This story has been alluded to, joked about, regretted, reminded, and forcibly removed from many people's mind. In a way, its like a fairy tale. There's pride,(1) a fall from grace,(2) a hideous troll who lived under a bridge,(3) and eventually, redemption.(4) I was reluctant to share this story with you, because it may cast me in an unflattering light, but if you get nothing else from this story, i hope that you can view this as a caution. I did turn out ok, but please, folks, be safe out there. Theres a lot of junk floating around.
So, without much more to be said, i present to you:
My Rock and Roll Whoopsy.
as written by daren carter, current roommate and eye witness.
plus he's a budding child pornographer.
steve gave me wine so looks like I'm here. popping the proverbial "cerise cinquante." that's french for 50 cherry.
it was some time in mid to early august. i was at my parents house, not more than a night or two from leaving again to begin my life as roommate of steve. it was sunday. i was killing time; searching the internet; reintroducing myself to the shitty punk music i had stored three years earlier on my parents windows media player (lots of ataris and alk3). suddenly, about 1:30 am, steve calls, asks me if he can ask a question. i oblige, and he says it pertains to the matter of meeting a woman that night; what he should do, that sort of stuff, she wants him to come over and he doesn't know if he should. i ask him, "good lookin'." he says, "fair to medium" he'd been drinking, you know. "but making eyes at him throughout the set," he said. "kinda big girl." i say, "hell, if she's not horrible looking, go out for a drink or something. what's the worse that could happen."
steve thanks me, and asks how is austin. i say "dude i'm in sugarland." then, i don't know if it was my own facile boredom, or pining to see my own girlfriend, or even if it was just the couple of my dads miller high lifes i had earlier i suggest, "do you want me to come along?" steve says sure.
i don't to this day know why i suggested to tag along. visions or "good parties" danced in my head; the archetypal party mind you, the one we begin futilely chasing the second we start enjoying our social lives as neo-party 14-15 year olds. you know the one: rich conversation, good people, nice music, never realizing life can never be this ordained, this shiny, this planned. realize, i've been chasing this party for years now. there's no doubt in my mind that i didn't honestly plan on finding it that night i decided to go out with steve. but either way, nostalgia was the tipping point. seriously, nights in sugar land are longer than the rest, and i always find myself going through my old stuff whenever i'm there.
either way i convinced myself it was a good idea on seeing this chick with steve. apparently they were having a party. hell if nothing else i could get out for a while and have a couple of beers.
we get to what appears to be a wedding dress store somewhere deep in the hippie white hip part of houston; richmond/kirby, lets say. i ask sheepishly, "steve is this it?" "yeah" he says, "her mom owns a dress store. she said to come up to the second floor above it where her rooms at." to be fair, before going up, we both knowingly agreed verbally that it would be a good idea to park the steve car in a strategic manner in the driveway if for some reason we had to peel rubber quick.
we go up and my jaw drops to the floor. we enter a filthy apartment (im sure it reeked) with clothes, underwear, and shitty metal vinyls strewn about, and incense most likely burning. we are greeted by two people: 1) some dude who looked like hunter, if hunter were 26 and smoked pot all day, and really liked helloween and rush and had shoulder length blonde dreds. to note, he had the personality of taylor smith however.........but again, if taylor smith were 26 and blah blah blah and 2) steve's mystery woman: chloe, a veritable mess of a woman; a large lady with brown unkempt hair; kinda an eerie mix of nancy spungen and robert smith; a woman who lived by her own rules obviously, a character nonetheless. we enter the room and they hand us each a schlitz 40 ounce a piece. i suddenly realize "why the fuck am i here."
we start to chit-chat about this and that; god knows what. luckily, she's drunk, he's stoned, and they are hippies, so it's pretty much impossible for it to get awkward to the point of pain. i sit, pull out one of my last two smokes, and light up. i curse myself for ever having used up the last 18 - i can tell i'm going to need them. we start talking music, steve obviously feeling pretty high on himself as they begin to talk about the "houston scene" and such, basically formless conversation set up in terms of only percieved, collective social belonging. i had no idea what they were talking about. still, i thought things were going as well as they could. i guess.
we then start listening to helloween on vinyl (cloe's choice). i find her to be just like how i imagined kelly osborne would be on horse tranquilizers; the effect was maddingly unncanny. we continue to talk our shit, hunter man smirking on the couch, chloe blabbling on the pool table, and me not saying anything much, as i am currently avoiding the newly found stinky dog that has suddenly appeared out of nowhere, trying to convert a window sill into a seat and a dead plant into an ashtray. steve is alone on a loveseat, doing his goddamnest "i'm having a great time" routine. you know, the one, all smiles and posive phrases. i think he's enjoying himself. hunter guy is having a ball. hell, he's 26, what else does he have to do.
suddenly, as steve is telling a story, chloe lurches off the pool table in the middle of room and starts to saunter over to steve. steve, not willing to acquiesce his composure, maintains his narrative and tries not to react in an obvious manner. she makes her way over and plants herself and her torn blue dress of the lap of steve. steve hesistates as she adjusts herself, and then regains his story. (ed. note: but not my dignity)
the conversation wanes as chloe flirts with steve, and i begin to pace the room. yep, i'm ready to go. this was a horrible idea. i'm in a rat nest apartment in south houston for no goddam reason. i have a girlfriend, why did i come in the first place? to meet cool dudes? to meet cool chicks? to have a "great time"? why am i here? to help steve? forget that, steve's been in houston by himself for months now. he's had every chance to assimilate and learn the ways of the houston art rock milieu. at this point i stub out my cigarette and look desparately at hunter man, glowingly stoned and enjoying himself, at which point i hear steve and chloe's lips begin to smack.
