For the past eight years, I’ve been the drummer of the band Post Nasal Drip until this morning when Duane, the lead singer, called to tell me I had been replaced by a drum machine.

“Sorry, Mate," Duane said, having recently acquired a British accent. “We had to make some changes."

“You can’t fire me. I founded the band."

I fumbled for my crumpled pack of smokes on the nightstand and stuck a crooked Marlboro in my mouth. “That’s another thing. We’re no longer Post Nasal Drip. We’re now Kris Bermuda and the Triangles."

“I take it your Chris."

“With a 'K’."

I rolled my eyes as I took a long drag off the cigarette and started coughing. I grabbed a glass of what I hoped was warm Coke and swigged enough to put out the fire in my throat.

“No hard feelings, right?"

“Fuck you, Duane."

“That’s Kris. With a 'K’."

“Fuck you, Kris with a 'K’." Click.

A cold shower and three cups of coffee later, I was ready to get to the bottom of my firing. There was no way in hell or Chicago that this was going to stand. Name change, drum machine or not, it was still my band. Post Nasal Drip, or PND as our fans preferred to call us, rose from ashes of the post punk new wave apocalyptic musical wasteland, years before grunge became the wave and everyone wanted to be the next

Nirvana, Pearl Jam, or Alice in Chains. Formed in Rockford back in the winter of 1979, we cut our teeth on the local bar, college circuit in Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin (trying very hard not to come across as another Cheap Trick wannabe) until we won a battle of the bands contest in Chicago (where we actually beat a Cheap Trick wannabe). Our synthesis of country, bluegrass and blues, (we were huge CBGB fans after we took a road trip to the Big Apple to visit the holiest of the holy rock and roll shrines of our generation) was well received by fans and critics alike and thanks to a write up in the Chicago Reader, we got a gig at Chicagofest on Navy Pier in the summer of 1981 and the kind of notoriety that bands would sell their souls to get.

That notoriety was the result of an appearance on Good Morning Chicago when Vince Vinyl our bassist and accordionist dropped the “F" word during our interview with GMC host Suzy Vickson. Although none of our fans would have been up that early in the morning to catch the interview, the “F" Bomb and the debut of our new song, “Just a Dope from the Burbs," some mothers from M.A.L.L. (Mothers Against Lewd Lyrics) were definitely watching and soon, to our best interests, we were on their radar screens.

Once they started boycotting our shows, every punk within a 75-mile radius of the city started showing up at our concerts. We made the big time “Chet, what the fuck’s going on?"

I had cornered Chet Wills, PND’s lead guitarist, in the booth of the parking garage he worked at on on North Welles, just down the street from the Up-Down Tobacco Shop. We were the two original members of PND, back when we were still calling ourselves Prairie Fire in high school before we decided on something more punk. Soft-spoken and laid back--he was an excellent guitarist. He could hear a song one time and play it back note for note--jazz, blues, country, rock, folk, bluegrass==nothing was out of his musical reach.

“Honestly, I had no idea what Kris had in mind when he asked me to go to Danny Balducci’s Music World and buy a used Roland TR 808 drum machine," Chet said, taking some money from a driver leaving the garage. “He just handed me an envelope with money and told me to buy it. None of us knew that he was going to kick you out of the band."

I knew Chet wasn’t in on it, but I just wanted to see what he knew or didn’t know. I never trusted Vince and as for the rhythm guitarist Dirk McCready, he had only been with the band for a year and he certainly wasn’t going to make any trouble. It was a coup, plain and simple. Chet sat down across from me on a stool and stuck a clove cigarette in his mouth. He offered me one but I refused. I noticed that Chet had recently shaved his eyebrows which now complimented his shaved head. He now looked like a cross between Lurch and Uncle Fester on The Addams Family.

“How could you let Duane do this to our band?"

“You know me, Tyler. I just show up and play what I’m asked to play. The money’s still the same at the end of the night."

I thought about that scene in The Blue Brothers after Jake got out of prison and tried to put the band back together. Some of the band members formed a new band and were playing at a Holiday Inn. That’s where I now saw Chet in a few years.

