speedway

 There was a "Club" as i dare to call it which was a converted warhouse  into the greatest punk rock venue salt  lake has ever seen. I truly feel sad for the punk kids today that they we never able to approach bended knee to worship at the altar  located at  500 w 550 south salt lake city. the first show that i ever saw was due to my friend walter. in order to get to speedway you have to travel underneath the interchange of at least five freeeways. it felt like you were going down the rabbit hole only i could better describe it as the "rat hole." the feel was otherworldly to say the least. there was this drone sound coming from above that you senses learn to forget. as walter arrived it was unassuming to say the least. the club wa basically the size of a split level home with a moderate size garage. i was intimated by the clintel. just the craziest amalgamation of characters. as i entered the threshhold where they took your ticket i had no clure to what think as this place would become such a part of me. its like meeting a new person and you just cant imagine how that person would change your life. One of the strangeness was the set up was a plad couch with a small lamp on a even smaller table. it was like walking into a psychedelic version of the show "I dream of Ginie." as i walked to the back i passed a small counter. They had a deal with the city that they could not get a full on liquor lisence so they agreed you tould bring your own beer and they would stash it for you under the counter. They also had to sell food. Of all the time I spent there i never saw anyone eating one of the sandwiches. the entire wall behind the counter was plastered with flyers from all the past shows held there. it was like witnessing a gallery of past glories. like a military museaum where looking at the souviners of battles in the past where sweat met blood and rage. And then folks i entered the concert area. I have never seen anything quite like it. There was  literally you could break. no thing but a concrete room with a stage and restrooms in the back. as my familiarity grew so did I realize the need for this approach. if there was anything to be broken it would have. I would later learn there was something breakable, the people. You could forget about using the restrooms. the stalls had no doors. the sound board was suspended above an area in the back where Zay Speed, for which the title came, could properly mix the preformances free of the violence that ensued nightly. the opening band was called Verbal Asssult. as they began a whole  different feelling became aware, chaos. I releished it. i felt so out of control and it fit right in whith how out of control i felt emotionally  in my home life. them i was exposed to the incredible physical dynamic known as, stage diving. kids were allowed, even encouraged, to get on stage, run to the other side and project themselves into the crowd. I never figured out it would be better to be caught by the circling mosh pit or to land feet underneath in a small opening. I had to try this. as electricity ran thrould my body I gathered the balls needed and I gripped the stage, hoisted myself up, ran across and so advantageously landed feet first to the right of the mosh pit. It was only later that I learned the severity of stage diving when I read that one fabled night, Zay Speed himself broke his leg. He dragged himself out of the pit and eventually got the attention of another employee. he tried to set the leg himself and passed out from the pain. He was revived in the back of a truck where he lay and discovered that his friends made a makeshift splint with 2 x4' and duck tape. This was in the dead of winter mind you. on the way to the hospital the truck hit a  rough patch and Zay was ejected out of the bed of the truck into a snow filled ditch. as his friends came to his rescue to put him back in he yelled, "Youre all fired!" one sad thing that was due to occur at the time was that the space was a haven to a lot of fringe groups. This included the Nazi skinheads. what a pain in the ass/ they disrupted the perfomances and just created a real hassle. the funny thing my froind said was that there were only 20 of them and 300 of us why cant we just kick their collective asses and be done with it. On the rather hilarious side, the nazies would come in drunk and instead of participating in the mosh pit in a circular fashion would do what was know as the c"chiken s;am/: this occurred as one nazi would climb another and on his shoulders proceed to play chicken as they circled and tried to knock each other off. We are not at a fucking southern california pool party. one of the more intense things involving the nazies was my friend that came to a show and had a  "SHARP" logo on the back of his jacket. Sharp stands for "Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice." I will never forget hor pround of him i was watching him walk into the show with nazies circuling outside. Violence was a real issue. I saw a hippie get his nose broken outside and the so called "security guard" watched by. I promptly gave him tissues i had just feeling scared and helpless. Drugs of course played a big part. I remember buying acid off of a nazi skin whaen i noticed him staring into space and putting two and two together. I would sit outside on the crub in the mist of a lsd fuled state of amazement looking up at the freeways circuling wondering to myself how many eyes dosed with acid have loked at the same freeways. it was a lonly time. One of the more memorible shows I saw was an industrial band named Ministry. Now you have to understand something. seewday could legally allow 250 attendees. for the Ministry show, they sold 700 tickets. as I waited in the freezing weather nex tto the tour bus I had no idea what the night would hold. I entered, wormed my way into the concert area and saw something I had never and still havent seen which was that the front of the stage had a chain link fence to separate the band from the crowd. I know, either they heard the reputation of speedway and the kids they would be playing to. I later learned it was to protect the crowd from the band. After a chilling performance by the opening band, which I learned to love later in my life, KMFDM, MInistry boarded the stage. They had three okil drums on stage that was immedily erupted into flame. What a night. Then they had a bald guy workoing with the band and he would occupy a position on top of the fence and what his job was was to beat the kids with a bat as they climbed up. after this went on he took out a VHS camera and filmed the kids. The footage would eventualy be put on their later released DVD. I pretty proud of that

