Rivethead (31 page)
“I assume you know what this means,” I yelled over. Gino just shrugged. His face did everything it could to keep from smiling. It failed miserably.
A hazy morning in the middle of May. It's around 3:00
A.M
. and the mood inside my Camaro is rather strained. For the second consecutive evening, Dave Steel has snapped the E string off his guitar while plunging into the crescendo section of “Mussolini Chews Red Man,” a pivotal song from our upcoming rock opera about General Motors factory life.
As Dave begins tearing apart my floorboard for a replacement string, I hit the pause button on the tape machine and fish two more beers out of the Igloo cooler. The smokestacks stare down, tombstones older than God. We're parked beneath one of the huge vapor lamps at the far north end of the GM Truck & Bus employee lot. Nothing out here but the barbed wire, the possums, an occasional freight train and two off-key and off-duty shoprats. It's a long, long way from Abbey Road.
We are sitting out here working on our shop opera or, as we've come to call it, “shopera,” a thirty-tune rock opus concerning the real dealings of assembly line labor. So far, we've completed five songs to our liking: “Rat Like Me,” “He's a Suck-Ass,” “Banana Sticker Republic,” “Are You Goin’ in Tonight?” and “You're on Notice.” Three rockers, a ballad and a miserable dirge.
Despite the obvious drawbacks of trying to write and record inside a car, I've insisted on these surroundings for two main reasons. First off, we'd grown awful tired of the old bitch who lived below Dave callin’ the cops every time we plugged into his amplifiers. The cops would come and Dave would try to explain that we were dedicated composers emoting our wretched angst against a world that saw us as nothing more than blockheads and lackwits. The police were not impressed. Dave was finally faced with turning it off or bein’ evicted.
The second reason for our whereabouts was a decision I had made. Despite the hardships, I was convinced we should retire to the scene of the theme itself. My hunch was that if our proposed rock opera about shoprats were ever to stand a chance, it would have to be fertilized directly on the threshold of Greaseball Mecca. It was the musicians who belonged in studios. It was the poets who belong in bungalows. We laid claim to neither. Just a couple of nine-year prostitutes of the Industrial Cycle sniffin’ around the back forty for an exorcism you could dance to.
Dave and I had already been messin’ around for the past year in our own little grunge quartet called Dr. Schwarz Kult. (The name came courtesy of Dave's shrink.) We had done quite a bit of recording down at the studios of WFBE where I did my weekly radio show. Admittedly, our entire playlist was just a bunch of aimless ranting: “Hotbed of Sin,” “Bowling for Teenagers, “Drinking Makes Sense”—anything to annoy. We put out one cassette appropriately entitled
Entire Mire,
refused to play live, never practiced, got bored and disbanded. It was silly. Here we were in our thirties, dolin’ out a bunch of sonic mulch that only appealed to a handful of miscreants who could've been our kids. What we needed was a purpose.
That purpose turned out to be General Motors. Not solely General Motors, but all forms of blue-collar moil and toil. The more we thought about it, the more sense it made. What it came down to was simple truth and authenticity. During the past few years, Dave and I had become terribly weary of hearing a number of these flimflam rock ‘n’ roll mongers pluggin’ up the airwaves with their detached meanderings of “da average man, man.” Goddamn millionaires mewin’ all over the dial about how bad the grind was. When? Where? How? They should have all been forced to write songs about cocaine orgies and tax shelters and beluga caviar. Leave us alone.
Average man? Shit, Billy Joel wasn't “livin’ here in Allentown.” He was twirlin’ tongues with Christie Brinkley in some high-rise china cabinet. If that's average, how come the steering gear man wasn't bangin’ Cheryl Tiegs? Why weren't Dave and I playin’ leapfrog with the Landers sisters?
And what about Bob Seger? He might've been from our neck of the woods, he might have put out some hot-ass groove before sellin’ out to housewife drivel but he
sure
as hell wasn't “makin’ Thunderbirds.” He was buying them! Probably by the lot load. Get outta here, ya four-flusher.
Hey, when was the last time you saw a photo or video of John Cougar Mellonfarm when he wasn't strategically positioned within a five-foot radius of: a) corn on the cob b) a manure rake or c) some dilapidated porch brimming with Jed Clampett clones and pregnant Negresses? C'mon, Johnny, you don't mean to tell us you lug all those things into the Jacuzzi with ya, huh? Go inseminate a tractor, bub.
