[another email to a friend]
october 1996.
i'd been away at college for about two months.
i never liked going home, and i think that was evident when my parents bought me a plane ticket.
knowing full well that i abhor flying, they bought me a plane ticket.
my dad had a hard time letting go, i think... overprotective parents makes for sheltered childhood. i remember having to really fight to have what i assumed were "normal" experiences. the fact that i was eighteen and no longer living at home hit my father pretty hard.
the drive from austin to mcallen isn't very long, but he wouldn't let me make the drive for a couple of years. of course, it always took dad eight hours to make the trip. at worst, it took me six, though my personal best would end up being just under four... and i wasn't even speeding.
so, i flew home for a weekend.
turns out that mum, in her infinite ability to swing a deal, found me a transparent wine red les paul copy guitar for about fifty bucks (something like the picture).
i flew back on sunday afternoon. an hour in the air... i mean, if i have to fly, i prefer southwest, but... ugh.
so, anyway, i get back to the dorms, and in my own infinite ability to show off my toys, i started jamming outside.
that's when we started talking.
i'd sorta met ben a couple of weeks before. i was friends with this guy, zack, and considering everyone is a drama queen at eighteen, when zack found out i was in the process of getting a band together, he decided to form one, as well.
of course, zack was more into punk and ska (shit) music, whereas i was firmly entrenched in alternative (and that's hopefully the last time you'll hear me say that word, "alternative")... i had pretty shitty taste in those days that flirted with greatness... unlike now.
so, i guess guys in punk bands are supposed to have stupid nicknames. at that point, i'd only known ben as "squinky".
so, when he introduced himself to me, i was immediately suspicious of him as a musician.
but for having been playing three fewer years than i had, he was pretty good.
also, it would turn out that he was a smashing pumpkins fan... and i was pretty into them, myself, so we bonded, musically.
we would end up doing a lot of things together: music, drugs, economics, women... it was a good time to be alive. the guy became my best friend.
we jammed some from time to time, confident that we could get something going, but living in a dorm has its limitations as far as jamming with other musicians. come february of 1997, i'd joined another band, and was well on my way toward getting my musical career underway.
by the time sophomore year was ready to start, ben moved back to austin, i'd left trespassers william in shame, and had met and never again seen one of my greatest musical heroes, luke (luke is an interesting story in himself... i knew the guy for a mere three hours, but the education and encouragement i got from him in those three hours carries on to this day).
at this point, we decided to get a real band going. he had a friend from high school, dave, move down to austin with him, and dave was a powerful drummer... subtle when he needed to be, but very john bonham-esque, as well... powerful drummer.
the year prior, i'd given our friend, sara, one of my basses:
our lineup seemed complete: dave in drums, sara on bass, and ben and i playing guitar. it seemed like a lock! a band full of friends who drank, dated, drugged, studied, stayed up all night together as often as they could... what better deal is there?
well, sara exited rather quickly, and it would soon mean the end of our friendship... she was too busy being skinny craig's girlfriend that she forgot about a lot of her commitments. i don't know if anyone blamed her for making an exit as opposed to blaming her for the way she chose to exit... no explanation for not showing up to rehearsals, no calls... we had to move on and find someone else.
considering i'm a people-person (don't laugh, it's true), i found chris battle very quickly.
we would also add meagan on violin, although she wouldn't ultimately contribute very much (chris the bassist is not in this photo - meagan, dave, self, ben... we're not drunk in this photo, but none of us are sober ^_^ ).
dave was next to exit, although i'm not entirely sure what happened there... i think dave was just supremely depressed... and living with ben wasn't helping him much. my suspicions were coming to fruition - ben, as talented as he was/is, really was a major asshole.
when dave left the group, i had to put my skills to use again, and quickly found cody to replace him. cody was a major pothead, but one of the most fantastic drummers with whom i'd ever jammed. plus, he was older than we were, and could more easily get us alcohol (we were nineteen, he was twenty-three).
there were a lot of tense moments between november of 1997 and february of 1998. ben was coming into his own as a songwriter, and the rest of us were content to let him guide the group's musical direction.
that is, of course, until he started consistently harping on me to "play better".
my personality is such that the more you bitch at me about something, the less inclined i am to help you or want to help you. as ben was/is prone to bitching like a little girl with a temper too big for her breeches, i was/am prone to stonewalling and allowing you to systematically frustrate yourself into a stupor. my skills as a guitarist were coming into question, just as my abilities to play bass had earlier that year with trespassers william, and though i could certainly have stood to improve, i did not like being emasculated in front of friends, band mates, girls, whatever...
that, i felt, was going to far.
besides, the guy's early material was rough. we didn't mind, we liked it, but it was obvious where some of his shit was coming from, and nobody was eager to play his re-worked version of jane's addiciton's "mountain song".
further, i had spent a lot of my time working on music instead of school... i found the perfect bassist, drummer, rehearsal space, schedule, and was making contacts left and right... who was he to start questioning me now?! i had assumed i'd earned a little leeway.
throughout december of 1997, ben had bitched and moaned about wanting a lead singer. everyone was pretty vehemently opposed to the idea, and ben's argument was, "well, who's gonna do it? lopez and i can't sing!"
um... speak for yourself?
