The Oklahomicron Vol. 1, Issue 1: “I’m a teather”
“This must be what it was like in northwestern France at ten a.m. on November 11, 1918,” the Red Stripe reflected, crouching in her defensive position on the last hour of the last day of school. I peered over the overturned desk, my mind zooming through the recent hours spent damping the natural exuberance of adolescents, lest the return to man’s state of nature lead to a dam break of uniform infractions and vandalism. Frankly, I tire of my own maladapted attempt at professional dress and I would love nothing more than to destroy a stapler with a ruler and a hole punch. The enemy can never know my internal sympathies. They will heartlessly exploit them.
I am pretty sure the passage of time is at its most viscous. I picture a Twilight Zone episode in which I star, a black and white montage:
The old school clock noticeably ticks slower every second. Cut to her furrowed, sweaty brow, capping her frantic, caged-animal eyes. Cut to the clock, now ticking BACKWARD! Cut to her hand rising to her cheek. Her irrational, psychotic yelp pierces the oppression of the logical, methodical, droning beat…
“Can we go? There are people outside.”
Wha?
Summoned back to reality, my heart jumps at surviving to the Armistice. “Yes! But of course! Have a Geo Summer!” Outside, the sun encourages admonitions to keep moving.
Finally! They are gone. Time to transition from a thousand yard stare to starry anticipation. Yes! Tonight is my reward for the hardest, most trying year of my life. Tonight, I will join in musical commune with Kentucky native and lyrical powerhouse, Skinny DeVille and his equally verbally potent partner and owner of the thickest Southern accent to make the mainstream, Fish Scales (Swoon!). Collectively, with a couple of folks who will not be there tonight, they are more commonly known as the Nappy Roots.
Nappy Roots. A group introduced to me by Pandora because I hold an unhealthy allegiance to Dirty South classics like Outkast, Goodie Mob, and Youngbloodz. A group that slowly moved to the #2 spot in my heart (nothing displaces Big Boi and Andre 3000, sorry). A group whose songs I will select from every day and play obsessively in the morning before I leave for work so that the millions of daily adolescent questions asked and answered skitter over a backdrop of their beats in my mind. A group who secured a live venue in which to play on the last day of my school year, an occurrence I equated to the kind of cosmic importance that you have to pay attention to.
So perfect, except… doubts eat ever-so-slightly at the periphery of my excitement. OKC is not a natural hot bed of rap music. The college students I teach, presumably the target demographic since the show is 18 and over, almost exclusively enjoy the inexplicable appeal of contemporary country to the point that they HAVE NO IDEA what I am talking about when I lecture on American popular music and mention examples like Parliament, James Brown, or Earth, Wind, and Fire; much less Sugarhill Gang, N.W.A, or Wu Tang Clan. Typical exchange:
My class, “Is he the guy that did a song with Tim McGraw?”
Me, “Who the hell is Tim McGraw? What are you talking about?!?”
So I wonder who, besides me, will even show up?
I also fret about my age. I am a puffy, near-forty-year-old. The mirror suggests I am having only limited success in keeping that my dirty little secret. I have been to dozens of shows, most taking place more than a decade (or two—ouch!) ago. I have a vivid memory of noting the presence of some incarnation of “that guy.” “That guy” is the guy at the show, fifteen or twenty years older than everyone else, standing near the front edges with matted, long hair and a slight paunch while wearing a dated, worn Iron Maiden shirt, working jeans, and dingy tennis shoes framed against a background of firmer, younger, vigorous-er, leather-clad boys and short-skirted, purposefully preening, carefully-coiffed girls melting from the sweat of tribal celebration. All awkward elbows, you knew he loved the music, but you also knew he didn’t know where to put his hands or his eyes. I never really thought “that guy” was particularly funny, just curious. Now, though, I wonder, “Am I ‘that guy?’”
Even still, I am totally wearing my Trenchtown Rock Bob Marley shirt and steel-toed Docs, fully aware I am provoking…something. The gods? Destiny? My self-esteem?
I drive the short distance to the club, arriving promptly at 9PM, when the doors open, even though dozens of previous exposures to the format of the American live music scene tells me nothing is going to happen for a couple of hours.
I do wonder if I should bring a book…
I line up in the short queue. Minutes later, the doors open and an overly rude bouncer shouts at an overly rude patron about washing the prominent black X’s drawn with Sharpie on her hands. Apparently, if she does, and is caught, he will throw her out without the use of kid gloves (those aren’t exactly the words he used).
