“I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him.” Sir Marcus Aurelius Antonious Twain
Hello and bonjour. I know a guy named Dongo. He’s actually a close and personal friend of mine, and he tells some truly amazing stories. In my opinion, Dongo is the most interesting man walking the face of the earth. Admittedly, I only know a handful of people walking the face of the earth, so, yes, I guess chances are that there may be a whole gaggle of people way more interesting than Dongo, but hell, I can’t talk about people I don’t know personally, can I? Dongo knows a Moroccan man who has been working in the tanneries of Fès adding colour to cured animal skins. And check this out: Dongo once shared a train seat with bassist John Deacon, who is perhaps the least interesting member of Queen, but still, it’s kind of cool. To me, my pal Dongo is more interesting than John Deacon and the old man who works in the tannery because, although life in Morocco sounds interesting, as does laying down the bass line for Dragon Attack, Dongo is my only direct point of reference to each scene. So, hell yeah, Dongo is an interesting dude; dare I say way more interesting than the Facebook kid, and certainly one hundred times more interesting than Bono Dingus. But what makes Dongo so extraordinarily interesting? It’s the fact that he is so extraordinarily ordinary. He’s just an ordinary cat who falls ass-backwards into the most bizarre situations.
Dongo’s a good natured guy; one of the very few people that I know who remarkably still believes in the innate goodness of people, continues to have faith in the political process at all levels, and is always ready to give someone the benefit of the doubt. Like The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (also known as the 9-11 Commission). Dongo is a model citizen (which actually makes him a little dull come to think of it).
“A duel?” I asked.
“Yeah, man.”
“And you couldn’t just walk away?”
“What? From a duel? No, Kevin. There are times when you have got to take a stand.”
“Damn, I wish I could be more like you.”
“How do you mean?” He looked at me, his head tilted about 45 degrees off his right shoulder. He can dislocate his shoulder whenever he wishes, which I find both interesting and kind of disgusting.
“I’m so apathetic it should actually be outlawed,” I answered picking at a tiny scab on one of my knuckles.
“You should think about changing your attitude,” he said.
“I would, but I seriously don’t give a shit,” I said.
“Damn, you are apathetic,” he said.
“Don’t judge me you bastard!” I huffed and puffed with righteous indignation.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “You’re absolutely right and I apologize. I should not have called you apathetic.”
“Well, I am apathetic, but still man, that’s a shitty thing to call someone. It’s a damn good thing I don’t care,” I yawned. We sat in the living room beside the aquarium with the hermit crabs. Just two old pals with the crabs.
“Okay, Dongo, so what’s the deal with the duel?”
“It really came out of nowhere,” he said flipping through an early draft of my manuscript about Gods, bogs, dogs, Q Rays, X Rays and chewy-chewy gamma rays. He read a few words absently, shook his head and tossed it back on the coffee table. Dongo, due to his hyperactivity, is unable to read anything that contains more than 50 words; personal circumstances I find interesting. “I was at the grocery store buying a pumpkin.”
“For Halloween?”
(WARNING: PRODUCT PLACEMENT #1) “No, I just like pumpkins, and they only seem to come once a year. So, I’m in line with this wicked pumpkin. It must have been like fifty pounds, and it’s the only thing I have. I feel like Atlas trying to hold this thing. Then this guy jumps the line, and he’s got a cart full of stuff, which I can appreciate totally. I mean, sure we have to eat and there was an awesome special on Campbell’s soups. All kinds. Tomato, mushroom, cream of cauliflower, chicken noodle, low-sodium chicken noodle…”
(WARNING: PRODUCT PLACEMENT #2) “I get the picture. Campbell’s makes many fine products.”
“So, he jumps the line. I mean, I have to step back so he doesn’t run over my foot. I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he didn’t see me holding my delicious gourd. I would have left it at that. But he looked at me and says – he buddy, wanna step back a bit. I made a casual observation on him jumping line, and that’s when he says that he heard around town that I was going around saying that I was the best drummer in Mattawa.”
“You are an awesome drummer.”
“Thanks man. I appreciate that. But who can claim to be the best at anything? You know how much I love jazz, and be-bop jazz drumming is way different than standard 4-4 rock drumming. Apples and oranges.”
“And pumpkins,” I add.
He laughed. “Anyway, this guy just keeps pushing it. He tells me he’s a drummer over and over and challenges me right there to a drum duel. Say’s he has two kits at his house and that I should come over at dawn and we’ll drum it out to the death.” Dongo bites into an apple.
 |
| Banjo Boy before the riots. |
“A drum duel? Man, I’ve heard of dueling pistols, dueling guitars, and banjos, but to be challenged to a drum duel while buying a pumpkin is the damndest thing I’ve ever heard. So, how did it go?”
“Well,” he laughed. “I went over at dawn, like he said. I knock and nothing. I knock again. Nothing. Then I turn to leave, realizing how ridiculous this whole thing is, but, like I said, when you’re challenged to a duel, you really have no choice. So, I’m just about to get in the car when the door opens and he’s standing there in his underwear and his hair’s a mess and everything. He was obviously sleeping like most people do at dawn. He calls me in and says that the duel was supposed to be for next week. But, I never mess up details, like when to show up for a duel, and he definitely said tomorrow morning at dawn. Not next week at dawn. “
“Plus,” I added, “Who the hell would schedule a duel for a week later? It’s kind of a hasty thing, right? It doesn’t take a whole lot of time to plan, like a class reunion or a wedding where everyone has to fly to the Dominican and the best man has a criminal record for smuggling drugs.”
“Exactly!” he snaps. “So anyway, he tries to call it off, but I tell him I can’t make it because I’ll be in Deep River. So, he scratches his ass, puts on coffee, and we go down into the basement where he has all these posters of Guns and Roses and RATT. Oh and Jethro Tull. But there’s only one drum kit and it looks pretty old. A real shit kit. I ask him where the other one is, and he says that he lied about having two kits and that he didn’t think I’d actually show up.”
(WARNING: PRODUCT PLACEMENT #3) “He clearly didn’t think this duel business out,” I said flipping through the satellite menu. A biography on Colonel Sanders was coming up. That should be interesting, I noted.
“Obviously. He says that he’d been challenging people to drum duels for years, and that I was the first guy who ever actually took him up on in, but I wasn’t there to show him up. The only reason I went is that I believe in the sanctity of the duel, regardless of the form.”
“So, okay, what happens?”
“Well,” Dongo sighs. “It gets kind of sad. He says that he’ll go first and then I can get behind the kit then he’ll get his wife, who is upstairs still sleeping, to come down and she’ll declare the winner.”
“Wouldn’t she be a little biased?”
“That’s what I said. But no. He tells me she would be impartial, and gets a little angry over suggesting that his wife would be anything but one hundred percent objective. So, I figure, sure why not. He has all these weights and stuff with a bench press, so I sit with my coffee and he sits behind the drums and starts banging away like an animal. Just crazy. No beat. No rhythm that I could figure out. And no sooner than that, I hear this stomping upstairs. BOOM. BOOM.BOOM. And down comes his wife in a crazy yellow bathrobe. She starts yelling at him and looks at me like I’m some type of agitator – some type of agent provocateur. Well, that was that. I left them yelling at each other and split. The sun was barely up and the duel was done before it even really got started. Then a few days later I’m at the post office and Adam Gurks comes up to me with this grin and says that he heard that I got my assed served to me on a platter by Charlie Tangs.
“Who the hell is Charlie Tangs?”
“I guess that was the guy that won the drum duel.”
True story. Amen and holy shit.
Posts
