"Intoxicated F-ckheads" by Tim Lieder (Fiction Extra)

Play it loud. Sell out. Turn a trick and die broke or rich. Don’t worry.

There are no wizards, few mirrors, and memories of magic snow. In these halls, dark vocals fuck the microphone. The beer holds your hand. Ian Curtis is hanging before the television. Elvis slouches to the toilet. John Lennon runs through town with the tampon on his head. The bullet began his life at forty. Patti Smith yells at God. God pushes her off the stage.

Music chokes like the back of a whiskey dive. Charlie Parker plays and heroin gives him a small glow. Miles Davis' glare burns. Notes fall to the sticky floor like Robert Johnson. Pieces of Buddy Holly, Stevie Ray Vaughn and that bass player from Metallica decorate the walls.

The Rock & Roll Tarot deck is impossible to read. There is no Merlin, no Tiresises. The glam rockers don't tell fortunes. The Lovers are Sid & Nancy. Janis Joplin is partying with Jim Morrison’s bloated corpse. Jimi is puking.

Scream your audience’s anger. Let them worship and condemn. You need a legend. Talent alone won't do it; you need deification; from a poster your face stares at a 15 year old kid with acne on his forehead. You will tell that girl with the fucked up death obsession that she’s not a freak, until that's her thing. You’ll never meet her, but she loves you.

Every day the world throws a few more rebels into soup. They heard the radio transmission from Manchester, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Detroit, Whiskey-A-Go-Go when that meant something. Working class fuckers in Manchester dance dance dance to the radio.

It’s not the way you sing or fuck, drink or write. It’s not the guitar. It’s not the drums. You can’t stay out of control forever. They remember you glorious on the same whiskey, heroin, and life; just fucking throw it all away. Play it loud. Sell out. Turn a trick and die broke or rich. Don’t worry. Old people can hear you and remember fucking when their parents were at work.

Our folk tales have turned to shit. Dragons make poor shades of Charlie Parker's saxophone. The wizards, coyotes and princesses have died in Anthropology class. We come to you – hippies, groupies, punks, goths, hardcore, Beatles and Joy Division - to worship powerless before legends of jazz, legends of Rock and Roll, and all the assorted dirtbags. Rave! Hip! Rap! Devil music. We’ll play you on our car stereos. We’ll play you at the office. We’ll play you in our lonely rooms and one day we will hear you in cruise ship commercials. Sing for us. Die for us. And then please fuck off.

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Post-Script: I try not to comment on old fiction when I post it here, but this one was written pretty early and while I’m still happy with it (surprised that I still like it), I think if I wrote it today, I’d probably bring up Kanye, Kurt Cobain, and Amy Winehouse. I might even talk about how Axl Rose was destined to die young but turned his aggressively destructive youth into a happy fat guy. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Axl Rose is a cat.

Also I doubt I’d write something like this today. When you’re young, a rock star dying at 28 seems mythical. It was a strange moment when I reacted to Amy Winehouse dying at that age with “that poor kid.” Also romanticizing substance abuse is pretty evil, even if it is popular. I kind of say it in the story, but I went in remembering my high school hero worship of Jim Morrison.

So yeah, I need money. Still looking for paid writing gigs or really anything now. Please get a paid subscription or donate to my gofundme, if you like me.

I feel this calls for a link to Substance Abuse Anonymous.

Finally, I published Michael Hemmingson (who died of substance abuse) in BADASS HORROR. Feel free to buy a copy.