Dear Sir,

I am writing to inform you that I have photographed you without your permission. As I do not know your name or current address, I ask that you, my subject, identify yourself.

This photograph of you was taken on Monday, October 29, in Braunschweig, Germany. I took this photograph around 11:00 p.m., or 23:00 in 24-hour military time ubiquitously used throughout Europe. You were standing outside a concert venue called Nexus in a light, but penetrating rain (the precipitation accounts for the snowy distortion in my photograph) speaking German. My band had played this venue earlier in the evening to the delight of a small but enthusiastic audience. I believe that you attended the show, but did not watch my performance. There is a foosball table at Nexus, and I suspect you whiled away most of the evening in friendly foosball competition with your friends and their numerous dogs.

When I photographed you, I was wearing a brown, knit watch cap, a green, overpriced jacket/blazer from Urban Outfitters with too many pockets and zippers, dirty blue jeans, soaked Ben Sherman canvas sneakers, and somewhat pretentious fingerless U.S. army surplus gloves. Perhaps you saw me? I am a 5′8″ (1.542 m) , 140 lbs. (63.6 kg), 30ish bald white male “indie rocker.” You are slightly taller than me and about 50 pounds (22.7 kg) heavier. You were wearing a camouflage pair of slacks, a camouflage shirt that did not match your camouflage slacks, an enormous chain (for use as a weapon or bicycle lock?), a black shirt with a red star on the center (you are a Communist, perhaps?), a grandmotherly blue scarf, a goatee, and dredlocks. You were also drinking a beer. Though I do not wish to associate you with any subculture before speaking with you, your clothing, numerous dogs, beer, and devil-may-care attitude makes me suspect that you are a crust punk (a.k.a gutter-punk, a.k.a. speed punk) and may be a devotee of crusty punk music and the crusty’s marginal lifestyle.

As you may be aware, a photograph is the unreliable digital or filmic record of an elusive moment in time. Because human lives are composed of innumerable such moments, I cannot expect that you will remember when I photographed you. However, in the hopes that you have access to the Internet (a.k.a. the world wide web) and, through some set of circumstances I cannot imagine, stumble upon my photograph of you, I now post this photograph and hope you can confirm that you are the subject and I am the photographer. I take these steps in the hope that you will remember the elusive moment my photograph records and, if you live, declare yourself. For, though my photograph achieves art without your consent, said art cannot transcend mere voyeurism if I never communicate with you or learn your name. In my life, I have heretofore espoused democratic, participatory art forms (”DIY” punk, weblogs, and, rarely, journalism). I despise the fictional barrier between “artist” and “subject” and, since I have made art out of you, must now seek to know you. In fact, I would have spoken to you after photographing you, but had to hide in my band’s touring van when I heard from a third party that you and your friends were not happy with my picture-taking. Thus, though I failed to make human contact before, I wish to make clinical, digital contact now. Email correspondence will suffice.

Thank you for your time. I hope to hear from you soon.

Sincerely,

Justin Moyer
Writer of the WeBlog “Iceland”

“There are many sad people in Berlin,” commented the promoter of my band’s Berlin show. It’s no wonder—all happy Berliners have relocated to Leipzig, where former Communists merrily play foosball (see above) in dirty basements before enthusiastically demanding that punk bands from the United States play multiple encores. Though the basement-cum-rock venue I visited in Leipzig was poorly heated by a wood-burning stove, Leipzig showgoers did not care. They wanted their dose of American punk rock, no matter how low the temperature.

Some sample comments from Leipzig:

1. “Your music blows my mind!”
2. “Your band played for too short! For too short!
3. “You must play Leipzig again!”
4. “I would like to buy all of your records!”
5. “Would you like these vegan crepes I prepared?”
6. “Come visit my record store! It is housed in a building that used to be a squat, and sells homemade peppermint soap lovingly manufactured by a Leipzig artisan!”

Meanwhile, in Berlin, times were tough. Though my band’s show in Berlin was “better” than Leipzig—that is, sounded better, paid more, and was attended by more people—the audience was a bit depressed. Not sad, or hostile, or unresponsive—just touched by ennui.

Some sample comments from Berlin:

1. “Your music is okay.”
2. “Strange—you played two encores.”
3. “My rent is very expensive.”
4. “When the Berlin Wall stood, one could stand in on the top floor of an apartment building in the former West Berlin and wave to those exiled in the former East Berlin.”
5. “This veggie burger is 7 Euro.”
6. “I love existentialism.”

