New Website and My Fake ID

I'm going to try to reel in my disgust over the Super Bowl and not subject you to a rant about how my friend Mike in Miami is right, and after Brady went all Hollywood, he hasn't won shit.  On the biggest stage, with a chance to seek revenge against the Giants and that mole-faced little bastard Eli who ruined his chance at perfection four years ago in the desert, Tom Terrific was anything but.  I am sickened and disgusted, and reminded of something my granddaddy once said to me and one of life's great truisms: sports will only break your heart, boy.

(Oh, and fuck you, Wes Welker.)

But the good news is...the new website is here!  The new website is here.  And here it is: http://www.joeclifford.com/.  Very important.  Starting tomorrow, this is where you'll also go to find the blog.  You can still type in the old address, which will direct you here anyway.  The only issue might be if you use an RSS Reader (whatever the fuck that is).  My webguy says that if you do you'll want the new address.  So there you go.

Pretty cool new graphic, eh?  (Thanks, Zenaida!)  Don't worry.  The content is not going to change.  Candy and Cigarettes is still committed to bringing you the very finest in goofy You Tube clips and funny cat pics.  But we wanted to look, y'know, more professional and shit.  Some of the features should make your life easier. Like, for instance, you can just leave a comment now without having to sign up with a Google account.  Which is pretty cool.  Gone, too, are some of the bells and whistles, the MySpace-like glitter of a tweeny girl heavily crushing on the Beibs. Which is long overdue, really; we're all supposed to be grownups here.  (Though I am sad to lose the flames.  Fire is cool.)

So take a look around the new site.  Let me know what you think, or what you hate. I think it should be a lot more user friendly, with greater accessibility to my work. Hope you agree.  If not, I can fix stuff, since it's all been converted to Wordpress, which means I no longer have to rely on others to do my updates.  It's all about self-sufficiency.

*

We had a Super Bowl party on the hill yesterday.  Lots of people.  Tons of food. Which might've been cool if the Pats won.  But they lost.  What could've been a joyous celebration quickly turned into: Who the hell are all these people and why are they eating my food?

Got a couple cool mementos from my past, though.  One, Noah, who played guitar in my first band in CT, Something Like Paisley, brought a burned disc of our long-lost college rock classic So It Goes (still one of the best memories of my life was driving down the Berlin Turnpike at 18, flipping through the stations and hearing one of my songs [the cringe-worthily titled..."Electric Sun."  Good tune.  Awful title] on the radio.  Trinity College's WRTC.  But still).

I've been getting the rough mixes of these from our old engineer in Connecticut, Jeff, who has been painfully pulling the songs, track by track, off nearly 20-year-old, disintegrating 1/2" tape, importing the tunes into some modern, space-age software for a later mix down (it's like living in the future).  But what Noah brought over is the original record, in all it's intended, power pop shimmery glory, which he dug out of his mom's attic on a Christmas trip back east.  It's the first time these songs have been heard (as originally mixed) in probably close to a decade.  I am going to remaster all this shit later and put it up on iTunes.  Best music I ever made. Seriously.  Which is really, really depressing if you think about it.

The other trinket delivered was further proof that I, too, was once young.  My first fake ID.

                                                                 Now that is a crisp, flinty glow!

Rich found it in his stuff at his house.  He must've used it too at one point.  (And, no, we never really looked alike, except in the way that all clean shaven, angelic 18-year-old boys all look the same.)  The funny part about my having a fake ID is I didn't drink.  Like, at all.  Didn't touch a drop of alcohol until I was 21 (and within the year I'd be addicted to meth.  Which is a lesson to all you parents out there.  It's all about moderation). What did I need a fake ID for?  Fuck if I know.

The name on the ID belonged to Chris Judd, my co-frontman in Paisley, who would go on to develop schizophrenia and swell to close to 400 lbs., becoming a shut-in.  I haven't spoken to him in over a decade either.  It's a shame.  He was a great songwriter and singer, and more importantly, he was a good friend.  A much better friend to me than I was to him.  (What else is new?)

