YOU'RE WRONG 

An Irregular Column

by Mykel Board

I'm not sure how many of you buckaroos know about coyote ugly. I think it's a mid-Western term that's not too common in the rest of the country. Otto Kentrol, ARTLESS' bass player and man with four nipples, told me about it:

You know how sometimes as the night gets later and you get drunker, people who earlier looked like circus sideshow refugees, suddenly start looking a whole lot better? Well, one of them brings a drunken you home with them at night and. . . This is where I tell you about coyotes.

Animal rightists and trappers know this, but for normal people; coyotes are caught in something called a leghold trap. It's got sharp metal teeth and it snaps shut around a coyote's leg, like a Pit Bull's mouth snaps around a toddler. You know what it looks like from ROADRUNNER cartoons and STRAW DOGS. When a coyote gets caught in one of these things, often the animal will chew through its own leg and leave it in the trap in order to escape.

Coyote ugly is when you wake up that next morning and look at what brought you home the night before, lying asleep on your arm. Now you're sober. You see that it is so ugly that you'd rather chew through and leave your arm behind than wake up what brought you home. You might have to kiss it-- or worse.

Although I'm no David Cassidy, my mother loves me enough to convince me that I'm not quite coyote ugly. But sometimes I wonder what it would be like to me that hideous. Or even what it would be like to be the quiet nerd, the fat kid that everyone makes fun of-- the one who never goes out, but just sits at home watching television.

My story for this month isn't about coyote ugly, although it does have it's ugly aspects. It's not really a Story story either, except it involves somebody named Story. She'll appear later, a bit drunk, wearing a black dress. She's only an extra in this drama-- a Kentucky drama.

Between Xmas and 1989, I went to visit my pal Julien. Julien works with a documentary film crew in Whitesburg, Kentucky, a town of about 1000 folks dabbed smack in middle of Appalachia (pronounced Apple-latch- (rhymes with patch) chuh, I learned). You've got to be careful about things like pronunciation around those folks-- they're sensitive as Jews about ethnic jokes. Don't talk about hillbillies, cross-eyed banjo players, or "squeal like a pig." Hatfields and McCoys? They don't want to hear it. Jethro, and Ellie May, Grannie, Jed Clampet? You'd better not if you know which side of the fiddle your bow is on.

Sure it sounds funny, but there is something to it. Everybody can recognize Negro, Jewish and even Polish stereotypes. There are often chocolate sprinkles of truth on these cupcake stereotype. Anyone who tried to borrow money from me knows that. But it's always easy to separate the stereo from the type. Only idiots and people with crosses to burn believe the stereotypes without questioning. The hillbilly image, on the other hand, is something we just accept. We believe it because we don't know any better. Negroes, Poles and Jews are spread around enough so that you might come across one. But hillbillies define themselves. That is, the only way you would know you were in contact with one is if you meet one who fit the stereotype.

"It's like not quite like being black," explained Herb, Julien's boss and lifelong Whitesburg resident. "You see light skinned blacks try to "pass" as white folks when they deal with white society. With mountain people you've got white folks trying to pass as being white when they deal with white society."

They've got a culture, literature and especially a musical heritage to be proud of. You might look down at Bluegrass music, but for sheer speed with technique, it can make hardcore look like a waltz. Of course, the "country" part of "country and western" music comes from this part of America. There'd be no rock'n'roll if it weren't for country and western.

I was lucky enough to chew the tobacco with the incredible psychobilly star Hasil "Haze" Adkins, in the hills of West Virginia. If you haven't heard any of his psychotic records, buy them all now! THE CRAMPS cover versions of his songs can give you an idea-- but you won't know the real thing until you hear it.

I carried my own stereotypical image with me to Whitesburg. Julien knew me well enough to warn me about Moonshine and travelling salesmen jokes. I thought I behaved with ultimate tact, meeting his new friends and travelling with Herb and him to West Virginia.

"You almost got me fired," said Julien when we got back.

"Why?" I asked, truly surprised. "I didn't joke about not wearing shoes or jug blowing. I just talked about my work and let your boss talk about his work."

"See," said Julien, "the boss is a family man. Your writing books about mother son incest and homosexual sado-masochism doesn't sit very well with family men-- at least not in Kentucky."

Ho ho! I found myself in an odd position. My best friend was embarrassed of me. And this was only a whiff of farts to come.

