Finntroll

"What do you think of priests here in America?"

"We think you should eat them. Eat the priest!"

And they ripped into a weird mix of general metal shreddiness, Scandinavian polka rhythms, and of course, black metal...

I put my drink in the air and tried not to sneeze. Thanks to an impulsive entry to win tickets to this thing, I was now in the worst venue in New York with a 9 dollar black russian in my hand when I should have been at home getting better. Fucking Finntroll.

I wasn't that mad though, it felt good to be out of the house, and I hadn't paid for shit more than a bottle of water. It could have been worse.

The band, as their faux corpse paint/tribal facial tattoos ran like mascara off of their faces, ripped into a straight up accordion and drums polka rhythm. On purpose, and I was instantly reminded of my grandma, Dot.

Polka Dot, was the name. It was her clown name, and she wasn't afraid to point out the classic humor in a name like that, as if you didn't get the joke, that she spent her widowed nights out at the Bel-Ray or some Lion's Club proxy, dancing the polka with "the fellas", and that her name, Dorothy, had been traditionally cut to a curt "Dot" by generations before her. Good joke grandma.

Her dance card was always full, and the clown thing was for real, she did my birthday party in full clown gear, all squirting flowers and balloon animals. She did the same at my day care's carnival, an event that I, all of 11 years old took it upon myself to spearhead. I booked my grandmother as talent when I was 11.

I don't think she ever got paid, and I don't think she thought for one second, as she picked up that clown suit from the dry cleaners, "I wonder if this whole thing is weird for a lady my age." No, she thought, "I am Polka Dot."

I don't think she would have liked Finntroll though, no matter how far they leaned towards traditional polka, the satanism and distortion would have given her another stroke. Actually, the satanism wouldn't have really turned her off, it would have been the distortion and screaming.

One night, as my cousin and I rocked out to Wrecx N' Effect's "Rump Shaker" in my room over my brother's hand me down chrome shelf system, she beat down my door, demanding that we turn down what she called "that boom boom music". See, she slept in the next room from me, and it was the bass that got her.

If I had been listening to Darkthrone or Immortal, or Finntroll for that matter, I'm not sure what she would have said "Turn down that (makes vomit retching noise and then actually vomits) music." I can't say I blame her, she had impeccable taste and I was jiving to a song that goes "All I wanna do is zoom-a-zoom zoom zoom and a-boom boom (just shake your rump!)" at 2 in the morning on a Friday.

The more I think about it, my grandma is inextricably linked to my black-metal pot smoking days. For all intents and purposes, Dot lived in my house for most of my adolescent life. Many nights, sneaking in stoned, praying I don't encounter a parent, praying that my friends don't chuckle too loudly at the refrigerator, she would be the only one to wake up and hassle us for being out too late.

One stoned summer night after a marathon session with a graduated cylindrical bong-thing, my friend Jason insisted that she opened her door and engaged him in a standoff for bathroom rights. "Her eyes turned red and she morphed into a turkey", he told me later, thus giving her the nickname "Turkey" among all my friends. Since then Jason has been in and out of a few different institutions, but he is OK now.

As the Kaluha drained out, and as the ice finally succumbed to gravity and hit me in the lips I realized I still would have told her about this. I would have honestly tried to bridge the gap with her, between my black metal and her polka, in Finntroll we would have found that common ground. As I drove, learner's permit style through the streets of Bloomington in her 4-door go-kart 86 Chevy Nova with the P.O.L.K.A. (Polka Lovers Klub of America) sticker on its bumper and baseball cap in the back window ("I have it there so people think I'm a fella, they would be less likely to hassle a fella when he's driving"), I would throw a Finntroll album into her after factory tape player and explain to her that somewhere, buried in all of this noise, there lay polka, and that she should love it.

I set my drink down and looked up, hoping to see her bubbled brown-black haircut (she never died it once, and was proud of that fact), weaving through the crowd, dancing that weird jig-mosh thing that people do at shows like this.

I didn't though, all I saw were sweaty metal kids trying to give the impression they loved this this more than they actually did.

I inherited that car by the way. She willed it to me, P.O.L.K.A. sticker and all, and I drove it proudly for years.

We left BB Kings early into the allergenic night air of Times Square. As we left the lights and things got darker towards Bryant Park, I thought of the last time I "spoke" to ol' Dot.

They were about to pull the plug, and my auntie Jer stuck her phone to my grandmother's last face. I was to speak for my cousin and myself, he couldn't bring himself to do it...

Its hard to know what to say to someone who you know is going to die. You are not going to get by with automatic "get well soon" and "we all cant wait to see you again" phrases. Suddenly your arsenal of bullshit is severely limited and you have no choice but to be real.

I was tongue tied as I could hear nothing except her machine assisted breathing, too perfect and too metered to be humane any longer. "Grandma, Justin and I just want you to know that we love you...and we will miss you so much, but if you have to go, go ahead. We love you. We love you."

Or something to that effect...I'm not quite sure how it came out, but thats what I meant.

She died on Christmas Eve, and from that point on we raise our glasses and drop tears, "To Polka Dot, Merry Christmas, We miss you".

Thanks, Finntroll.