Sameish

Note Taped To Stall In Public Restroom At Corporation

Content? Gross.

Again!

Knowing When To Hold Them

The Claw Machine was recently saddened to find that one of our favorite records, The Gambler by Kenny Rogers, is broken. The disc is snapped off at the edge, forever ruined and unplayable. While we're not entirely sure how this happened, we suspect that it may have occurred during a recent move.



Let it be clear that we have no sentimental attachments to this particular copy of The Gambler. It's one of millions sold worldwide. We found this copy, a 1980 Liberty re-issue, in the dollar bin at the local thrift store. Another could easily be bought and no doubt we'll be tempted at the next swap meet, rummage sale or record store. But why buy it twice? We all know the songs -- they're part of our collective cultural unconsciousness. This is the chart-topping crossover album that effectively relaunched Kenny Rogers' career, bridged the gap between outlaw and pop country, garnered numerous industry awards. Rogers' warm voice, Don Schlitz's eponymous composition and its simple advice, Larry Butler's smooth, pop-influenced production, all can be recalled as easily and clearly as playing the record. With a bit of concentration, we can even remember the track order:

SIDE 1:

1. "The Gambler"
2. "I Wish That I Could Hurt That Way Again"
3. "King of Oak Street"
4. "Makin' Music for Money"
5. "Hoodooin' of Miss Fannie Deberry"

SIDE 2:

6. "She Believes in Me"
7. "Tennessee Bottle"
8. "Sleep Tight, Goodnight Man"
9. "Little More Like Me (The Crucifixion)"
10. "San Francisco Mabel Joy"
11. "Morgana Jones"




Just as easily remembered is Reid Miles' airbrushed chiaroscuro cover photo, with its warm hues and poker felt greens. (It was this photo, as much as the song, that inspired 5 Gambler TV movies with Rogers in the starring role.) We know every baroque curve of the typography. We've memorized the endless list of guest musicians and have even made note of "The Friends of Kenny Rogers" fan club address.

And should we forget, there's always the Internet. What makes us sad is that we don't need this record anymore. It's broken, so into the dumpster it goes. And it just doesn't feel right to throw a record away.

Hey, Those Wall Sockets Aren't Even

And why are they in the middle of your wall like that?

It's Merely Trash

Mere, as in "just only, nothing more than", as in "a shallow pool or marsh," as in "a Maori war club", or maybe as in the French "mère", meaning "mother".

400 Paul Avenue

Paul Avenue runs through some far-flung industrial park hugging a middle-class suburb north of the city. 400 Paul was once the home of Universal Match, the Diamond Match Company, and until recently, the Memorial Tabernacle Christian Life Center. In this building, matches were made and people were saved. It's empty now, quiet.

The Match Collector

It's a Quaker Oats can filled with matches. The Claw Machine bought it at a junk shop's "Going Out Of Business" sale. There, amid the pressboard dressers, sewing machines, paperback novels, and brass lamps were 2 more identical cans that could have been purchased but regrettably were not. These 3 cans represent someone's life collection of matches. In this can, there are 66 matchbooks and boxes, too many to list or show here. Representative pieces include:

• The Carnelian Room - San Francisco
• Steak and Ale Restaurant - Atlanta
• Salute Trattoria Italiana - Fort Lauderdale
• Gasparilla Inn and Cottages - Boca Grande
• Dayton Airport Inn
• Hutchens Mortuary - St. Louis
• Westborough Country Club - St. Louis
• Holiday Inn - Westport, St. Louis
• Holiday Inn - Glasgow
• Holiday Inn - London (Marble Arch)
• Trader Vic's - London
• Ledoyen Hotel - Paris
• Hotel Jagdschloss - Netherlands
• Concorde - Air France
• Hyatt Regency - Maui

The majority of the collection comes from businesses in US, but as a whole represents matches from around the world. Many of the businesses advertised on the matches no longer exist or have moved. The matchbooks come all sizes - 20 head, 30 head, even a few 48 head. Almost all books are intact, with very few or no matches missing. The matchboxes are all full. Printing is done using 1 to 4 color processes and the papers used are brightly colored matte, glossy, or metallic stocks.



Who was the collector of matches? Why did this person collect them? The matches are undated, so if a timeline of the collection were to be created, it would have to be by best-guessing the age of each by wear (such as fading or yellowing), typography or technology of printing. However, since almost every matchbook lists an address, we can still chart the journey of an anonymous collector through restaurants, steak houses, lounges, hotels, country clubs, and mortuaries. Through research and analysis, 3 profiles have been created, all of equal probability:

1. The collector, likely a white male, was a smoker, a drinker, a traveler. Judging by his frequent trips to non-vacation regional destinations such as Paducah, KY, he was a salesman of some kind. He was a veteran, at one point serving in the Navy (a detail derived from Matchbook #45, "US Navy Seal"). He enjoyed golf, steaks, country clubs. Judging by the (estimated) age of the the pieces in the collection, he was born in the 1930s, died in the 90s. He may have been a philanderer, as the only duplicate matchbooks in the collection came from hotels within a 20 minutes' drive from where the can was found. Since it seems unlikely that this collection traveled far after the collector's death, we believe that the collector met some secret lover at hotels in the city, away from his suburban life, and kept matchbooks as souvenirs of each tryst. One such memento, from The Greenbriar Hills Country Club (#21, Kirkwood, Missouri) has a telephone number written on the back. What his relatives thought when going through the matches he left behind, one can only guess.