(admittedly, it was this constant barrage that prevented me from stepping to the forefront until only recently. it took a long time to recover from that psychological mess.)
by mid-january 1998, it was obvious that this was not going away, so we relented, and ben got to have his singer. the stipulation, however, was that he had to go and find this person, because no one else was going to do so (i think he assumed i would handle it the way i handled finding chris and cody).
when he introduced brian (total fratboy), battle left the group. he'd had enough, and adding a fratboy to the mix was more than he was willing to deal with... more on chris battle, later.
cody was a bit suspicious at the move, and was smoking more weed than normal. i was upset, and didn't so much as talk to brian.
tuesday, february 3, 1998.
we'd planned on having some guys over for an informal drink/jam session. at this point, ben and i are sharing an apartment, dave had moved back to dallas, and i'm a few hours from turning twenty.
i'd been awake for almost twenty-four hours by the time i got home that afternoon. i had midterms for which i had to study, had to go to work, and was just otherwise completely disorganized. when i got home, and people started showing up, i was on my way out of consciousness. the last thing i remember was that brian guy showing up with a guitar player friend of us.
i think it was about nine pm.
i woke at three am to ben setting down my keys. i guess he'd borrowed my truck to take cody home, as cody had ridden his bike to our place. i was a little annoyed that he didn't wake and ask, and just assumed he could take my truck when he had one of his own, but...
1.15a had passed, and i was now officially twenty. i got up to go to the fridge and grab ben and i couple of beers when he gives me the "we need to talk" nonsense.
what is this? you're my girlfriend, now? shit...
anyway, it turns out that the brian guy brought his buddy over as an audition. ben had been bitching to brian behind my back about my "lack of skills", so brian the fratboy thought he'd help him out by bringing my prospective replacement into my home (though ben would never let me forget that he was on the lease, and i wasn't, so it was his home, and not mine).
the deal was this: play bass to replace chris battle, or leave the band.
okay...
first of all, it's my birthday.
second, how degrading. how emasculating. how fucking infuriating.
third, i'm being kicked out of a band that i assembled? how insulting.
fourth... IT'S MY FUCKING BIRTHDAY!!!
so, i told him he could go to hell, and that i wasn't someone he could push around, and i would prove it.
with that, i left the group, and we remained roommates for only a short period after that.
within two weeks of my departure, i'd met josh (a bitchin' slide guitar player who would refer to himself as "honkey"... i never quite understood why, but he never understood why i referred to myself as "below", either, so we were even), and a few days after that, i met everett, one of the most reckless deviants i'd ever met... but he could play badass drums!
(within a few months, we were approached by tess records, but the near-suicide of a girl pretty much derailed that... but that's another story.)
after having met josh and everett, and getting back on track faster than anyone had expected, and experiencing a small explosion of creativity, ben came home one day, two weeks after my departure, and told me that brian had quit the group.
why wouldn't he? all ben had at this point was a drummer in cody... that was it.
all i had was a guitarist, a drummer, a few song ideas, a place to play, and a sense of grim satisfaction at watching ben fail without me.
"dude, i'm really sorry about what happened."
"it's koo'."
"i want you back in the band."
"as a bassist, right? not as a guitarist?"
"right."
"no thanks. i play guitar with my new band."
ben is one of my greatest musical influences.
it is because of ben that i have learned what not to do, how not to treat people, and how to remain open to other people's creativity, even though i may not agree with it all the time.
our friendship was off and on for a while. i'm fully aware at the power of my ego, but i also know right and wrong. i know i don't always do the right thing, but i try to atone for my sins as i can.
ben has forever been unapologetic. his way of admitting wrong is, "well, i said stuff, and you said stuff, so let's call it even."
right. i did say stuff.
the difference is that i meant to say stuff, and stand by it to this day.
we didn't talk during the summer of 1998.
and, in april of 2000, just three months before my departure to seattle, he says, "the reason i haven't been hanging out with you is because i don't want to have to miss you when you're gone."
and between august of 2000 and october of 2001, we didn't say much to one another... and from then until about december of 2003.
we road tripped across the country in 2004, and he moved to seattle in july 2005. he didn't talk to me for about four months in 2006 because i referred to his ex-girlfriend as "white trash"... and i stand by that (i don't know what made brandi think she could use the word "nigger" around my friend nicole, who is black).
we tried two or three musical endeavours since the late winter of 1998, and all have failed miserably.
