This time, my accuser is a man in Texas, who as taken offense with my having used the phrase “Slime Gravel Academy.”

That, of course, isn’t really the phrase in question, but it’s as close as I’m willing to get, seeing as how I’ve been threatened not only with a DCMA shutdown, but a full-blown FBI investigation.

Here’s how the story begins…

Two years ago this week, I posted something about a poorly done, subscription-based, animated web series being launched by Mike Huckabee, in which a team of patriotic young protagonists travel through time, witnessing historic events firsthand, and saying things like, “Reagan believes we can do anything… We just have to get the government out of the way!” It was clearly a money grab on the part of the painfully sanctimonious presidential hopeful, who saw an opportunity to share in the ever-growing “Oh My God, our kids are learning something other than ‘God loves our country best, and we can do no wrong’… and we have to do something about it” economy. And, as Huckabee called this animated truth squad of his The Slime Gravel Academy, that’s what I referred to it as in my post. But, it would seem that phrase was already “owned” by a litigious science fiction writer in Texas, who, for the purposes of this post, we’ll call Smeginald Smilliams. Mr. Smilliams successfully prosecuted Huckabee, and then he set out to obliterate any mention of the politician’s ridiculous enterprise online, contacting every news outlet that had made mention of the Slime Gravel Academy, and threatening legal action.

While I could certainly see how Huckabee might be in the wrong, if he did in fact launch a product without first doing a copyright search, I didn’t see how I could possibly be held accountable, as I’d just reported the story in good faith, referring to the educational series in question by the name that it was then being marketed under. I didn’t think it was even remotely possible that larger players, like the New York Times, for instance, would be coerced into edit their coverage, years after it had first appeared, and I decided to join them by fighting back on the grounds that, rightly or wrongly, this was the name that the series was being marketed under at the time.

Then I remembered, however, that I don’t have an attorney on staff, and I decided to give in to every unreasonable demand. I wasn’t afraid of the threat to get the FBI involved, as I figured they had bigger things to worry about than a guy who used the phrase “time travel” on his blog, but I didn’t want to have my site taken down yet again, and I knew, based on past experience, that the company hosting my site would do just that in the face of legal action. (They seem like good folks, but they clearly didn’t want to fight for me if it meant jeopardizing their entire enterprise.)

Unfortunately, this is how the system works. The burden of proof is all on the blogger. All someone has to do is demand something be changed and threaten legal action… if the changes aren’t made immediately, the site will be pulled from the internet.

Oh, and this man didn’t want me to just remove certain phrases from my posts, but also the tags that I’d used to categorize these articles that I’d written, so that people could find them more easily. So, now, as a result, anyone searching the web for mention of Huckabee’s contribution to American online education, won’t find anything if they search under the name that the product was officially offered under, at least on my site.

One last thing, I’m not the only one that uses meta tags on my site. It would seem that Mr. Smilliams does too. Here’s a screen capture of the source code from his site. As you’ll notice, he mentions a great many things, which, I’m quite certain, he does not own the rights to… So, tonight, I’m staying up late and writing to Brad Pitt, Will Smith, the new CEO of Apple, and the producer of Iron Man, suggesting that they call Washington immediately, and “file a complaint with the FBI”. My hope is that justice is swift and merciless.

It’s also worth nothing that I did offer to add an addendum at the end of the post in question, explaining that Huckabee had infringed on the copyright of Mr. Smilliams. Apparently, though, that wasn’t good enough. Nothing short of removing the phrase in question, I was told, would be acceptable.

Now, I’m going to see if I can find Mr. Smilliams’ book to review. Wish me luck.

Of course, on second thought, it’s not nearly as beautiful a scene if it’s not a hammock at all, but a giant seed pod incubating an alien body snatcher.

Those who would like more information about Ypsilanti’s May 1 seed bombing event are encouraged to check out our Facebook page. Also, the audio quality is pretty terrible, due to the gusting winds we experienced a few days ago, but there’s now video on Youtube of native plants expert Jason Tallant and me, shot on Water Street, discussing the project with a school group… And, it’s not required, but, if you’re planning to join us on May Day, and would like to either RSVP, or share the event with your friends, you can do so here.

[note: The photo with the beer can was taken at Totally Awesome Fest, not at the school.]

Speaking of Muslim extremists, the Pakistani Taliban, who were quick to claim credit for the 2010 Time Square bomb, have come out and said that this wasn’t their doing. “Wherever we find Americans we will kill them,” they said in their statement, “but we don’t have any connection with the Boston explosions.” And, as of right now, it doesn’t look as though there’s much to suggest a Muslim connection. A young Saudi man, who was wounded at the bomb site, was questioned by police, and consented to have his apartment searched, but it looks now as though he’s not presently a suspect.

I know that people everywhere are anxious to use this horrific event to confirm their preexisting prejudices, whether they be against Muslims or the so-called Patriot Movement, but I’d like to think that we could manage a bit of self restraint, and see how the investigation plays out. I think we owe it to the victims of the bombing to do at least that much.

