I guess you could say I gave you my edge. -- Zen Wilting.

[greedy fly]

<center>i wish i could eat the salt off of your lost faded lips
we can cap the old times make playing only logical harm
we can cap the old lines clay-making that nothing else will change

but she can read
she can read
she can read
she can read
she's bad
oh, she's bad

but it's different now
that i'm poor and aging
i'll never see this face again
you'll go stabbing yourself in the neck

we could find new ways of living make playing only logical harm
we could top the old times clay-making and nothing else will change

but she can read
she can read
she can read
she can read
she's bad
oh, she's bad

it's different now that i'm poor and aging
i'll never see this place again
you'll go stabbing yourself in the neck

it's in the way that she poses
it's in the things that she puts in my hair
her stories are boring and stuff
she's always calling my bluff
she puts the, she puts the weights into my little heart
and she gets in my room and she takes it apart
she puts the weights into my little heart
i said she puts the weights into my little heart

she packs it away

it's in the way that she was
her heaven is never enough
she puts the weights in my heart
she puts the, she puts the weights into my little heart</center>

[greedy fly]

(Written in a compulsively neat script in his journal.)


Tonight hell froze over.


Zen W.

[greedy fly]

"They put on the best fucking live show I've ever seen man, they are fucking nuts," the guy with the military buzz and beefy arms informs me. I nod vaguely, yet somehow I doubt it.

The Bowery Ballroom is packing kids tonight. It seems as though they all met up online first and decided in unison to make sure to avoid any cliches. There are just a handful of shaggy-haired boys in suits that are too young to drink at the bar, and too chic to cram into the pit. They stand at the side, hands stuffed in their pockets, trying not to look at all excited for Midnight's set. But the boy in the middle, he remains jittery in place. His friends pretend not to notice he's ruining his cool. There are girls in tiny skirts and middle-aged, scruffy men with tattoos lining the bar. A girl with a wilting mohawk stands to my right, and keeps trying without any success to text message someone. The battery runs out and she slaps her phone shut in defeat.

The Threat Wave open, they're a Danish trio who are apparently making a huge wave over there. The New York crowd bobs sheepishly, chatting in between songs, chewing their fingernails. But the appearance of the Midnight roadies taping down wires and set lists, makes some girls shriek and others stare at the crooners in utter disdain. Eventually, Pulp's "Pink Glove" materializes and the stage abandons its glow. The cover art for Built you a Castle banners behind the drumset, and one at a time, the boys emerge in immaculately tailored suits.

They tiptoe into 'Untitled'; Wilting sways underneath the brim of his fedora, and his sharp murmurs fill up the room and leave it shipwrecked in silence, while his hand curls around the microphone, straightening it to every curve of his words. He seems aloof. Manhattan seems to be distraught by something in the far corner, even though his bass-playing is flawless, Nigel remains steady in place, and Goodridge solemnly throttles his drums.

The guy next to me explodes into loud applause when the song finishes. I still don't understand what he means. Though their song was on-key, and their performance was strangely hypnotizing, I still don't know what to make of the boys.

But an appropriate flare of red lights shower the audience and lighten Midnight's shadows. Then Wilting kicks into an opening in a spray of lyrics that all blur intensely together:

"I'm gonna pull you in close
I'm gonna wrap you up tight
I'm gonna play with the braids that you came here with tonight
I'm gonna hold your face, and toast the snow that fell
Cos friends don't waste wine when there's words to sell"

The crowd stirs----and then all at once it seems, they all go crazy. I see the ties of the boys in the far corner flipping over shoulders.

Nigel echos background vocals under the deep notes of the crooner: "Take my love in small doses." Zen rips away from the microphone, with a fresh-lit cigarette and manages to get a few drags out of it while he feeds in to the rhythm guitar, circling his bassist and wrapping him up in corded knots that Manhattan takes awhile to step out of. He stubs his cigarette out on the bottom of his shoe, and reaches out both of his arms to the audience, he motions them to sing along before he breaks into the second verse.