Of course, comparing Berlin and Leipzig presents extraordinary statistical obstacles. Berlin is an international capital, one of Europe’s five grandest cities. Leipzig is a small university town. Berlin has been flooded with Americans, and English is spoken everywhere. Leipzig is most decidedly German. An friend of mine once made a living in Berlin DJing, throwing parties, and playing shows. Meanwhile, at least one avid music-maker I met in Leipzig was living off of the dole. How can two urban areas with such radically different populations, economies, and social miens be meaningfully dissected with social science’s crude vocabulary and blunt instruments of analysis?

This is the realm of art, and the bailiwick of poetry.

“I promoted your show in Prague,” remarked the unidentified promoter of my show in Prague (tall man pictured above). We sat in Club 007, where my band had just played a show.

“Hello, sir,” I replied. “Might I point out that you are enormously tall?”

“Perhaps,” the promoter shrugged. Glancing around Club 007, I noted that I was the shortest person in the venue. Now, I am not very tall. Still, in any given room, I expect to be of average height. But because I was the shortest person at Club 007, logic dictated that taller-than-average people patronize Club 007, and, perhaps, that humans living in Prague are taller than humans who do not live in Prague.

“Why are there so many tall people in Prague?” I queried, testing my hypothesis.

“Are there?” the promoter replied. I silently wondered whether Prague’s citizens had evolved. One theorist recently postulated that average human height will reach seven feet. Since the promoter was non-committal on the height issue, I decided to initiate a new topic of conversation.

“How goes Club 007″ I asked the promoter.

“Wonderfully!” the promoter replied. I thought to remark that “Club 007″ is cheeky name for a Czech punk venue. After all, Club 007 is the basement of an enormous, Soviet-era apartment building, and its name is ironically borrowed from the James Bond, that most bourgeois of international secret agents. However, I remembered that Club 007 is actually in Building 7 in the aforementioned Soviet-style housing complex. Thus, Club 007’s name is also its address, and its name is deadly serious.

“Has business at Club 007 improved since Western capital’s invasion of the former Soviet Union?” I queried. “Or have patrons tired of the novelty of so-called punk rock and, using MySpace and ITunes, moved on to new cultural frontiers?”

“Not at all!” the promoter answered. “I find that Club 007 and ‘the scene’ are in better shape than ever!”

“Really?” I remarked. I could not remember the last time a concert promoter had said anything remotely positive about anything.

“Yes,” the promoter replied. “You see, technology has improved access for artists in all media. This is a good thing! I would say that people are more connected, informed, and eager to make and consume art than ever before. For example, I run a record label. One of our bands recently toured Russia. Touring Russia is difficult. Visas are hard to obtain, and it is a money-losing prospect. Our band was harassed by cops and generally put-upon. But it was a great adventure!”

“Your positive outlook shines in a weary world,” I admitted.

“Indeed,” the promoter replied. “I recently became a father. At first, I thought I would not be ready. I thought my parental responsibilities would infringe upon my aesthetics. Now that I have a child, I see what I should have seen all along—that whether my art quote-unquote succeeds or quote-unquote fails is immaterial! Freed from expectation, I am open to happiness!”

I considered the promoter’s outlook and recognized its perspicuity. Then, a showgoer asked how much one of my CD’s cost. I spent three minutes on the conversion from dollars to euros to Czech crowns. “The CD is 300 Czech crowns,” I finally managed.

“What kind of strudels are these?” I asked. A very considerate woman had just walked backstage, uttered a few choice German phrases, and departed, leaving two strudels in her wake.

“We do not know,” answered a Austrian member of the Austrian opening band (pictured above). “It is a surprise.”

“That’s the kind of strudel I like,” I remarked. “Strudel surprise.”

“Go ahead!” exclaimed the Austrian. “Cut into the strudel!”

“Me?” I replied. “I should cut the strudel?’

“Yes, you,” the Austrian replied. I surmised from his authoritative tone that, in Austria, it is the role of the guest to cut the strudel.

“But what can I expect to find in the strudel?” I queried.

“The woman who brought the strudel says that one is spinach and cheese,” the Austrian admitted. Previously, the Austrian had withheld this information. However, I did not point out the Austrian’s awkward failure to disclose. “The other is composed of vegetables,” the Austrian further elucidated.