Five people in front of me get X’s. Then, after considering eye contact and a friendly hello to the mean man and discarding the notion, I show my ID and get no X’s. I inquire. He responds that I am over 21. I mumble “by far” as I go inside to a more customer friendly woman who takes my ticket. I think about asking for the ticket back so I can have a memento but then I remember I am terrible at keeping material symbols of past experiences and I also have a copy of the ticket in my inbox.
I enter the club. Seems very upscale to my eyes. I walk the perimeter to get my bearings and marvel at the upholstered VIP sections, the fancy lamps just sitting on the floor, and the big screen TVs showing models silently traverse the thin line of pornography and conventional consumerism that parades as high concept fashion. “Too dark to read,” I think. Glad I didn’t bring the book. I find a seat and try to find a place to put my eyes.
The club clashes with my memory of live music venues. I cut my teeth on punk rock shows. It didn’t matter who the act was, local or internationally renowned or where the show was held; there wasn’t ever ANY furniture anywhere—we just sat on the floor if we wanted to sit down. Of course, my colorful cohorts of years past also put their cigarettes out on the floor and were not as averse to public vomiting as one might initially surmise in our civilized society. Huh. Is this how all rap shows are? Classy? Really? Seems like I might have read about that.
I look around at the fellow Nappy Roots “fans”. I’m suspicious. Most folks look like they are probably club regulars from the within-walking-distance university. I learn that young barflies take pictures of each other A LOT. In the light of the flashes, I register universally clear skin and expensively straight, white teeth. The boys are more hipster than hip-hop with mussed hair on top of their heads and permutations of hair on their faces. The girls wear stilettos with their barely there shorts, a constant in the club that provokes stodgy me to think, “That is a great way to break an ankle!”
I was right. Nothing beyond standard bar behavior happens for an hour and a half. During that lengthy filibuster, the DJ plays a steady stream of new rap featuring Lil Wayne spouting meaningless phrases on every song although he does put that monotony on hold long enough to play “It Feels Good to be a Gangsta” by the seminal Geto Boys, a cut, I assure you, only he and I have ever heard before. It came out before any of these kids were born.
Finally, one of the several opening acts starts. Six guys from Moore. Their between-song patter is centered on, understandably I think, on the recent horrifying reminder that Nature Owns Us All. Every song is dedicated to the victims of the tornado which, while seemingly sincere, might not be the best way to get this party started. Still, there is something about watching people creating and performing art for their insular community of supporters that holds an appeal for me. I sense its rough authenticity and enjoy its observation.
Fortunately, rap requires very little transition between acts so the performers follow each other quickly. The next performer is a solo, handsome young man who models his delivery along the slow plodding of Drake. Not my thing but I appreciate his effort, especially when I notice that he has tripped up on his lyric and then recovers. I couldn’t do it. The next two acts smartly utilize a live drummer which adds intensity to their performances, the first an older, competently inyourface rapper clearly experienced at handling an audience. The second act is a duo which reminds me vaguely of the much underappreciated Kid ‘n’ Play.
During their performance, I take measure of the growing crowd. Lots of the opening acts mixed with two blondes dressed for a two-step, well-practiced in the grind-on-each-other kind of dancing media has taught us women do when exposed to crazy beats. One of the blondes flirts with the performer. He pretends to take off his shirt, his eyebrows raised as a dare. It takes forever but she actually does take her shirt off (she was wearing a dress underneath). She throws it at him. He, in a surprise move, keeps his shirt and throws hers right back at her. I catch it and set it politely on the metal barrier protecting these young men from what appears to be a growing gam of lady sharks.
The most notable of these teeth-baring man-eaters was an incredibly inebriated, big booty-ed Amazon who perpetually announced “I’m a teather! A teather!” whilst her arms reached out to personally and x-ratedly break the arbitrary separation between audience and performer. More on her later.
Finally! The opening acts performed. I’m ready—bring on Nappy Roooooots!!!! They take down the drum kit and set up a table. A guy comes out with the most dramatic chest chain—well, it wasn’t so much a chain as it was a gold pyramid from which tentacles of chain spread all over his torso—that I, a truly addictive rap video connoisseur, had to wonder if this guy was Illuminati, Five Percent Nation, or a Free Mason. Turns out he was the Nappy Roots manager, DJ, and resident miser because he set up two IPads instead of turntables. I briefly begin to think about how that technological innovation will create greater access to the tools of music production, thus further democratizing musical expression but then I put that away because, uh, I am at a concert, not at home thinking.