To end my Kentucky excursion, Julien and I drove to Louisville for New Years. Louisville is in Western Kentucky, four hours away from Appalachia. It is more of a standard American city-- with poor black folks and rich white gentry. It's the city of the Kentucky derby-- an international event in polite society. The folks in Louisville resent the Eastern "hillbillies" as much as the rest of America makes fun of them. The Appalachian people complain that the state is run entirely by the crew from the West (Louisville area) and the mountain folks have no say.

Just outside of town, lives Julien's very rich friend, Chris. Chris, his brothers, his mom and her current, live in a large house on what used to be a farm. An old mill stream winds it's way through the property. There are lots of trees and a couple of times a week a truck comes to deliver special drinking water.

Chris's mom is a playwright and the editor of a literary magazine. Chris has his own little separate house in the back-- sort of like a private ski lodge. His folks rented him a fancy car to drive us around. For some reason, his car had a load of cabbages in the front seat when he took Julien and I to meet his friends.

Chris was a fine and friendly guy with nice rosey cheeks. His unsnobbiness and sense of humor surprised me. He drank too-- always a good sign. Julien and Chris introduced me to their pal Ben, who used to be SQUIRREL BAIT's drummer, but who by the time you read this might be the drummer for THE FALSE PROPHETS. Lastly, I met boy genius Andy, a Louisville prankster whose nasty sense of the subtly absurd is funnier than an evangelist with AIDS.

Immediately, Andy knew I was a Northern slicker who would believe anything he told me about quaint Kentucky customs. I was the classic intellectual looking for "local color." Chris lent Andy the car to take me for a little drive. During that drive, Andy told me about cabbage flinging.

Holding the steering wheel in one hand, Andy picked up a cabbage in the other. "Now this is what we do on Friday nights," he said. As he drove, he slid his left hand back and pulled on the door handle. Still keeping control of the car, he shouldered open the door. Then, steering with his knee, he picked up a head of cabbage and flung it out in front of the car. Finally he aimed the car at the cabbage and ran it over.

"It's a special Kentucky sport," he explained, "but there's more to it than that."

He opened the door again and threw out another head of cabbage. "Now the rules are if you miss the cabbage. . . " He quickly swerved to the left throwing me hard against the back door. ". . . you have to do this." He opened the door and stuck his head out. Still driving at a good clip, he lowered his head close to the road.

He swerved around to pass the cabbage lying in the road. I heard a soft squishing and Andy pulled his head back in, clutching a few cabbage leaves between his teeth. "Now you try it." he said.

Terrified of having my head smashed against the moving pavement, I begged off. After insulting both my hometown and my testicles, Andy agreed to let me skip the activity and drove me back to meet Ben, Chris and Julien.

"You look pale," said Julien.

"I just learned about you guys and your cabbage flinging." I answered.

"Huh?" said all three of them.

I realized I had been had. So did they. My face turned the color of Chris's at their laughter. Andy stood by, the picture of innocence, wondering what was so funny.

The next day was the last of the year. Julien, Ben, Chris and I went to a tiny town back in Appalachia to see the work of a religious psycho-genius Rev. Howard Finster. This guy claims to be a preacher born on another planet, coming to earth to deliver God's word. His artwork is a mixture of painting, writing, cutouts and alien-God-knows-what-else, mostly with religious and space themes. A museum in an obscure state college showed the work. They also played a tape of him preaching. "God sent me from another planet to warn you against pre-marital sexual intercourse. . . " I believed him.

Back in Louisville, Chris stopped the car at Ben's house. "So long," he said, "see you later tonight." Ben got out of the car. Julien grabbed my sleeve.

"You're leaving too," he said, "you don't want to spend all your visit with a New Yorker, do you?" Ben looked as surprised as I was.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Chris's mom invited me to dinner," said Julien, "you can't come."

Before I asked why, Julien hissed the answer through clenched teeth. "She's a feminist!" he said, "You might say something."

"Jesus Christ!" I thought, as he pulled me out of the car, "Even I can't pass for white in this town."

I got out of the car and walked into Ben's house. He brought me down to his unheated room in the basement. Ben explained that his family didn't have much money, so he lived on his own in his mom's house.

"I'm sorry you got dumped here," he said, "I don't have a car or even a dollar to spend and there's really not much to do here."

I guess he could tell by my chattering teeth that I didn't want to stay in the basement. We went upstairs to the livingroom. I stared longingly at the refrigerator as we passed it.