Eventually Felix straddles the very edge of the stage---the girls claw, the boys try to look stoic, and Zen Wilting has somehow lost his shirt and tie. Every dress shirt is soaked with sweat, the fans are belting out every lyric, and Zen pogos around, spitting out into the audience. But no one seems to mind. The surprise harmonica attached to the tail-end of "Cross-eyed Girl" their only track that is giddy and silly both in the terms of lyrics and three repetitive, vintage punk chords throws the mohawk girl beside me off: "They're right, that bastard is shit-crazy!"

At the encore, Zen suddenly prolongs the song by suddenly bolting backstage. Strangely, no one around me looks alarmed, they're all wearing these huge, expectant grins and for a moment, I'm so bored I start to try to figure out who's on drugs. The band is playing elevator music, together, they formulate a long, brooding tail-end to a song that still has not ended to fill up the absence in vocals. Then, the heads are turning. It's not Superman, but it's Wilting running out from a corner exit, and he's climbing up the tall balconies like a child at some Olympic-sized jungle-gym.

The rabid fans on the ceiling-high balcony grab his wrist and pull him into safety. He seems to have wanted to wade on the edge for a moment for the thrill, but he's pulled into a wild embrace. A bouncer has to literally tear girls and boys alike from him, it's pure rock n' roll hysteria in an art school crowd: and the rest of Midnight don't seem at all concerned for his safety.

About five minutes later, Wilting returns, wearing bloody battle scars and a shit-eating grin. He takes a swig of his Heineken, the band draws out the song a little longer, and finally, with the pulse of the bass, he swaggers up to the microphone, his black strap streaking diagonally across his chest. Goodridge sits back down, as he's been standing like the little drummer boy with a vulture arch for the past ten minutes, pounding his sticks without relent.

They finish off the song abruptly without the cheesy fireworks that so many bands that battle with them on the charts are famous for. They don't come together for a bow. They ditch their instruments at once and bullet backstage, but just after Zen reaches for the crowd again before his hands come together around his microphone.

"Good-bye, New York. You all were great fucks."

And I left the show with raised eyebrows. Midnight had finally sold themselves to me with not just their music, but now, their live show too. But hopefully, Zen remembered the condom when he shamelessly fucked us all.

<font color="#f22735" size="1">[ June 20, 2006 09:00 PM: Message edited by: methadrone ]</font>

[greedy fly]

<center></center>

[greedy fly]

"Well, the thirtieth we're starting you guys out in San Diego, you're gonna play a show that night. We have it set up that you preview three or four songs. Keep in mind it's just a club tour, it's not the record tour yet. Radio promotion, giveaways, we have you boys set to host a night of videos on MTV2, and then you have a cover with GQ the week after that. Los Angeles, Dallas, etcetera--and then the last show in the states is in uhhh.. Boston. That gives you about a week before you hit Europe, we're doing one show in Brazil, one in Tokyo, and one in Sydney. You following? Zen?"

Zen nodded, as though Clive could hear him. His manager waded in a shallow puddle of silence before he reluctantly croaked the singer's name again: "Zen?"

"Yeah, I'm good. So wait, when's the record---"

"October 26th in the states. That's all that really matters. October, November, those are big months for you kids. We're gonna take advantage of every Halloween and Christmas festival that we can, especially the Christmas ones. You're shooting the video September 8th, we have Sophie Muller lined up---opposed?"

"I ...don't even know who that is."

"She just did that Killers video."

"..She did a fucking Killers video? Why the fuck are you---"

"She did No Doubt too."

"Oh, that's okay then."

Clive paused for a moment, and then with a sudden lurch of animation through the static of cell phones that ranged overseas, he filled up the line with laughter.

"By the way, I love the thing you're doing with the drummer. Making out everywhere and all that, the press is going nuts."

"I didn't notice." Zen wanted to smile against his cigarette, but he couldn't. His mind was disjointed in a thousand fragments-- he was still trying to comprehend his mad itinerary. It wasn't any different from the last album's promotion. He wasn't tired or overwhelmed. He just knew he'd miss being completely like a teenager milking the summer; being fascinated with a girl, tonguing any pill that came his way, re-learning the alphabet of the stars. He knew he'd miss her. But the worst part was the boyscout knots in his belly, churning with the steadfast pulse of anxiety. His tongue was burning to dot their silences with truths versus riddles, with firm questions rather than open-ended ones. All he wanted to do was for this trembling little flower to survive, even when the dark and claws of ice setting in.

