Better Call Paul: Life as a Serial Crank Caller

 

 

 For as long as I had been physically able to pick up a telephone and dial a number, I had been making crank phone calls. I can still remember my first ones. I would have been around 5 or 6 years old. Shakey’s Pizza Parlor was a large family fun establishment that resembled a tavern. It was dark and loud inside. In between the front door and another door to the restaurant was a small lobby containing a pay phone. I would sneak away from my family’s table and dial “0” for the operator. I would tell her to fuck herself when she answered then hang up. I would then go stand by the door, laughing maniacally, while the phone rang and rang with the operator attempting to report me to my parents

   This kind of cerebral behavior continued all through my childhood, teens, and well into adulthood. My older brothers were both crank call virtuosos, especially the one closest to me in age, Michael. We would regularly spend entire evenings making crank calls. Gathering up a phone book and locking his door, we would go to work. A typical call would have been calling people as pizza delivery places and stubbornly asking them to clarify their orders. 

   “Hi we got the orders mixed up. What was on your pizza?”

   “I didn’t order a pizza.”

   “Okay, pepperoni…”

   “No, I never ordered a pizza.”

    “Great! And extra cheese and mushrooms…”

    I didn’t order a pizza! You have the wrong number!!”

   “…and sausage and poop.” Hilarity ensued.

   Something else my brother would do would be to dial a number for a crank then hand the phone off to me. The hijinx came to a halt when my grandmother answered on the other end. I would either hang up or play it off like I was just calling to say ‘hi.’

   Our older brother, Dan, would occasionally get in on the action. He’d have full-on hysteric meltdowns while directing Michael to make more and more calls. Everything was funnier when Dan was involved. 

   One time, the pranks went beyond the telephone. Dan was babysitting my brother and I while Mom was out. He had invited his friend, Steve, over and they got a brilliant idea. We were already ordering pizza for dinner, so why not tie Joey up and leave him in the background when we answer the door? They strapped me to a chair with ropes and belts then blacked and blued my eyes with some of my mother’s makeup. A gag in my mouth was the final touch. 

   The pizza dude came to the door and I acted my part in the background—struggling with my bonds, flopping around, and letting go a few muffled yelps for help. We all had a good laugh until the cops showed up a few minutes later. We were lucky it was only one, who was kind enough to knock, and not a whole battalion kicking down the fucking door. Michael wanted no part of it and locked himself in the bathroom. Dan and I were able to diffuse the whole situation and explain that it was just a stupid prank and show the officer the makeup we had used. We all breathed a collective ‘holy shit’ and agreed that we wouldn’t breathe a word of this to Mom. 

   The next day my grandpa was picking me up from school. As we walked to his car he nonchalantly said, “So, Joe, how about we tie you up and order a pizza?”

   I gave him the most wide-eyed, how-in-the-world-can-you-possibly-know-that look and stuttered in my non-response. He just smiled and seemed to get a serious kick out of it all. Apparently, the neighbors had inquired to my mother the next day about why the police were at our apartment. She confronted Dan and he spilled the beans. None of us got into any trouble for that. Such was life with us. 

 

   I continued to regularly make crank calls. I would do it alone or with friends. I would call from home and pay phones. I liked calling 411 and asking for stupid numbers. 

   “Information, can I help you?”

   “Yes. Hell, please. The number for Satan?”

   I would crank call churches and ask if they delivered. I need an order of forgiveness ASAP. There was a teenaged former babysitter from Fairfield whom I hated. I made so many crank calls and left so many obscene messages to her that she began threatening to find out who I was, track me down, and “break my little butt in half.”

  I learned how to phreak free calls from pay phones by calling the operator and not disconnecting. When the dial tone came back on you could call anywhere in the world, at no charge. 

   After my mom was given a pager for her job, I discovered that the prefix along with any four numbers would dial up other pagers. I called hundreds of them, leaving the numbers of friends and enemies alike, all with a ‘911’ message attached. When pagers became a trendy accessory in junior high, I would dial those that belonged to friends and enter random numbers of other friends, often their ex-girlfriends, but sometimes people who had no connection to them at all. I was a non-stop terror on the telephone and there was no end in sight. 

   Around 1994 I was given a number to prank by some friends from out of state. It was a toll-free number that was extremely easy to memorize. They told me that they had called it so much that the guy on the other end had blocked all calls from their area. I should give it a try. You don’t have to twist my fucking arm. 

    The number belonged to an older chap named Paul. I began calling him regularly. If there was a pay phone in sight, I was on the horn to Paul. I would put on a ridiculous old man voice and have conversations with him for as long as possible before delving into homosexual passes. This went on for YEARS and he always—always— took the bait. 

   “Hiya, Paul. How’s it hangin’?”

    “Hey George, how you doing?”

   “Oh man, my back has been killing me, that old arthritis acting up. It would feel a whole lot better if you rubbed it for me.”

   “Huh?”

   “You can run my back, Paul. Then slide your hands down my pants. Grab my wrinkled old pole.”

   “This isn’t George. Who is this?”

