Ball & Chain Record Store by Ellyn Maybe
Category: Friends
Ball & Chain Record Store

Someone came into the ball and chain
record store I work at
and said no bags
a waste of plastic

I said yes
You must be a granola eating, left wing,
dig gothic, post-modernist, watch a lot
of Billy Jack movies, Arlo Guthrie type

He said yes
I smiled
I dream of Tom Waits fingerpainting
lightbulbs on my holiday wreath,
and I'm Jewish, pretty weird huh?
I celebrate Tiny Tim's birthday
with a parade of dancing deadheads
some who never sleep and some
who never go to the bathroom

His T-shirt said have you hugged
a rainforest today?

I said I love the planet
but it's unrequited love

He told me babe, you're bringing me down
When I was born my first word was ooomm
In kindergarten I organized the pacifists
to demand we didn't have to read
from Dick, Jane and Spot books
Too generic

I demanded we get American Indians
to talk about what's real
And I gave them my nap mat
cause it's their land and
I gave them my peanut butter
and jelly sandwich cause
the buffalo have been murdered
and they need protein

He blushed with passion and said
tell me you

Well, the first 15 years of my life
I thought Barry Manilow was a sex symbol
Needless to say I got a sort of late start

at being at one with the cosmic heartbeat

He gave me one of those looks
like I better get this girl
some Jack Kerouac books to read fast
before she suffers the confusion

of not knowing there's other existences
beside the banal

I put my hands on my hips and squealed
I read On The Road and the letters

of Allen Ginsberg to Neal Cassady
and vice versa

He said on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday
I'm a part time Marxist
He took out a beanie
put it on his head
and began to chant

This definitely turned me on

All of a sudden he began to sing
the minimum wage workers' song

the walls are full of faces
the mini-malls are full of neon
the bitter bite the hands that feed them
the food is a mixture of bone, blood
and snails
man is a cannibal

I said wow! you are the sort of guy
who says right on and really means it
you probably only drink the milk
of socially conscious cows
who voted Crosby, Stills, Nash
and Young for president

He screamed oh chick my life changed
in 1962 when I realized the Constitution
was written without women, blacks,
indians, and poor white men in mind
That was not o.k.
I became the Jackson Pollack of feminism
I threw paint of outrage everywhere
I was a man who identified
with Billie Holiday and Ernest Hemingway
I was a traveler

So what brings you into this
San Fernando Valley air conditioned
intellectually malnourished video store
with the exactlys?
We open exactly at 10:00
Close exactly at 10:00
No matter what our karma
Damn it's so crass,
you can't even rent The Last Waltz here

He said I'm in a competitive mantra makers
bowling league
We have weavers, chess players
avant garde stamp collectors
and Hell's Angels
Inventors all
We bowl whenever the fuck
the spirit moves us
With any luck we'll be playing the
New Age/lawyers/used car salesman league
again real soon

Hippies and New Age people are like
the difference between Bob Dylan and Bob Hope

He smiled and said do you want to bowl?
We are definitely into strikes
for the betterment of the worker
We need someone who looks
like she could walk into the woods
and find incense without getting poison ivy
You look like Van Morrison
when you pout your lips
You could be a part of the father son and
the holy ghost meshuganeh athletic league
Besides I love you

I started to weep
Tears of Bas Mitzvah cake
and tears of being the last kid picked
for field hockey in gym class
Authentic tears
Nobody ever said all that to me before
I guess I kind of do have Van Morrison's mouth
Why hadn't anybody ever noticed?

I said I love you
But every free moment I moonlight at
Hairy Krishna Organic Coiffures
and Tea Salon
We use
no chemicals
no dyes
no sprays
no combs
no brushes
Hell, you look pretty much the same going out
as going in

He said what's a nice girl like you doing
living in a Republican administration
like this?

The manager of the record store comes over
and says
you know the movie Fahrenheit 451
Corporate has ordered us to burn it
Get to it!
Don't give me your damn whimpering
Joan of Arc eyes
Lots of people would love to have your job

I screamed pig PIG
You are giving barnyard animals a bad name
Cops are Pigs!
Intolerants are Pigs!
Bigots are Pigs!
Everybody who does it and says they're
just doing their job is a Pig!
Everybody who does it to someone else
knows what they are

This is my first day at the record store
I guess if they want to have a quiet
complacent yes sir type of employee
they ought to ask different questions
on the application

like do you conform?
like do you care that this is stolen land?
like do you believe in playlists?
like do you believe in yourself?
do you mind waking up alone
rather than being beat up with fists?
do you see the government is beating us up
as bad as a knife in our elbows
as bad as a slur in our ears
as bad as a rape
when we just wanted to be held

And all they ask is
can you work part-time?
and what days can't you work?
and they say whom do we contact
in an emergency?
I said
cause you need to ask that
constitutes an emergency
The hippie said my name is Hell's Bell's
but you can call me hope
He said I dug you
Now I dig your whole being

It's strange
No matter how many nights I wake up unhappy
there is still a possibility of rising
into a change so easily
The outlaw lives in a world
where when he sees a mirror
he sees a hero
And all heroes put their bellbottoms on
one leg at a time

Let's face it
How can you trust money when
it's politician's faces printed on it
Money is sexist
The only woman on so called American currency
which is really Turtle Island
to the Indians is Susan B. Anthony
and they stopped making those real fast

Is money worth killing for?
Is money worth dying for?

I ran through the store singing
about William Blake's eyebrows
and Walt Whitman's bellybutton
saying everything is alive
and everything is sort of adorable

I took paperclips and gave them
to loving vegetarian families
who needed someone

I took the bathroom sink and gave it a hug
I freed all the rubberbands!

And I said to all the plastic bags
I will never burden you
with films weighing you down,
Perry Como cassettes,
or even a piece of Jerry Garcia's beard
Well maybe

But I will never staple a bag
for you brought love

Most people tell me
it was all the pop tarts I ate
Some people tell me
it was because I was a liar
And I said I'm too honest
to be anybody's best friend
but at times nobody believes
this hippie ever even came by

there are
no lingering peace signs
no incense
no tea bags
no fuck the fuckers pamphlets
yet I still can't even believe
Abbie Hoffman is dead

So my strengths and pains
are in my sense of wonder

All I know is I don't believe in
wearing sandals and argyle socks together
And when I needed it most, hope was here
change must not be too far behind

Ellyn Maybe