"Sorry," said Ben, "there's no food in there. My mom makes us each buy our own food and I never have any money."

He turned on the TV set. Flipping the channel past a few sitcoms, he settled on a "Porky's Marathon." Yep, the consecutive running of each of the three Porky's movies-- a total of six and a half hours. My stomach growling, I tried to interest myself in the fat man and the whorehouse on TV. Ben couldn't.

"I'm going downstairs and going to bed," he said, "you can just sit here and watch TV." He got up and went to his room in the basement, leaving me alone in the livingroom of this strange house, Ben's mother occasionally interrupted me, getting something or other out of the closet. She never spoke, but her eyes relived the Mai Lai massacre. I was Vietnamese. More accurately, I was a hillbilly stuck in the big city. I was the coyote ugly girl snubbed by in public, by the guy she though was her friend.

After the entire PORKY'S ONE and an hour and a quarter into PORKY'S REVENGE, Julien and Chris show up looking clean and well-fed. Since my clothes and razor were at Chris's mini-lodge, I looked even grungier than usual. They had made me mad as a trapped coyote, but what the fuck. I refused to be miserable on New Years Eve. I went to a party with them-- in the East, ritzy, end of town. Fortunately, we stopped to pick up Andy on the way. Talk about Porky's Revenge!! The minute Andy appeared I knew he would help me get mine.

The four of us first greeted the new year in bar to watching a local band. (I forgot the name, but it was their last performance anyway.) Chris bought us a lot of beer so I don't remember much of what happened there. The next stop was THE PARTY. Here's where we get to the Story part of the story. It was a girl named Story who gave the party. Chris and Julien got out of the car and ran in. I waited for Andy.

The moment we went through the door I should've smelled the snot. It dripped metaphorically from every nostril in the place. Every male dressed like a member of Future Yuppies of America-- chinos, a precisely wrinkled sports jacket. A tie with this years "power colors" hung precisely oh-so-loose around their necks. The girls wore gowns showing just enough cleavage to tempt, but not enough to arouse.

Chris and Julien separated themselves from Andy and I. The two of us wandered from room to room looking for beer. Andy didn't seem to know anyone there, of course neither did I. After fifteen minutes of wandering, a well dressed geek-- the only guy in a matching (black) pants and jacket suit-- walks up to the both of us.

"I hate to do this fellows," he said, "but I've been told that I have to ask you to leave." He did look guilty and uncomfortable at having to throw us out.

"We came with some friends." I said, looking for Julien and Chris.

As we spoke, the geek shuffled us toward the door. "We'll tell them you left," he said.

We now stood right at the front door. A slightly drunk girl in a black dress with one strap slowing sliding down an arm stood behind the geek. It was Story. She seemed to be coaching him.

"At least wish them Happy New Year." The geek said to her.

"Haffa nuya." said the girl through clenched teeth staring intently at a spot on the floor in front of us. "Ya see, it's an invitation only party and. . ." She didn't bother finishing the sentence.

Andy and I went out to the car to wait for the others. It took us ten minutes to realize that they had no intention of leaving. By now it was about three in the morning. Andy leaned on the horn. We both were madder than a mugged liberal. Two drunken frat boys ran out of the party and pounded on the side car window.

"Shut up!" they screamed, "the neighbors will kill us!"

Andy rolled down the window and said with his usual poker face, "I regret the problem, sir. It's just that my sister is inside the party and we are waiting for her return."

"What's your sister's name?" asked the taller of the drunken stockbroker wannabees, a saliva string hung from the corner of his mouth. It grew longer, wiggling back and forth as he spoke.

"Whitney Houston," replied Andy, "could you please go back into the party and ask her to come out?"

Maybe the yuppies inhabit the same world as Howard Finster, because the guy had obviously never heard of her. "I'll go get her," said our interrogator, "just lay off the horn!"

The two of them sloshed back to the party to tell Whitney that her brother was waiting for her outside. When they were safely inside, Andy leaned on the horn again. Needless to say, the drunks came back furious at being made fools of. Needfull to say, they brought a couple of friends with them.

About a half a dozen of them surrounded the car-- all jocks in ties and jackets. One of them had what looked like a beer puke stain running from his jacket lapel, over the right side of his white shirt, past his tie. Andy rolled up the windows and pushed the button that locks all four doors simultaneously.

