or booze. Apparently, that makes us browse worthy for those killing time between some fancy dinner and some even fancier event.
People with nothing better to do but to spend money. Whatever.
The displays. So, for weeks now, we’ve had ‘Swing the Heartache - The BBC Sessions’ by Bauhaus on display above the rock/pop ‘B’ row. The cover is muted greys and blues. Its of this spiral staircase, I guess it’s the inside of a lighthouse with the photo having been taken from the base, looking up. And there’s this figure at the bottom of the staircase, shadowed and blurry like he’s out of focus or running. Running up out of the shadows towards the spot of light at the top of the stairs.
Every time I look up from some work at the counter, my attention just gets sucked into this photograph. I stare at it and stare at it, and for no real reason. Its not like the guy at the bottom is going to start moving, but I keep expecting him to.
And I’m never going to figure out why he’s running.
I can’t decide if it’s away from something or towards something. And why? What could there possibly be at the top of this tower that could save him or protect him or hide him? What help could a dead end possibly be? And why does he need it so fast, so desperately?
The mystery of it has been dangling in front of me for weeks now, teasing me mercilessly. I finally got fed up. I’m wildly frustrated by it, but I’ve come to accept that I just do not have enough clues to piece together the events leading up to that still frame, and even less to guess the chain of events that followed.
It’s just a fucking posed picture that turned out well, which is how it made the cover in the first place.
It is now buried in the racks and replaced by BTO’s Greatest Hits. A wholly boring and non-distracting cover.
Work has been consuming me. I’m prepping for the quarterly inventory night at the Exchange right now and summer is the busiest season over at the Ink Spot.
I swear to God, if one more thirteen year old strolls through the doors to get their belly-button pierced, then lies to my face about their age and parental permission, I’m banning them from the shop. I’ll get a Polaroid camera and post all their pictures by the door under a sign saying ‘PROSTITOTS - FUCK OFF’
I had some angry mother in the other day, harassing us for tattooing her daughter. The kid had come in with her father, so as far as we were concerned parental permission was given. The harpy couldn’t do shit and was taking it out on me. Bitching about how me had “permanently tainted the skin of an innocent girl”. Like I actually give a shit about her ‘sweet-little-girl’ turned ‘perfect-product-of-the-pop-art-culture-machine’ getting Daddy to let her get ‘Princess’ in pink swirly letters with sparkles inked into her ass.
I heard the best comeback to that today though, in fact, it's probably one of the best perspectives on tattoos I’ve heard in a while.
“A tattoo is only as permanent as I am.”
Thank you Ani Difranco for saying it so much better than I’ve ever managed to. Even though I doubt angry mothers will ever be placated with the concept of transitive physicality in the face of infinite nature.
But that leads me to my album of the day.
Tendonitis was the cause behind the two year break we had between Ani DiFranco's beautiful ‘Knuckle Down’ and latest offering, ‘Reprieve’. 'Reprieve' showcases far more mellow playing on Ani’s part, I guess she’s taking it easy and I’d rather she did that than injure herself more. The mood is very heavy, sorrowful more often than not and very steady, dependable. There’s also a marked return to feminist messages that were always very present in earlier years as well as some more politically charged statements. Both things that were a little scarce on 'Knuckle Down'. Lyrically, I think she may be at her best yet, each piece on the album wrenching my soul in a way that only select tracks on her former recordings managed to do.
The track of choice is ‘Decree’. It fits well with my grievances towards the world today.
[OOC So, good news (I hope >.>). I have a home computer and internet again so I have taken up my favorite, though most demanding, character once more. Any and all wanting to plot or log with Tem (seeing as we've had a few cast changes since I've last played her) hit me up on AIM (catevaporated) or email me (banana.soap@gmail.com). Also, sorry for not posting the mp3 directly, my connection is sloooooowww and not a fan of uploading :/]