“And what’s with the shaved eyebrow look?" I asked. “Come to the Metro tonight and you’ll find out."

“Don’t worry. I wouldn’t want to miss it in the world."

The day went from bad to worse when I broke the news to my girlfriend Cassandra later that afternoon. Like me, Cassandra was another Chicago transplant. She studied clothing and textile design at Southern Illinois University before she moved to the city to pursue her dreams. One night, she wandered in the club where we were playing and into my life. If there was anyone who could make sense out of what was happening it was Cassandra.

She worked at a punk rock clothing store on Clark Avenue next to this club where we played a few times. When I walked in, she was sitting on a stool behind the cash register doing her nails. She had on a white t-shirt, black leather mini-skirt with fishnet stockings, and her usual assortment of chains and spiked bracelets, standard issue for her job and lifestyle. She looked up as I walked in, blowing on her freshly painted nails.

“Babe, you’ll never believe what happened this morning," I said, leaning across the counter and kissing her on her pale cheek, careful not to smudge the splotch of purple blush. She backed away as soon as she felt my lips touch her skin as though I had leprosy.

“Rough day, huh?" she said with an air of disinterestedness as she inspected her nails for any flaws. “And that’s why you didn’t go into Tommy Jackson’s again."

Tommy Jackson’s was a music store in Evanston and my regular source of income the two-three days a week I worked there persuading rich parents from the suburbs that buying a drum kit for their kids was in their best interests.

“Oh, shit. Today’s Monday, isn’t it?"

“I’m not calling and lying for you again."

“I got kicked out of the band."

Cassandra opened a small silver clutch purse and retrieved a tube of lipstick. “Is that so?"

“It was that weasel, Duane."

“This is probably not a good time but you know things haven’t been, you know, the way they used to be," she said opening the lipstick and twisting the bottom.

“This is only a temporary setback," I said, having already thought about what I would tell Cassandra on my way to the shop. With Cassandra, I had to choose my words carefully. She read a lot of existential literature and was always trying to out Camus me.

“I’ve been looking for a reason to get out and get back to my roots. Play the kind of music that defined me. I’m sorry, what did you say?"

“Duane and I have been sleeping together," she said, applying another coat of black lipstick. There it was: the one-two-three combination and knock out. “Excuse me?"

“We wanted to wait and make it official. I had no idea that Duane and the guys were going to replace you. Duane wants me to manage the band."

“Don’t you mean Kris with a 'K’?"

“In bed he’s still Duane," she said closing the lipstick and putting it back in her purse. “Of course he is."

“Oh and can I come over and get my stuff?"

What stuff? All she had in the apartment was her toothbrush and tampons.

Well, that turned out well, I thought as I headed north on Clark. Needing something to take my mind off things and to satisfy my hunger pangs--I hadn’t eaten since yesterday afternoon--I stopped in at Ahmed’s Fantastic Falafel Factory for a falafel sandwich. While I waited for my food, I played back the morning in my mind. From the moment Duane called, it had all been orchestrated so well. He knew that I would go and see Chet first after he called followed by Cassandra. Duane had it all tied up so neatly.

With Chet and Cassandra out of the way, the coup was complete.

I was so distracted trying to make sense out of what was happening, I hadn’t paid much attention to the two Asian women seated at a table across from me. However, they had my attention now as they kept on stealing glances at me as I slowly chewed my sandwich.

“You’re him, aren’t you?" one of the women, the taller and the cuter of the two, finally asked. “Excuse me?"I said, wiping away a splotch of salad dressing from the corner of my mouth. “You’re him. You’re the drummer from Post Nasal Drip," she said, looking at me and then turning to her friend. “See, I told you that it was him.""

Finally, there was one bright spot in my shitty day.

Fortunately for me they hadn’t heard the news.


That’s when it suddenly dawned on me that there was no way Duane was going to pull this off. There were a lot of people who wanted to see PND and not whatever evolution or metamorphosis Kris Bermuda and the Triangles had in store later that evening. Drum machines and a catchy new name did not a band make. News of my demise had been greatly exaggerated.