“But which strudel is which?” I asked.

“That is for you to find out,” the Austrian replied.

“All right!” I exclaimed. “Let’s bring an end to this game of wits and see what these strudels are, quite literally, made of.” I reached for a knife that a thoughtful person had laid beside the mystery strudels for cutting purposes. The knife was heavy in my hands. I pushed the knife into one of the strudels. The strudel dough gave way before my knife. Steam rose from the strudel, filling the room with an earthy, cuminesque smell. I salivated. I swapped my knife for a spatula that a thoughtful person had placed beside the strudels for serving purposes. I then served myself a piece of strudel and tasted it.

“This strudel is the vegetable strudel,” I informed the Austrian. “Logic dictates that the other strudel is spinach and cheese. I am a vegan and do not eat cheese. Thus, it is up to you to see if logic carries the day.”

The Austrian nodded, picked up the knife I had just cast aside, and fell upon the uncut strudel. As I had predicted, the second strudel was composed of spinach and cheese. Logic had carried the day!

I turned to my bandmate. “This strudel is a cut above the Entenmann’s apple strudel on which I was raised,” I remarked.

“Yes,” my bandmate replied. We sat in silence for some minutes, eating strudel.

“I cannot complain about Austria,” I observed after some time. “Audiences have been friendly, if not as friendly as German audiences, and promoters have been enthusiastic about our aesthetics, if not as enthusiastic as Germans. However, I continually find that, when writing or thinking about Austria, my thoughts and comments begin and end with food, which, in Austria, is always delicious, and always available.”

I thought my bandmate offer a rejoinder to my observation, but he contined to eat in silence. I assumed that my bandmate was not in the mood to converse. Thus, I cut myself a second piece of strudel and ate it without speaking.

The would-be graffiti genius that recorded the non sequitur above on the bathroom wall at Kapu in Linz was neither a trendspotter nor a trendsetter. After all, similar non sequiturs can be found on bathroom walls from Tallahassee to Timbuktu. But not all the graffiti that adorns this storied punk venue—a fine grand dame nestled a mere ten minutes walk from the very river memorialized by Johann Struass, Jr. in “The Blue Danube” (1867)—is so easily forgotten. Kapu’s history is, quite literally, recorded on its walls.

This charming drawing depicts a stereotypical Austrian gentleman sporting lederhosen and a cap, the traditional garb worn by denizens living in and around the Alps. This Austrian gent is portrayed “rocking out” on a keyboard, to humorous effect. Because I am an uneducated American, I thought the gentleman pictured was “simply German.” The promoter of my show at Kapu informed me that Austria’s connection to Germany is more complex—Adolph Hitler, before establishing himself via the Beer Hall Putsch as H.N.I.C. (“Head Nazi in Charge,”), was a would-be art student starving on Linz’s streets. Linz held a special place in the Fuhrer’s heart—he planned to retire to the peaceable burg with his mistress Eva Braun after he had conquered the Allied Powers and established the 1,000 Year Reich. Indeed, the building that now houses Kapu was once home to the Hitler Youth. But, as has been documented elsewhere, Hitler and Braun killed themselves before reaching retirement. In the wake of their leader’s suicide, the Hitler Youth disbanded, making way for a soon-to-be-discovered Nirvana to perform at Kapu for 40 people in 1989.

“The Apollo Program” is a complex piece notable for its many levels of ambiguous meaning. When I first viewed “The Apollo Program,” I laughed—by depicting the lily-white pioneers of American spaceflight as African-American, I thought the graffiti wryly commented on institutionalized racism and, indirectly, the digital divide. I judged “The Apollo Program’s” sophisticated double entendre—the signifier “Apollo” denotes “Showtime at the Apollo,” a long-running television talent showcase featuring many African-American contestants—quite able. However, when I examined “The Apollo Program” a second and third time, I wondered if the artist had really intended to depict “African-Americans.” Perhaps my premature conclusion betrayed my own nascent racism? Further internet research reveals that “Super Inframan” is the name of a film produced in Hong Kong. Thus, I must admit the possibility that those figures depicted in “The Apollo Program” are Asian. Such a compositional choice is no less funny—though, by making this observation, I again reveal myself as racist.