Story's geek goon squad started beating on the windows yelling, "Get the fuck out of here, assholes." and "Why don't you just leave?"

The pounding on the windows grew more and more menacing. I was afraid they would break through like in Night Of The Living Dead. Andy pressed hard on the horn again. That made them bang even harder.

Eventually the commotion drew Julien and Chris out of the party. I watched them leisurely give their good-byes to the party-ites before they ran to protect the car. They broke through the crowd and jumped in.

"Jesus," said Chris, "I know they're assholes, but they're my friends!"

With the two of them, came the black suited pussy-whipee who had thrown us out of the party. He called off the attackers.

"It's all right," he said, "they're leaving now."

"What happened in there?" asked Julien, "suddenly I turned around and you guys were gone?"

I started to explain when Andy interrupted.

"Have you ever heard of sodding?" he asked me. I shook my head. "Watch!" he said.

He drove the car onto Ms. Story's front lawn. Then he put it in neutral and revved the motor. Finally, he popped it into gear sending the car forward and mounds of grass and dirt flying from what had once been the lawn. Chris hid his head in his hands.

"I like that one," I said.

That was the end of my adventure being a hillbilly. The next day we met Andy at a party. He brought a video camera and had convinced this inebriated blond girl that he worked for the Guiness Book of Records. As I walked in, she stuffed the twenty first piece of Bazooka gum into her mouth, half laughing, half choking as she forced it past her teeth.

"You've got to chew it." said Andy, "it doesn't count unless you chew it all." Andy captured the record breaking event on tape. You can see it if you don't believe me.

Oh yeah, the next morning after I shaved, Chris took me with Julien to meet his mom and siblings for breakfast. His mom was nice and so was I.

"Why didn't you come to dinner last night?" she asked. I smiled and shrugged as Chris and Julien reddened. Not a real knife- wound revenge, perhaps, but at least a pinprick.

But it's neither knife wounds nor pin pricks that're the point of this column. It's being a hillbilly or any other outsider-- and what that feels like. So next time you wake up with a coyote ug on your arm-- take a deep breath, close your eyes if you have to, and give him or her a big open mouthed kiss. Remember, no matter what you think of yourself-- someday the howl of that coyote might come from your own throat.

ENDNOTES:

Even if there is a New York scene report, it probable won't tell you much. NYC'S been a hotbed of skin and scum during the last month. It looks like Roger, singer from AGNOSTIC FRONT is going into the slammer soon. He had a huge benefit at CBGBs: AGNOSTIC FRONT played as did MURPHY'S LAW and a bunch of other bands that I want to forget because I (and about 200 others) couldn't get in. The place was just over packed. The entire bill was just too good to remember without remembering the pain of having missed it. Anyway, Roger's tough and has the tattoos to survive in prison. I'm sure he could use some mail though, and after everything is settled with him (and after I get permission), I'll leave an address to write letters of support.

On the scum front, DA WILLIES, HAMMERBRAIN and SHARKY'S MACHINE played on the same Thursday night. THE REVERB MOTHERFUCKERS were supposed to play also, but "something happened." That same night, next door at The Record Canteen, ROYAL TRUX and a mellow opening band played to a small audience. At the door, Gerard Cosloy chased me down to make me pay my five bucks to get in. Rather than pay, I left to go back to the main club to see SHARKY'S MACHINE. After the S.M. show I went back to see R.T. I slipped the door girl a five to give to the band. The place was so empty I felt guilty, but I didn't want Gerard to know I had paid. The morality of having to pay to see bands when you don't have any money yourself and you support the band by giving them publicity and you have paid them to be on a compilation is the kind of thing that columns are made of. This, however, will not be not one of them.

Further on the scumfront, Chris, formerly of ROADKILL has a new band HOLY CROW that debuts Friday. SLUGFEST is playing on Saturday along with the DEANS OF DISCIPLINE. Next Wednesday, a newish (scum?) band, CHARITY BALL plays at an even newer club: Cafe Poppolini's. What a city!! It never stops!!

Oh yeah, the coolest thing about the Thursday scum show was an audience as low as the performers. At the table next to me a couple of girls stroked their long neck beer bottles to see how long it would take for them to foam. After they got tired of that they played, "you catch my spit in your mouth and I'll catch yours." First they used their boyfriends as partners and then each other. What a city!!!

-end-