One more thing… Having been working in downtown Atlanta at the time of the Olympic bombing, I followed that investigation somewhat closely, and I’d encourage people to remember what happens when we stop following the facts, and choose instead to focus on certain individuals because we want immediate satisfaction, and like the narrative they embody.

At some point in 1991, I had the occasion to witness a basketball-related riot in Ann Arbor, as I stood wedged between an open 450-degree pizza oven and a large plate glass window facing the intersection of Church and State. I can’t recall, but I don’t think my friend Roger and I, who were busy making some of the City’s least expensive/tasty pizzas at the time, were even listening to the game that set the events in motion. We were just cranking out the “za”, as the rich New York girls liked to call it, as fast as we could for the drunken frat crowd, and watching the events unfold on the street in front of us. I’d love to see a time lapse video of it now, after over 20 years have passed. It felt at the time like a tornado, the way it kind of gathered from nothingness. There was a stillness, followed by a few people running by, and then, all of sudden, all hell just broke loose. I don’t know how long the riot lasted. I just remember standing in the window, watching the street signs swaying, and the people climbing up on top of whatever happened to be around. I think I may have heard things being smashed, but, for some reason, I don’t think it even crossed my mind that the large window that I was looking through could be a target. (Maybe they left us alone because we were open, and it was easier to smash the windows of stores that were dark inside, or maybe it was just that they liked pizza more that they liked violence, but, for whatever reason, no bricks were hurled in our direction.) And, then, at the height of it, a phalanx of faceless riot police, who I guess had learned a thing or to two during the ’89 riots, started marching slowly down South University, launching teargas canisters in front of them as they went. The crowd scattered. Those of us at work, however, had to keep right on going, with our eyes swollen closed, and snot running from our chins in torrents. Roger and I eventually decided to lock up and call it a night, but, as I recall, it took us a while to get everything shut off and cleaned up, given that we couldn’t really see, and spent half our time rubbing our eyes and screaming out in pain. And, it must have been somewhere in that half hour or so, that I came to the realization that life isn’t fair. (I’d already come to the realization that I hated frat boys, but this certainly reinforced that belief as well.) I tell you, there’s nothing like being teargassed for the crimes of spoiled, drunken rich kids who didn’t have to work their way through school to radicalize a man…

So, today, as I sat at work, it occurred to me that I’m owed a riot. Sadly, though, I don’t know that I’m now in any condition to enjoy it. While I could probably toss a brick a few feet (underhand), I don’t think that I’m in any condition to scale walls, or flip cars. I can, however, post things to Craigslist… which has me thinking that I should ask the spoiled rich kids of today to repay the debt of their predecessors, and give my fat ass a boost onto the awning of a local business when the time comes, and hold onto my things for me, while I help kick it to the ground…

All this nonsense aside, I don’t have a problem with riots per-se… God knows there are things that people should be in the streets about… I just have a problem with alcohol-fueled sports riots. They seem a huge waste of time and energy, but I suppose that’s their purpose. They keep people occupied, divert attention from the real problems at hand, and relieve societal pressure.

I’m tempted to go downtown tonight with a sign… “YOUR RIOTING ABOUT THE WRONG THING!”

One question: Will there be a riot tonight regardless of the game’s outcome? I’m not up to speed on American riot etiquette. And, if there is a riot, what form will it take? Will couches all over the City be pulled into the streets and set aflame, or will everyone come together in one place to tip news vans on their sides?

[note: This post has been edited to reflect the fact that, knowing very little about sports, and having a terrible memory for dates, I'd originally identified myself as being present at a different riot altogether. In the future, I will take better notes when surrounded by mayhem. I promise.]

Anticipating his own death not too long ago, Ebert, a lapsed Catholic, had the following to say.

I know it is coming, and I do not fear it, because I believe there is nothing on the other side of death to fear. I hope to be spared as much pain as possible on the approach path. I was perfectly content before I was born, and I think of death as the same state. I am grateful for the gifts of intelligence, love, wonder and laughter. You can’t say it wasn’t interesting. My lifetime’s memories are what I have brought home from the trip. I will require them for eternity no more than that little souvenir of the Eiffel Tower I brought home from Paris…

What I expect to happen is that my body will fail, my mind will cease to function and that will be that. My genes will not live on, because I have had no children. I am comforted by Richard Dawkins’ theory of memes. Those are mental units: thoughts, ideas, gestures, notions, songs, beliefs, rhymes, ideals, teachings, sayings, phrases, clichés that move from mind to mind as genes move from body to body. After a lifetime of writing, teaching, broadcasting and telling too many jokes, I will leave behind more memes than many. They will all also eventually die, but so it goes…

Someday I will no longer call out, and there will be no heartbeat. I will be dead. What happens then? From my point of view, nothing. Absolutely nothing. All the same, as I wrote to Monica Eng, whom I have known since she was six, “You’d better cry at my memorial service.”

[Bonus points for the Vonnegut reference.]

