The Dirtbag Vernacular [Original Novel]

ENTRY 30

On a Sunday I’m at the Art Institute doing a little painting and after an hour or so in the painting studios I get restless. I go down to the maintenance shop to take a look at the latest Bay Area Music magazine. I run into Jimmy Taylor on the way and he heads down to the shop with me. His girlfriend he had moved to S.F. with had been messing around on him and things are really in a bad state. I sit on the faux leather couch looking at some advertisements in Bay Area Music as Jimmy explains his situation.

“Man my girlfriend’s off with some other guy this weekend... It’s fucked up.” He starts. “They went to Napa. She’s tryin’ to make a decision between me and that Enrico fuck, this visiting artist she’s doin’ a tutorial with.”

“That’s really fucked up.”

“Yeah, last night I’m all tossin’ and turnin’, just really messed up. Ya know, put a condom on, jerk off some, take it off, give up on it, go to the fridge slam a beer, go back to bed, hug the pillow.”

“Well I might be goin’ down to San Jose to look at some amps. You can go with me if you want.”

I had gotten a retroactive pay raise for some reason or other and my check had come out to thirteen hundred and eighty dollars. This is almost double my pay and the money is burning a hole in my pocket. The idea of buying a new amp temporarily helps me escape my painful situation.

“Yeah, might as well,” Jimmy answers then continues, “Well anyway, I was pretty pissed off this mornin’. I came straight here lookin’ for some pussy. I walk into the photo department, go to the check out booth and practically yell at the attendant, ‘Which darkroom is Jude in!’ You know who I mean? Jude, with the big tits…? Well, I made out with her at a party here up on the roof right after me and Shelly had moved here from Virginia. She’s always here on the weekends... So I march right upstairs to her darkroom, knock on the door and bam! Walked in and gave it to her right there. Just bent her over the exposure table and drilled her from behind for a good fifteen minutes, then turned her around and came all over those big tits... I still feel like shit though.”

We head off in the Peugeot south on the 101 to a music shop in San Jose that’s having some kind of a sale.

An hour later we walk into a fairly large music store. We’re surrounded by manifold guitars: basses, electrics, acoustics, and lots of amps. I cruise around for a while taking in the visual pleasure of everything. A burgundy Les Paul Junior, a couple of Gretschs, and a whole line of Fender Telecasters. I tempt myself with the idea of buying a brand new Fender ‘65 re-issue Twin Reverb, the most legendary guitar amplifier of the rock n roll era. It’s a little out of my price range so I pass it up.

I decide to try out a Marshall. It’s actually what I’ve come here to check out. The idea of the sound of my Gibson grinding through that Marshall has been stuck in my head since I saw an ad for it on Thursday. I get a guitar off the rack, the closest one to mine that the shop has. I plug it into the big beefy head of a JCM 900 half stack and turn it on. There isn’t any distortion whatsoever, just a twangy sound. I adjust the dials turning the gain, bass, and treble up all the way. Now things sound good. I rip through a couple of Seizure Boy songs for a few minutes before switching to some cow/punk songs I’ve written over the past couple of years.

Heads start to turn. After a couple of minutes of this Jimmy comments, “I don’t think they ever heard anything like that before.” Most of the folks in these stores are what me and Frank refer to as ‘guitar heads.’ Long-haired wannabe rock stars playing complex boring leads as if bullshit guitar-heros. The hillbilly punk shit is a bit odd to their ears.

I try a Telecaster through the Marshall. I really like the mixture of twang through the big power. Frank and I have planned for some time now to put together some kind of a hybrid side project band since New Orleans. This sound would be perfect for it, but will have to wait.

I am fully convinced that I want a Marshall. It’s eight hundred for the head, which is the most I can spend today. It’s another six hundred for the cabinet. I won’t be buying that till later. I take a look around at other cabinets, cheaper ones that are the same size as the Marshall. I notice a relatively small Marshall setting on the floor with a sales tag on it. It also is a JCM 900 but this one is a combo amp meaning that the lone speaker, in this case, and the head are all in the same chassis. I try it out. It doesn’t sound quite as bad-ass as the half stack, which has four speakers, but it still sounds pretty good. I can always add the cabinet later.

The total comes to eight hundred and sixty-seven dollars. I carry the heavy thing out and place it in the backseat and we head back to S.F.


Photo by Hoffacurse