“Yeah, that’s me," I said, sitting up in my chair and tapping the edge of the table with my fingers. It was my signature gesture when someone recognized me as a drummer. It worked better in a Chinese restaurant with chopsticks, but my fingers worked just as well.

“You guys suck," the woman said as they both got up and walked past my table with a swish of mini-skirt. I smiled, and considering how lousy my day had been up to this point, took it as a compliment.

Of course, there was one thing I still had to do. I had to see for myself what Duane had done to my band. I wanted to be there when they got laughed or booed off stage. I wanted to walk up to Duane, a.k.a. Kris with a fucking “K" and tell him what a fucking idiot he was. I was in no mood to go back to my apartment, so after I finished my falafel sandwich in peace, I continued my trek up Clark until fate stepped in again.

This time fate threw a white Subaru with five skinheads from the suburbs judging from the community college parking sticker on the windshield in my path. The car nearly ran me over as I prepared to cross the street. Skinheads from the suburbs, I thought; reminded me of that Camper van Beethoven song, “Take the Skinheads Bowling." The driver shot me a dirty look, doing his best Johnny Rotten snarled lip impersonation, but it looked more like the cold pursed lips of a fish. On the rear bumper I spotted a faded Post Nasal Drip bumper sticker next to another one that read “Bush/Quayle-88."

As I neared 1060 West Addison and Wrigley Field, the traffic got heavy and sidewalks crowded with pedestrians, mostly Cubs’ fans on their way to famous ballpark for the first night game. After years of debate and outrage from baseball purists who still believed that baseball at Wrigley should be played during the day as God had intended (though in the early 1940s the owner of the Cubs P.K. Wrigley was going to install lights, but donated the lights and stands to the war effort after Pearl Harbor), the owners finally caved in after they were threatened that the team would have to play postseason games at their arch rivals, the St. Louis
Cardinals’ ballpark, Busch Stadium.

All the major and local networks were covering this historic event as well CNN and ESPN; however, Chicago’s WGN was calling the shots, but everyone wanted to get on history in the making. I could never understand why the Cubs were so popular when the only thing they were good at was losing and making fans wait until next year. Well, now could they break their fans’ hearts at night, too.

The irony of the date of the first night game was not lost on me either--now that I could add getting fired and getting dumped by my girlfriend, and most likely canned from Tommy Jackson’s. If you added up the numbers, 8/8/88, they came to thirty-two which aside from the temperature that water freezes, the number of teeth in a full set of adult human teeth (I just read about that in Reader’s Digest the other day) and my age (I turned 32 in May), was also the year that Jesus was supposedly crucified, which pretty much summed up my day so far.

And as it turned out Duane’s new band was the headline act at The Metro, just up the street from Wrigley. Back when we booked the gig, August 8, was just another day, until we learned a few weeks later, to our chagrin, that the Cubs would be having their first night game on the same date. Great, we all thought, now we would have to compete with history and a bunch of lovable losers. Our fans wouldn’t be allowed within a ten-block radius of the park. We had talked about cancelling, but the when owner threatened us, telling us that when he was through suing our asses, we’d be lucky getting a gig as street musicians, we decided not to back out. Looking at the chaos and the madness that had descended upon Wrigleyville, I wondered how many people would come out to hear Kris Bermuda and the Triangles. Fate could very well come to my rescue.


The Cubby Bear, a popular watering hole catty-corner from Wrigley was a full-blown party headquarters as was every other bar and restaurant in the neighborhood. I fought my way through the crowd which had engulfed the area and spread out like an amoeba swallowing everything in its path. The heat and humidity were unbearable. My t-shirt clung to my body and sweat dripped off my brow. Most of the Midwest had been in a drought all summer with temperatures soaring into the high eighties and nineties daily. Sweaty fans and tourists decked out in an assortment of Cubs’ gear, men without shirts and women in bikini tops, precariously balancing and gripping super sized paper cups filled with beer in outstretched arms, weaved and staggered their way through the crowd.