Ebert didn’t know it, but our paths have crossed twice… at least in a kind of cosmic sense. The first time was in Atlanta, when Linette and I had the pleasure of spending an evening with his on-again-off-again collaborator, the ferociously un-PC Russ Meyer, who talked with us for some time about his friendship and working relationship with the young screenwriter. (Meyer, as I recall, after telling us how he’d like to kill that “skinny bitch” Kate Moss, explained to us that it was Ebert’s wife who kept them from seeing one another. I didn’t press the matter, but, seeing as how Ebert gave up booze, and sought treatment for alcoholism not too long after he and Meyer last worked together, I suspect there may have been good reason for him to keep his distance, whether it was his wife’s idea or his own.) The second crossing of paths took place at a zine conference in Santa Barbara, where an elderly man approached me with a half-century-old mimeographed booklet, asking me to turn it over and read the author’s name. It was a little, self-published sci-fi publication called Stymie, and the author was one Roger Ebert. (The whole zine movement, by the way, rose up out of the sci-fi fanzine scene in the 50s.) According to the old man who had handed it to me, Ebert, before turning to film criticism, had been a precocious kid, writing furiously in his parents’ basement about science fiction. And that’s what fascinated me about Ebert. As much as I would have liked to have talked with him about the debauchery of his time with Meyers, the highly cantilevered women in the cult director’s entourage, and the Sex Pistols, what I really wanted to find out more about was his early years, working alone in his parents’ basement.

Maybe it’s because I’d come into adulthood publishing zines of my own, and I felt a certain kinship there, but I really liked the vision of this super motivated kid in the suburbs, hammering out articles behind the backs of his conservative parents. I jotted down the address noted on the back of Symie, and wrote a letter, hoping that someone in his family might still live there, and asking for an interview. Unfortunately, I never heard anything back. I did, however, stumble across a mention that Ebert had made of Stymie, and his early forays into publishing, a little while ago online. Here’s a clip. I fear it will be of little interest to anyone but me, but, as I love the history of self-publishing, and think this is one important aspect of the man’s life that’s not likely to be celebrated elsewhere today, I’m going to include it.

… Prozines and fanzines were two different worlds, and it was in the virtual world of science fiction fandom that I started to learn to be a writer and a critic. Virtual, because for a long time I never met any other fans; they lived only in the pages of mimeographed fanzines that arrived at 410 E. Washington St. and were quickly hidden among the hundreds of SF mags in the basement, on metal shelves that cost four books of Green Stamps. “Hidden,” because at first I concealed my interest in fandom from my parents. Fanzines were not offensive in any way–certainly not in a sexual way, which would have been the worst way of all in a family living in the American Catholicism of the 1950s, but I sensed somehow that they were . . . dangerous. Dangerous, because untamed, unofficial, unlicensed. It was the time of beatniks and On the Road, which I also read, and no one who did not grow up in the fifties will be quite able to understand how subversive fandom seemed.

Most fanzines had a small circulation of a few hundred, but they created a reality so intriguing and self-referential that, for fans, they were the newspapers of a world. Looking through old issues of Xero, which during its brief glory was one of the best fanzines ever published, I was stunned by how immediate and vivid my reaction was to names not thought about for years: Harry Warner Jr., Mike Deckinger, Guy Terwilliger, Gene DeWeese, Bob Lichtman, bhob Stewart (how evocative that “h” was!), Walt Willis, Bob Tucker, “Ajay” Budrys, Ted White. I met Donald Westlake as an adult (we have been on a couple of cruises together) and he was surprised to find that I was already reading him in Xero. I found established professionals (Harlan Ellison, Donald A. Wollheim, Anthony Boucher, Frederik Pohl, Avram Davidson, James Blish) happy to contribute to a fanzine, indeed plunging passionately into the fray. I confess happily that as I scanned pages and pages of letters of comment (“locs”), my eye instinctively scanned for my own name, as it did forty years ago, and when I found it (Blish dismissing one of my locs), I felt the same flash of recognition, embarrassment and egoboo that I felt then; much muted, to be sure, diluted, but still there. Locs were the currency of payment for fanzine contributors; you wrote, and in the next issue got to read about what you had written. Today I can see my name on a full-page ad for a movie with disinterest, but what Harry Warner or Buck Coulson had to say about me–well, that was important.

Wilson (Bob) Tucker was the first fan I met. He lived in Leland, a hamlet south of Bloomington, not far from Urbana. In the summer of 1958, still in high school, I was working as a reporter for the Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette, and was assigned to drive to Springfield to cover something at the state fair. I made a detour past his house. Bob and Fern made me feel right at home, and to meet them again I concocted a sort of fraud on my newspaper. We had a Sunday article on interior decorating, and I convinced an editor that I should write a piece about the household arrangements of one of Downstate Illinois’ major writers. Well, Tucker was major! In the endless fanzine debates about whether SF was really literature, The Long Loud Silence was always cited as real literature. Bob was a movie projectionist in Bloomington who wrote in his spare time (a writer with the same talent would be a best-seller today). The Tucker home was a modest two-bedroom suburban house with attached garage– “turn left off the highway when you get to the motel.” I photographed the high points of the interior decoration, which to my eye consisted of Bob’s typewriter, his desk, his shelves of books, his piles of SF magazines, his framed movie posters, and the Tuckers, standing in front of various compositions of the above. This article actually ran in the paper.

