Essentially a pub-sized cocktail bar, Chopsticks features two grand pianos back to back, played by two guys--who may or may not have been radio DJs at some point in their lives--as they sing "standards" while demanding the audience clap and sing along. As the guys warmed up the crowd with "Tiny Dancer" and "My Life," cocktail waitresses passed out slips of paper and pencils so audience members could make requests. Not so they could get up and sing Sorry Charlie's-style, mind you, but so that they could sit back in their little chairs and clap themselves brainless while the piano guys sang and played the requested songs for them. How is this any better than staying home? I got up to have a mild flip-out in the ladies' room, leaving Christopher to fend for himself. When I returned to the table, he was standing up with the rest of the crowd, acting out the parts of "The Unicorn Song" as if he were a five-year-old. The cocktail waitresses were standing on top of the pianos, singing, swishing, and flapping their arms, too. When I was asked to stand and "give it up for Mr. Billy Joel" after a heartfelt (blech!) rendition of "New York State of Mind," I realized it was all too much like a Saturday Night Live skit and we bolted out the door. As soon as I hit the sidewalk I began to wonder once again if anyone reads books for entertainment anymore.
The next afternoon I stopped by Barnes & Noble and snagged three new books on music, including one by Joe Pernice (Scud Mountain Boys, Pernice Brothers) about the life-changing Smiths album Meat Is Murder. I'm a big fan of Pernice's songwriting and I recently opined in a review that his lyrics on the newest, wondrous Pernice Brothers record, Yours, Mine & Ours, were nearly on a par with Morrissey's baldly funny observations. Pernice's own Meat Is Murder (that's the title of his book) is as droll as any of his songs, as its asthmatic narrator recounts his days in a Catholic high school outside of Boston in 1985 and how his life was changed by the discovery of the Smiths' third album--on cassette, of course. He becomes obsessed with the record, Walkman attached to his head every minute he's not in class, prompting his mother to ask, "Why don't you listen to something else... like jazz? That Smith Family is so depressing."
His descriptions of friends are priceless and sweet--a 17-year-old schoolmate is remembered most by an instance in first grade when he shit his pants. "He was something to see. But most delightful was his lack of shame. When someone asked him what happened, he smiled and said, so help me God, 'No big deal. I just shit my pants... Hey, Jimmy, wait up,' then he sauntered off, playing with a yo-yo." Several instances of suicide in the community cause the narrator to adopt a faux fatalist outlook, and, duh, he's in love with a girl he can't have.
In an author's note, Pernice claims the story is a work of fiction. When I interviewed him a few months ago, though, we went off on a tangent about drugstore remedies from the '70s and an asthmatic Pernice brought up the now discontinued Vicks that came in a spray can and said his mother would open the bedroom door, stick a can in, and spray. The asthmatic narrator of Pernice's book makes me think "fiction" is debatable. This is the second book published this year centered on the Smiths, written by guys in their mid-30s (the first being How Soon Is Never? by Marc Spitz). My story? It would have to be Louder Than Bombs, lullaby for a ridiculous era. I guess we are "that Smith Family."
