Learning at the Feet of Self-Taught Idiots
“Son, life can be good if you just let it treat you right.”
My son reacted to this bit of news with a skeptical eyebrow arched across his fore like the world’s most dubious caterpillar.
Maybe the last few months have been horrible. This monkey pile of twelve-hour shifts at the factory could suffocate you. While we weren’t exactly residing in the pit of hell, I supposed, we could often be found skating along the edges. That said, for me to acknowledge the possibility of an optimistic outlook as a viable perspective on life, a philosophy worthy of pondering, would be akin to grabbing my son by the shoulders and shouting in his face that the earth is flat, based on some Tik Tok videos I’ve watched.
Which I have also done.
So, really, all it took to remind me how glorious this existence could be was a two-week vacation away from Hydra Hydraulics and tickets to see the band, Steel Panther, at Mars Music Hall in downtown Huntsville.
“What the hell’s a Steel Panther?” My son had the audacity to ask.
“Damn, I’ve done you a disservice, boy. How could you gone so long in this god awful world without devouring the ear candy that Steel Panther has so righteously manufactured for your aural pleasure?”
Some folks question whether I actually speak to my boy in such a vaunted, stylized way. Of course, I do. I also dress real fancy when I shop at Wal-Mart.
“Steel Panther,” I continued, “are the second most requested Heavy Metal band on WZIP FM, the preeminent rock n’roll radio station in the entirety of Vietnam’s southern province. Think about that.”
He regarded me with empty eyes. I don’t think he thought about that.
“They’re like Van Halen if all the members of Van Halen could tolerate each other’s existence and were all severely autistic.”
“Who’s Van Halen?”
With every conversation we engaged in, it became more and more apparent I had failed him as a father. When I told him Steel Panther is the ICP for middle-aged white guys, he reminded me ICP is the ICP for middle-aged white guys.
“C’mon, son. ‘Poontang Boomerang,’ ’17 Girls in a Row,’ ‘Asian Hooker.’”
“Are those song titles you’re shouting at me, Dad? Or have you finally completely lost your mind?”
“You’re about to find out, kiddo. I got us tickets to see Steel Panther tonight, and it’s going to be epic. Or, at the very least, better than a twelve-hour shift in the chrome shop.”
“Dad, you gotta give me a twenty-four-hour notice before you spring shit like this on me. I got plans to play Roblox with some friends.”
“Cancel that shit, boy. I’m taking you to see what many people consider to be the most educational band in all of heavy metal. What Iron Maiden does musically for history, Steel Panther does for… you know… pussy.”
“Like I need that.”
“You need something. Hell, we all do.”
I don’t get it. How did it become normalized for a young man bordering twenty-three years of age (seven years shy of adulthood by some psychologists’ reckoning, lately) to be utterly disinterested in the game of sexual conquest? I remember being thirteen years old and wearing my virginity like a scarlet letter, absolutely ashamed of my inability to get down the pants of my eighth-grade classmates. I was so desperate to shirk this no-pussy-getting albatross hung around my neck that I couldn’t even walk past my mom’s friends without making creepy, prolonged eye contact, and giving them the snapping finger point to punctuate everything I said, conversations which usually centered on X-Men comic books or Star Wars, subjects I found to be ceaselessly amazing and which I erroneously believed grown women were interested in as well. My dad wasn’t around much to set me straight. Only advice he ever gave me was to stay away from black women. Not that he was racist, mind you. He just didn’t need the competition for their affections, I think…
I feared that I’d allowed my son to reach manhood without the opportunity to access the ineluctable wisdom I spread so freely in my writing. This Steel Panther concert I knew would be my best chance to balance the scales. Or, at the very least, pry the scales from his eyes.
The Violent Hour opened for Steel Panther. This is important to note because they are excellent musicians and worth looking up. I’ve discovered some great bands seeing them opening for other acts. Crobot and The Builders and the Butchers come immediately to mind. Anyway, The Violent Hour has all those other bands beat hands down since they are an all-female band and look amazing from a distance. Let me tell you, they were sexy up close as well which led me to another lesson I did well to impart on my son.
Once you hit fifty years old (what folks in the fossil collecting community when speaking about deep time refer to as “half a century”) women under the age of thirty all look like they’re about twelve years old. This was reinforced when I had my picture taken with the band at their merch table. I resembled an incredibly groovy Crypt Keeper cavorting with the Hex Girls from the Scooby-Doo cartoon.
I didn’t want my son to wait until he was fifty to discover this sad fact of life. Still, he refused to have his picture taken with the band.
“They’re not gonna bite,” I hollered from where I stood ensconced by spandex clad goth girls, their faces encased in kabuki masks of cosmetics. “Hell, they might even like your neck beard and your utter inability to dispose of the McDonald’s door dash bags strewn all over your goddam house. Right, ladies?”