A year or so after that I joined Tucker and Ed Gorman, a fan from Cedar Rapids, on a trip to the MidWestCon in Cincinnati. We drove in my family’s Dodge, nearly skidding off a road in Indiana, talking all the way about fandom in a giddy rapid-fire exchange of inside jargon. At a motel in Cincinnati, I made people laugh with my reproductions of Bob and Ray routines, and drank a little beer, which felt like a lot of beer to an inexperienced drinker, and–here is the earth-shaking part–I actually met Buck and Juanita Coulson, Dick and Pat Lupoff, and Harlan Ellison! The Coulsons struck me as two of the nicest people I had ever met, the kind of people where you would like to move into their spare room, and the astonishingly long run of their Yandro was one of the monuments of fandom. The Lupoffs were enormously funny and smart New Yorkers–that city that the novels of Thomas Wolfe had forever colored in my daydreams. Harlan was–how old? Twenty? Young and cocky, with the color proofs for the cover of his new paperback that Berkeley Books was about to publish, and as he showed me the glossy reproduction, I knew envy of a desperately sincere kind.

The summer of 1961, now a student at the University of Illinois, I made my first trip to Europe on a $325 charter flight, and in Belfast visited Walt and Madeleine Willis. They invited me to tea–tomato sandwiches and Earl Grey–and took me around to meet James White, another of Belfast’s BNFs (Big Name Fans), whose prozine collection was carefully wrapped in brown parcel paper, year by year, and labeled (“F&SF 1957″). Fandom was a secret society and I had admission to friends everywhere who spoke the same arcane language.

In the summer of 1962, I found myself going to South Africa as the press agent for a tour of wheelchair athletes from the University of Illinois. After the long bus trip from Urbana, we stopped overnight at a motel near LaGuardia, and I called Dick and Pat Lupoff. We met for dinner at a Chinese restaurant in Times Square. Other members of our party included Lin Carter and his girlfriend, Gerry Deindorf, Walter Breen, and Ted and Sylvia White.

These meetings, these connections and conversations, were important because they existed in an alternative world to the one I inhabited. Fandom grew out of and fed a world-view that was dubious of received opinion, sarcastic, anarchic, geeky before that was fash-ionable. In those years it was heretical to take comic books or “Captain Video” seriously. Pop culture was not yet an academic subject. From Lenny Bruce, Stan Freberg, Harvey Kurtzman, Mort Sahl, and Bob and Ray we found an angle on America that cut through the orthodoxy of the Fifties and was an early form of what would come to be known as the Sixties.

I published my own fanzine (Stymie), cutting the ditto masters on an old L.C. Smith and paying an office supply company a few bucks to run it off for me. My freshman year in college I published The Spectator, a weekly “newspaper of politics and the arts” at the University, and this was a descendent of my fanzine. If I had only known it, I had stumbled on the format of the alternative weekly, but I didn’t know enough to give it away, and the ads and circulation income weren’t enough to keep it afloat; at the end of a year I sold it for two hundred dollars and joined the staff of The Daily Illini, then as now a great independent campus paper, and it took so much of my time that, little by little, fandom drifted out of sight…

And here, for those of you who don’t care so much about his 1950′s foray in self-publishing, are a few of my favorite videos of the beautiful, kind, thoughtful and generous Mr. Ebert in action… brilliantly egging on his old foil, Gene Siskel, defending Star Wars against a sci-fi hating asshole, and tearing apart the shittiest movies of 1983. (Those seeking more video clips can find a good list here.)

It’s like the “Young Lady, Old Woman” illusion for a new generation.

MARK: I’m thinking of requiring everyone who wants to leave to first get 100 signatures. Do you feel as though you could get that many people to sign a petition on your behalf, allowing you to leave?

CHARLES: That’s a weird petition… you should be collecting signatures to convince people to stay. And, no, I don’t think that I could collect 100 signatures.

MARK: I was just wondering if you could find 100 people willing to let you go. I mean, on one hand, I know that people want folks that they love to be happy, but there’s also a certain selfishness. We don’t like change. We don’t like our friends moving away from us.

CHARLES: I believe someone wrote a song about that. What’s it called? “Allan“? Oh yeah, I wrote it… Allan told me that moving away is great because then everyone parties when you come back around. Wouldn’t that be nice? [See video of "Allan" being performed below.]

MARK: Where is it that you want to go, and why?

CHARLES: Portland, Oregon. Kate got into Portland State and I’m going to pursue Electrical Engineering via Electrical Engineering Technology at Portland Community College.

MARK: What will Kate be studying? And what made led her to apply at Portland State?

CHARLES: She will be studying urban planning. She applied there and Seattle. She got into both. I favored Portland because I’ve already spent time in the Puget Sound and I’d like to try somewhere else.

MARK: Have you ever lived outside of Michigan?

CHARLES: I was born and raised in Oak Harbor, Washington. It’s a smaller city on an island in the Puget Sound. I was sent to live with my father when I was 12 in Canton, Michigan.

MARK: Was that a move that you wanted to make?