The show starts. Nappy Roots, actually two of the four current members, come out to an enthusiastic audience of around fifty. These are the guys who speak rhythmic metaphor in my ear every day and I am on the front row, ready to escalate that to real time. They perform a blend of new and old tracks, some substantially more popular than others. I know all but a handful intimately but since I vowed long ago never to taunt the universe by singing along with a rap song, I stumble of the choruses a little. No matter. It’s fun.
Eventually they, too, tangle with the prurient and octopoid teather. During a pause, Fish Scales asks her if she is saying she is a “TeaCHer”. Her lolling head manages an affirmative nod and her parabola eyes widen slightly while she licks her lips. She is truly the stuff of 80s horror movie fare. Then, after some banter about teachers, Fish Scales asks how many of us are teachers. I raise my hand (heh-heh—like a student!). The overabundance of educators in the audience seems to rattle him. Skinny starts a little speech about how important teachers are but then he never finishes it because I think he is both stoned and drunk and because, by then, the unholy writhing of teather forced the topic into the territory of profoundly awkward.
They perform a few more songs and then they suggest some ladies come on stage. YOU KNOW teather Price is Righted her way down. So did the blonde cowgirl and several others. They think about Beyonce and attempt to emulate the images in their heads. The teather knocks another lady into a table and they both fall on the floor. Tragic, accidental death averted, they take a breather. Skinny DeVille pushes the blonde cowgirl away after she offers to “be all up on” him. Then he disappears (he isn’t very tall; I surmise it was easy to work his way through the crowd without notice). The original DJ plays non-Nappy Roots songs. Fish Scales moves to the back of the stage and just kind of watches. Many, many audience members take to the stage to dance. Friends, former Kronkites, Oklahomicronies, people possessed by angels OR demons move more rhythmically than what I observed in that painful scene. I think they were trying to dance like hip hop dancers but it more resembled what I imagine the mass convulsive seizures recorded during the Salem witch trials looked like. My suspicions about their allegiance to the Nappy Roots were confirmed, as they were equally happy “getting low” to nameless Dirty South trunk rattlers as they had been listening to the sophisticated song stylings of Skinny and Scales.
Fish Scales comes down from his watchful perch, slaps my hand, and departs.
Never have I been to show that ended like that.
Upon his departure, a man move center stage, wiggling his aged frame, salt and pepper hair crowning a shirt tucked into ironed jeans with matching shoes and belt. I can’t tell if he is hunched over because of the onset of early osteoporosis or the funk of the 808. I decide it doesn’t matter because…
I’M NOT “THAT GUY”! Whew!
Until next time,
I am
Carrie the Red (Stripe)
I am pretty sure the passage of time is at its most viscous. I picture a Twilight Zone episode in which I star, a black and white montage:
The old school clock noticeably ticks slower every second. Cut to her furrowed, sweaty brow, capping her frantic, caged-animal eyes. Cut to the clock, now ticking BACKWARD! Cut to her hand rising to her cheek. Her irrational, psychotic yelp pierces the oppression of the logical, methodical, droning beat…
“Can we go? There are people outside.”
Wha?
Summoned back to reality, my heart jumps at surviving to the Armistice. “Yes! But of course! Have a Geo Summer!” Outside, the sun encourages admonitions to keep moving.
Finally! They are gone. Time to transition from a thousand yard stare to starry anticipation. Yes! Tonight is my reward for the hardest, most trying year of my life. Tonight, I will join in musical commune with Kentucky native and lyrical powerhouse, Skinny DeVille and his equally verbally potent partner and owner of the thickest Southern accent to make the mainstream, Fish Scales (Swoon!). Collectively, with a couple of folks who will not be there tonight, they are more commonly known as the Nappy Roots.
Nappy Roots. A group introduced to me by Pandora because I hold an unhealthy allegiance to Dirty South classics like Outkast, Goodie Mob, and Youngbloodz. A group that slowly moved to the #2 spot in my heart (nothing displaces Big Boi and Andre 3000, sorry). A group whose songs I will select from every day and play obsessively in the morning before I leave for work so that the millions of daily adolescent questions asked and answered skitter over a backdrop of their beats in my mind. A group who secured a live venue in which to play on the last day of my school year, an occurrence I equated to the kind of cosmic importance that you have to pay attention to.
So perfect, except… doubts eat ever-so-slightly at the periphery of my excitement. OKC is not a natural hot bed of rap music. The college students I teach, presumably the target demographic since the show is 18 and over, almost exclusively enjoy the inexplicable appeal of contemporary country to the point that they HAVE NO IDEA what I am talking about when I lecture on American popular music and mention examples like Parliament, James Brown, or Earth, Wind, and Fire; much less Sugarhill Gang, N.W.A, or Wu Tang Clan. Typical exchange:
My class, “Is he the guy that did a song with Tim McGraw?”