2. Approximately 30% of all matches in the collection carry the Universal Match or the Diamond Match Company imprint. Both are defunct businesses that shared the same address, 400 Paul Avenue in St. Louis. It seems possible that the can(s) of matches may have served as a portfolio of sorts for a matchbook graphic designer, now retired or deceased. The remaining 70% of the collection not manufactured by the Universal Match or Diamond Match Company can easily be explained. Not all matches carry an imprint, and therefore could still be products of Universal Match or Diamond Match Company. Matches carrying a competitor's imprint may have been collected as inspiration for materials, printing processes, designs, etc.




3. Some combination of both profiles above. We imagine a swinging matchbook salesman/designer, traveling the world, puffing fat cigars, getting sloshed with his clients in the corner booth at the hotel bar. It's Friday night, and he's buying. At closing time, the lights come on and out comes the pen and order form. Hoteliers and restauranteurs, he sells them all, scoring the big orders from famous chains with his charm and stunning designs. Living hard and fast, he dies rich and too young, with nothing but oatmeal cans full of colorful matchbooks to show where he's been.

Who, me?

Just down the road from Time.

Empty Bottle of "Canadian Superior" Found In Bushes Near Side Door of Corporation

It's some kind of scotch. Was it emptied before, during or after work?

Vacuum Cleaner Left On Sidewalk In Razed Neighborhood

Dendrophobia

What I remember most clearly about Bradley was the way he laughed. It made his whole body shake, sent him into snorting convulsions that jangled his long arms. Bradley's laughter was contagious, hilarious. As kids we rode bikes all over town. We explored back roads, graveyards and the thickety woods at the edge of his subdivision. Every photo I have of myself before the age of 11, he's in. We used to be friends. We were inseparable. But that was before his brother's accident and before he became someone else.

Even though he changed, Bradley always looked the same. As a teenager he just looked like a taller version of his pre-adolescent self. He never shaved, never had zits. He had the same slight frame and big, pale head, with wispy blond hair like a halo. But even though he was probably the weirdest kid at my high school, all the hillbillies left him alone. No teasing, nothing. Everyone ignored him, including me. Bradley didn't seem to care. He carried a briefcase and he dressed like an old man. He was a ghost haunting the back of the class, sometimes seen, sometimes not. He rarely spoke, and when he did, he whispered and looked at the floor. The teachers never called on him. It seemed like he could leave the classroom whenever he wanted, and he often did, slowly rising in the middle of a lecture, closing the door behind him without a word. He also got to leave school early, and those that noticed made up stories as to why.

I found out the truth, or most of it anyways, through back-channel parental information that trumped the high school rumor mill. My dad was a teacher at my school, and one night I overheard him telling my mother that Bradley's parents had met with the school administration. Bradley was very sick, my dad said. He was leaving school early to attend therapy sessions, 3 times a week. He was heavily medicated. He had shown early signs of some sort of psychosis and there was no known cure. Bradley was hearing voices.

The opinion is generally held that Bradley's brother's accident somehow drove Bradley over the edge. I always felt his issues had to be deeper, more dense, more chemical than that. But when you consider what happened, the parallels with Bradley's pathology, and how the timing of the accident so closely coincided with the onset of his illness, it's understandable how so many have come to this conclusion.

I was away at camp that summer. This was before high school -- I was 11 and Bradley 12. I didn't hear about it until I got home, a month or so after it happened, and by then, Bradley had shut himself off from the world. I can't tell you who told me or what my immediate reaction was. The way I remember it, I got home and somehow I just knew.

The tree in Bradley's front yard was of some weed-like variety, scrawny, fast-growing, identical to all the others planted when the subdivision was built 5 years before. By the time they cut it down, it had shot up to nearly 30 feet. We'd climbed it a hundred times. The branches were low, easy to reach. The trunk was narrow so when you climbed to the top, the whole tree would sway.

Bradley and his younger brother, Aaron, climbed the tree together one July afternoon while I was gone. A hot, heavy wind was blowing across the prairie – it would storm later that night. No one noticed that the tree's branches had grown into the uninsulated power lines up above. The tree bent with the wind, a branch broke, and Aaron fell. He hit the power lines on the way down. He was killed instantly. Bradley saw the whole thing, right in front of him, up in the tree.

After I found out about the accident, my parents urged me to call his house. He needs his friends now more than ever, they said. I was scared to -– I didn't know what to say and so much time had passed since Aaron's death. Another week went by before I finally picked up the phone. By then it didn't matter, because Bradley didn't return my calls. So I rode over to his house. It was suddenly small and very white. The tree was gone from the front yard and all the shade with it. The drapes were all drawn, as though the house was blinded by the summer sun. In the yard, muddy tire tracks in the grass and a freshly cut stump still marked the spot where Aaron fell. I rang the bell. His mother, red-eyed, turned me away. And just like that, Bradley and I stopped being friends.