i pace the room. look at the dead plant. ask hunter man about music. meanwhile i'm growing visibly concerned. when we arrived, hunter man and chloe appeared to possibly we into each other by the way they were sitting, possibly even dating. were they not dating and was steve's action ok? or were they some strange "free love" hippie contingency, and was hunter man gonna take off his pants and join steve any second now? or was hunter man just waiting until a good moment to whip out a snubnose and shoot steve in the face? i didn't know what to think. and i was out of schlitz.
so eventually steve and chloe quit, and she walks off to smoke a fag. at this point steve looks at me like "that was fun but oh shit lets get out of here!" and casually mentions aloud that it's time for us to go. i left this out but earlier, but if either one of us got weirded out, we established the code word would be to go "mmmm im tired" and then to yawm. i think i proffered this, and so in response steve began to poise our exit. "yep daren's got court in morning" i think he said. but chloe wasn't having it. she whined to steve. walked over and grabbed him and said "lemme show you my room first...." steve replied glibly, as only steve can, "what that? i cant go in there. thats a closet." next thing i know, steve's walking into "the closet." (ed. note: i was thrown. Literally. Throw) i sit resignedly on the couch and take a drag of hunter man's shittily rolled joint. this is going to be a long night. r kelly is no where to be found.
so i get stoned not out of any desire to do so, but rather out of pure resignation. there was nothing to do, so i chose to do nothing, and yet still, chose the abscene of doing nothing, but purposely doing nothing on purpose. kinda a forced active resignation if you will. i remember as steve went into the closet a devo live album was playing. but almost immediately hunter guy says for me to put something else on, so i do, and i dont know why but i grabbed the most familiar thing i could find: yellow submarine.
so we smoke and talk about the beatles. it was like talking to 26 year old hunter if......well you get the picture. turns out hes a musician, and has played in 30 houston bands, and his mom's like a touring country western music lady (mrs. smith?), and yadda yadda. and this whole time, my mind, seeking a relaxing escape route from the long night ahead of me has totally forgot about steve. after about the first song, i think hunter man skipped ahead to "hey bulldog" cause it was "so bad ass and metal," at which point he launched into this diatribe about how great ringo was and how drummers today suck. bear in mind "hey bulldog" is towards the end of the record side, however. so soon enough, the record needs to be turned over. i, in high spirits, walk over to switch the sides. i lift the needle. the loud music stops.
and i hear steve and chloe in full animalia volume. disgusted and instanly sobered to the 10th degree, i frnatically put the same side back on, and, of course, it seems to take 10 minutes to do so. i then sit back down. i make up some absurd story about how awesome the song "only a northern song" is to warrant my replaying.
eventually, "hey bulldog" comes back on, and steve emerges, clothes ruffled, and i kid you not sticking his tongue out while playing air guitar along with the music. yes, when i die this image will be implanted on my incontrovertible mind memory for my ghost to enjoy. amazing. (ed. note: this was simply a coping mechanism; this experience did not "rock")
so we start our goodbyes. i light my last smoke. steve has a moment with dear chloe on the porch. i get bored and see whats taking so long and walk out to see whats shaking and i distinctly remember her giving me the evil eye.
steve says he'll call her. (ed note: I put her in my cell phone as "dont answer" I dont ever plan to)
so we start to drive, and i am surprised at how quiet steve is depsite his obvious "hey bulldog" machisimo bravado outpouring. i remark on the absurdity of the situation, looking back onto it semi disgustedly/fondly. it wasn't too bad. pretty nasty having to be there as steve hung out with his "groupie" (if you could call it that). still in the car steve didn't say anything much at all.
then as we pull up to a light, steve suddenly turns to me and says, "WHY DONT YOU ASK STEVE WHY HE"S COVERED IN HIS OWN *edit* AT 3AM" (Ed. note: You don't want to ask me")
and i grinned to myself, and thought of all the great times i had lined up for me as i soon would live with steve.
happy valentines day everyone. and yes that was steve groupie story #1. hope plenty more are to come. steve, you got 6 good years left.
it's been a pleasure, roommate,
daren
Wells, guys, that was it. I've got nothing out of this other than a ribald story. I've got a set of healthy wedding tackle.(4) I had a true roommate experience before we even lived together. I never really liked Yellow Submarine anyway. Regrets? No, i came out of it fine. I'll be more choosy in the future, but This will always be remembered fondly as my
Rock and Roll Whoopsy
It was so cool! I got to see the whole thing played out, and it seemed in slow motion, i saw the second driver mouth "Pinche!" before he knocked the bumper off the car in front. so good.
But for some reason, this incensed me more than ive been in a while. I stewed for about an hour, then pledged i would speak my mind if he came up and tried to order something "you get out of this store, this is no place for hate-mongerers, you small-minded bigot!"
I thought about adding a flame effect to the picture, but i realized its sad enough to look at.
My night was destined to one of captivity, as we rolled around the foot traffic near 6th, and listened to ONE song over and over, and listened to the subtle art of the african-american male's dance of flirtation 
while i know i cant submit this, i made this as a labor of love, a framed gift for (and of) hunter smith. It is called "(comp)-huter smith" The screen is saying " U R teh Suxxor", a popular nerd term for calling someone crappy. I had to do a lot of research to find that one out. I should have just asked A. cameron
James Bond Kilt! In the style of Connery. You cant see it, but there are pockets on the back in authentic scottist tartan. Hand-made. 