This is the graffiti “tag” of innovate San Francisco MC “Aceyalone.” Once a member of the too-often overlooked Freestyle Fellowship, Aceyalone struck out on a solo career and met with some success, but not enough success to preclude the possibility that he has played Kapu. If he has played Kapu, I must conclude that Aceyalone tagged the walls of the club with his own hand. If this tag is the handiwork of Aceyalone himself, I must applaud his choice of placement. The vast majority of Kapu’s graffiti is black Sharpie on white concrete. Aceyalone chose to express himself with black Sharpie on metal—specifically, the back of a doorjamb. His choice makes his tag stand out—“Aceyalone” is one of the most visible pieces of Kapu’s voluminous graffiti collection. However, if this “Aceyalone” tag is not the work of Aceyalone, but of some imitator or fan, I must decry the piece as a forgery. Anyone who is running around Austria writing “Aceyalone” who is not Aceyalone himself needs a better hobby. (Of course, this observation comes from a man who has spent many hours evaluating this “Aceyalone” tag’s authenticity.)

“There were some vegan min-muffins here,” my bandmate informed me. He lay prostrate on a leather couch backstage at a German venue, face covered with crumbs of unidentified origin.

“Vegan mini-muffins?” I repeated. My band had recently fled Southern Europe, where free, promoter-provided “Southern food”—bountiful feasts of expertly seasoned meat, steaming bowls of pasta, and dewy vegetables freshly plucked from salty Mediterranean gardens—had fueled gutsy performances of our innovative brand of postpunk music. Now, we were in Germany, gorging ourselves on free, promoter-provided food from the five basic German food groups—sugar, starch, potatoes, potatoes, and chocolate.

“Vegan mini-muffins,” my bandmate repeated.

“You say there are vegan mini-muffins,” I replied. “And I cannot disbelieve you. I arrived in Germany on Monday and have been here less than 48 hours. In this short time span—all told, less than 3,000 minutes—I estimate that I have had fourteen meals. Dinners of apfelschorle (sparkling apple juice) and strudel; banquets of unnamed potato matter and unidentifiable potatoesque gravy; snacktimes that paid tribute to the Rittersport and Coca-Cola corporations; horns-a-plenty packed with chips, pretzels, Snickers bars, crepes, cheese, wine, water (still and “with gas”), peaches, almonds, tea, bread, honeydew, Nutella, lunchmeat, and rarely, if ever, a green vegetable. But can the German cornocopia be stuffed vegan mini-muffins as well?”

“They were just here,” my bandmate teased. “Now they are gone.”

“The case of the missing mini-muffins!” I exclaimed. “Muffins, but in miniature.” I proceeded to tear through every food item in the backstage area. I found peanuts, bananas, and choco-bars. I found an onion, some Rice Krispies, and another onion. I found rice, mushrooms, assorted spices, seitan, a bottle of olive oil, and a tomato. But, after fifteen minutes and much rustling, I had no mini-muffins.

“Can’t find the vegan mini-muffins?” my bandmate inquired from the depths of his food coma.

“No mini-muffins,” I replied. Resigned, I flung myself upon a nearby leather couch. The couch groaned “squeak-squeak.” Squeak-squeak is the the sound of my failure to locate my vegan mini-muffins, I thought. I closed my eyes and heard the droning, distorted guitars of the opening act, Germans who played a distinctly American form of “positive” hardcore punk rock. This band’s “posi-core” compositions sought to inspire drug-addled, TV-addicted youth towards leftist political action. Upon hearing the impassioned singer plunge into another anthemic chorus, I was struck with a lightning bolt of inspiration—I could solve the case of the missing mini-muffins after all!

I leapt from the leather couch and strode to the garbage bin. I proceed to sort through the contents until, after some minutes, I retrieved an empty package of mini-muffins.

“Found the mini-muffins?” my bandmate inquired.

“I have solved the case of the missing mini-muffins,” I observed. I quickly scanned the ingredients, and struggled with an unfamiliar word. “Milchpulver,” I managed.

“Pulverized milk,” my bandmate replied from the couch. “Also known as powered milk.” He licked his lips. “Guess those mini-muffins weren’t vegan after all,” he observed, turned over, and fell asleep.

Partial transcription of live audio recording. Unnamed “Performer” at Nouveau Casino, Paris, France, 21.10.07, tentatively identified as Justin Moyer, 30-year old white male, 5’8”, 140 lbs. brown eyes, brown hair.

