Your Correspondent Speaks With NOFX - II

I was really floored by "Punk in Drublic". Let's say you put out a perfect album. What next?

You know what? Eighty percent of the people I talk to like "White Trash, Two Heebs and a Bean" better. And when that album came out, everyone liked "Ribbed" better. I think "Ribbed" is people's favorite album still.

Uh-huh. Anyway, back to "Punk in Drublic". Just who is this "Happy Guy" you sing about?

I knew this lady in the pharmacy behind my house. She was like, she always used to give me shit about how I dressed and stuff when I was a kid, tell me I was listening to the devil's music, shit like that.

She was pretty screwed up, but the thing is, she was always happy, you know? If she found happiness in the way that she was brainwashed or whatever, who cares? If she's happy, that's what everyone's looking for. And if you can find that, you're set. It doesn't matter. There's no rules.

Wow. Agreed.

I went to college, you know? Got a BA. And every one of my friends - I have probably 20 to 30 friends that have gotten degrees from college - none of them have a job that's worth mentioning. Retail. Retail clothes. Used to be, you could get ahead. And you can't anymore. You need more than just an education. But you know, I don't think people realize that you shouldn't have to work very often. That's what I'm shooting for.

Your Correspondent Speaks With NOFX - III

You know, I was listening to your song "Reeko" on the way over...

Yeah. How's it go? "The keg has been sucked dry..."?

The only guy who isn't drunk is the bastard counting the money.

We used to do all those things. With the Ex-Lax and all that.

But then you break in with the line, "Mr. President, please understand..." It's almost like another song has been grafted to the end.

The other song is about the economy, actually. You know, I've been to England a lot, and I see this country turning into England. You go downtown and all the stores are closed. It's a fish and chips shop, a couple of clothing stores and everything else is closed and everyone's out of work.

People have to... This is going too far. It's just all consumerism, you know? People ought to just stop wanting things. If you don't want anything, then you don't have to work so fucking hard.

Well, that puts you in an interesting position then, doesn't it?

Entertainment is different. Entertainment is something that... it's not a hundred dollar shirt, you know? Even though a CD's overpriced...

Look, I actually was going to try to set up Fat Wreck Chords, my label, in a lot of libraries, you know, across the country. You know, you could get so much music in a library. A library's like what America is based on. It's almost like the most communist thing there is, you know? There's no profit in it.

And like, you know, everything you see on TV is a gadget. You get it and you don't want it, you know? Everyone who's making these things is pissed off, 'cause they're sitting in some factory making some weird device and the one who has to sell it on the fucking phone is pissed off too. No one is enjoying this at all, so why not get rid of every part of it? And then you have people who aren't so fucked up.

Let's Go See Woody

Let's go see Woody

We'll hang around his shop

Far from the market square

Far from the traffic cop

He'll share Budweiser

And Riders in the Sky

And then he'll stumble home

Like you and I

 

When I was twenty-two

I wed his little girl

She was his favorite thing

In this whole wide world

He didn't like me much

I thought I might get shot

Before our common love of beer and pot

 

Let's go see Woody

We'll hang around his shop

Far from the market square

Far from the traffic cop

He'll share Budweiser

And Riders in the Sky

And then he'll stumble home

Like you and I

 

Won't have to work a lot

We'll mostly hang around

We'll watch him strip a stool

And stain it brown

He'll even cane the seat

Before the job's complete

And then he'll feed us all on smokey meat

 

Let's go see Woody

We'll hang around his shop

Far from the market square

Far from the traffic cop

He'll share Budweiser

And Riders in the Sky

And then he'll stumble home

Like you and I

Philosophical Finish

Newell S. Tobey remains quietly determined to continue the one-man business he's managed to maintain since 1933 in the shop behind his home, upholstering items of found furniture for friends, neighbors and Northern visitors.

At 91, Tobey takes shelter from the afternoon heat in the shade of a large oak, speaking in slow and deliberate terms as he attempts to explain the secret of his venture's longevity.

Prior to moving to Zephyrhills in 1958, the Massachusetts native spent his early years in a number of occupations before deciding to try his hand at upholstering.

"I bounced around quite a bit, trying to find myself. I went to Chicago to work for a few years around 1918 and stayed out there until the crash [of the stock market in 1929.  I started building models for Sears Roebuck for their advertising. There were eight or 10 house models that they sold and you'd buy the whole thing in pieces. I built the models and they had them on display in the main store down there."

Upon visiting his father's home in Vermont, Tobey happened upon an upholstery business almost by accident.

"I rigged up a bench, a few tools in a barn and just taught myself how to do it. There's nothing to it, you just have to use a little common sense, and a little artistic sense, too, you know."
After successfully pursuing his new-found calling in New England for some 20 years, it was while visiting Florida that Tobey would occasionally help with set construction. It was not long before he, his wife and workbench were on their way to permanent residence.

"I loaded my tools in the car and just set up shop. It wasn't a week before I had a piece of work."
A widower for 10 years, Tobey is content to spend his time between the company of a few good friends and his favorite pastime, and sees little chance of his business continuing if he ever sees fit to give it up.

"I always enjoyed it, and I still do," Tobey says. "I had thoughts that I might get my grandson to get into it, but it never developed. There's really nothing to pass on, I guess."

Mother Me

I've known some virgins,

I've known some whores.

 

Hey little sister won't you mother me?

 

I like both kinds when they're on all fours.

 

Hey little sister won't you mother me?

 

I don't care if you're black or white

Hey little sister won't you spend the night?

I'll talk real sweet and I'll treat you right.

 

Hey little sister won't you mother me?