Me, “Who the hell is Tim McGraw? What are you talking about?!?”
So I wonder who, besides me, will even show up?
I also fret about my age. I am a puffy, near-forty-year-old. The mirror suggests I am having only limited success in keeping that my dirty little secret. I have been to dozens of shows, most taking place more than a decade (or two—ouch!) ago. I have a vivid memory of noting the presence of some incarnation of “that guy.” “That guy” is the guy at the show, fifteen or twenty years older than everyone else, standing near the front edges with matted, long hair and a slight paunch while wearing a dated, worn Iron Maiden shirt, working jeans, and dingy tennis shoes framed against a background of firmer, younger, vigorous-er, leather-clad boys and short-skirted, purposefully preening, carefully-coiffed girls melting from the sweat of tribal celebration. All awkward elbows, you knew he loved the music, but you also knew he didn’t know where to put his hands or his eyes. I never really thought “that guy” was particularly funny, just curious. Now, though, I wonder, “Am I ‘that guy?’”
Even still, I am totally wearing my Trenchtown Rock Bob Marley shirt and steel-toed Docs, fully aware I am provoking…something. The gods? Destiny? My self-esteem?
I drive the short distance to the club, arriving promptly at 9PM, when the doors open, even though dozens of previous exposures to the format of the American live music scene tells me nothing is going to happen for a couple of hours.
I do wonder if I should bring a book…
I line up in the short queue. Minutes later, the doors open and an overly rude bouncer shouts at an overly rude patron about washing the prominent black X’s drawn with Sharpie on her hands. Apparently, if she does, and is caught, he will throw her out without the use of kid gloves (those aren’t exactly the words he used).
Five people in front of me get X’s. Then, after considering eye contact and a friendly hello to the mean man and discarding the notion, I show my ID and get no X’s. I inquire. He responds that I am over 21. I mumble “by far” as I go inside to a more customer friendly woman who takes my ticket. I think about asking for the ticket back so I can have a memento but then I remember I am terrible at keeping material symbols of past experiences and I also have a copy of the ticket in my inbox.
I enter the club. Seems very upscale to my eyes. I walk the perimeter to get my bearings and marvel at the upholstered VIP sections, the fancy lamps just sitting on the floor, and the big screen TVs showing models silently traverse the thin line of pornography and conventional consumerism that parades as high concept fashion. “Too dark to read,” I think. Glad I didn’t bring the book. I find a seat and try to find a place to put my eyes.
The club clashes with my memory of live music venues. I cut my teeth on punk rock shows. It didn’t matter who the act was, local or internationally renowned or where the show was held; there wasn’t ever ANY furniture anywhere—we just sat on the floor if we wanted to sit down. Of course, my colorful cohorts of years past also put their cigarettes out on the floor and were not as averse to public vomiting as one might initially surmise in our civilized society. Huh. Is this how all rap shows are? Classy? Really? Seems like I might have read about that.
I look around at the fellow Nappy Roots “fans”. I’m suspicious. Most folks look like they are probably club regulars from the within-walking-distance university. I learn that young barflies take pictures of each other A LOT. In the light of the flashes, I register universally clear skin and expensively straight, white teeth. The boys are more hipster than hip-hop with mussed hair on top of their heads and permutations of hair on their faces. The girls wear stilettos with their barely there shorts, a constant in the club that provokes stodgy me to think, “That is a great way to break an ankle!”
I was right. Nothing beyond standard bar behavior happens for an hour and a half. During that lengthy filibuster, the DJ plays a steady stream of new rap featuring Lil Wayne spouting meaningless phrases on every song although he does put that monotony on hold long enough to play “It Feels Good to be a Gangsta” by the seminal Geto Boys, a cut, I assure you, only he and I have ever heard before. It came out before any of these kids were born.
Finally, one of the several opening acts starts. Six guys from Moore. Their between-song patter is centered on, understandably I think, on the recent horrifying reminder that Nature Owns Us All. Every song is dedicated to the victims of the tornado which, while seemingly sincere, might not be the best way to get this party started. Still, there is something about watching people creating and performing art for their insular community of supporters that holds an appeal for me. I sense its rough authenticity and enjoy its observation.
