Motherfucker! Foodeater!

Matt: The only reason you stay here is so you can fuck my mother and eat her food. MOTHERFUCKER! FOOD EATER! --River's Edge, 1986

Possibly the best quote in cinematic history. After "I love the smell of napalm in the morning" and "Rosebud!" of course.

Try as I might, I couldn't find a clip of the scene anywhere. Dammit, YouTube has clips of fuckin' every "Saved By the Bell" episode but not this? Sometimes the world is so out of whack I have to listen to some calming Elliott Smith just to see/feel some balance. Ironically and tragically enough, wonderful and beautiful Elliott could not find that sweet spot of contentment for any extended period. I dearly wish he could have sustained and maintained. I think of him every day. My one regret is never seeing him play live.

Another punishing example of world-out-of-whackness is that I missed the opportunity to see Elliott, but somehow managed to catch Keanu Reeves, the star of "River's Edge", play with his band Dogstar. But then again, I also went to see Mark Wahlberg at the height of his Marky Markiness. I was the Life Cereal Mikey kid of record store employees...

Scene: Record Store Counter
First hipster: What's this stuff? (looking at a pack of comp. concert tix)
Second hipster: Some free tickets for that new teen band. (wrinkles nose) Supposed to be good. (snickers sarcastically)
First hipster: I'm not gonna go. (pushes the tickets towards the second hipster in disgust)
Second hipster: Let's get E.!
First hipster: Yeah!
Second hipster: She won't go...she hates everything! (throws the tix over to E., standing by the racks. She looks at the tix and breaks out into a huge grin)
First hipster: She likes it! Hey E.!

In other words I soon became the last frontier for crap ticket disposal before management donated them to the squeegee kids. I just couldn't resist seeing what I considered to be sure thing one hit wonders. I just figured ya gotta see a hell of a lot of the bad to have the wherewith all to appreciate and understand the good. It was Disposable Teen Music 101 with screaming 14 year old girls waving homemade Bristol board signs with "I WANNA HAVE YOUR BABY" scribbled in crayon.

So yes, I saw Marky before Dirk Diggler swept in to add new length to his career and 13 inches of new length into his Calvin Kleins.

But back to Keanu and Dogstar. The free tickets actually came when I was working at the gear shop. The band's drum tech came in, and offered to put a few of us on the list. Extremely nice guy. Jared Leto and entourage, take note.

We go to the Will Call window and find out in addition to tickets, drum tech has left backstage passes. Extremely nice guy. The show was okay, and as expected girls screamed every time the spotlight settled on Keanu. Fascinating.

As expected again, the groupie contingent backstage was at fever pitch level; the one benefit it provided in the stifling hot room was that with the amount of hair flippage goin' down, a sort of breezy wind effect was generated. Some of the women looked fresh off the conveyor belt at the Groupie Inc. manufacturing plant. Can you imagine?

"Ah, we need more bustiers in sector eight, Ralph. Can you get the forklift and truck another skid on over? The Shawna Model 12 is due in Boise tomorrow, Aerosmith are doing a gig and expecting a least 4 of 'em."

I looked down at my dirty, dusty jeans stained with Finger Ease and orange oil, well aware that after a day of crawling around under amps to fish out stray patch cords and picks, I wasn't going to win any best dressed accolades. Maybe with Popular Mechanics mag...

Then all of a sudden, Keanu swept into the room. I swear, these girls had little electronic devices hidden somewhere amongst their straps and sequins because without any obvious or discernible movement, their skirts suddenly shimmied up a bit higher and the necklines plunged deeper as if suddenly triggered by a garage door opener. Man, these women have a CIA-like network of secret procedure that only they (and maybe Mick Jagger) know about. And Weapons of Massive-Yet-Fake Proportions.

So Keanu swept in one door, swept right by the fancy girls, completely ignoring them and then exited out door number two.

But as he crossed over he gave me a grin.

Score one for the dirty girl.



currently listening to: Tipsy, Remix Party