CHARLES: Well, that saga is long and winding, and too long to go into here. I wanted to get away from my mother who had a lot of problems, but it wasn’t my choice. It was “the State” that sent me to live with my father. I don’t think my father really wanted me at that point, which is why I left home when I was 16 and ended up in Ypsilanti, where two incredibly nice lesbos took me in and helped me finish high school, so I didn’t become destitute. Which is why I took personal offense when, a little while ago at Krampus, you referred to me as “so Ann Arbor,” because I know what you meant.

MARK: Sorry about that, Charles. I just think of you as an Ann Arbor institution. I was aware that you’d lived in Ypsi at some point, but I didn’t know the circumstances. At any rate, I’m sorry if my stupid comment upset you, and I’m glad that you brought it up here so that I could properly apologize. (And, for what it’s worth, I was super happy to see you at Krampus.) As for the circumstances that brought you to Michigan, I don’t know what to say, other than that it’s amazing what children are often made to endure. And even more amazing still what they’re able to make of their lives in the wake of such trauma. If you’re comfortable talking about it, I’m curious as to how, if at all, you see your childhood reflected in your creative work, which, at least on the surface, comes across as very happy.

CHARLES: There’s some sad stuff in my music too, if you listen for it. My humor tends to be of a sarcastic nature, but I’m a positive person. My bandmate Micah has called me the most practical absurdist ever. I don’t know exactly what that means, but maybe that has something to do with it. I just want people to be happy when I’m around. My earlier works – Pass the Time Machine (PTTM), and Walter Carlos (WC) – were more self-referential. There’s a hidden track on PTTM, at about the 5-minute mark in “My Time Machine,” that talks about my mother. “You Never Tried to be My Friend” is another song that people are surprised to learn is about my relationship with my father, and they’re even more surprised to learn that the song title comes from something he said to me, and not the other way around.

MARK: It seems that a majority of people that I interview these days, are either going to Portland or Oakland, and it makes me wonder if there might be a market in Ann Arbor for coins that say “Portland” on one side, and “Oakland” on the other, that people who are struggling with the decision could flip… Do you think they’d sell?

CHARLES: I do think they would sell. But, in most cases, it really has to do with having “Anchor” people in those places. Do you ever wonder how so many Polish people ended up in Hamtramck, and things like that? Anchor people? RIGHT?

MARK: OK, here’s a test for you… Sum up Ann Arbor, Oakland and Portland, each in six words? Go!

CHARLES:

Ann Arbor: Post hippy revolving Moderate Hotel California
Portland: Inland Bridge bicycle Buritto almost Goonies
Oakland: Taco truck bird sanctuary estuary forest

MARK: Well done. As I read it, “Moderate Hotel California” is kind of devastating. Do you care to elaborate?

CHARLES: That’s mostly in reference to my job at Downtown Home & Garden. I used to sing that song to the store cat (Lewis) as a joke on him. Later I came to see it was really a joke on me, and how I’d become really comfortable with everything, and no longer “hungry” as they say.

MARK: So you would tease Lewis by singing this song about how he could “never leave,” but then it occurred to you that you were actually in the same trap? Is that the moment when you knew that you’d have to leave?

CHARLES: Mark, you keep coming back to this idea that I have to leave, or something brought me to the breaking point. Ann Arbor and I are not getting a divorce. But I am excited about moving. I can’t wait to do different stuff. Go to different thrift stores and eat at different restaurants.

MARK: I totally understand. I was just trying to get some clarity on the moment you decided to go, and what your thought process was. Regardless of why people go, there’s point when they decide that it’s what they want to do, need to do, etc… Let’s try something else, though… What’s your first memory?

CHARLES: I dunno man… like I remember crawling off a weird stairwell thing and falling onto a couch, but it’s more like a dream.

MARK: I remember bright sunlight through a yellow curtain, and a gentle breeze coming from outside, as I lay in a crib in Monticello, Kentucky. My next memory after that is seeing the opening credits of the Dick Van Dyke Show on a small television. I don’t attribute any deep meaning to such things, but I think it’s interesting what we choose to remember… How about this… What was first television show you ever really loved?

CHARLES: Hhmm… I used to love Ducktails, Rescue Rangers, and Tailspin. When I was really young, I had a black and white TV in my room and I used to stay up all night watching Nick at Nite. That’s kinda weird, cuz now I can relate to people who watched that stuff when it was actually on TV. I liked “Mr. Ed” a lot and “I Dream of Genie”… oh and “Dragnet.” “Dragnet” was so cool. I hated “Green Acres.”

MARK: The color of “Green Acres” bothered me. It was too washed out, unnatural, or something… Why did you stick around Ann Arbor this long?

CHARLES: I like Ann Arbor. My friend Kelly once told me, “You don’t have to hate a place to leave it”. But, really, I was comfortable working at Downtown Home & Garden and I was able to pursue the music thing in my own way. The city is full of parks, and I can walk to work. I also happen to pay really cheap rent. A lot of my friends moved out to Detroit, but I must not really be a Detroit kinda guy.

MARK: Is there anything that you’d still like to accomplish in Michigan before leaving?