Peformer (P): Hello Paris!!!!
Crowd (C): (silence).
P: HELL YEAH! Baby, get ready to rock!!!! (guitar tuning sounds)
C: (silence).
P: OWWWWWWWW!…Uh…(guitar tuning sounds)…I see you exhibit that particular French disinterest in all things unfamiliar…but that’s groovy baby…
C: (silence).
P: OWWWWWW! All right! Well, where to begin…(guitar tuning sounds)…We are very late to the show tonight…you see…we drive from Barcelona…CAN YOU UNDERSTAND ME???
C: (silence)
P: All right! So, we understand you have been waiting for two hours for us to play! Well, we’re gonna rock your socks off! Yeah! We’re gonna rock your brains out and your balls off! Balls to the wall boogie babies!
C: (silence).
P: All right, baby! But before we rock (guitar tuning sounds)…let me tell you all about our drive. Goddamn, were are late! You must think we’re real…how do you say?…assholes?
C: (silence).
P: Uh…(guitar tuning sounds)…well, let me tell you about last night. What a story! Well, last night we drive from Barcelona to a hotel in Montpelier, France. Barcelona is nine hours from Paris, and Montpelier is three hours from Barcelona. Thus, Montepelier is six hours from Paris. That’s simple subtraction baby! THAT’S HOW WE ROCK AND ROLL!!!
C: (silence).
P: All right! (guitar tuning sounds) But somehow, when we wake up, we realize that Montpelier is NINE hours from Paris in traffic. That makes us three hours behind schedule, baby! Not only that, but I can’t tell the promoter how late we are! Because…dig…I don’t know anything about Paris traffic patterns…you know? Yeah!
C: (silence).
P: So anyway…we are late as hell…even though our crazy Czech driver drove us on the highway shoulder to get here, risking the wrath of the French authorities. By the way, can I get someone to say FUCK authority! Can I get some applause for the French Situationist Revolution! 1968 baby!
C: (one lone voice) The International! The Situationist International!
P: All right! We got one convert! Don’t be scared of the simulacra, baby!
C: (Silence).
P: Okay. So…(guitar tuning sounds)…anyway…as I was saying…we were late. So, when we get here, Monsieur Soundman is like, “You will use zee other band’s backline.” For those without a technical background, that means we should use the other band’s gear. Because that gear is already set up, dig it? So I was like, “Okay, baby, that’s cool, we’re punk, baby.” But then, when I get to the stage, I see that the drumset is set up on stage left. For those without a technical background, that’s the left side of the stage. So I say to Monsieur Soundman…”Hey…Monsieur…baby…we’re punk…but can we like move these drums to stage center, baby?” So Monsieur doesn’t like this, and starts to frown….so, I say, “Hey, Monsieur, turn that frown upside-down, you’re a French cool cat, just let us do our thing, just let us move them drums and hit it, baby…I mean, we’re really cool cats with advanced aesthetics, dig?” And Monsieur and I almost come to blows, you know? But then he realizes I’m a 100% true American…how you say…zee formidable John Wayne style…
C: (silence).
P: All right! (guitar tuning sounds) So eventually Monsieur comes around…so we move them drums and get all set up, and now we are ready to ROCK. ROCK in the USA with the drums stage center! Cause stage center is where we Americans like our drums! Just like a real rock band, like the Stooges, like the MC5, you know…garage rock party U.S.A. drums stage center! Kick out the jams!!!!!!!!!!
C: (silence).
P: All right! (guitar tuning sounds). So we’re just about ready to rock here. I just wanted to explain our lateness…because, you know…just as he walked away, Monsieur Soundman says to me, “Hey, Mr. American John Wayne style, you are very late, zee crowd is pissed, so tell zee little joke to the crowd about why you are late, you know, lighten zee mood baby.” So I said, “All right Monsieur, I dig it. I roll with that because that’s the John Wayne style!” So I thought of a joke to tell you before I rock your French asses off, John Wayne style…cause I’ve been in a van for 10 hours, and I’m a comedic genius! DO YOU WANT TO HEAR MY JOKE?
C: (silence).
P: All right (guitar tuning sounds)…my joke goes like this…I say to the angry crowd…”Hey, wanna know why we’re late?”…and you say…
C: (silence).
P: Well, at that point in the joke, the angry crowd would say, “What?” And I would say…”Well, we’re late because we spent all afternoon and evening becoming French citizens, and the paperwork is a bitch!” HA HA HA HA HA! (music begins)

“You will find that Barcelona sits astride the mountains and the Mediterranean,” my friend informed me. She carried both U.S. and British passports, and had recently relocated from New York City to Barcelona to escape the Big Apple’s noisome je ne sais quoi. “If you walk uphill when in Barcelona, you are walking away from the sea. If you walk downhill when in Barcelona, you are walking towards it.”