City Tuned To Radio Pioneer

On September 22, 1927, pioneer Tampa radio station WDAE transmitted the area's first live network sports coverage, a heavyweight bout between champion Gene Tunney and challenger Jack Dempsey, live from Solider Field in Chicago. The response was tremendous.

"Eardrums of 40,000 to 50,000 Tampans will be tuned in tonight on the biggest sporting event in modern history," the Tampa Daily Times speculated that day. "Interest in the bout has the fever pitch attendant to a national election. And everyone who can but borrow or build a radio is preparing to shut himself away from business and domestic cares with a set of ear phones or a loudspeaker and drink in the details of the encounter."

That night 1,000 guests attended an invitation-only affair sponsored by the Studebaker Gulf Sales Co.  There were "hundreds of private parties" about town, and more than 10,000 fans jammed the streets adjacent to the Tampa Times building to hear sportscaster Graham McNamee call the fight over loudspeakers. The resulting chaos forced traffic to be rerouted and streetcars halted.

By that winter, WDAE had moved from Bay Isles to a bungalow on the Marjorie Park Yacht Basin and was broadcasting moonlight concerts by Harold Bachman's Million Dollar Band, direct from the Plant Park band shell. Longtime air personality "Salty" Sol Fleischman was broadcasting from the Moulin Rouge Night Club on 22nd Street one Saturday night when the place was raided on suspicions of illegal gambling. Claude Harris' Band was the evening's featured entertainment, and the show went on as usual, without any on-air mention of the incident.

One of the medium's darker moments took place in November of that year, when the station conducted another remote broadcast, this one from Raiford State Prison to cover the execution of convicted ax murderer Benjamin Franklin Levins. Levins had been the subject of an attempted lynching while in custody at the Hillsborough County Jail on Pierce Street the previous May, and by the time the National Guard dispersed the crowd, five people were dead and nearly 40 had been wounded.

Tampa society again made national news when more than 60 stations carried the first nationwide broadcast of the Gasparilla Coronation Ball on February 2, 1937.

 

Swapping Notes

You know what the coolest thing about Napster was?

It finally made a computer a thing worth having.

As media hype and internet service finally spread to those of us outside the major cities, it suddenly became tres' chic for everyone and their grandma to take home a PC. Shoot, grandma used it more than I did.

Most folk I know jacked around on theirs a couple weeks before its table became something of a magnet for other gadgets and garbage in the house: VHS camcorders, boombox cassettes. Cell phones the size of a Bible.

Then along came Napster. Woohee. Suddenly every Tom, Ben & Jerry had his own box set of '80s death metal and Nick Drake's Greatest Hits.

"You mean that pieceashit HP has a purpose beyond bad jokes, chain letters, cheap sentiment and penile enlargement? No foolin'? Wow. Now get the hell offa my porch."

Now we're being sued. Big whoop. Compared to the Iraqis, we've got it easy.

I figure, how much are a couple hundred Uncle Heck Buford recordings worth anyhow? Forty bucks and change? If I could find them at the frigging Mal-Wart I wouldn't be waiting an hour and a half for each of the sonsabitches to download.

Isn't ripping off music why there's anything as rock & roll in the first place? Where would the Beach Boys be without Chuck Berry, George Harrison without the Shirelles, Ghost Busters without Huey Lewis?

I admit it. I done wrong. I've shipped burnt bootlegs via through the US Postal Service, distributed them as Christmas presents, tortured unsuspecting visitors during latenights on the linai.

That said, bootlegs were where I first heard the music of Frank Zappa. Miles Davis. David Alan Coe. Just because it's a bootleg doesn't mean it's any good.

I figure, same thing with this file-sharing bidness. If I was hawking my handiwork at the local flea market, I could see where Metallica might stand to get a little peeved.

As it is, since I detest their stuff anyway, any point there may have been is rendered moot.

Detailing Florez

How does one itinerant farm worker climb from the constraints of migrant labor to the lofty rungs of successful entrepreneurship?  Hard work, determination, and a little help from his friends.
In little more than four years, Florez has succeeded in breaking free from financial dependency on seasonal crops by starting his own business - Florez Auto Detailing and Stereo Sounds in Dade City.  A native of Grandfield, Oklahoma, a small Texas border town, Florez and his 12-member family had been following fruit and vegetable harvests cross-country for several years when they first set foot in Pasco County in 1969.
"We harvested beets in Montana, went to Michigan and did some cherries, went to Ohio and did tomatoes, and then back to Michigan for apples," he says. "We were migrants. We came here to pick oranges." Returning to the Dade City area season after season, it was not until 1977 that Florez, his wife, Tammy, and daughter Anna finally decided to stay put and raise a family.
"We found that it was a nice place to live. There were people here from all over Texas, Puerto Rico, Venezuela and South America. The atmosphere was great."
Despite the area's well-founded reputation as a booming agricultural community, Florez was disheartened to find there was not always enough crop work to go around.
Unable to makes ends meet, Florez turned in desperation to the local Farmworker's Self-Help organization and its director, Margarita Romo, for assistance.
"Margarita helped me out to pay an electric bill," Florez recalls. "She doesn't even have a place of her own to live, yet she's helped people to buy their own homes. I never have forgotten that. I've been paying back to the community ever since."
Such efforts have included the donation of his carpet-cleaning skills for the beautification of St. Rita's Catholic Church, of which he is a member, assisting athletes and coaches of the local Police Athletic League's acclaimed boxing program, and providing financial assistance to Farmworker's Self-Help for the transport of relief supplies to the south Florida victims of Hurricane Andrew.
Having experienced firsthand the many obstacles his fellow laborers regularly face, Florez remains determined to help the area's poor, unskilled and disenfranchised in their fight for economic and social stability.