I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: RAPEMAN-“Steak and Black Onions” (1988).

Rapeman was a project by Steve Albini named after a Japanese graphic novel character.  They put out one LP and one EP and were protested everywhere they went.

I wasn’t intending to use this song for this story.  As I was finishing this post I read that Carlson was accused of the sexual assault of a minor.  I didn’t want to associate the musician I initially had on this post (who I loved) with this asshat.

So, I am tying him to Rapeman.

Whether the band name is inherently good or bad is not the point.  I wanted something appropriate for the author.  If only the song had been called “T-Bone Steak and Potatoes.”

But then there’s the music, which is really good.  This song, as with most things Albini plays on, is full of sharp, piercing guitar stabs and ricocheting feedback.

The lyrics are pure meat-eating aggro:

Why don’t you snuff it, then?
You plant-eating pussy

Well I know that you wanna tell me what I’m…
What I’m eating, ah yeah
Shut your mouth, shut your mouth
Shut your mouth
I know what I want and I don’t like onions

And yet it’s surprisingly catchy–catchier than his work with say Big Black, anyway.

It is hard to listen to a band called Rapeman, which is a shame since the sounds that Albini generates are so extraordinary.

[READ: April 16, 2019] “At the Jim Bridger” 

I was reluctant to read this story because the title is so puzzling.  And then, as I read it, I was reluctant to finish it because I assumed i knew where it was going and didn’t want to read a story about homophobia.  But I read it all and it surprised me.

The man is named Donner (which seems too easy) he and a woman (not his wife, as the story keeps pointing out) have just pulled into the parking lot of the Jim Bridger Lodge.  He’d been talking about a steak and a cocktail at the Jim Bridger for days.  He talked a lot–more than anyone she’d ever met.  And his stories seemed so poetic.

He had taken the woman on his annual week long hike in the woods.  There was much talk and much sex and he had left beers in the river for when they returned and they were the best she’d ever had.

There is one very strange thing about this story that took some time to puzzle out. His annual hike is in September, but when they get to the Jim Bridger everyone is celebrating New Year’s.  Donner clearly states that the Lodge closes for the winter.  he says when they reopen, but he doesn’t say they are closing that night.  Yet when they go in the Lodge everyone is celebrating New Year’s Eve.  Obviously that was all implied and I just missed it.

At any rate, Donner was a hundred miles form home, but he recognized the dog standing in a truck bed.  When he said it was Scout, she recognized the dog from one of his stories.   She wondered if he would refuse to go in, but no, the desire for T-bone steak and potatoes was too strong.

When they walked in, he saw Rusty, but Rusty didn’t see him.

The story about Rusty and Scout happened a year earlier on his annual trip.  It makes me laugh to remember the story saying that it was his favorite story, but that he had only ever told two people… and then finding out that it only happened a year ago.

Donner went fishing and camping in an unexpected blizzard.  He was an excellent camper and knew what to do.  He waited it out for a few days and wasn’t happy but was okay.  His big mistake was trying to head home before it was over–all trails were covered, there were no markings and he soon lost his bearing.  He nearly died but instincts helped him start a fire and survive.  He was standing, naked next to his fire when Rusty and Scout ran up to him.  Rusty was also lost.  Of course they decided to tent together to warm up for the night.

i assumed here there was going to be some homosexual act that caused trouble.  And I didn’t want to read  about two manly men suddenly being all homophobic.  But that’s not what happened, exactly.  In the middle of the night, Rusty hadn’t dried himself properly and was catching hypothermia. So Donner did what he was supposed to do, he stropped the man of all of his clothes and lay on top of him–body matching body.

As Rusty starts to come to, there is a moment of genital interaction and that seems to be the big stumbling block and the reason that he hasn’t spoken to Rusty in a year–even though he saved the man’s life.  So yes, homophobia is there, which is a bummer (and boring) in this story of a man saving another man’s life in the harrows of winter.

Esquire is a manly magazine for men.  I’m not sure how enlightened they were in 2000.  I also don’t know a thing about Ron Carlson or how enlightened he is either.  Well, I mean, the guy cheats on his wife as well.  Asshat.

Ew, I just looked him up to learn about him and I found this:

In August 2018, Carlson was named as one of a number of former teachers at the Hotchkiss School against whom credible evidence of having committed sexual assault on a minor student was found.

So the hell with Ron Carlson and the hell with this story.