Finding old pictures of yourself like this presents a weird sensation.  On the one hand, I am obviously younger (and ridiculously feminine looking.  I mean, seriously, I've dated women who weren't as pretty as that).  Yet...this is still what I see, for the most part, when I look in the mirror.  Sure, I catch the wrinkles and gray, the ravage of the hard years, but when I look into my own eyes, I still see a 16-year-old boy (or 18, in this case).  And I don't feel much older than that.  It's like in many ways I remained trapped in this state of perpetual adolescence, angst and violent mood swings very much included.

It's also a bit like The Shawshank Redemption.  Remember the part where Red finally gets his parole?  They ask him if he feels he's rehabilitated, and he delivers this great speech about how that word doesn't mean anything to him anymore.  But is he sorry for what he did?  Not a day goes by that he's not sorry.   Most of all though he wishes he could go back and talk to that crazy, angry kid?  Save everyone a lot of time and hassle; get another chance to get it right.

I guess in way I do get to do that.  Maybe that's what being a dad really is all about. As my boy, Holden, grows up, I get to impart wisdom and share my life experience, point out the potential pitfalls and how best to avoid danger.  And he'll think (or say) I don't know what I'm talking about, and set off to discover the answers on his own.  We've been doing this dance since the dawn of time, right?  If it wasn't true, it wouldn't be a Cat Stevens song.

And on that note... Don't forget.  Starting tomorrow, you can find us here: http://www.joeclifford.com/candy-and-cigarettes-blog/.  Same Bat-time.  New Bat-channel.  Bookmark us!

One Way Ticket Outta Palookaville

So my self-promotional whoring tour stopped by the El Cerrito Patch this week for a cozy, ain't-I-a-regular guy piece, written by Lip Service West alum Kyrsten Bean. You can read my slice of aw shucks humble pie here: http://tinyurl.com/7m4uylf. Really appreciate Krysten asking me to do the interview for what is essentially now my hometown paper.  I really love this shit, the pretending to be a normal dad, just schulffin' along down the road of life.  If all you knew of me came from this article, you'd be thinking, "Wow, that guy doesn't seem nutty at all.  And look at that picture and how big his biceps are!"  And half of that would be correct.  Plus, the Rialto Theater, where you really can get a beer, is pretty fucking cool.  Not that I've ever had one.  I don't drink beer anymore.  Just straight shots of grain these days...

*

It's a double edged sword, this trying so hard.  On the surface it looks like a good thing.  Often the people who knew me from my fuck-up days like to point this out, as though effort alone deserves credit.  Mostly this is because, I fear, I set the bar so low for so long.  But once you get past the 4th grade, there really are no more Most Improved Swimmer Awards.  That's not entirely true.  There's always an MFA program.  For the most part, however, we are judged by hard numbers.  

There was a certain, if perverse, satisfaction I took all those years in lying down and avoiding putting myself out there.  As a junkie friend of mine once famously said, You cannot fail if you do not try.  

Of course you can't succeed either.  But when you're milling around, nihilist pouting and holding your breath until the world gives you your way, you don't really think about that sort of thing.  

I am in the process of compiling my entire musical catalogue, going all the way back to 1987, as I set to release the long-awaited Joe's Greatest Hits package the world's been clamoring for (at least, I think that's the sound).  My first band, Something Like Paisley, recorded a couple demos, the still awesomely titled "Youth in Asia" and another record I can't fucking remember because of all the drugs I did after I left CT.

I recently asked the engineer, Jeff Franklin, of Jam Tonight Productions, to remix about 16 songs.  Because I once, foolishly, returned to CT, demanded all the DATs (with plans to release my entire musical catalogue back in 1996), and Skipper Nick's crazy alcoholic Indian girlfriend found them one dark night at Hepatitis Heights and burned them all in a bonfire sacrifice to the Pineapple God*

* I don't know if she really made a sacrifice, but the whackjob did steal all my DATs.  It's really true about Native Americans and alcohol.