   “Come on, Paul, I want your meat in my mouth…” 

   And on it went. Sophisticated, intelligent stuff, I know. I used the old man voice, an Arab accent, a Mexican accent, all horribly, and he answered and stayed on the line every single time. He would threaten that he had reported me and the cops were going to track me down and I would get into big trouble. I called him as “Detective GG Allin” of the Obscene Phone Call Unit of the SFPD. He was happy to give a statement until I told him that I wanted to lick his butthole. I am seriously starting to hate the idea of writing this down because I sound like a total psychopath. 

   Poor Paul had had enough. Eventually he began blocking the numbers from every area code that I was calling from. Any time I was out of state or on vacation, I made a point of always locating a pay phone and calling Paul. I have no idea how the call blocking worked, but the ban would always be lifted after a short while and it was back to calling Paul. 

   Don’t get me wrong, I made other calls, too. Into adulthood and what was supposed to be responsibility, I began buying prepaid calling cards, all for the purpose of bypassing newer innovations such as caller ID and *69. I was a huge fan of all things prank calls: The Tube Bar Tapes, The Jerky Boys, Crank Yankers, Howard Stern, The Touch-Tone Terrorist, The Phone Losers of America…it was all gold to me. 

   I had begun recording my calls with equipment purchased from Radio Shack. They never turned out quite as side-splitting as I had hoped, but a few I was proud of. When I called an adoption agency and acted like a member of NAMBLA, a friend told me he wanted to take a shower after listening to it. I got the number for a biker bar in rural Georgia and demanded that they keep everyone else from smoking while my boyfriend and I came in for a cocktail on our vacation from California. I was 30 going on 11. All of those tapes were lost when I had to abandon my car on the side of a road in Texas. That’s another story, though. 

   Little by little my interest in making calls waned and pay phones slowly disappeared. Cell phones started popping up literally everywhere and every new telephone had a caller ID built right in. I made my last call to Paul sometime in 2011, while waiting for a friend at a bus station. For the first time ever, he wasn’t home. Some recent sleuthing revealed that he had died that same year at the age of 94. Rest easy, old friend. 

   Whatever the psychological profile is for the habitual crank caller, I don’t know nor care. I still often revel in my past and I listen to other people’s prank calls on an almost daily basis. I am very happy that there is an available trove of these online. Art should never be lost, and that’s what I consider crank calling to be. Greats like Re-Pete or Sal & Richard took their craft to the big time. I was like a garage band who never played any real gigs, only small, private parties. 

    

Cowtown Crime: A Murder at Rico's Pizza

   Mark Bower needed fast money. He was $1,509 in debt to a Sacramento bail bondsman and the 25-year-old ex-con had no desire to return to jail that week. Mark was a thief and he didn’t desire to be anything but. He had four felony convictions dating back to 1976. Once, when asked where he pictured himself in 10 years time, he answered with “San Quentin.”

He was out on bail for a burglary charge. He had convinced his young girlfriend, Tania, to write a check for $600 to the bondsman with an agreement that they would not cash it, so long as the remaining balance was paid in cash, in two installments,  beginning on February 1st. It was January 30, 1983. 

   Sometime after 10 AM, Mark left the Vacaville apartment he was crashing at with Tania and her roommate Jodie. He took Tania’s orange Datsun 240z and told her that he was, “going into town.” He wore blue jeans, a gray jacket, and brown suede shoes. He wouldn’t return for several hours. 

   At the Supercuts in the Mission Village Shopping Center on the northside of Fairfield, California, hairdresser Cynthia Jackson was just beginning her shift. She was familiar with both Mark and the orange Datsun. She noticed Mark driving by her salon, slowly towards Rico’s Pizza Parlor. 

   Inside of Rico’s, Patrick Dean Mixell, 22-years-old, was preparing to open for what would likely have been a busy day. It was Super Bowl Sunday. The Washington Redskins were playing the Miami Dolphins and pizza orders by hungry sports fans would soon be rolling in when they opened at noon. Patrick was the interim manager of the Fairfield Rico’s and this was his third day on the job. Two of his first daily duties were to turn off the alarm and to relock the front door. He may have only performed one of those actions by the time Bower arrived. Patrick was 5’ 8” and weighed 135 pounds. Mark was 6’ 3” and over 200 lbs. of prison yard muscle. 

   Fifteen minutes later, Cynthia, from at her desk inside of Supercuts, would again witness Mark leaving in the opposite direction. Kenneth, a friend of Mark’s, lived a block away from Rico’s. At around 11:45 Mark would pull up to the curb in front of his house and briefly visit with him, never exiting his car. Kenneth found this odd, as Mark hadn’t stopped by in quite some time. Mark left after a few minutes, leaving in the direction opposite of Rico’s Pizza. 

   At 11:55, cook Michael Lewis arrived for his shift at Rico’s. Coincidentally, he had also been visiting with Kenneth that morning. His normal routine of knocking on the door for entry was not necessary, as the front door was already unlocked. He was at the time clock, near the kitchen, when he heard what he described as a “gurgling sound.” His new boss, Patrick, was lying face down in a pool of blood near the pizza ovens. Michael panicked and left for the clothing store next door to have them call for help. 