The Violent Hour hedged a little bit. It did little to inspire my son’s confidence. He looked stricken. The more I talked up his sexual prowess to those Violent Hour ladies, the more uncomfortable he became.
During the Steel Panther concert, I tried to apologize.
“I thought for sure one of those Violent Hour girls would have jumped all over you,” I said. “The drummer at the very least.”
“Shut up, Dad.”
The kid seemed intent on nurturing his foul mood. Watching the Steel Panther show, focusing more on the strippers addressing their stripper poles flanking either side of the stage, inspiration struck.
Once the show ended with an encore performance of “Gloryhole,” I drove us straight to Fantasms.
“I’m not really in the mood, Dad,” he said nervously as I pulled the Jeep into the shadowy parking lot.
“I prefer Uncle Buck’s Booty Bungalow, myself,” I admitted. “The women are prettier, the bathrooms are cleaner. Hell, even the beers are colder.”
“Then why are we here?”
“Because the women only pretend to like you at Uncle Buck’s,” I said, putting on my professorial tone which sounded suspiciously close to my poetry reading voice. “At Fantasms, if you monetarily support all their drug habits, they’ll love you for real. For an hour or two, anyway.”
“I don’t need this, Dad.”
“I do. I got a fat roll of stripper singles in the glove compartment. Wedge that cabbage in your ball hustling pocket and let’s go. I might not have much longer for this world. That mock heart attack I had really got me thinking. I gotta get you up to speed on this shitty world before I fall out.”
“I’m good, Dad.”
“You can always stand to be better. Let’s go.”
The strip joint was no different than a hundred others. My son walked through the shadowy bar room as though he were wearing blinders. I bought a couple Coors Lites and sat him down along pervert row with a cadre of Mexicans and shitkickers, all of whom recognized the Polish Hammer’s inherent grooviness and silently disqualified themselves from the possibility of wooing the pock-marked blonde humping the stage floor.
I took a gulp of the lukewarm Coors and regarded my son. I showed him the black onyx pinky ring.
“First lesson, strippers love seeing a man wearing a pinky ring. It gets their attention right away. The pinkie ring signifies disposable income. Shows the ladies you don’t care what you throw your money away on.”
“Well, what about that wedding ring you’re wearing? Wouldn’t that turn them off?”
“Good question, Son. The answer is hell no. I know it’s counterintuitive but listen here. Find yourself an antique store and get you a wedding band on the cheap. Strippers see wedding rings as a positive sign. It shows them that you’re not absolutely deplorable, that there’s at least one woman out there in this fucked-up world that can tolerate your existence.”
“I see.”
“Now, give me a few of those stripper dollars. No more than three.”
I took the singles, fanned them out, and peeled each one off for the writhing blonde.
“See that,” I whispered. “Where else can you buy the devotion of a woman for the price of an egg mcmuffin?”
Once her set was finished, she was kind enough to stop at our seats and give me a hug. She introduced herself as Alice which I thought was thoroughly unimaginative as far as stripper names went.
“You out here cat-daddying around?” She asked.
“You could say that. I’m trying to show the boy something. Whatcha charge for the private dances?”
“The room upstairs are seventy-five dollars per fifteen minutes.”
“Goddam, no wonder there’s so many homeless. Okay, I’m sure fifteen minutes is just fine for the boy. How much for the dance?”
“Depends on the dance. Skin on skin?”
“That’s the only way as far as I’m concerned. Who wants to involve clothes?”
“Okay, then six hundred dollars plus tip.”
“Six hundred dollars?”
“Plus tip.”
“How about for me?”
“Six hundred dollars plus tip.”
“All right, fuck off. I’ll think about it.”
She sashayed her chunky ass toward the Mexicans.
“Was that a knife scar on her hip,” my son asked.
The stripper on stage had tattoos of her children’s birthdates on her legs. It was practically a fucking sleeve.
“Okay,” I said. “I’m not feeling it. Let’s get the fuck outta here.”
“Great. I think I can still get in on Roblox.”
I sat there for a moment. “Son, I could die tomorrow. I could live another three decades. More than likely though I won’t see 2030. I just want you to remember this. If you only remember one thing I’ve ever said, remember this.”
“What’s that, Dad?”
I had to think about it for a second.
“Only two things in this world worth protecting, son. Poetry and pornography.”
Karl Koweski is a displaced Region Rat now living in rural Alabama. He writes when his pen allows it. He’s a husband to a lovely wife and father to some fantastic kids. He collects pop culture ephemera. On most days he prefers Flash Gordon to Luke Skywalker and Neil Diamond to Elvis Presley.
THE POLISH HAMMER POETRY CORNER is a weekly column, posted each Tuesday morning.
