THE WYMAN WEEKLY

Just Another Empty Head.

Issue 12 April 25,1996

 

 

 

I’m broke but I’m happy I’m poor but I’m kind I’m short but I’m healthy yeaaah I’m high but I’m grounded I’m sane but I’m overwhelmed I’m lost but I’m hopeful baaaaby and what it all comes down to is that everything’s gonna be fine fine fine ‘cause I’ve got one hand in my pocket and the other one’s givin’ a high five I feel drunk but I’m sober I’m young and I’m underpaid I’m tired but I’m workin yeaaah I care but I’m restless I’m here but I’m really gone I’m wrong and I’m sorry baaaby and what it all comes down to is that everything’s going to be quite alriiight ‘cause I’ve got one hand in my pocket and the other one’s flickin’ a cigarette ... hey Wyman quit daydreaming and get to work!   

 

BEER/BARS

 

A couple of weekends back I was out at The Lake and drank a twenty pack of Schlitz. (Not in one sitting, although at times it seemed like it.) (Wyman wobbles but he don’t fall down.) The cans say something on them like “Just the Kiss of the Hops.” I tell ya, “The Beer That Made Milwaukee Famous” is one hell of a kisser. This is definitely a Top Five beer.

 

Stopped by the 400 Bar last Saturday to check out The John Ewing Band. Yeah, I was thinking the same thing: aren’t the Knicks in the playoffs right now? When I think of the 400, I think of one thing only - Pabst longnecks. I had a few of these while noticing a rather attractive brunette playing pool nearby. I had seen this girl earlier in the day at the YMCA. She ignored me there, too. The band was energetic and the songs were relatively short, but they were nothing to write home about. They did, however, play a pretty cool version of CCR’s “Born on the Bayou.” I flashed back to being at a party in downtown Grand Forks during the late eighties. I was left in charge of the music and was playing some ‘Mats and then threw on some Fogerty and then some Mellencamp. Some snooty girl from Fargo got on my case once the ‘Mats were lifted from the turntable. “I don’t see how you can get into that mainstream (her voice was dripping with contempt) stuff - can’t you play some Violent Femmes?” she said. “If I wanted to hear novelty music, I would play some Spike Jones!” I retorted.

 

TELEVISION

 

From April 24 until April 30 we are being encouraged by some weirdos to turn off our television sets. Why pick on TV? Whoever comes up with this do-good crap oughta come up with something truly helpful like National Stop Trying To Be Something You’re Not Week. TV rules! It’s informative (CNN, Arts and Entertainment Channel, The History Channel) and entertaining (see my list below.) The TV Bashers say television is a drug but what they don’t realize is that it’s a great drug. Back when I hated my job and I would come home from work - do you think I strapped on my guitar and played along with Clash songs about being repressed? Hell no! I cracked open a beer and watched Seinfeld reruns. I’m more of a George Costanza than a Joe Strummer anyway. In response to this boycott (which will ultimately fail anyway so I don’t know what I’m getting so worked up about) I will be watching an extra hour of TV every day.

 

This week I’ll be tuning into my usuals - like Letterman, who has done more to influence our country’s sense of humor than anyone else in the last twenty years. I’ll be watching Seinfeld because as “the show about nothing” it is the most true-to-life. Fridays are always reserved for The X Files; which is genuinely creepy, paranoid and of course great. Two or three episodes have ended with people being buried alive; one recent show had a spooky game of Russian Roulette in it. This show assumes that there is a shadow government in place so it’s become a favorite for conspiracy theorists, paranoids and UFO cultists. It also isn’t afraid to turn back on itself. A recent episode made fun of conspiracy theorists, paranoids and UFO cultists.

 

During the next week I will also focus my attention on some shows I’ve neglected like Hercules: The Legendary Journeys (good cheese television) and ESPN’s SportsCenter (hipper, funnier and more entertaining than MTV has ever been.) And with Lord Stanley’s Cup being contested for, I think it will be in order for me to watch some playoff hockey. In the words of Homer Simpson: “TV gives so much and asks so little.”

 

MOVIES

 

Without television, we would never had been blessed with the hilarious Mystery Science Theater 3000. I went to see MST3000: The Movie at the Uptown Theater the other night. This could just be the funniest movie I have ever seen - it’s easily right up there with Clerks. More jokes per minute than my Uncle Stan after a six pack of Budweiser. There were three types of wisecracks in this movie: 1) the ones you don’t get but are obviously funny because you hear others in the theater laughing 2) the ones you laugh at right away 3) the ones it takes you a few seconds until the joke sinks in. I left the movie laughing and giggled all the way home. A must see for anyone with a twisted sense of humor.

 

MUSIC

 

On the lake where my parents have a cabin, the Richter family owns the land in the back of the bay where mom and dad’s cabin is. They lease this land to a dairy cow guy who lets his black and white cows roam on the land during the summer. Every once in a while, a cow will get one of her legs stuck in a barbed wire fence and will wail and groan loudly. Loud enough to interrupt me during my assault on a Schmidt thirty pack even. Why do I bring this up? Well, last week I was driving along in the Mustang and thought I heard one of these poor cows vocalizing for some band on the radio. Then I realized it was just the Cranberries.

 

WORK

 

This week I’m doing reconciliations at some property management company. Get this: they’re having me write them all out on ledger paper as they don’t have a PC for me. Luckily, they did provide me with a calculator - from like 1978 and it’s about the size of a flat o’beer - so I didn’t have to bring in my abacus. I’m dying to know if they collect their rents via the barter system. The owner of this company blows in twice a day in a shiny black Jaguar. The people in the office ask him questions which he never answers as he always goes off on tangents and he ends up asking more questions than are asked him, and hence makes more work for the poor souls. Three to one says this guy inherited most of the money he has. When we were introduced, he deduced that I was Finnish and started talking about some Finnish beauty he courted years ago while he was living in Sweden. She ended up killing herself and apparently because of that he hasn’t talked to me since. Hey, we’re Finns - if we’re not drinking, we’re playing with knives.

 

MISCELLANY

 

Oops, math error in last week’s all-Iggy issue. If I experimented with self-mutilation when I was two, that would have been twenty-eight years ago, not twenty-seven. Truth be told I thought I did it when I was three, but between rough draft and final print our fact-checking department checked with mom and she said I did it when I was two. (Marian: “I guess thought he could handle pencils by that time.”) But alas, the correction didn’t make it to the final proof.