   Fairfield PD responded with the ambulance and Michael directed two officers to the scene in the kitchen. One of Mixell’s arms was tucked under his body, the other clutched the keys to the restaurant and alarm system. The two officers quickly assessed that a robbery had taken place. The drawer to the cash register was left open and empty. The safe below the counter was also opened and was emptied of all monies of any kind. A piece of paper was found near the register with the combination to the safe written on it. 

   Word spread swiftly throughout the shopping center that there had been a robbery at Rico’s. Cynthia observed medics removing Patrick Mixell’s body from her window at Supercuts. She immediately phoned the police to tell them of Mark’s coming and going that morning. 

   Mark arrived back at Tania’s apartment sometime around 1 PM. He seemed to be in good spirits. Two days prior, he had told her to call the bondsman and let them know that it was safe for them to cash the check. Tania had been dealing with repeated phone calls from their office demanding to know when sufficient funds would be in her account. Mark had assured her not to worry and that he was working on it. That day she observed him pulling a two-inch-thick roll of cash from his jacket pocket. When she asked him where he had gotten the money, he jokingly replied that he had “robbed a bank.” That night they went on a date together to dinner and a movie. 

   Responding officers, Timm and Hinman, scoured the crime scene at the pizza parlor. They were looking for some kind of object that might have caused the extensive injuries to Mixell’s face and the back of his head. Officer Timm discovered a commercial can opener lying in a sink behind a counter. The can opener was a heavy tool, resembling a pipe-wrench. It was stained red and a scouring pad was on top of the handle. 

    Patrick Mixell would die from his injuries two days later, on February 1. His skull had been fractured in two places: The orbital bone surrounding his left eye and in the back of his head, behind his right ear. The coroner would state that these wounds were not possible to have been caused by a fist and that the industrial can opener could be a likely weapon. Patrick’s family—his mother, father, and three sisters—would lay him to rest that Friday at the Sierra Hills Memorial Park in Sacramento. Rico’s Pizza would offer a $5000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person responsible. 

   On the morning of January 31, Mark asked Tania to accompany him to the bail bondsman’s office instead of going to work. Together, they drove to Sacramento where Mark paid the bondsman $800, peeling the cash from the thick wad of bills in his pocket. Afterwards, they returned to Fairfield and she reported to work. 

   Tania was informed by co-workers at the auto dealership where she was employed that Fairfield police had stopped by looking for her. They wanted her to come to the station to answer some questions. She lied to officers at the station, telling them that Mark had been with her at her apartment all morning and had not left at all during the day. Knowledge of the robbery and assault, along with Mark’s newfound wealth had most likely put her on edge. Later that evening she asked him to move out of her apartment. Mark agreed, gathering his things and leaving to stay with a friend. 

   The next day, she received a call from Mark, asking her if she would meet him. She agreed and encouraged him to talk to the police. The couple supposedly drove to the police station together, but never entered. They instead drove to Pietro’s Restaurant to eat pizza together. Fairfield PD, already on Mark’s  trail, took him into custody there. The arresting officer noticed that the brown loafers the suspect was wearing appeared to be bloodstained. The shoes were bagged as evidence.

 

   Officers also responded to the friend’s house where Mark had spent the night. After obtaining permission to enter and search, they seized a gray jacket that also appeared to have blood stains on it. Found hidden behind an end table was a locked briefcase. Also found was a .357 Magnum, stolen in a home burglary committed on January 29, the day before the robbery. 

   After a search warrant was obtained, the briefcase was opened. It contained a personal photo album of Mark’s, $48 in cash, various trinkets including a pin that read “I Spell Relief: C-O-C-A-I-N-E”, and several rolls of coins. The coins were both machine-wrapped and hand-rolled and stamped with bank information and handwritten account numbers.  

    Bower was charged with possession of stolen property, relating to a burglary committed in Toledo, Ohio in December of 1982. It was enough to hold him in jail while detectives built their case against him. There was the blood evidence on his shoes and jacket. Blood that would eventually come back as Type O. This was a match to the victim, Mixell, and not the defendant. There were also the rolls of coins found in his briefcase. Coins that could be traced to the branch of the bank that Rico’s did business with. On top this were the eyewitness, all placing him at the scene of the robbery and murder.

   Further investigation revealed that Bower had spent ample time at Rico’s in the months prior to the robbery. Having both friends and family members who had worked there, he had, on numerous occasions, remained inside after closing time and knew where the safe was located. He was formally charged with first first-degree murder and pleaded innocent at his arraignment in August. 

   Bower might not have been sweating the trial. He had previously skated on a robbery and an attempted murder committed in Napa County in 1980. After nearly gutting a man, cutting his throat, and leaving him on the side of the road, Mark was able to plea bargain the case down to a misdemeanor and a six month sentence. 

   The People v. Mark Edwin Bower went to trial in May 1984. The case hinged on the blood evidence and the rolls of coins found in his briefcase. Forensic experts testified that the blood matched the victim, shooting down the defense’s explanation of Bower cutting his hand and bleeding onto his clothes days before the robbery. Testimony from various witnesses linked the coins found in the briefcase to the safe at Rico’s. 