- april 1999: "i'll write all the music, and you write all the lyrics because you're not very good at writing music".
february 2006 (in discussing starting a label/studio): "i don't see you doing any actual work! when are you gonna get off your ass?!?" - [i'd already made contact with three studios regarding internships, and had preliminary discussions with a band about financing a record for them... i was the one doing all the work, but he didn't see it] june 2006: "i'll play bass for you guys so you can learn from me, and know what's right and what's wrong with your music."
i haven't spoken to ben in over a year now. we always used to joke that we never liked each other's respective steadies, but his new girlfriend, emily, is really a kool girl. funny... i finally like one of his girlfriends, and i've had enough of him.
he's always considered me a subordinate. he thinks he's more talented, more resourceful, more virile, smarter, stronger, faster, bigger, sexier, more manly, blah, blah, blah, yadda, yadda, yadda...
whenever shit happens, i've always been there to pick up the pieces.
chris battle quit the band because he felt he could no longer work with ben. i would run into chris a few months after his departure, and he said he'd always liked me, but wouldn't work with me as long as i was hanging around ben.
cody would quit soon thereafter, as well, for the same reason.
in 2001, i would have a few exchanges with vince hagedorn, the guy that replaced me on guitar after i left the band, which would eventually become "kelvin". ben's ego proved to be toothless because vince was a more prolific songwriter, and had the ability to wrangle people to his side, a skill that ben, to this day, has yet to manage. vince was less than flattering about ben's time with kelvin... if you read kelvin's bio on their myspace page, you'll find that their official history begins in 2000, after ben left the group... there is no mention of him on their site (though he is on their friend list).
i have forever defended ben in the face of criticism, like an attorney always having to bail out a client that is constantly getting arrested. he doesn't care. never has.
but, i'm thirty-one years old, now. i want something different out of my life. i don't want to be followed around by my college best friend who still acts like an eighteen year-old drama queen. i want to have a productive band, though in his last email to me, he remarked that below blackstar would never work because i'm talentless... and now there's talk about playing at the showbox.
the showbox! that's BIG news!
i want a working band, i want to enjoy my job, and i want to meet someone and get married one day.
i can't have any of that if i have ben as a hanger-on. i would not want my band mates exposed to ben (brian already knows him, and won't have anything to do with him). i would not want my future wife to have to deal with that nonsense, considering such an action is counterintuitive to my role as husband/protector.
i've tried to ditch him a few times, and i hope this time it sticks.
i've repaired a lot of broken relationships since i've disassociated myself. chris battle and i talk every now and again, as do meagan and i. i'm still waiting to hear back from cody, as i've just located him.
we still have friends in common, and people seem to like ben... which is fine with me. i'm an adult, so i don't care who befriends him... i just don't have it in my house, all of the narcissism, the racism remarks, the melodrama... the fact that he'll never see me as anything more than poor little mexican boy from south texas.
my parents visited seattle in october 2005, and we all went to dinner. when she asked ben why he moved to seattle, he pointed at me, and said, "him."
at that moment, i knew one thing would forever be true: he needs me more than i have ever needed him.
and i'm all right with that.
i have almost everything i need.
mum. dad. below blackstar. job. shelter. food. a few good friends... and one i'm working on.
i didn't need his headache, then, and i don't need it now.
since i last spoke with him, life has been pretty good.
imagine that.
i think i've earned some peace.
since the writing of this entry, i have located cody, and have had a few back-and-forths with him. the man is doing well. he’s getting ready to open up a new restaurant, is married, and is a brand new father.
he just asked me about ben.
at times like this, i don’t often know what to say.
the truth is that all of this is my problem. there’s no reason that ben can’t have his own friends, or even have friends in common with me. i don’t think he’s a bad person… but what is a bad person? he hasn’t killed anyone, hasn’t raped anyone, hasn’t stolen or cheated or lied.
no, it simply comes down to behaviours, and the kind of behaviours we are willing to tolerate in the people with whom we choose to surround ourselves, in those we are willing to call friends.
while i have fantastic memories of the man, it is more often than not that something always comes up that taints the memories, and only serves to re-focus my thoughts on all of the dumb shit that’s been done.
i’ve often wondered if i just needed thicker skin, and then i’m reminded by a third party that there is a distinct difference between acting like a prick and being a fucking prick.
then i wonder if i’m much different… and i realize that the only thing i can do is understand where i’ve been, all that has happened, and that there are three sides to this story: mine, his, and the truth. with that, i can only hope to be myself, and still manage to be respectful to people that show you that they’ve earned it.
i hope that this is giving you some idea of where my past has led me, and what kind of man i've become as a result.
i can only wish that it's the kind of man that people still want to know.
we all have our scars, and i've never been shy about showing mine.
… even if it all does stink of melodrama.
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