June 29, 2007

Mason Jennings: Frick fight and a cover by Kweller

I came across this hilarious bit of storytelling on Mason Jennings’ MySpace blog page yesterday.

Frickin’ awesome:

“FRICK FIGHT”
So, there I was, walking through an herb garden at a lovely spa/retreat in New Mexico. We had the good fortune of staying there on our last tour. I was walking the grounds thinking about how beautiful the day was. I was walking around a grove of trees when, bam, I walked smack into my first Frick Fight.

I don’t know if I saw them or heard them first but, the scene was this: One man was sitting in a golf cart, he had a mustache, he worked at the spa and I would have to say he was the employer. The other man was standing, he didn’t have a mustache, his hair was pomaded down flat, he was younger and he was definitely the employee. Neither was the top dog. I would guess “weekend manager” and “caterer”. Both were dressed in colorful buttoned down shirts that were tucked into khaki pants. Anyways…

Mustache: What the frick were you thinking?
Pomade: I frickin told you, I didn’t frickin do it…
Mustache: Yes, you frickin did. Don’t frickin say you didn’t.
Pomade: I frickin didn’t.

Mustache: If you frickin do that one more time, I’ll frickin..
Pomade: I frickin said, I frickin didn’t do it.
Mustache: Don’t frickin lie to me. I have frickin had it.

Can you imagine my joy? My unbounded sense of being at the right place at the right time? In the lovely land of desert and sky, I had stumbled across one of the truly rare natural wonders of the world. An isolated employee-employer microcosm in which both were suddenly suspended in the space between between employment and profanity. It sort of reminded me of when you are playing a video game and you suddenly figure out how to run your little guy somewhere where he shouldn’t be able to go. Like through the air or into the stands.

They didn’t see me. Mustache stared down Pomade and then vroom-vroomed his little golf cart huffily away. Pomade stormed off.

Thank you, thank you, thank you God.

Mason
Minneapolis, Minnesota
6/28/07

Also, I had missed that Ben Kweller covered Mason’s song “Sorry Signs on Cash Machines” last year on the Sundress EP, but am enjoying it now. When I hear different versions of Mason’s songs, I’m always struck by just how visceral and evocative a songwriter he is:

Sorry Signs on Cash Machines – Ben Kweller

Sorry Signs on Cash Machines – Mason Jennings

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Bio Pic Name: Heather Browne
Location: Colorado, originally by way of California
Giving context to the torrent since 2005.

"I love the relationship that anyone has with music: because there's something in us that is beyond the reach of words, something that eludes and defies our best attempts to spit it out. It's the best part of us, probably, the richest and strangest part..."
—Nick Hornby, Songbook
"Music has always been a matter of energy to me, a question of Fuel. Sentimental people call it Inspiration, but what they really mean is Fuel."
—Hunter S. Thompson

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