   Tania had finally come clean and testified for the prosecution about Mark’s need for the money and his absence from her apartment on the morning of the robbery. She also testified to receiving phone calls from jail, with Bower asking her to locate and dispose of his hidden briefcase. 

   Bower did not take the stand in his own defense. One witness for the defense was Jodie, Tania’s roommate. She confirmed the times that Bower left and returned on the morning of January 30. She testified that nothing in his mood seemed out of the ordinary. I am not sure that this helped him in the eyes of the jury. 

   After a three week trial, the verdict came back guilty. This was after a bizarre, tearful outburst of a juror that almost resulted in a mistrial. While being polled by the judge, a whimpering woman— juror #10— answered, “no” when asked to affirm her guilty verdict. The jury was sent back to deliberation, and returned shortly with a unanimous decision. 

   On the day of sentencing, friends and family members of Patrick Mixell filled the courtroom. Also in attendance was Dennis Sample, the man Bower had stabbed nearly to death in Napa four years prior. The death penalty had been taken off of the table by the prosecution and Bower was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Mark was seen in court weeping tears at the permanent loss of his freedom. The Mixell family cried for the loss of their son and brother. A young man who was loved and taken from them while still in the dawn of his life. All over bail money for a habitual criminal. 

Spotiforgotten: Elvis Hitler

 

  Welcome to Spotiforgotten. Here I will cover great music that is sadly unavailable to stream on Spotify (or Apple, which has a nearly identical library)

   The 1990’s in the suburbs were not kind to the fan of eclectic music. Unless you had a ride out to the city, or at least a closer college town, you were stuck either mail ordering your stuff or buying tapes from chain record stores like The Wherehouse or Musicland. There were some decent staples that could usually be found in these mainstream stores: Misfits, Samhain, Minor Threat, GBH, & The Exploited were all readily available for purchase most of the time. Another band, easily found, was Elvis Hitler. 

   Formed in Detroit in 1986, they would popularize twanging, southern-fried, roots-based punk rock years before the term “psychobilly” would become widely used in the US. Their choice of the shocking band name, not helped by their inclusion on the soundtrack of the lovably awful film, Skinheads: The Second Coming of Hate, would forever relegate them to the digital dustbin and none of their music has ever been available for streaming. 

   It’s too bad, because be their shit rocks. Catchy and toe-tapping, their music stands the test of time. I have also— for years—been convinced that famous goth nerd, Brian “Marilyn Manson” Warner, appropriated their naming convention for his much more lame nom de guerre. Their albums “Disgrageland” (1988), “Hellbilly” (1989) and “ Supersadomasochisticexpialidocious” (1992) are must-haves for any aficionado of shit-kicking rock n’ roll. 

Cowtown Crime: The Deaths of Jesse & Sonny

    

Neither Brad McGowan or Jesse Brown were bad kids. They might have rubbed elbows with some guys who had reputations as troublemakers. They might even have been related to some. But, the lures of alcohol and weed did not necessarily get one pigeonholed as a hoodlum, at least not in 1995. Plenty of good kids were messing around with that stuff. 

That's what had brought Brad and Jesse to North Orchard Park on the night of April 15. They wanted to get fucked up and public parks were often the place to do so after the sun went down. The stories differ on what actually went down when 24-year-old Aaron Davis and his girlfriend Julie crossed paths with the intoxicated duo. Aaron and Julie insist that the two had accosted them unprovoked, with the intent of sexually assaulting Julie. After a short tussle, which Aaron claimed to have been able to defuse, the two went on their way, intending to exit the park. Davis then claimed that they were attacked from behind by Brown and McGowan. Davis pulled out his pocket knife and stabbed both assailants, gravely wounding McGowan in the abdomen and killing 17-year-old Jesse Brown. 

   The Vacaville Police Department was quick to arrive on the scene, as they often were. An assessment of the circumstances had them conclude that Davis had acted in self-defense, with his life, and Julie’s being in immediate danger. The Solano County District Attorney agreed and the stabbings and killing were ruled justifiable. No charges were filed against Davis. This didn't sit well with the friends and family of Jesse Brown. 

Brad McGowan & Jesse Brown

  Word quickly spread back to Aaron Davis that he could be in grave danger. Rumors around town were that his version of the events was skewed and that Jesse did not deserve to die. Jesse also had connections. His cousin, Chris, was not someone to be trifled with. A local tough guy, said to be gang affiliated, he carried a reputation of someone who handled business and would never let the killing of his cousin slide. Davis claimed that he and his family began receiving death threats. So much so, that Davis would go into hiding, even leaving his job after being threatened in person while working. Vacaville was a small city, where everyone knew everyone else. He would live for the next two months constantly looking over both shoulders. 

   Michael “Sonny” Schairer was one of those who had vowed revenge. Sonny was a good looking guy, as in movie star handsome. His reputation was that of a hooligan with a heart of gold. Not known to be particularly dangerous, he would still never back down from a fight and was extremely popular with girls. He was tight with Jesse Brown’s family, particularly his older cousins. 