CHARLES: Me and some of the guys at work have been kinda putting together a bucket list of things I have to do before I leave. Some of them are specific to them, like getting the Bomber breakfast before work on a Sunday, but other stuff is more universal. Like they want me to do stand-up once before I leave. We’re also supposed to build a boat out of garbage and float it down the Huron.

MARK: I’d forgotten that you were contemplating stand-up… Have you put together any material?

CHARLES: I’m always in joke mode, but I have a hard time writing stand-up jokes that I can repeat. I’m better at just riffing with people. But something about being on stage makes that really hard. I haven’t given up on comedy, though.

MARK: What’s the best show you ever played?

CHARLES: Shows have some many different vibes, so it’s hard to say one was the best, but this was my favorite…… We played in an apartment kitchen in KZOO and it was so small that I had to set my equipment up on the counter and put a speaker on the fridge. It got so hot, that midway through the show, I turned around and used the “dish sprayer off thingy” to spray everyone. Someone opened up the cupboard and found a bag of rice and started throwing it around like it was a wedding or something, like we were all getting married to each other, or everyone was marrying me. The floor felt like it was going to cave in.

MARK: Would you consider yourself more of an inventor or a musician, or isn’t the distinction important to you?

CHARLES: I’m just a man, I do things… Socially, I often feel like I don’t fit in with my fellow musicians, like the kid who got invited to the birthday party because his mom called the birthday kid’s mom and asked why he wasn’t invited. I don’t know which one I am… Which one makes more money?

MARK: I’d like to follow up on your comment about not feeling welcome in the local music scene. Do you think that might just be your perception, or do you really feel as though people didn’t want you around? And, if it’s the latter, why do you think that is? Did they just not get what you were trying to do? Or was it more a personality thing? …And, if it’s money you want, invent an iPhone app.

CHARLES: First off, I think it was entirely personal and having more to do with the fact that I don’t really drink or do drugs. Not participating in those ritualistic things can make you unwelcome in some circles, but, even when that is not the case, an experience wall can develop where it becomes hard to communicate with people who are experiencing the events in a different way. I’ve always been hyper sensitive about whether I was welcome somewhere. It probably comes from when I was kid and always staying the night at my friends’ houses – to get away from my mother – always knowing I didn’t really belong there. Then, later, with my father… Second, I’ll never make any money. I’m black licorice.

MARK: As for the inventor/musician divide, I ask that because it seems to me that maybe you’re deriving more pleasure these days from creating electronics than from performing. Would I be right about that?

CHARLES: A few years ago, I started to get kinda bored with performing. I realized that I was never going to get to be a famous rock n roll star on my terms (or probably on anyone’s terms). I also realized it wasn’t really the lifestyle I wanted, or the people I wanted to surround myself with (not the artists, I like artists, the other people). I also realized that no amount of fame (or anything) will ever fill the emptiness inside me – an emptiness that drives me to constantly be working on something or towards something. I decided that I should broaden my view of what I can do with my life and still be happy. You have this idea when you’re younger that there is only one fate for yourself, or at least I did. Like I was going to a famous rock n roll star, or fail at it. Now I’m 30, and I realize that there are still plenty of other things I can fail at too, and have fun doing it. I wasn’t happiest when I was the most popular. I’m happier now than I’ve ever been… I’ve surprised myself with how fast I’ve gotten good with electronics. It seems my brain was made for this. I’m taking some math courses at WCC, and I’m doing really well in those as well.

MARK: I’ve been told that I should ask you about your hair. Are you cool with that?

CHARLES: Ha Ha. That must be because I make lots of jokes about it. It’s one of those things where, you’re like, “I don’t want anyone to think I’m really worried about my hair, so I’m gonna be the first to make jokes about it,” but then you realize, you’re always talking about your hair – how you’re losing it – so everyone knows you must care about it. Of course I don’t want to be losing my hair. It’s one of those things that happens, and you’re like, “Do I really want to be an old musician?” No. I want to be an old artist. Do you want to be old Axel Rose, or old Brian Eno? The answer is obvious.

MARK: At what moment did you know that it was time to move on?

CHARLES: From Ann Arbor? From Michigan? from my hair? Everyone in Michigan has this “sinking boat” mentality. Like, if you leave, it’s because you can’t hack it… have no pride. A true Michigander goes down with his ship. We’ve had this Detroit auto-based economy “we’re all doomed” bullshit crammed down our throats for so long, it’s shaped how everything is phrased. Doomsday pride. The question is not, when did you decide to leave, but, when did you decided to get out of this stinking hell hole. This isn’t just in reference to this question… it’s the attitude I witnessed a lot. Again, you don’t have to hate a place to leave it.

MARK: I see it differently. I don’t think there’s a sense that people leave because they can’t hack it here. Quite often, it’s the most talented people who are leaving (which is the frustrating thing). I think the sense is that people leave because they feel unfulfilled here, or they believe that they could achieve more elsewhere. At least that’s what I think… I certainly don’t look at the people who are leaving and think, “They just aren’t strong enough, or smart enough.” If anything, it’s the opposite. And, for what it’s worth, I don’t see the state as a “stinking hell hole.” While I hate what’s happening in Lansing, there’s a lot to like about his state. And I think that people will come to realize that as the effects of global warming worsen.