"Well, I got to get around to calling Robin. We're having a meeting the first show, to make some adjustments to your rider. We're having problems with the celery and Stella Artois."

"---With the celery?"

"Night, kid."

"Goodnight." But he already knew before he thumbed over the 'end' button that Clive had already cut the line. Freckling his door ashtray with glowing, stabbed-out embers, he turned to stare out driver's side window of his gagging station wagon. He pinched the radio dial and his eyes rolled back to freefall in a black socket canopy; twitching and humming to the dated lull of Robert Smith's voice. And he hated the Cure.

[greedy fly]

The lead singer's a drug-addicted, boozing, mentally-unstable womanizing protagonist in tabloid fodder, the bassist is a rumored genius with an undiagnosed case of autism, the lead guitarist is very openly gay with an ever meaner case of obsessive compulsive disorder, and the drummer? Well, he's just a normal guy. Blender sits down with Midnight's Robin Goodridge for a quick Q and A.


Blender: So how do you do it?
Robin: (Laughing) Funny, I already know what you're talking about. It's not easy, but somehow I've managed.

Blender: Rumors have been floating around that you left Midnight this summer, and rejoined.
Robin: Yeah, it's true. Zen and I were having some differences. Not creative ones either. I was just growing sick of the Alice-and-Zen chronicles. Alice is my younger sister. They've been off and on for the past what? Four years? Anyway, it's at the point now where they don't get back together, they just bicker and drive one another crazy. I figured, hey, if I want this shit to stop I'm going to have to put my foot down.

Blender: Did it work?
Robin: Oh, I guess we'll find out a year from now.

Blender: Tell us about the new album.
Robin: As of right now, it's untitled. But we have all the songs recorded, we just need to mix them and add some final touches. It's a little happier than the former ones. There's more of an animated sound. I like it though. I think the fans will really appreciate something that will lift them up.

Blender: How long did it take to record?
Robin: Not long at all. Things came together relatively easily as opposed to our other sessions. We'd have Zen in one corner, smoking a joint, yelling: "This isn't how it is!" Calvin rolling his eyes, and Felix staring out the window. This time the band didn't have as much ADD, we just sort of connected.

Blender: Do you think that after the last tour, which lasted a whole year and a half, that the groupies will be calmed down this fall?
Robin: I don't know. Zen really likes the attention, he'll talk to anyone. The rest of us are really wary about that. I've been in a committed relationship for the past five years, so any of Midnight's groupies have never really paid off for me in the end. Though, there was a rumor that surfaced on the internet and started to leak on the circuit that Calvin impregnated some random fan at a show in Dallas, and the girl was demanding child's support. We all laughed about it except for Zen and Felix. It's been how many years? Neither Zen or Felix realized Calvin was gay. When he told them, like fucking---"wow, you guys really didn't know?" they both just sort of nodded and went back to their business. I still can't get over that.

Blender: So planning on playing any shows with Lax?
Robin: No. We're two different sorts of bands. I'm sure that Zen and Sybel are doing their best to keep their relationship private, and bringing it into the music is just plain corny. We all have more tact than that.

Blender: Any new plans for the live show?
Robin: Yes. Smoke machines, dancing women, lots of banners, fireworks, fire torches, onstage crucifixion.

Blender: Really?
Robin: No, not at all. But maybe we'll all wear matching ties.

<font color="#f22735" size="1">[ August 16, 2005 06:02 PM: Message edited by: methadrone ]</font>

[greedy fly]

The apartment felt clammy and damp; he swore it was greasing his pores and sticking to his brow. The curtains at the window fluttered like a confused moth, and he could hear the sky gargling with a looming threat. She swayed past him in nothing but cotton underwear into the kitchen. He heard the ribs of the fridge rustling, a potential glass clinking and a moment later she emerged. She paused to consider him for a brief moment. There he was, scrawled in front of the television scene Indian-style (in those nasty jeans that she tried to throw away a thousand times) cycling his spoon through his beer Cheerios intent on trying to make sense of the static-scribbled t.v. screen.