   It is not known if Sonny’s encounter with Aaron Davis on July 19, 1995 was by chance or the result of calculated stalking. Aaron and Julie, while driving down East Monte Vista, noticed a car make a quick U-turn and began following them. The car was being driven by Sonny and was occupied by at least one other man. With high beams on, Sonny tailgated the couple at high speeds, forcing them to blow through several stop signs in an attempt to make an escape. 

   They were followed all of the way back to within a block of their home, with at one point, Sonny stopping to pick up a large rock and throwing it at their car. Aaron drew a .40 caliber Glock 22 that he had been keeping on hand, just in case of a situation such as this unfolding. He claims to have yelled at Julie to run home, while Sonny approached him, allegedly reaching for his waistband. The two where chased right up to their front door, with Davis repeatedly telling Sonny to back off.

   “Are you Aaron Davis?” Sonny asked, still reaching for his hip. Sonny’s last words were, “I’m gonna…” He was shot and killed by Davis with a single bullet to the chest. No gun was found in his waistband. 

   Aaron was arrested and put on trial for 2nd degree murder. He was facing 25 years to life for what some would call basic self-defense and what the Schairer family called a cold-blooded murder. The trial divided the opinions of the people of Cowtown and would end with Davis’ acquittal. There were wails and threats in the courtroom by Sonny’s supporters, and Davis was, again, given police protection to ensure his safety. Sonny’s father, Michael Sr., was appalled, stating that Davis had been given a license to kill and would most likely be adding more bodies to the Vacaville-Elmira Cemetery.  

   There is no confirmation, but it is highly doubtful that Aaron Davis remained in Vacaville. With two bodies and a world of shit and threats on his head, it would have been the wise move to vacate Cowtown forever. 

Michael “Sonny” Schairer

Spotiforgotten: Holly & The Italians "The Right to be Italian"

  Welcome to Spotiforgotten. Here I will cover great music that is sadly unavailable to stream on Spotify (or Apple, which has a nearly identical library)

   I know very little about modern music. I couldn't tell you what the kids are listening to today or what is currently topping the charts. It holds no appeal to me, partially due to lacking one essential quality: Fun. It's not fun to listen to or to discuss. This record is a whole lot of fun. Teen angst shouldn't only be Cobain-esque despair and self-debasement. Sometimes you need to get out of your dark room and go cruising. Drive up and down the same drag and see who else is out. Grab some soda pops and french fries and chase around some cute boys or girls. Call your friends up on the phone and gossip a little before heading to the all-night diner for coffee and cigarettes until the manager kicks you out. Head to the point for some making out and heavy petting in your mom's backseat. You will thank yourself later for living a little and having some good old fashioned fun. 

Spotiforgotten: Rokker

 Welcome to Spotiforgotten. Here I will cover great music that is sadly unavailable to stream on Spotify (or Apple, which has a nearly identical library)

   There was once a time- long, long, long ago- when punk rock was played by fucking weirdos. There are several testaments to this fact, left behind in either record store cut-out bins or overpriced and behind the glass. Odd and crude slabs of wax by bands such as Puke, Spit, & Guts or Tutu & The Pirates stand as relics of an era when punk rock had no official uniform. There were no commandments set in stone, regulating how a band would look, sound, or think. It was true misfit music, made by outcasts for outcasts. 

   There is no finer example of this than Rokker, from Austin, TX. They cut a single, self-titled album in 1979, then disappeared into the abyss. This record sounds exactly like what it is. A bunch of oddballs from Texas in the late 70’s, who had no idea what punk was supposed to sound like. Original pressings fetch insane prices from collectors, but lucky for us, the album was repressed a few years back. This is fun and wacky stuff, that it is no longer even possible to recreate. 

Spotiforgotten: Mack Stevens & The Slapback Rhythmaires “Home Made Tattoo”

Welcome to Spotiforgotten. Here I will cover great music that is sadly unavailable to stream on Spotify (or Apple, which has a nearly identical library). 

   Rockabilly is an odd style of music. It’s simplistic beats and formulaic structures require a compliance by artists to almost paint-by-numbers, lest they be exiled from the genre completely. This is not a criticism, but a praise for those who are able to stand out amongst so much that is unremarkable. Mack Stevens has always stood out. The Texas wild man possesses the charisma, voice, and songwriting ability to elevate his music above what is mostly forgettable to all but the hardest core of fans. 

   “Home Made Tattoo” was released in 1999 and doesn’t even have an entry on Discogs. The songs are raw, dark, humorous, and, sometimes, downright morbid. It’s the sound of a desolate West Texas desert that you’ve just buried a body in and now you have to find a church to pray at and repent for your wrongdoings. It’s a well-oiled .38 Special in one hand and a can of Pearl in the other. It’s music made for lonely dark highways and dimly lit barrooms. Mack Stevens is the real deal and the 24(!) tracks on this album are a testament to his greatness. ALL of his records are worth listening to, there isn’t a bad one in the lot. Do yourself a favor and venture beyond the limited streaming world to check this stuff out. 

Spotiforgotten: Antiseen “Hell”

Welcome to Spotiforgotten. Here I will cover great music that is sadly unavailable to stream on Spotify (or Apple, which has a nearly identical library). 

Cover songs can be a tricky art to master. One needs not only originality in their own sound, but also in their tastes and selections of the numbers that they choose to showcase. I’m hard-pressed to find a finer example of both than in Carolina Destructo Rock Gods, Antiseen, and their collection of cover songs (and a few originals): “Hell.” Released in 1995 and reissued in 2001, this album runs the gamut of influences. Clayton and co. cover such genres as country (Ernest Tubb “Thanks A Lot”, Hank Williams “I Saw The Light”), rockabilly (Jumping Gene Simmons “Haunted House”,  Elvis Presley “Mean Woman Blues”), punk (two tracks by the Ramones and Skrewdriver “I Don’t Like You”), classic rock (BTO “Taking Care of Business”, Bob Dylan “Positively 4th St”), soul (Curtis Mayfield “Don’t Worry If There’s A Hell Below, We’re All Gonna Go”) and even some Afrofuturist avant-garde jazz (Sun Ra “Space is the Place”). Their version of Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer” is, in my not-so-humble opinion, the best version of the song. Mix in some of their originals taken from various singles and a few live tracks and you’ve got a dynamite record from start-to-finish. 

   An album full of this many covers probably makes for a royal pain in the ass for licensing, so I can sort of understand its absence. This also means that any Antiseen playlist made from Spotify’s library will be grossly incomplete. Do what I did: Upload your CD to Apple, then add the songs to your playlist from your own library. You will be the only one who can hear the complete tracks, but who gives a shit?

 Ben

   During the first few weeks of the 4th grade, Ben became my best friend. I was a new kid, at a new school, in a new town. Somewhere along the line, I had convinced myself that I was a karate badass who was not to be trifled with. Ben and I had gotten into a verbal confrontation on the playground and I gave him a shove. He (to borrow the terminology of professional wrestling) “oversold” my push and flung himself in a ridiculously exaggerated fashion onto the ground. He then shuffled off to find a teacher to tell. When he returned, with the yard duty by his side, he was in hysterics, crying and babbling that I had hit him, barely comprehensible. The side of his face was bright red. This was not only due to flushing, but because he had slapped himself. This rat played dirty.

   No big deal was made over a minor playground scuffle. They didn’t even call our parents. What they did instead was to put the two of us in an empty classroom to talk it out. The teacher was to return after we had finished to make sure we had smoothed everything over, utilizing our nine-year-old’s understanding of diplomacy. Ben immediately admitted to me that he had been faking. He could make himself cry on command, he said, and he wanted to be an actor. We agreed to concoct a story together that would get neither of us into trouble. I do not remember what preposterous tale we came up with, only that by the end we were both laughing and more than pleased that we had crossed each other’s paths. We began playing together daily, both at school and home. 

   Ben was a funny kid. His sense of humor was…sophisticated for a boy of nine. He possessed sarcasm and a cutting cynicism that normally wouldn’t have developed until someone was in their early-20’s and had been given enough time and experience and disappointment. He was what some may have called an old soul. A boy from another time. To me, he was just Ben. There was no other word better suited to describe him. 

   The types of play that I enjoyed with my other friends – army, war, football, karate, WWF wrestling – didn’t hold any interest for Ben, so we never partook in any of them while together. He seemed to fill his time more artistically. Homemade VHS videos of puppets he had created singing Cyndi Lauper songs, clip art collages featuring things like Tammy Faye Baker reading Playboy, drawings and giant dioramas, usually centered around Gumby and Godzilla. He was the best artist in class, by far. Once, when the entire class had submitted captioned artwork to be displayed in a scrapbook that our teacher had assembled, the work of another student bore a little too close of a resemblance for Ben’s liking. He covertly added a speech bubble to the other boy’s project reading, “I copy Ben!”

   His favorite activity, though, may have been petty vandalism. Ben loved mischief. So much so that he formed a club around it. I was inducted as the 3rd member of The Mischief Club shortly after our first meeting. Official club business included doorbell ditching (or “nigger knocking”, if you prefer the vernacular of the time), egging of cars and houses, prank phone calls, and running through supermarkets with our arms extended outward, knocking as many items off of the shelf as possible. The toilet paper aisle was a favorite for this, and I can’t recall either of us being ballsy or stupid enough to try it in the aisles full of beer or jars of spaghetti sauce. Ben was always as cool, collected, and as inconspicuous as possible. I, on the other hand, would always be laughing maniacally, eyes darting around on the lookout for trouble. 

   The night before picture day it had rained heavily. In class Ben got the idea to, at recess time, scope out any girls who were standing close enough to puddles in their nice clothes and then run by and splash them. We got so excited at the idea that we made up a song in anticipation of “Puddle Time,” as we named it. It was doo-wopy type of number: Puddle time, Puddle time, Put-put-puddle time…Puddle Tiii-eee-iiime. This went over as well as one would expect and we both spent the rest of the day’s recesses standing against the wall. This was standard punishment for recess infractions, and one I grew quite accustomed to. We would repeat Puddle Time after every rain that school year. 