CHARLES: I agree. I like Michigan and I like Ann Arbor, though it may be a “yuppie food court.” Allegiance to a city or state can be so strange, like it all changes depending on the circumstances. If two people are racing, and one lives in Ann Arbor, and the other lives in Ypsi, who do you root for? Or if one is from Ann Arbor, but the other lives in Ann Arbor? Would it be worse if the most talent people moved to the moon rather than Portland or Oakland? I dunno. Talented Michiganders are being conceived at this very moment… it’s just too bad that one day they will be forced move to the moon because that’s where they will be appreciated.

MARK: How have you seen Ann Arbor change over the years that you’ve spent here?

CHARLES: I feel like a lot of people interpret changes in their role within a town as a change in the town itself. I don’t think Ann Arbor has really changed that much since I moved here 10 years ago. My role in the town has changed a lot. I don’t play parties anymore. I don’t go to parties. Some people know me and come to my shows. Some people know me from Downtown Home & Garden. I’m not really involved in “youth culture”. I’m just a guy who does stuff, and so the town seems different than when I was younger, but it’s really the same… But, some places closed, I guess.

MARK: At some point, not too long ago, you mentioned to me that you’d prefer, at this stage in your life, to be known as Charles Slick, as opposed to Charlie Slick. I imagine that’s a difficult transformation to make, though, when you’re such a well-known public figure. I don’t want for this to come across the wrong way, as I really appreciate your work, and don’t want to trivialize it, but it’s kind of like you’re going through, at some level, the same kind of thing that people who achieve stardom early in life often do… trying to reinvent yourself as an adult artist. And it’s not an easy thing to accomplish. For every Justin Timberlake, there’s a Dustin Diamond. And I’m just wondering how, if at all, that factors into your decision to move? Was the memory of the young, shirtless Charlie Slick, covered in glitter and his bubbles, playing in front of swooning young women, just too hard to break free from here, in Michigan?

CHARLES: I am very excited to reinvent myself in another city. My best shows these days are out of town shows, where people don’t have any idea who I am, or what I’m about to do, or cover myself with. As far as the name thing goes, I’ve changed my name so many times… I was Charlie up until I was 6. Then I wanted to be called Chucky (which turned into Chunky, because I was kinda a fat kid). When I was 12, I went by Chuck. And, when I was around 23, I started performing as Charlie Slick, and now everyone knows me as Charlie Slick. A name is just something people call you, and you’d be surprised at how easy it is to change. When I started my math class at Washtenaw Community College, I told everyone my name was Charles and that’s what they call me. I’m trying not to think of my life in terms of fame, and so I don’t believe comparing me to Dustin Diamond is relevant.

MARK: Just for the record, I wasn’t comparing you to Dustin Diamond, or, for that matter, Justin Timberlake. I was just noting the fact that some people make the transition well, while others struggle with it… Let’s talk about your recent electronics work, though. What are you working on right now that you’re excited about?

CHARLES: I’m building a Modular Synthesizer. I design and etch Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs). I recently started sneaking pictures of Sigourney Weaver into my PCBs. Just yesterday, I etched a piece of aluminum for a front panel with a picture of Sigourney Weaver on it. I’m basically teaching myself at this point, but it’s been one of the most mentally rewarding endeavors I’ve ever attempted. I don’t think there is a lot of money in Modular Synthesizers but I like the idea of making Boutique modules to sell for fun. You can follow all my progress on my blog.

MARK: Would you say you’re obsessed with Sigourney Weaver? And, if so, what is it about her that you find so compelling?

CHARLES: I like strong women. I also like tall women. I like women who can put me in my place. I like women who don’t take shit from anybody. It’s true that Sigourney Weaver is that kind of a woman, but I have history of name dropping Sigourney Weaver. I’m not sure why I chose her, or if in a strange way, she chose me.

MARK: I think I must have asked you this before, but have you ever seen Quintron’s infomercial for the Drum Buddy? Ever since I first met you, I’ve thought that you’d be great in that format. Will you do me a favor and consider it?

CHARLES: Yeah, I’d actually never seen that before, but it’s pretty awesome. I’m sure I have a future in QVC.

MARK: What’s the ideal career for Charles Slick, and do you think it’s attainable in Portland?

CHARLES: I don’t know what my ideal situation is exactly in Portland and I don’t think it would be terribly different than if I stayed. I’m going to pursue my electronics education full-time, find some people to play music with, perform with my modular, try to sell my electronics, and maybe get job doing something remotely related to electronics.

MARK: How would you like to be remembered by the people of Ann Arbor?

CHARLES: As I am, a self-absorbed jerk who was mostly a good guy.

MARK: Any parting words of wisdom for those of us who remain behind?