Police officers barked warnings and announcements through bullhorns and loud speakers. A string of firecrackers exploded inside a metal trash can. The air reeked of coconut sun tan butter, beer and cigarette smoke. High overhead, the Goodyear Blimp silently hovered above the spectacle unfolding around the ballpark.

I spotted the same white Subaru with the five skinheads inside being rocked by three beefy Cubs’ fans who thought anyone in this vicinity ought to be decked out in Cubby blue and driving a Chevrolet from Celozzi-Ettleson.

Good. I hated Illinois skinheads.

With or without me there was a good turnout at the Metro. Obviously they had been planning this move for weeks. Probably fearing the promoter would find another act, or worse, cancel the show, they waited until the day of the show. Bastards. They had it all figured out. I had bought a baseball cap from a vendor outside to avoid being recognized, pulled it down over my blonde hair, and slipped in surreptitiously through a side door. Once inside, I bought a drink, and stood off to one side as the ballroom filled up.

When Duane a.k.a. Kris Bermuda and the retooled Post Nasal Drip, a.k.a. the Triangles, took to the stage, it started out slow. They took minimalism to new heights. The stage was dark and barren except for a projection screen at the front of the stage. The house lights went down and the countdown for the beginning of the movie was projected on the screen. It went down as far as the number two before the screen went to black for a few seconds before the film faded in to a white room bathed in light with a Ludwig drum kit in the middle of the room: my drum kit with PND in red letters stenciled on the bass drum head. The film ran for a few seconds with the camera stationary and focused on the drum kit when all of a sudden the drum kit exploded in a flash of pyrotechnics--sparks, flames, smoke and pieces of the drum flew in the air.

The crowd around me erupted into a frenzied applause.
Those bastards, I thought. Those fucking bastards blew up my drum kit!
That’s when the stage went dark again when the film stopped. Then, as the screen was raised, a single Fresnel spotlight illuminated the drum machine on a stand at the back of the stage. Somewhere off stage, someone switched it on with a remote. The sound started low, a kick drum, which grew louder and louder until it boomed and reverberated. This was followed by a keyboard sampling of the first chorus of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame" with plenty of echo and reverb.

When the lights finally came up on the stage, eight Fresnel spotlights hung overhead shone on Duane, Chet, Vince and Dirk with four more flood lights on the stage shining upwards. There was one more surprise: Dirk and Vince had traded in their axes for synthesizers. Only Chet still had his guitar, but he stood behind a Roland synthesizer. They looked more like Kraftwerk wannabes and I liked those guys. Fun, fun, fun on the Autobahn. Well, I knew Kraftwerk (I partied with the band after a show at the Aragon Ballroom) and they were no Kraftwerk. The crowd didn’t seem to think so. No one around me seemed the least bit fazed that Post Nasal Drip was not playing.

As soon as they launched into some New Order sounding-like version of “Pretty Woman" a young girl dressed in red and black standing next to me said they were orgasmic and if she were wearing any panties she would throw them on stage.

I wanted to throw up.


The band played just one thirty-minute set of ten songs, but I didn’t recognize any of the material. Duane thanked everyone for coming out and supporting them, even the wayward Cub fans who came in out of the rain that had been falling for over an hour, and announced that they would be back again in a month. I could just see the headline in the concert review section of the next Chicago Reader: Post Nasal Dropped.

I had seen and heard enough. At the bar in the back of the room, I recognized a familiar face standing off to one side. Even with a Cubs’ cap pulled down on his head and sunglasses, it was hard not to miss Vic Sneed, who at six-feet five, towered over the other patrons. Vic was PND’s original bassist, but citing artistic integrity and differences, he quit right before our Chicagofest debut. Now he was waiting on tables at Ed Debevic’s, and as he put it, “having the time of his life."

I bought myself a drink and joined Vic at the end of the bar. On a television set above the bar WGN was showing highlights of the first few innings of the game before Mother Nature had her way with the Cubs and the first night game at Wrigley was rained out. Talk about your irony, I thought.

“I had to see if it was true," Vic said.

“Love the disguise," I said, pointing to his cap and jersey.