   Another one of Ben’s favorite activities was raiding his older brother Joe’s room. Joe was in high school and I don’t remember him being home much. He was a hardcore punk. In those days punk rockers in the suburbs often fell into two categories: There were the brainy freaks who were barely socialized and then the thuggish goons who were merely biding their time until adulthood and the state penitentiary called. His brother was, undoubtedly, of the latter type. Often when calling Ben, if Joe were the one to answer the phone, the conversation would go something like this:

   “Hi, is Ben there?”

   “Yeah, hold on. BENNY, IT’S ONE OF YOUR LITTLE QUEER FRIENDS!”

   I had no interest in punk music at the time, still preferring the less-hardcore sounds of Huey Lewis and the News. But his room was a trove of other kinds of treasures: The pornographic kind. We pilfered stacks of Hustlers, thumbing through each issue repeatedly.  In addition to all the naked ass and spread beavers, which I was excited by but still too young to fully appreciate, there were pages and pages of jokes, dirty comic strips, ads for aphrodisiacs and sexual enhancement gimmicks, and – what we found the most humor in – the endless ads for phone sex. The ridiculousness of these were never lost on us and even our pre-pubescent minds had enough sense to realize that there was no way the pictured blonde named Shirley was the person actually answering on the other end. We even called one time and I “ruined” the call by not being able to stop laughing. 

   In addition to magazines, there were videos, too. I became a lifelong John Waters fan after a mind-blowing viewing of Female Trouble. This remains one of my favorite movies to this day and it's endlessly quotable dialog was first repeated by me on a 4th grade playground. As enamored as we were by Waters, it was the other VHS tapes that piqued even more of our curiosity. I can still remember most of the titles: Stephanie’s Lust Story, I Like to Watch, Brooke Does College, and- the jewel of them all- Taboo 2. 1980’s porn is entertaining at any age, but to grade-schoolers it was downright sublime. We would interject dialog from the movies into casual conversations whenever possible. Saying, “Ahhhh! Watch the teeth!” in class or having discussions about Junior and his sister Sherry, as if they were kids at school, in front of our mothers.

  As I said, I was still too young to fully grasp (no pun intended) the purpose or possibilities of an erection. Ben, I suspect, figured that out long before me. But, jacking off was still a source of shame in the 4th grade and the ones who had made this great discovery would have never copped to it. Ben seemed to deal with his guilty conscience on the issue by projecting. Billy, the boy who lived across the street from him, was a compulsive masturbator. Ben assured me of this. Billy liked to jack off with cubes of butter and would often do so in full view of his bedroom window. Why no one but Ben ever witnessed this, I was never made aware of. Regardless, with my big mouth, the rumors spread and took hold. So much so that, to this day, the words “butter,” “Billy,” and “jacking off” are permanently intertwined in my mind. 

   Our fascination and exploration of all things pornographic was taken to the next level one day when Ben showed up to play with a Reader’s Digest-sized magazine. It was like nothing I had ever seen before and wouldn’t see again until the rise of the internet over 10 years later. The magazine was more like a catalog and was devoted almost entirely to sexual “freaks.”  Long Dong Silver, Moby Dick, The Incredible Bulk, and John Von Dong were all represented. We sat, concealed from passerby in some bushes, flipping through the pages debating whether or not the ungodly massive and/or duel cocks on display were legit or not. What if he got all the way hard!? It would poke him in the chin! Contemplation of such things may or may not have led to recurring vivid dreams that I had all throughout my adolescence in which I was able to autofellate. 

   This particular magazine was the only one in which I asked Ben to borrow. I had an older brother the same age as his and I couldn’t wait to see the look on his face when I showed him this. I tucked the magazine into my waistband and headed toward home. I cannot for the life of me remember the specifics of what happened on my walk home. Something – it could have been seeing my mother’s car drive by – spooked me and I withdrew the magazine and quickly threw it in a creek. I had every intention of going back to retrieve it and to salvage what hadn’t been ruined and waterlogged. But, I was never able to find it. I told Ben the next day what had happened in a nonchalant but still apologetic manner. He was devastated and acted genuinely betrayed.  

   “I trusted you. And you let me down,” he would say. He was awash in a seriousness that I found uncharacteristic at the time, but would see more and more the longer we were friends. The melancholy didn’t last, though, and we were back to our fixation on the X-rated world. 

   The culmination of this, to me, was a time in the school nurse’s office. To get out of class all one had to say was that you felt sick and needed to see the nurse. They would give you a hall pass and you would go and sit amongst the other afflicted children and wait for either the ice pack or thermometer. That time it was only Ben and I in the waiting room. Well, Ben, I, and a giant stuffed panda that was larger than either of us. As we waited, Ben picked up the panda and began to strike poses straight out of Hustler. He did doggy, 69, reverse cowgirl, face sitting, all the while miming facials reminiscent of the male model’s orgasmic expressions. At that moment I seriously thought that I might die from laughing so hard. It was not only the hilarity of what I was seeing, but also the nervous fear that the nurse would walk in while he was on all fours displaying his O-face. She did not interrupt, but such was life with Ben. Full of laughter and the anxiety of being caught.        

