Four years ago today, Matthew Peter Gibney died from complications of whiskey, etc.. Matt was a metal guitar master, and, from what I can gather, a bit of a minor celebrity in the Jersey metal scene. He was funny as hell, in a very unique way. Take the cornbread track below for example. (The line comes from Aliens, from when Ripley slaps away the tray of food Bishop offers her and Frost remarks " I guess she don’t like the cornbread, either.")
Matt was my ex-fiance/girlfriend’s best friend. They had dated in high school and were very close friends; according to Aimee, I was the first boyfriend she ever had who he didn’t try to terrorize. He liked me. He had a personality that many would consider sociopathic at first blush; he could also alternately be very charismatic, even charming. When me and my ex-girlfriend were living on West 96th street, he used to visit, and would bring me little Nemo’s chocolate cakes from the corner store because he knew I liked chocolate. I think he appreciated my smoking habits too. There were long stints of consecutive weekly visits, when he would sleep on the couch, interrupting the flow in our already crowded artificial two-bedroom, in which three people–me, Aimee and our roommate–were living, and interrupting our sex life more importantly. There was also a trip to the Jersey shore with him and his girlfriend, another friend of Aimee’s. Matt was very prolific as a writer and musician; for me, he would write scripts for boxing matches in which I would fight concepts like forward motion, or a bunny, and would always lose by falling asleep. I used to drink and smoke a lot back then so I accordingly fell asleep a lot. Here’s one of the boxing matches. The N and K names are my first and last name. I’ll be putting up more of Matt’s work as I get a hold of it.
(Scene: Boxing ring. crowds gather into their seats.The ringside annoucers take their place at their desk.)
Annc: And welcome again folks to an evening of pummelling, mayhem, and the loss of human dignity!! I’m Spap Ragamuffin and with me is penal-industry lifer, Charles Manson!!
CM: Good evening!! The ghost of fear lives within the masses of ignorance!!
Spap: It sure does, Chuck. This evening’s battle is brought to you by Nike Child Labor camps; now open in Bangladesh!!
CM: Tractor trailers of love have driven off the ravine of uneasy consumer confidence.
Spap: Truer words, chuck, truer words…looks like we’re about to kick this thing off with a reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeal knuckleduster!!
(The Crypt Keeper enters the ring and takes the mic))
CK: GOOD EVENING, BOYS AND GHOULS!! TONIGHT WE HAVE A DEVILISHLY EEEEEEEEEEERIE BATTLE TO START YOU OFF……..IN THIS CORNER, WEIGHING IN AT TENS OF THOUSANDS OF RUINED LIVES ACROSS THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE, IT’S THE IRAN-CONTRA SCANDAL!!!!
(There are a pile of documents in the corner. Crowd claps and boos all at once, silences in confusion, and laughs at itself. all the men in the audience begin making out with each other.)
CM: This is it, Spap my man!! The Holy Lord is punishing those who cry out his name vainly in the pews!!
Spap: No mistaking that, Chuck.
CK:AND IN THIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIS CORNER, WEIGHING IN AT 185 LBS., THE THIRD-EYE THROTTLER, N*** K*********!!!!
(Crowd claps, boos, makes out with itself, blows coke off of dead colombian children’s corpses. N*** is wheeled into the ring by an impoverished Honduran woman, whom he tips generously once she has picked him up and tossed him through the ropes into the ring. N*** approaches the center of the ring, where the papers have been placed. The Crypt Keeper is now the referee.)
CK: OK, BOYYYYYYYYYYYYS, PLAY NIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIICE. REMEMBER, NO HITTING BELOW THE BELT, NO FACE SCRATCHING, NO GHOOOOOULISH TICKLING, NO-
(N*** knocks out the Crypt Keeper and starts attacking the Iran-Contra documents.)
Spap: AND HERE WE GO!!! K**** COMES ROARING OUT OF THE GATE!! HE’S ALREADY KNOCKED OFF AT LEAST 90 PAGES OF INCRIMINATING EVIDENCE AGAINST THE CIA AND DEPT. OF DEFENSE!!!
(N*** stops swinging; the documents have disappeared. He looks side to side, shrugging at the audience.)
CM: Looks like what we got here is some hocus pocus; and what the American people need is more FOCUS, Spap!! They’re lost!! Like hyena cubs in an unrelenting desert!!! Like the followers of Moses after the exile from Egypt!!
Spap: No one here agrees with you more than I, dear friend, but–
(The boxing ring is sprayed with machine-gun fire from an unknown point. after the smoke clears, we see that the documents have taken the upper hand.)
Spap: WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT, CHUCK!! THE DOCUMENTS CALLED IN FOR AIR SUPPORT, AND ARE NOW WHIPPING K**** INTO AN ELITE GETTING-BEATEN-SENSELESS MACHINE!!! THIS IS QUITE A SITE!! NEVER, I SAY NEVER CHUCK, HAS A PILE OF PAPER SHOWN SUCH GUTS, SUCH CONVICTION-
(N*** produces an industriual paper shredder from his shorts.)
CM: IT’S THE ASCENSION INTO IOWA, SPAP!!!
Spap: YOU ARE TRULY A POET, CHUCKY BOY!!! K**** IS SHREDDING THESE DOCUMENTS AS IF HE WAS BEING PAID HEARTILY TO DO SO!!! IN SECONDS, THIS FIGHT HAS GONE FROM CIVIL DUEL INTO ALL OUT GENOCIDAL MADNESS!!! WE’RE DOWN TO THE LAST FEW PAGES, WHICH K**** IS USING AS ROLLING PAPERS!!! HE IS GETTING STONED, NOT ALLOWING THE REF TO RAISE IN HAND IN VICTORY UNTIL HE IS FAST ASLEEP!!!
(at the mention of ‘sleep’, N*** collapses, smiling)
CM: Looks like the brown deviul heard you, Spap!!
Spap: AND WHAT A HANDSOME DEVIL HE IS!!! K**** HAS HIT THE MAT, THE CROWD IS GOING WILD (shots of the crowd making out, using corpses for coke, clinking champagne flutes full of red fluid next to kegs marked ‘crackhead blood’), AND IT LOOKS LIKE – YES, WE HAVE AN HISTORIC FIRST VIDTORY!! THE AMERICAN PEOPLE SHALL NEVER KNOW THE EVILS PERPETRATED BY THEIRT GOVERNMENT IN THE NAME OF WAR-PROFITEERING, THANKS TO THIS MAN!!! GET OVER HERE CHUCK, I THINK I LOVE YOU!!! (Spap and chuck start making out)
crypt keeper: (rubbing his jaw) THE WINNER OF THISSSSSSSSSSSS BOUT, AT 1 WIN, 178 LOSSES, N*** K*****(N*** wakes up to knock him out again, falls back alseep.)
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Gibney (I called him Gibney) also had surprising moments when he stepped out of his normal idiom. Take this poem for example, which he emailed to me, Aimee and my roommate after one of the long stints of couch surfing:
