en Weasel’s no legend these days. He’s the most ordinary star I know. Rumor around my town says that he lives in an apartment building just a few blocks from me. I used to pass it everyday on my way to school, and I’m pretty sure the story’s true. I took it on faith that he was in there, never even checking the mailbox directory for his name. Just seeing him in the street seemed impossible to me, and meeting him on purpose didn’t even enter my mind. Here was a guy who had been mocked and insulted by everyone in the punk rock industry, backstabbed by his followers, misunderstood by his fans, and generally rejected for his character. Ben was the best songwriter around, improving with every album he recorded with Screeching Weasel, continuing exactly as he had started despite the rotten criticism he was receiving from all sides. He was caught in the middle of the underground punk scene as it tumbled in the early nineties, and it seemed that he was the only one with any integrity left. People hated him for it.


His band was driven by ethics- so when his fans told him they loved his band because the hooks were good or the look was awesome, he got angry, realizing that he was being idolized for all the wrong reasons. People took that as ingratitude, and his vehement opposition to signing with a major label was interpreted as a shallow protest against an enemy that didn’t really exist. By this time, he was writing columns for Maximum Rock’n’Roll, bearing his soul to a massively skeptical audience, satirizing the commodity that punk rock had become, at one point even publishing a "Punk Rock Dress Code," misinterpreted by many to have been an earnest doctrine of requirements ("Real punks wear real leather jackets... if you don't wear your leather jacket at least 65% of the time when you go out, you're no punk." Despite its clearly satirical tone, Ben was accused of being a fascist and a poseur after the Code’s publication). He was sabotaging the scene from within! Revealing its ideological bankruptcy! Exposing its traitors! It was beautiful, and to some, Ben represented punk rock’s last hope. He had character, and with every article he wrote and every record he made, he placed himself at the mercy of his critics, letting them watch as he changed and matured. He wasn’t afraid to seem vulnerable or inconsistent, and for this, he became something of a joke... known more for his reputation as a grumpy has-been who ruthlessly hated his fans than for his brilliant abilities as a songwriter, a man who had had his heart in the right place the whole time.


I had been listening to his records since I was ten years old, when I heard the song "Cool Kids" on the radio, watching it as it became something of a local hit in Chicago due to its long reign as champion on the nightly "Cage Match" show. It was from the Fat Wreck Chords album Bark Like a Dog, which Ben joked was the band’s "major label debut" after their temporary departure from Lookout! Records. I remember the radio station broadcasted one kid calling up voting for "Cool Kids," saying it kind of reminded him of Green Day. "I bet they’d kick your ass if they heard you say that," said the DJ, and at the time I couldn’t figure out why. I made my mom take me to the record shop, where I bought the album for eight dollars on LP because it was the only format they had it in. I absolutely fell in love with it, and in the coming months I bought all the Screeching Weasel albums I could find around town. As I (regrettably) grew more socially aware, understanding the politics behind labels and record deals, I began to feel guilty for holding on to Bark Like a Dog as my favorite Weasel album. I stopped listening to it for a while, and put it in a drawer with my old ska records. I took it out for the first time on the day I received word that Screeching Weasel had officially broken up. The news was posted on the band’s website as a short letter from Ben himself: "After 15 years, Screeching Weasel has split up. I know our first two break-ups didn't last but as they say, the third time's the charm. Future activities of the band members may or may not be posted here. Over and out. OK, Ben Weasel." He sounded like a dead man to me, finally crushed by the dipshit naysayers of Punk Planet and the overpowering inanity of his fanbase. I took the tone of the announcement really personally, disillusioned by the fact that Ben sounded like a guy who was disappointed in himself- a guy who thought that he had failed. I listened to Bark Like a Dog that day, and I realized that none of the bullshit Ben had been breaking his back over was worth the trouble... that no number of idiots was worth such a complete collapse.


(Part 2)


Since then, Ben has become something of a hermit, living in his apartment, and stunning friends of mine by periodically showing up at Starbucks and Border’s (I don’t know if what they’re telling me is true. They say they see him "all the time!" but I’ve been living in this goddam town for twelve years and no such thing has happened to me). He also wrote a book, Like Hell, loosely based on his life as a rising punk rocker. I haven’t read it, and I don’t really want to, because I think I understand Ben as much as I would like to at this point, and if I’ve interpreted it all wrong, I’d rather not know about it.


Instead, I’ll look to this new album, Fitadevi, an unprecedented solo Ben Weasel original. Recorded in April 2002 with former Screeching Weasel guitarist Danny Vapid and Teen Idols drummer Matt Caterer, it’s technically just as much a Screeching Weasel album as any of Ben’s other work. The lineup used to change so much that by the end it was clear that Ben was the only significant constant (see the timeline on Screeching Weasel’s website for the most confusing tree of events since that of the Buendias). Yet, Fitadevi is appropriately marked a solo album. This is the culmination of everything Ben learned as a public figure in the nineties. If he hasn’t found God, he’s found something that’s made him peaceful, and he’s adopted a new philosophy that, amazingly, falls right in line with his older, more specific ideals.


The cover is an abstract, black and white drawing of a man meditating in front of a gallery of eyes. On the back, Ben grins happily above the credits, and the caption below him reads "This is me. I wrote most of these songs and tried my best to sing them." The word "Simplify" is written at the bottom of the page, and inside the jacket, following the lyric sheet (presented in English and Italian for uh, convenience), stands the phrase "May all living beings experience happiness and peace."


Something’s different here, it seems. Ben sounds like a reborn man, calmer and wiser than the young, brash venomhead of the last century. The songs sound the same, sure, but what’d you expect, an acoustic record? No, these tunes sound like classic Screeching Weasel numbers, but Ben’s delivery, softer and more delicate than before, gives the words a whole new dimension. Ben has been sensitive in the past (see 1999's Screeching Weasel album Emo), but on these songs, for the first time, he sounds completely fulfilled with his life thus far, and he’s absolutely thrilled to be who he is. "I’ve got six guitars I can barely play and a questionable singing voice as well / But I get my joy out of little things like just sitting here trying to play and sing," he chants on the album’s first song. "I don’t mind that I’m a little bit behind / And I don’t mind that I’m gonna have to keep on trying." I’m right there with him, because this has been his message all along. These are songs of satisfaction and lessons learned, and as earnest as he always was, Ben teaches them to us in no uncertain terms. He remains completely grounded, however, talking to us as a total equal, without a hint of patronization in his voice. "Sometimes things are as good as they look / Something they are just what they are / Like a pure inhalation of life / Like a smile / Like your smile..." he sings on "Truth and Beauty," Fitadevi’s finest moment. "You know that I love you so much / Yeah I love you so much," he screams for the chorus, gripped by happiness and possessed by passion.


It sounds kind of cheesy, doesn’t it? Sure. But only if you’re a hopelessly sorry, jaded fool is it hard to see that these songs are the essential virtues of life itself- beautiful in their promise, hopeful in their context. Some of them don’t have the best melodies, but as an astounding, glorious whole, Fitadevi is perfect.


I didn’t know where to turn
So lost and confused.
Didn’t I know what I should do?
Alienation and rage, fighting myself, so strange.
Is this really my true nature?
I wanted something true.
How easily I forgot what I always knew:
what contentment and peace felt like.
I’ve never lost myself - no, I just couldn’t see the answers in me
And today I am happy again.

- Ben Weasel, from "Take Action"