“I admire Barcelona’s subtle, poetic psychogeography,” I replied. “But aren’t Spanish identity politics frightfully complex?”

“Indeed,” my friend replied. “Many who live in Barcelona speak Catalan, a romance language with both Spanish and French roots. Those who live in Northern Spain—specifically, the hardy Basque region—speak Basque, a unique language whose origins remain shrouded. Thus, Spain-as-nation-state is reductive syllogism. When discussing the quote-unquote ‘Spanish people,’ one must always recognize the importance of regional power-structures.”

I considered my friend’s thesis. “I intuit, then, that you have moved to a Spain where, in fact, there are few quote-unquote ‘Spaniards,’” I commented.

“Your observation is correct,” my friend conceded. “Broadly.”

“I further understand that an Olympic Village was built in 1992 when Barcelona hosted the Summer Games,” I noted. “In addition, I understand that Los Angeles-based architect Frank Gehry constructed an enormous peix—that is, a fish—as part of this project.”

“In 1992, all the world was a stage,” my friend quipped, “but Barcelona was the featured player.”

“But now—fifteen years later—what is the function of the Olympic Village?” I inquired.

“Well…” My friend squinted at me. “I’m not sure. I believe people live there.”

“Do you know any of these people—these alleged Olympic Village residents?” I persisted.

“No,” my friend admitted.

“Aha!” I exclaimed, moving in for the kill. “So, you then concede that Gehry’s enormous postmodern fish is an empty cipher—the articulate, but simultaneously vacuous symbol of a fictional, citizen-less, would-be ‘international’ city reeling under the burden of hyperreal globalization?”

Unfortunately, my friend had no time to reply to my pointed challenge. At that very moment, I was called away to soundcheck at Heliogabal, a Barcelona speakeasy where sixty music enthusiasts were waiting for my band to “hit.” Will the audience tonight be real, or hyperreal? I wondered. Rustling in a warm breeze off of the Mediterranean, Barcelona’s limp palm trees offered only a melancholy “hiss” in reply.

Overhead at a bar (pictured above) in Sant Feliu, Spain:

A Gentleman of Sant Feliu (GSF): You see this girl, here?
Me: Si. She is American. Listen. She speaks English.
GSF: No, she is English. But listen. She speaks English.
Me: I will listen. Si. Si, you are right.
GSF: So, the English girl here is talking to this guy.
Me: Yes, but first she was talking to you. I saw you talking with her.
GSF: Yes. I speak English—that is how I hook her.
Me: Si. All she wants is someone to speak English with. Low expectations.
GSF: Si, but now this other gentleman has stolen her away.
Me: Well, you must steal her back. These are the rules of love.
GSF: I cannot. He is my friend and I play in a band with him.
Me: How could your friend treat you this way? He has stolen your girl.
GSF: I don’t know. Also, he has a wife and a child.
Me: He is behaving without honour.
GSF: I know. But it is against my honour to interrupt him. I am no Spanish Latin lover. I am not the slave of my emotions and my loins.
Me: But you are Spanish?
GSF: Si.
Me: But don’t you know your friend’s wife—if he is your friend, and plays in a band with you?
GSF: Si. My friend’s wife is the friend of my ex-girlfriend.
Me: So then you know your friend’s wife. So you must prevent infidelity. So you must steal the girl back. You have moral justification.
GSF: Ah, it’s none of my business. I do not care about my friend’s wife. No, my friend’s wife hates me. Hang her!
Me: In America, we have a name for what your friend has done.
GSF: What?
Me: Cock-block.
GSF: Block-cock?
Me: No, cock-block. Like an obstacle. Your friend is the obstacle between you and the English woman. He is the cock-block.
GSF: Cock-block. Cock-block. Cock-block.
Me: Si. Americans are full of expressions. ‘Cock-block’ is one such expression.
GSF: Cock-block is against honour.
Me: Si. A cock-block is a very dishonourable maneuver, but is frequently employed by both men and women, in America and elsewhere.
GSF: The dishonour of a cock-block is unacceptable. Especially for me. I live by the bushido code.
Me: Si, bushido. Si, the Japanese. A storied people with a strong sense of honor.
GSF: The bushido sense of honour is very strong. Cock-block is not bushido.
Me: Cock-block is not bushido, nor is cock-block Zen.
GSF: Have you heard of the American actor Marlon Brando?
Me: What?
GSF: Marlon Brando has written an autobiography. You know?
Me: Yes, I have heard of Marlon Brando’s autobiography. He was an unusual man.
GSF: Marlon Brando says that in a situation where he wants to fuck a woman, but must fuck a man to get closer to the woman, he will fuck the man.
Me: Si. Marlon Brando was bisexual. A controversy in America. This autobiography sounds like the documentation.
GSF: No. Marlon Brando was not bisexual. Marlon Brando was bushido. This is what bushido says—you do what you need to do to get the job done. Even if something is disagreeable, it is part of the job. So do it! So, Marlon Brando says, ‘I want to fuck this girl, but I must fuck the man to fuck the girl. So, though maybe I do not want to, I fuck the man.’ This is the Brando bushido way, and the way of honour!
Me: Marlon Brando’s autobiography sounds like a must-read.