Fortunately, rap requires very little transition between acts so the performers follow each other quickly. The next performer is a solo, handsome young man who models his delivery along the slow plodding of Drake. Not my thing but I appreciate his effort, especially when I notice that he has tripped up on his lyric and then recovers. I couldn’t do it. The next two acts smartly utilize a live drummer which adds intensity to their performances, the first an older, competently inyourface rapper clearly experienced at handling an audience. The second act is a duo which reminds me vaguely of the much underappreciated Kid ‘n’ Play.
During their performance, I take measure of the growing crowd. Lots of the opening acts mixed with two blondes dressed for a two-step, well-practiced in the grind-on-each-other kind of dancing media has taught us women do when exposed to crazy beats. One of the blondes flirts with the performer. He pretends to take off his shirt, his eyebrows raised as a dare. It takes forever but she actually does take her shirt off (she was wearing a dress underneath). She throws it at him. He, in a surprise move, keeps his shirt and throws hers right back at her. I catch it and set it politely on the metal barrier protecting these young men from what appears to be a growing gam of lady sharks.
The most notable of these teeth-baring man-eaters was an incredibly inebriated, big booty-ed Amazon who perpetually announced “I’m a teather! A teather!” whilst her arms reached out to personally and x-ratedly break the arbitrary separation between audience and performer. More on her later.
Finally! The opening acts performed. I’m ready—bring on Nappy Roooooots!!!! They take down the drum kit and set up a table. A guy comes out with the most dramatic chest chain—well, it wasn’t so much a chain as it was a gold pyramid from which tentacles of chain spread all over his torso—that I, a truly addictive rap video connoisseur, had to wonder if this guy was Illuminati, Five Percent Nation, or a Free Mason. Turns out he was the Nappy Roots manager, DJ, and resident miser because he set up two IPads instead of turntables. I briefly begin to think about how that technological innovation will create greater access to the tools of music production, thus further democratizing musical expression but then I put that away because, uh, I am at a concert, not at home thinking.
The show starts. Nappy Roots, actually two of the four current members, come out to an enthusiastic audience of around fifty. These are the guys who speak rhythmic metaphor in my ear every day and I am on the front row, ready to escalate that to real time. They perform a blend of new and old tracks, some substantially more popular than others. I know all but a handful intimately but since I vowed long ago never to taunt the universe by singing along with a rap song, I stumble of the choruses a little. No matter. It’s fun.
Eventually they, too, tangle with the prurient and octopoid teather. During a pause, Fish Scales asks her if she is saying she is a “TeaCHer”. Her lolling head manages an affirmative nod and her parabola eyes widen slightly while she licks her lips. She is truly the stuff of 80s horror movie fare. Then, after some banter about teachers, Fish Scales asks how many of us are teachers. I raise my hand (heh-heh—like a student!). The overabundance of educators in the audience seems to rattle him. Skinny starts a little speech about how important teachers are but then he never finishes it because I think he is both stoned and drunk and because, by then, the unholy writhing of teather forced the topic into the territory of profoundly awkward.
They perform a few more songs and then they suggest some ladies come on stage. YOU KNOW teather Price is Righted her way down. So did the blonde cowgirl and several others. They think about Beyonce and attempt to emulate the images in their heads. The teather knocks another lady into a table and they both fall on the floor. Tragic, accidental death averted, they take a breather. Skinny DeVille pushes the blonde cowgirl away after she offers to “be all up on” him. Then he disappears (he isn’t very tall; I surmise it was easy to work his way through the crowd without notice). The original DJ plays non-Nappy Roots songs. Fish Scales moves to the back of the stage and just kind of watches. Many, many audience members take to the stage to dance. Friends, former Kronkites, Oklahomicronies, people possessed by angels OR demons move more rhythmically than what I observed in that painful scene. I think they were trying to dance like hip hop dancers but it more resembled what I imagine the mass convulsive seizures recorded during the Salem witch trials looked like. My suspicions about their allegiance to the Nappy Roots were confirmed, as they were equally happy “getting low” to nameless Dirty South trunk rattlers as they had been listening to the sophisticated song stylings of Skinny and Scales.
Fish Scales comes down from his watchful perch, slaps my hand, and departs.
Never have I been to show that ended like that.
Upon his departure, a man move center stage, wiggling his aged frame, salt and pepper hair crowning a shirt tucked into ironed jeans with matching shoes and belt. I can’t tell if he is hunched over because of the onset of early osteoporosis or the funk of the 808. I decide it doesn’t matter because…
I’M NOT “THAT GUY”! Whew!
Until next time,
I am
Carrie the Red (Stripe)