CHARLES: Don’t waste your time trying to “build a scene”. Things like that happen organically when people work on stuff and share it with other people – and as soon as you get this magical problem-solving scene, you’ll hate it, because that’s how it is. For 90% of musicians, the idea of selling records/downloads is over… let it go. More than ever, music is just a means of communication, with your peers and your community. That may be strange coming from me, a person who was completely obsessed with trying to make money playing music. That was just another variation on the many ways I tried to quantify what I was doing. How many shows can I play in month? How many plays on Youtube? How many downloads? How much do I matter? Engineering a “scene” will never turn into anything your father (or your girlfriend’s father) will understand. I am proud to have been a part of things that I think make Ann Arbor/Ypsi cool… Totally Awesome Fest, seeing “this must be the place” play on top of Deja Vu, Water Hill Music Festival, Sherwood Bar. This town does cool stuff and I was a part of some of it, and I’m not moving away to a “cooler” place where “better” things happen. I’m certainly not in search of a better “scene.” See ya’ guys later.

MARK: Did you find this at all cathartic?

CHARLES: I like hearing myself talk.

Now, here, for those of you who aren’t familiar with the musical work of Mr. Slick, are a few examples.

[note: The other Ypsi/Arbor Exit Interviews in this series can be found here.]

I posted something similar on Facebook earlier this evening, and received the following response from a friend, explaining how Obama will likely go about assigning gay spouses.

I suspect that she’s kidding, and that she doesn’t really have an inside track on how it will go down, but I found the idea to be interesting… Or, at least, I found it a welcomed diversion as I was washing dishes just now. I’d need to break out a tape measure to be sure, but, if I’m not mistaken, the Closest Straight Male (CSM) in proximity to me at the moment is a young former employee of the Ypsi Food Co-op by the name of Adam… who I think would be completely creeped out if he knew that the middle aged father of two next door was, at this very moment, wondering what our married life together would be like.

In all seriousness, we need to start planning one hell of a big street party/riot for later this summer, when we get word from the Supreme Court. Either way, this is going to be huge, historic…. and super gay.

[I apologize for the gratuitous small penis joke above. I really do try to use them sparingly. Something about Kirk Cameron, though, really brings out the worst in me.]

I wasn’t able to get away from work and attend in person, but my good friend, and former bandmate, Pete Larson, who often leaves comments on this site, was awarded his PhD on Friday afternoon. I am incredibly proud of him. A lot of people that I know bemoan how shitty their lives are, but very few have the follow-though to actually do something about it. To see Pete, over the course of the past dozen years or so, go from working a job that he said was killing him, to become an authority on the prevention of infectious diseases in Africa, has been an incredibly inspiring thing to see unfold. And I could not possibly be any happier for him.

As for Pete’s PhD defense, he’s lucky that I wasn’t able to attend, as my intention was to blast the following once the papers had been signed and everything had been made official.

That’s Pete singing, for those of you who didn’t already surmise as much. The piece is called “Alright,” and, if I’m not mistaken, it’s one of the first songs that he and I wrote in the basement of 502 Catherine Street, along with Dan Richardson and Matt Krizowsky, as Prehensile Monkeytailed Skink.

As I’ve never seen anyone get their PhD, I don’t know exactly how it happens, but I imagine that it’s something like that scene at the end of The Wizard of Oz, where Oz the Great and Powerful hands the Scarecrow a diploma, pronounces him a Doctor of Thinkology, and explains to him that it’s receiving the credential that makes one educated. (I have this wonderful image in my mind of Pete being handed his diploma and suddenly putting his extended index finger to his temple and reeling off all kinds of technical jargon as though it’s just come to him in a flash.)

At any rate, I thought that I should mention this recent change which Pete’s undergone, as his comments on the site from now on are likely to be exponentially more brilliant and insightful than they have been in the past.

One more thing… I don’t know if Pete will pursue it, but he and I have been kicking around an idea which we think may cut down on the spread of malaria in Africa. The idea arose out of a conversation that we had over lunch a few weeks ago, upon his return form doing field research in Kenya on the use of insecticide treated bed nets. During the course of our conversation, Pete mentioned that, according to his research, a surprisingly large percentage of people don’t use bed nets because they feel as though malaria is spread by way of witchcraft, rather than by mosquito. Well, upon hearing that, it occurred to me that, if you could convince people that bed nets actually served as barriers to witchcraft, that the end result could be increased usage, and decreased instances of malaria. As I scientist, I don’t know that he so much liked the idea of playing upon superstitions, and marketing something as “witch-proof,” but he conceded that it might be a test worth running. And, from there, we began talking about other possibilities, such as imprinting the nets, which are given away freely by a number of non-profits doing work in the country, with images of famous football players, revered spiritual figures, and musicians like Bob Marley, who, according to Pete, still has quite the following in Africa. At any rate, Pete and I pitched the idea on Friday night, over coffee, to a the director of a Japanese research group doing work in Africa. I suspect it’s highly unlikely that we’ll get any traction with it, but, as I very much like the idea, I thought that it was worth mentioning here… just in case anyone from the Gates Foundation might be reading.

Those interested in getting to know Doctor Larson better are encouraged to check out his website, which, among other things, contains some great information on African heavy metal. And, if you still want more, a video interview that I did with him not too long ago can be found here. And, if it’s the music that you want more of, here are links to two more of the songs we recorded back in ’92 or so: Anarchy is Stupid, Face Like A Piranha. Both, I think you’ll agree, are classics.

Good work, Pete.