Then, of course, there's Springsteen. Who says you can't be 297 places at once? The guy has made untold zillions hoppin’ to and fro in his house of hallucinations, always emerging on release date as either a construction worker
(The River),
a garage mechanic
(I'm on Fire),
a minor league batting instructor
(Glory Days),
the kindred spirit of Charlie Starkweather
(Nebraska)
or some other pockmarked casualty of Crud Corners. No wonder this guy's concerts run on to half-past never. It takes a heap of time to sing from A (aviator) to Z (zincographer). Yo, Boss, you didn't happen to have an older sister named Sybil by any chance?
Before everyone gets cranky and wants to assail me as the bastard spud of Albert Goldman, chill a moment. All right, maybe it's true these rock stars have dandy intentions but it just doesn't wash. For instance, you wouldn't call a heart surgeon to your house to steam-vac your carpet. Why entrust the blues to a bunch of off-whites? These fickle chameleons oughtta clear out and take their lousy method acting with ‘em. We don't need them to serenade us on how tedious and deprived our lives are. If need be, we can do it ourselves.
At least, this was the belief Dave and I were operating under. Workers should perform the songs of workers. Let assembly workers sing about assembly lines. Let waitresses sing about waiting tables. Let garbagemen sing about garbage. No more hired tongues. No more rummaging tycoons. No more surrogate songsters. No more Bruciemania. No more false prophets. Get real.
The night after our clumsy recording session, Dave and I are sitting in a corner of Mark's Lounge attempting to gather inspirational fodder for our shopera. We've found this watering hole to be a great source of relevant information. At times, I've been able to snatch lines from conversations and use them verbatim in a song. Unfortunately, it's Friday, and that means disco night at Mark's. Neither Dave nor I have been able to completely figure out this hideous phenomenon. As a rule, all shoprats hate disco music. Still it's right back here every Friday. It's an amazing hoot to watch the rent-a-jock tryin’ to coax one hundred baffled shoprats onto the dance floor with loud bait like “Hey, you weekend warriors, let's get it down to some Culture Club!” Talk about your uphill battles. There's maybe five females in the entire place.
As the reflections of the disco ball paint ghoulish images across the faces of my linemates, I can't help but think to myself that this reeks of the moronic effrontery I would expect from GM. Goddamn, doesn't that goofy little rent-a-jock realize that our feet fuckin’ ache? All we needed now was Howie Makem to hit the floor wearing a sequined glove and three dozen gold chains. Needless to say, there isn't much dancing. There is severe drinking, however.
I turn my chair around to escape the vision. “Average man is a myth,” I remark to Dave. I am getting stoned and obnoxious. “They've hired mercenaries to sing his song. The shit on MTV is as safe as strained carrots. Any bastard in this bar could do better. The radio is hopeless, just a holding tank for miserable shits who don't wanna offend or defy or speak the truth. They're too bland to even suck. And in the face of all this deception and betrayal, Michelob Light has the balls to ask us commoners ‘Who SAYS you can't have pinstripes and rock ‘n’ roll?’ I'll tell ‘em who! The peons they've got stuck down in their brewery with six more hours to go before the sweat subsides and the gears quit grindin’. The brewers, the fry cooks, the shoprats—that's who! Pinstripes and rock ‘n’ roll. What's next? Tuxedos and cock fighting?”
Dave just nods wearily. He picks up the bar napkin he's been writing on during my tantrum and reads: “Don Johnson, asshole deluxe, is making a rock ‘n’ roll record. It will no doubt be an enormous hit with his millions of dedicated fans.”
“No doubt.” I laugh.
We grab a six-pack to go and head back to the truck plant's employee lot to see if we can come up with anything. Dave picks up my pawnshop Alvarez acoustic and begins strumming our anthem, “Rat Like Me.” I fiddle with the knobs on the tape machine and fall in on the second verse: “Wilbur lost his teeth one night in the pit/When the track took a jump and the oil pan bit,/Tommy lost a finger to a sheet metal goof/And they fed it to the pigeons on the North Unit roof./Rat…rat…rat…they're all rats like me.” Shit, we missed the amps on this one.
As far as ratings go, I'm not much of a singer. My guitar playing could be described as primitive. Dave is much better, he's at least adequate. Neither of us worry about it too much. We know we can work any damn guitar better than Springsteen could work a month around here.