?Did you forget to pay the cable??

?No, it?s just the storm,? he lied, without taking his eyes off the game show.

She knew better, and she blamed it on the guitar sitting there, grinning at her in mockery from corner of the room with its coppery teeth and two-toned, chipped face.

?Do you still love me, Zen?? But he didn?t hear her, because she didn?t say it aloud.

There were a few sincere cracks at the front door, and her arm instinctively took a jump, armoring her breasts. When he didn?t respond, she stared him down until he had to feel her burn in his peripheral. Once his half-lidded eyes clogged hers from across the dingy living room, she quirked one of her defiant brows expectantly.

? ?You gonna get that??

?No. It?s nobody.?

?Fuck you, Zen. That could be my mom. You?re dressed. Answer it.?

?No.? He crunched down another bite.

She pivoted without grace, and thrashed into the bedroom. She made sure that the door cringed on its hinges and a second later she surfaced in one of his t-shirts and boxers. She knotted her hand around the knob to the front door and strung it open, but there wasn?t anyone behind it.

Taking a ginger step forward, she padded into the hallway and craned her neck left and right, but the hallway was empty save for the silent old woman down the hall. She was multitasking with a plastic bag that read ?thank you? punctuated by a huge smiley face and keying open the door. Angelina withdrew, and twitched the lock on the door. Zen sat with a sedated grin on his face, because he had guessed the answer right.

?There was no one there.?

?I know.?

?Was it one of your fucking friends??

?No.?

She shifted a little bit, stapling a hand to the mold of her hip. ?Why don?t you put milk in that?? Wrinkling her nose, she glided forward a few feet toward him. ?That?s gross.?

?We ain?t got none.?

He clattered the empty bowl onto the weary coffee table behind him and slinked across the room to choke the neck of his guitar. She still couldn?t help but to feel her chest swell at the lean showcase of his spine, spiked with all those freckles and wearing claw marks like a cat toy. But the second he slung the strap around her shoulder she escaped to the bedroom.


It was two days later---two and a half to be exact when the knock came again. She was asleep on the couch, her chest smashed to his, his arm sloppily strapped around her shoulder blades, holding her close in a post-coital tangle. He was watching the progression of the dots on the ceiling, these tiny purple spots littering his vision when the rumble came at the doorway.

He had mastered the art of carefully rewiring her onto her stomach. She was a feather light sleeper, but he was a dressed-down robber. He slipped into his jeans and left the tab open, shuffling toward the door. He turned the knob and immediately turned his back on the man, retreating further into his own apartment.

The man looked like a bum; he had an overgrown beard, dull, dry marble eyes and fatigued clothing. Bundled in his dirty fingers was a clipboard and a pen with a well-teethed cap. His chin lolled toward his chest, and his fractured grin grew like a tumor when he uncapped the pen. Nudging the clipboard to Zen?s shoulder, he waited patiently until the young man swerved around and italicized his name to the ?x.? He skipped over everything else with concrete apathy lining his face.

The old man drew the clipboard into his chest and glanced once at the pool of moonwhite skin and burnt-sienna hair mangled on the couch cushions before he stalked toward the door. Zen once more gave him his back, and listened with relief to the sound of the door inching back. But before the man left, he rasped in a cryptic alleyway ballad:

?Now, pick up your guitar, and play, Kenneth.."

A month later everyone knew his name.

<font color="#f22735" size="1">[ September 28, 2005 02:25 AM: Message edited by: methadrone ]</font>

[greedy fly]

I'm incredibly fucking bored. Incredibly fucking numb. Incredibly fucking horny.


I have no choice but to do it. I have to call the number on the t.v. screen. It wouldn't be hard talking any girl into it, I know. I could hire a girl too. A real expensive one. But I think it would be fun to talk to that girl on the screen. She probably doesn't really look like that though. But man, what if she DID look like that? I'd be in luck.