***

I don't think I heard about Bradley's phobia until years later, after he was hospitalized for schizophrenia. I was visiting home, on break from college. My mother made some offhand remark, almost a joke, like it was something I already knew. Bradley, along with the voices, the trances, and his many other problems, was widely known to be terrified of trees. It was worst in the winter and when he was by himself. Sometimes, but not always, the sight of trees could transform him into a jabbering, sobbing mess. There were days when he couldn't leave the house. This extreme, paralyzing fear had secretly tormented him for years, even while we were in high school. It was one of the main reasons for his hospitalization.

My block is lined with trees. Big trees, old trees, they crack the sidewalk, their branches form a canopy over the street. When I'm out walking, I sometimes think about Bradley. In my head, he's still a teenager, still part of the outside world, as he was when I last saw him. I picture him walking home after his therapy session, briefcase in hand, on his way from the bus stop to his parent's house. It's dusk, and maybe the whispers and the muffled shouts in his head have finally quieted. Walking through his subdivision, he's alone like me, and all along the winding street are the same scraggly trees that killed his brother, patiently waiting in evenly spaced rows. They wheeze when the wind blows. Above him, the dry leaves rattle and the thin, black branches scrape the sky.

At The Movies: Brad & The Broom

Empty Upside-Down USA Today Newspaper Dispenser at the Light Rail Train Station

McMahon / Marian Borstnik, We Have the Moby Grape Record That Used To Belong To You

McMahon/Ms. Borstnik:

The Claw Machine has acquired through legal channels a record that used to belong to you: Moby Grape's 1967 debut album, Moby Grape, you know, the one with "Omaha", "Hey Grandma" and "Naked If I Want To" on it. The record is in great shape, in its original plastic wrap, with very little wear to the jacket or disc. The sound is clean and free of skips. "McMahon" is written in marker on the label of Side 1 and "Marian Borstnik" is written in ballpoint pen on the label of Side 2. The "GIANT FULL-COLOR POSTER" advertised on the album cover is missing. The record is ours now and we are not interested in selling it, but for the sake of historical documentation, we would like to know the following:

1. When did you get this album? The Claw Machine is notoriously lazy at researching the different pressings of records, and we would like your help, just so we know how old the actual record is.

2. Where is the Giant Full-Color Poster? Did you hang it on the wall of your teenage bedroom, some 40 years ago? Do you remember what it looked like? At what point did you take the poster down, roll it up, throw it away? The Claw Machine likes to imagine the Giant Full-Color Poster perfectly preserved under layers of trash in a Midwestern landfill, waiting to be excavated by some future civilization. Or maybe you still have it, even though you no longer have the record it came with. Is this poster in a box in your basement or attic, with everything else you saved from the summer of '67? Can we see it?

3. What happened here, anyway? This is a great album, one of our favorites. The songs on the record are short, psych-influenced pop numbers, all at once accessibly upbeat, brash, multi-layered, funny, smart. Though this is a relatively "happy" album, The Claw Machine often listens to it and thinks of the tragedy of Moby Grape co-founder Skip Spence, mental illness, and the fragility of genius. We think it's perfect. Why didn't you keep it?

Please let us know as soon as possible.

Thank you,
The Claw Machine

Historic Showboat Rots In Spite of National Landmark Status

The Goldenrod was the best of the best. She was a floating theatrical palace, with 1500 seats, an elegant gilded interior, massive mirrors and hand-carved wood ornamentation. For decades, The Goldenrod toured the waterways of the Midwest, providing musical and vaudeville entertainment to cities and towns along the river. This was the Golden Age of Showboats, and The Goldenrod was queen.

But nothing lasts forever. As competing entertainments came to the river towns, showboat audiences waned, until finally The Goldenrod was forced to find a permanent home as a floating venue on one city's riverfront. Famous entertainers still came to perform on her majestic stage, and for a while, audiences still came to see them. Certain members of the electorate were nostalgic about The Goldenrod, so a National Landmark was declared. But regardless of her status, The Goldenrod's audience grew old, and showboat entertainment fell out of fashion. People stopped coming to the shows and The Goldenrod fell into disrepair. She was a burden on city infrastructure, a danger to passing barges. Being a Landmark, preservation was necessary, so she was towed to a smaller town up the river. There, The Goldenrod was remodeled and marketed to the community as "musical entertainment for the whole family". Historians were consulted, and the old rituals surrounding the showboat were recreated with scholarly precision. The authenticity of the experience was universally praised. Still no one came. 10 years passed and The Goldenrod failed to clear a profit. The cost of maintaining the aging boat was more than she was worth. The Goldenrod was towed away again.

Now, The Goldenrod rots, 100 miles from anyone who would remember her glory days, if anyone still does. These Landmarks are so very expensive to maintain. No one really likes showboats anymore, anyway. I know I don't.