B
Y THE SUMMER OF ’86, THINGS WERE REALLY BEGINNING
to unravel on several fronts. Mike Moore called me out to the
Michigan Voice
office whereupon he informed me that he was very close to accepting the top spot at
Mother Jones.
He seemed unusually subdued, almost morose. I felt the same way. I hadn't a clue as to what a
Mother Jones
even was. Were we talking about a chain of rib joints or a blaxploitation flick?
The damn thing turned out to be a magazine. Apparently, the publication was in dire need of revitalization, having been neutered along the trail and allowed to flounder in gutless yuppie dross. Moore was their choice to restore the rag to its old muckraking intensity. Well, if anyone knew how to rake the muck it was our man Mikey.
“Shit, your own national magazine,” I remarked. “Sounds like a solid career move.”
“Yeah, I suppose,” he said.
“Then why the long face?”
“It would mean leaving Flint. San Francisco is a long, long way.”
Flint for Frisco? Most locals would've somersaulted naked through a barn fire for that type of option. Not Moore. He had this goofy love affair with Flint. I, for one, could empathize with him completely. For as sure as he was being beckoned to the West Coast, I was beginning to hear the first faint boot stomps of those rat-snatchers from Pontiac. They were startin’ to reel in those rotten transfer signatures. It was looking more and more like Mike and I were on our way out of the city limits—one half torn, the other fully shredded.
A couple days later, Moore called to tell me he had decided to accept the editor's position at
Mother Jones.
I was hardly amazed. It was the right decision. Now it was my turn to feel subdued and morose. Without Mike Moore, the pliers were applied to the damn uvula and the next sound heard would be the
Michigan Voice
becoming the
Michigan Mute.
I wondered what would become of my festering literary hobby. By no master plan of my own, I had become extremely reliant on the Rivethead journals as an outlet for a good deal of my frustrations and malcontent.
Just before he was to leave town, Mike phoned me. He had a proposal he wanted to discuss. “If it meets with your approval, I would like for you to get started on your first article for
Mother Jones.
I'm hoping to use it for the cover story of my first issue.”
“I'm gonna be writin’ for
Mother Jones’!
” I sputtered. “Wait, you mean I'M GONNA BE WRITIN’ FOR MONEY?”
“Eight hundred fifty dollars a column,” Mike replied. “The cover story will probably net you sixteen hundred.”
Jesus, lug that headstone back beyond the boxcars, Quasimodo. The Rivethead once again walks among us! Go home and have that typer greased. Put the Budweisers within arm's reach. Fall to your knees! We have witnessed the resurrection of the gimmick that wouldn't die. Fetch those tattered teats, those chapped udders, those benign and bottomless milk sacs. Farmer Rivethead is taking his cow to market. Do not question the outlandish logic behind such a command. Far dumber shits have hit gold, I swear it.
Further oddness was to follow. On his last night in town, Moore came to see me on the Rivet Line. His flight to San Francisco was to leave the next morning and this is how he had chosen to spend his final hours in Flint. I was puzzled. Certainly, there had to be more attractive options—dinner with old friends, one more TV interview, a family farewell, gettin’ drunk, gettin’ laid, gettin’ some sleep, ANYTHING.
After my initial sense of confusion, I think I understood. For a guy who was born and raised in this Greaseball Mecca, there could be no more fitting place to go to round up an apropos swan song for one's formative years than the oily altars of General Motors. Although Moore had never worked in the factory it didn't necessarily exclude him from being a semishoprat. The same went for everybody else in this town. There were chunks of these people orbiting from one end of the building to the other. The laughs and tears of their ancestors’ struggle were entombed here. The good times and the bad times and all the messy in betweens.
For Mike's visit to the truck plant, I made sure to advise him on the appropriate wardrobe. “Wear those faded jeans you always have on, put on your Tiger cap and, please, leave those ugly bifocals at home.”
For extra precaution I insisted on the following: “If anyone happens to stop you, tell ‘em your name is Henderson and that you work in Cab Shop. If they pester you for identification, tell ‘em that your ID badge is upstairs in your lunch bucket. Refrain from using large words. Itch your testicles freely. At all times, act surly and miffed.”
I waited for Mike in a predesignated area of the North Unit parking lot. I was working on a quart of beer and had an extra one waiting for him. He didn't drink, but I thought it only proper to extend the quart of beer as a ritualistic courtesy to one who would soon be entering the mind stomp of an American assembly line. Beer helped keep things in perspective.