“You’re lucky the bouncer didn’t kick you out for impersonating a Cubs’ fan."

“You’re not far off yourself. You’re lucky you weren’t kicked out for impersonating a drummer," Vic laughed.

“Very funny," I said jabbing him in the ribs.

“Really sorry, man," Vic said. “Who was it, Duane?"

I nodded.

“I never liked that poseur. Remember that time we played at Mabel’s in Champaign and one of the guys from REO Speedwagon came in? I’ve never seen anyone kiss ass faster in my life than Duane did that night," Vic said, looking over his sunglasses at two mini-skirted girls hanging out at the bar near us.

“Cassandra dumped me, too."

“Damn, Tyler, when it rains it pours," Vic said grinning when he realized the pun he had made. “I’ve been looking for a reason to get out if this racket once and for all. Maybe this is a blessing in disguise; maybe it’s a sign like night games at Wrigley. It’s time to cash in what dreams I have left and move on."

“And you came to this conclusion only after your band fired you and your girlfriend dumped you?! Vic said, tossing back his drink. “Just last month you were going on how life had never been sweeter."

“Call it an epiphany."

“You know what your problem is Tyler? You still believe in all this but the fact is you’re a dinosaur."


On a TV behind the bar, famed Cubs’ announcer Harry Caray broke the tragic news that the first night game at Wrigley Field had been called on account of rain and that the first night game would have to be played tomorrow. The station showed the same footage of a couple of Cubs players sliding on the blue tarp that covered the infield. If they only showed that much enthusiasm when they were playing maybe the team would have a winning season. On the other hand, the team was just as popular having one losing season after another. I wouldn’t be surprised in the grand scheme of all things controversial and conspiratorial that was what the Cubs management wanted all along.

After a recap of the first three innings, including a homerun by Ryne Sandberg, the coverage cut to a live remote on the street outside the ball park with the reporter interviewing people on the street.

“Although the rain might have ended tonight’s historic moment at Wrigley Field, it didn’t dampen the spirits of these diehard Cubs’ fans,' the reporter said as the camera panned past a crowd of people yelling and hamming it up for the camera.

In the background, wearing matching black vinyl raincoats and sharing a red umbrella, there was mistaking Duane and Cassandra walking briskly down the street as though they were fleeing the scene of an accident.

Next time, Duane, I thought. Next time.

After I parted with Vic, promising to stop in at Ed Debevic’s sometime, because that’s what dinosaurs do, I started my trek down Clark. Outside it was a mess as rain drenched fans sought shelter in bars already overflowing with patrons or headed to the Addison El station or bus stops. The streets and sidewalks were littered with the flotsam of the day’s festivities and rainy debacle at the end. Most of the TV crews had already left; those that stayed behind were treated to drunken renditions of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame" and for some bizarre but not unrelated reason, “Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head" from fans who refused to go home.

As I walked down Clark, I could see the Sears Tower rising up from the mist. It was a sight I never grew tired of in all the years I lived in the city. There was nothing more romantic than Chicago at night, unless of course, you were kicked out your band and dumped by your girlfriend on the same day.

Further on down, I passed one of the skinheads from the white Subaru. His day hadn’t gone so well for him, either. He was sitting on the curb, holding the steering wheel of his car, watching what was left of it towed away. From the looks of the debris on the street and sidewalk he had lost control, driven up on the sidewalk and tried to take out a concrete bench and utility pole. The bench and pole won. Standing off to one side, a police officer scribbled out an accident report. The skinhead’s four cohorts who had abandoned their friend, now waited for a bus across the street.

The skinhead looked up at me with tear filled eyes; mascara ran down his cheeks. He tilted his head in a quizzical manner as if to say that he recognized me. However, when he did speak, all that he could manage was, “my father’s going to kill me."

“Shit happens, pal," I said.

In a sewer opening overflowing with water not far from where this blubbering skinhead sat, I saw a flyer for Kris Bermuda and the Triangles. It spun around in a tiny whirlpool before it was dragged under with all the other debris and flotsam, and like this night, gone forever.