“Josef K” (pictured above—not his real name) was a regular teenager suffering under the Communist fist in Cheb, Czechoslavakia. I know much suffering existed in Cheb because, in 2002, I played a show there, and refused a young boy’s offer to sell me cocaine or his body—he did not specify which. But this is not my story.

One day, by mysterious means not recorded in history books, Josef K obtained a cache of hardcore punk rock records. Though his vinyl collection was the product of a decadent Western culture and strictly verboten behind the Iron Curtain, Josef cultivated a passion for hardcore punk rock bands like Born Against, the Nation of Ulysses, and the Gorilla Biscuits. Though he could never see these capitalist poppets perform unless they played an illegal, underground show in the Communist East, Josef K loved hardcore punk rock will all his heart, and all his soul, and all his might. Then, in 1989, a miracle unfolded: capitalist revolution came to what soon became the Czech Republic and, like 1,000 hungry locusts devouring 1,000 virgin fields of grain, hardcore punk rock bands flooded Josef K’s home country.

Though Josef K was not a musician, he longed to participate in “Czech’s” burgeoning hardcore punk rock scene. Josef K needed the scene and, as it turned out, the scene needed Josef. After relocating to a fashionably Bohemian Prague address, Josef K continued collecting records and began booking bands. But hardcore punk rock needed more than another Czech booking agent. Instead, idiot American bands seeking to spread capitalism throughout Eastern Europe needed someone who was not an idiot to drive them around and show them European ways. And so, Josef was called to drivership.

To become a driver of bands, Josef K secured a driver’s license. And Josef quickly learned English. And Josef drove fast. And Josef drove well—not superbly, but passably. And, if the van needed to be parked in a sketchy neighborhood in Rome or Barcelona, Josef slept in it. And Josef rarely stopped to eat. And Josef rarely, if ever, urinated.

So, you may ask—where’s Josef K today?

Well, Josef K is still driving! Of course, he is a bit burnt out. Sometimes, his tongue his sharp. And, sometimes, he grumbles. But Josef is not afraid to share his opinions:

On the popular English pop quartet “The Beatles,” who I count as a musical influence: “Bullshit.”
On X-Men 3, of which I am a fan: “Bullshit.”
On Annie Proulx’s Accordion Crimes, which I am now reading: “What is that bullshit?”
On promoters in Zaragosta who are enthusiastic about Leftist causes and the success of the Cuban experiment: “Marxism is bullshit, and the alleged success of Cuba is paid for in blood.”

So, if you see Josef in his native Czech environs or at a rest stop in Italy, Spain, France, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Slovenia, Croatia, Turkey, Sweden, Finland, Norway, anywhere in the United Kingdom, please be kind. Remember: Josef K has survived Communism, capitalism and, by his own accounting, nine months on the road every year from 2000 to the present. That’s 72 thankless months—6 years—shepherding irresponsible American musicians who can’t pay rent on time or complete 30-day outpatient programs through the crumbling Old World, and Josef only has a bushy emo beard to show for it!