Throughout the years, I recalled that first band fondly.  In fact, I always considered it the high point of my musical career.  Which is strange, considering I was a born again, straight edge, close-minded dipshit who could barely play an instrument and who was given to prolonged fits of spelling winter without the "t."  (No shit.  The first "poem" I ever wrote was called "The Die Is Cast," and there were, like, seven "winters," and goddamn, if they weren't all missing their "t"s...)  

When I got a hold of Jeff, who wasn't exactly champing at the bit to work with me again, given what a raving, delusional addict I became, and I convinced him I really was off the sauce and had actual money to pay him, I was half expecting to be woefully disappointed.  I must surely be sugarcoating what had to be, at best, a novelty.  I mean, how good could these old tapes really be?  

Pretty fucking good, it turns out.  

I got some rough mixes back last week, and was amazed at A.) how high my voice used to be, and B.) just what a terrific little college band we were, like a mix of 120 Minutes, heavy on the Connells, with some 'Mats, Smiths, and touch of Floyd mixed in.  I'm not kidding.  You'll hear the stuff soon, since Joe's Discography is in the works, and you'll be forced to agree.  Which might be hard to say, since my...music...took such a decided dip when I got to SF, and only recently (very recently) has it begun its slow ride from the ooze and ashes.

This is what I'm really talking about.

Or to put it in more musical terms...

How can you not ask these questions?  What if I'd have stayed in CT and kept going with that band?  I don't know what makes a band a band, why you can sound terrific, then replace a drummer or guitarist, and suddenly suck.  A band is a sum of parts greater than the whole, really and truly.  Something Like Paisley was this neat little outfit that didn't play beyond its capabilities.  Despite my penchant for pretension, I wrote relatively simple lyrics and catchy tunes, of which I only sang on half, the other half going to my songwriting partner, Chris Judd.  The only one who could play was Noah, lead guitarist.  I wasn't much of a bassist, so I wrote simple little lines, likewise the drummer, and so on.  We had a sax player who knew about four notes, but they were good notes.  But the secret I think was Judd.

Like the Jews now have Jarret "Secret Weapon" Cooper, back then we had Chris. Of everyone I've played with, all the faces and guitarists who came afterward, he was the best goddamn musical partner I ever had.  We complimented one another perfectly.  Didn't know that then.  How could I know that then?  How could I know that once I left CT, I was going to go on a twenty-year detour?  (And that Chris would develop schizophrenia and balloon up to a Brian Willsonesque 400 lbs.?) Ah, hell, if I'd have stayed I'd probably be married to a plump, helmet-haired maven named Dorothy, and be bald and almost as fat as Judd, with my guitar collecting dust next to the ham radio in the basement I fiddle with on the weekends looking for signs of extraterrestrial life (atop the giant stash of nudie magazines tucked in the floorboards).  I wouldn't have Holden.  I'd have another variation, and without Justine, who the fuck knows what that kid would've turned out like.  Certainly wouldn't be as cool or have as cool of a name.  Plus, he'd be like 18 by now, which freaks me the fuck out.  No doubt, I'd have a soul-sucking job (probably working for the phone company, where dreams go to die).  

But maybe... Maybe I'd have the same tenacity I do now, the same drive, the same willingness to whore myself to get on top, the same clawing desperation and need to succeed and not be remembered as a bum.   Maybe my hip would work.  Maybe I wouldn't endure these long stretches of depression, convinced I've contracted an incurable, debilitating disease, which has my feeling for lumps in my mouth for hours a day (ooh, there's one!).  Maybe...

But everyone asks this, from time to time, I suppose.  No different than Uncle Rico, talking about if only coach had put him in, they could've won State.  

(Speaking of which, am I the only person excited about the new Napoleon Dynamite cartoon series coming to FOX?

.)

What difference does it make?  This isn't a crappy Gwyneth Paltrow movie.  You either believe in fate or you don't.  And I do.  So it's a pointless question.  Either way, I'd still have my hair.  My beautiful head of hair, just like Morrissey...