 so there was this little coffee chop on 3rd south in salt lake city that became so much more than a coffee shop. it is now been transformed into a pf changs. it was called Bandaloops. bandaloops evolved in its short time to be a haven for the forgotten and just a place to go when there was no where else to be. the coffee was interesting to put it bluntly. besides the normal brews they would "invent" a new blend every night and it often turned out to be ok. The workers there were stoic, I mean the stuff they saw every night I just cant imagine how they would either try to stop themselves from grinning or just plain run for cover. I remember ne night I wandered in and before the goth took my order I noticed that his face was badly bruised from a fight. these were not tolerant times in the cities history mind you. There was a jar at the counter that held random cigarettes that you could buy for 10 cents  do you think they would ever card you? no. Bandaloops was a great place to go after seeing a show at the famous speedway club. I remember walking to bandaloops after I say a band called Soundgarden and sat down with a friend named matt and casually informing him I had drooped some acid earlier. This was just a typical subject. One girl next to me remarked, "I think Im going to stop sniffing glue." the people were the highlight. so many characters. the cafe had two rules, 1. no pan handeling  and 2. you had to spend 60 cents an hour in order to hang around. 60 cents is the cost of a coffee refill. this rule became the liscence to where just about any one to stay and get warm or arrange their next threesome. And they were usually succesful. after having moved up to salt lake in the year 1991 i would be there a lot. One night a man I had seen many times there and him having seen me in that time called me over to show me his small scrap book. as he opened it I was ready for anything. what he showed me was a collection of photos of salt lake building shall we saw facades that he had collected. what he did was hang around demolition sites and run in and collect these small remnants of the cities by gone memrobilia. we started talking after a couple of weeks where I learned he was planning on opening a musuem and had relics such as Abraham Lincoln's scarf that Abraham was wearing at the time of death. and it apparently had his blood on it. One of the more interesting tales of Steven Lacey had was when he was some sort of assistant on the set of the movie "Footloose" which was being filmed in utah. the story he related to me was in the shower scene kevin Bacon was naked except for a towel in which he began to tease Steven by moving it back and forth over his genetails. Did they eventually have sex? Oh yes. The story continues as steven was on some sort of date years later in which he and his female friend were watching another Kevin Bacon film when she leaned over and said to Steven, "I wonder what it would be like to have sex with Kevin Bacon?" wow. one night steven and i were hanging around in the middle night on a corner on main st salt lake city and I noticed a lot of the same cars rotating around the block and I asked steven what was going on . he informed me that I was being sort of groomed by the men in the cars to possibly pay me to have sex with me. It was at this time steven mentioned he had fantasys about having sex with me. It was then that I called it a night. 

i tense up
at the thought of school letting out.
I hover above the parking lot, gazing down at the ocean of black burning, and the orange lines.
over and over
i finally realize it
there is a choreographed ritual to it
its like one of those toys in the 80;s
yeah, its called a spirograph,
and again the dance ensues
in and out , in and out
until it produces an image
that image is
desperation

Another sunset falls on a mid western american 7 11. the slurpees have all been sold. at night its a whole nother type of customer. the vapor cigarettes the hipsters fashion are stocked and waiting for young, bright lips. when you come in to 711 after hours you are looking for a different sort of item. there is no benefiting here, no long term. everything is for the immediate satisfaction. do you honestly think a "big bomb beef and cheese red hot" burrito is going to get you into tomorrow, no its a short term survival mentality. The meth addicts stroll in, they think everyone knows they are high. is it the facial scabs, the dodgy eye motion, its like they are in REM sleep with their freaking eyes open. they pass the coffee, thats for damn sure. twinkis, check. What i find most compelling are the pasteries, excuse me i forgot where i was. the donuts. these little cakes are put away like a parent tucks their kid in at night on christmas eve. all lined up, sorted by genre, color, type. let me tell you the berry fritters are the royality of the lot. they know they out weigh and out perform. the beef jerky are the forgotten fossils of the store. stacked in this plastic box. they have lived off of their own atmosphere for so long they dont know if their a meat, a vegetable a rock or something in between. I dont imagine they have any illusions of grandure, who knows where on the horse they come from. But the star of the show, the drink fountain. Born in the streets of rome, borroring from the aqueduct tradition this kraken spills forth what seems endless amounts of liquid pump juice. who doesnt worship it pay homage to it. and when it gets low on a certain syrup in the back of the store, it makes this deafing clapping noise, I know youve heard it. that means you get the hell down there, a place where no one is really sure of, in the civilian scetor. will the sun ever rise again, who cares, weve got ho hos

I was driving down 400 w in salt lake with my wife nat and friend peter from denmark. We were killing time before the off show and all of a sudden my eye is taken to the right. The sun was creating a lsd induced tapestry of light coming through the trees and surrounded by cheribum  there is mr keith morris, founder of black flag and the infamous circle jerks, walking, rather parading himself down the crusted pavement. Mabye it was the fact that this was a shitty neighborhood to be walking alone in or just that he was unawares of the fact but he just knew himself and carried himself as a fully realized being that had no concern for the world around him. It didnt matter. He was complete in himself. The type of self awarness only created through years of practice. The world formed around him as he walked. I told peter to high tail it around the block to intercept him.  I cautiously approached the guru, "DO you have time to say hi?" What I received - a fist bump, and he walked away. But seroiusly, what was there more to say than that. I was humbled

I used to live in this distressed apartment in the avenues of salt lake. If you climbed on the roof you could see all the way to west valley. one time I came home to see a fellow resident named Eric being compleatly confused at the functioning of the screen door leading to the roof. He was tottaly insane and on lsd at the time. we used to sit in front of the mall where teh punks hung out and he used to tell me stories of when he was in the salt lake valley watching Brigham Young and the pioneers come down immigration valley for the first time. He saw them settle and begin to form a community. I one asked Eric what the strangest thing he ever saw and he said, I saw somebody lie." I don't think he was crazy at that moment, rather without prejudice. One day eric decided to move out of the building and was shouting with his brother about how they wouldn't be able to pay rent if eric wasn't there to sign the checks. Eric's brother broke open the coin box on the washing machine in the basement for cigarette money. I had to do my laundry further in to the avenues at a laundry mat where the machines fought you every step of the way, coin in coin out. It was a toss up whether you would actually leave with clean clothes or what you ever had in mind of how things normally operate in a laundromat.