   Ben had a mean streak, too. I’m not entirely sure of where it all came from, but there were a plethora of factors to choose from. Shit, he knew himself, even at that young age, that he was fucked up. He was the youngest of three brothers. A year before I had met him, Steve, the middle brother, had died of pediatric cancer. It wasn’t something that Ben seemed out of touch with or repressed in any way. He would discuss the topic freely when it came up and articulated feelings of mortality in a manner that would be astute for anyone, more so for a 10-year-old. Any vitriol was reserved for Kelly and Sam. Kelly was a child suffering from leukemia who went to our school. He was a few grades below us, making him very young.  Ben used to shoot dirty looks at him whenever he passed. He would whisper that he hated him, in a manner so only those two could hear. Kelly would just look sad, scared, and confused, all doe-eyed in the face of this venom that he couldn’t make any sense of. Ben would always state how slighted he felt for his family and that the school never held any stupid fundraisers for Steve the way they did for that other kid. I don’t remember Ben’s reaction when Kelly died in 1989. Maybe we were out of touch at the time, maybe not. 

   Sam was a kid in our class. I am not sure what disability he had been born with, but it showed in his skinny and palsied frame. He was severely knock-kneed and walked with a distinctive shuffle that other kids, little assholes that we were, learned to imitate. To be fair, Sam got fucked with by others, but Ben seemed to make a special mission of it. Hitting him, knocking him over, and berating him whenever he had the chance. I don’t want to get on a high horse here because I had my own forms of Sam torment, much of which did not involve Ben at all.  But Ben’s methods seemed to be born less of selfish amusement and more of a cathartic release of bottled up aggression and anger. I have no idea what became of Sam or where he is today. If he shows up at my door someday with an AR-15 and riddles me full of holes, please know that I totally had it coming. 

   Ben had been referred to our school’s psychologist before I had even moved there. He would sit in for single and group therapies. One of the other boys in his group was in our class and was suffering from abuse at the hands of his dad. I guess they didn’t have mandatory reporting laws back then. I know all this because Ben spilled the beans to me on everyone else in the sessions. He was unsympathetic and would scoff at their issues and state with certainty that their pain paled next to his. Underneath Ben’s wacky hijinks was always a cloud of misery and despair. Something that, I am sure of now, he had no clue of how to process, much less deal with. He described this feeling to me one day as we were riding bikes to his house. 

   “Do you know that feeling in your guts that you get when you’re about to go on a really scary rollercoaster?” he asked me. “It’s like that and it won’t go away.”

   These days Ben would have received a laundry list of diagnoses and, most likely, an even longer list of medications to curtail these dreadful feelings. He would have easily been tagged bi-polar and possibly sociopathic. The Ben that I knew and loved may not have been allowed to exist today. In retrospect, I know how I feel about it. I’m just not sure that it’s the way I am supposed to feel about it. 

   Ben and I fell out of touch in junior high. Even though his family were Lutherans, he was sent to Catholic school for 6th grade in a last ditch attempt by his mother to curb his bad behavior. He was expelled before the year was out and we lost touch shortly after. The next year I would last less than two months at the same school. Chalk it up to the bitch nuns not knowing how to handle whirlwinds like us. 

   The last time I saw Ben it was me noticing him  walking down a trendy street in Berkeley. I was standing around in all of my punkness and he barely recognized me. Funny enough, I had run into his brother Joe a few months earlier under the same circumstance. Joe was oddly more receptive.

   “You’re looking pretty punk,” Joe said. “What made you wanna go this way?” he asked. 

   “It’s fun,” was my only answer. He seemed pleased with this.

   “Damn right. I had a blast!” he said before going on his way. 

    Ben was less welcoming and not at all as excited as I about our chance encounter. He had no enthusiasm for rekindling an old, childhood friendship. We went to lunch together and barely spoke. He seemed detached and very uncomfortable with my loud brashness, a common trait that we once both shared. Whatever connection we had had been severed by time and development. The only small nugget of conversation that I can still recall was him asking me what my drugs of choice were and seeming confused when I answered back with only beer. 

   Years later, during my brief stint on social media, I searched endlessly for Ben, all to no avail. Even if there was little chance of picking up where we had left off, there was still the curiosity. Probably no different than a million other social media lurkers: What did he look like now? Did he get married? Have a family? Come out as gay? Was he ever able to put his artistic skills to their full potential? 

   Other than what he ended up looking like, I would never find these answers. After years of searching, I was finally able to locate a page for Ben. It was on FindAGrave. He had died in 2017 at the age of 40. He is buried next to his brother, Joe, who had died 8 years prior. That one I had heard about. Ben’s cause of death wasn’t listed in any obituaries as it was for his brothers, both of whom died of cancer. Did Ben have the same terrible genetic predisposition, or was it something even more unlucky and sad? Did the stresses of living a whole life with a grown-up mind finally crack him up and push him beyond the breaking point? I wish I could think not. His epitaph does not narrow things down, simply reading, “You will always be loved. You will always be remembered. You will always be missed.” All three statements are true.