Fiction



     

Impending Ana

By Jake Tringali



The Tragedy of Pinstriped Sox

They were pop idols. But their shared madness tore through small venues, arenas, hospitals, court, and ultimately jail. Is it all part of their plan?

By David Robert Jones                Rolling Stone                 January 9, 2022                 3:00 pm EST

The young thirteen-year-old boy in a "soxor" shirt walks up to the promoter: "Are we gonna really see Nick and Ana? Really?" "I'm doing my best to make that happen, kid," sniffs Marcie Ross in the chilled October wind. Marcie pulls a few oversized curtains over the stage for privacy. The north prison wall of the East Mesa facility stretches in front of Marcie.

With a few more dial twists, an adjustment on some mirrors, and yet another laptop reboot, the sound check for the "performance" begins. The prison wall seems to shimmer, and we SEE into the prison, impossibly, a jail cell with two shadowed figures. They step out onto the outdoor lawn, freed. Stepping to the left, they encounter the microphone, guitar, and amps that weren't previously there. Unseen drums contribute a thrumming beat, and "Dungeon Dark" begins. With a push on her spacebar, the concert freezes in mid-beat. Shadow-Ana's mouth is round in a perfect O. Shadow-Nick is frozen reaching for his guitar. Holograms of the highest definition, for the fans amassed on the lawn, while the real thing sits tight inside a cell.

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While the more recent history of the Pinstriped Sox have been covered extensively by the paparazzi, their beginnings continue to remain hidden. Ask them directly, and they give contradictory tales each time. They met in a piercing parlor, in a church, at a book convention, or maybe online. My personal favorite: they separately broke into Fenway Park on a closed night, and met near the pitcher's mound, each thinking the other one was a cop.

We know this: Nick Staind and Ana S. Macy met in 2013, and records indicate Boston residencies. Upon meeting they realized, quickly, that they were two sides of the same coin. They made plans to meet weekly, and then dismissed those plans and visited each other once or twice a day. Their friends would notice week-long unexplained absences when neither of them could be reached. Ana later admitted that they "dipped their toes in madness", and one kept pushing the other to more outrageous tasks. In these private rendezvous, they hatched a plan. A scheme. A plot. They even wrote a private manifesto, seen by only a few of their friends.

They would form a band and take over the world.

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When Ana earned her Bachelor's Degree in Psychology, Nick took an online class to understand the basics. University of Toronto professor Steve Joordens led that particular online class in Social Psychology, which had a class of 10,000 students. Mr. Joordens observes, "...knowledge of social psychology can be a two-edge sword, but looking back now, Ana and Nick took the lessons...and applied them like a scalpel."

In the summer of 2014, an early video of their first song "Folie a Deux" was uploaded by "pinstripedsoxforever" to the defunct Youtube servers. "Folie a deux" refers to a shared psychosis, where an individual's symptoms are transmitted to another individual or group. Were they hinting at their own shared, poisoned plans? Is this a clue that they purposely planned to spread their ideas like a virus among an ever-growing fanbase?

With this video calling card, they began booking gigs. In 2015, they opened for two other bands in Boston Common, and gained a small bit of notoriety. According to Boston Globe blogger Dennis Driscoll, just after finishing their planned 4-song set, Ana looked down to see "spots of blood on her long white dress, slowly blooming". With renewed enthusiasm, they rocked out two more songs, as the event promoters attempted to get them off the stage without incident. More and more bystanders gathered into their crowd. Nick and Ana just kept beaming and smiling intensely at each other. No photos or videos of this event exist.

The music press started sniffing around.

In 2016, they played the Boston Calling festival. Later that year, director Yumi Nakashima included their live performance of "Spitting Love" in the Lionsgate film "Sudden Wafer Indulgence." The indie film, starting Rupert Grint, earned $45 million on a $1.8 million budget. This very same "Spitting Love" clip ended up in the "FutureFolk" documentary by Jim Shapiro, and the soundtrack for the documentary sold and sold.

"Queen Titanium" was recorded live, but didn't gain radio play until club DJ John Digweed heard it in his Liverpool flat, and rerecorded it with a children's choir and house beats. The Digweed joint got major airplay over radio in London, Paris, and Sydney.

Back in America, the major labels woke up.

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Shawn Foster is the current president of Sony Music Group, but in those days, he was a lowly A&R gopher, finding new bands to sign, and partying at every LA music venue. After a whiskey hangover, he received a call on his cell phone. "Come pick us up at the airport, we're ready," whispered Nick, while Ana could be heard in the background, sing-song, "We're gonna make you famous...we're gonna make you sooo famous."

Shawn continues: "...the next day, our conference table had five 'suits' and one assistant on one side, with those two maniacs standing up, refusing to sit down. When it came time to sign the document, Ana dumped her bag out on the desk, looking for a pen. Some of the stuff we saw in there was weird. Symbolic figurines with tentacles, a scalpel, condoms, a ukelele, Lovecraft books, and other shit. Ana and Nick got into a shoving match over who would sign first, and Ana bumped the table and somehow the scalpel skittered across the table, hitting...well, I can't tell you who it hit, but they went to the hospital. Two-inch scar. And those two laughed it off. I really don't know if it was planned, so please quit asking me."

The assistant at the meeting, who insisted on anonymity, wouldn't confirm or deny the story. But he did say that when asked to sign the document, Nick calmly declared he would "sign it, eat it, snort it, lick it, and fuck it."

Recorded in 4 days, with a guest production by Digweed again, "Pinstriped Sox: The Joy of Sox" album was released in 2017, and received heavy airplay.

From there, things heated up quickly that summer.

- The "Disciples of Psyche" ballad was followed by the release of "Blizzard Blues." "Haunting on Greylock" got a spot on the "Fast Ten" movie franchise soundtrack.

- The Pinstriped Sox booked Madison Square Garden, and it sold out in hours. After their 8 pm MSG show in front of 18,000 concertgoers, they played an impromptu midnight show at Tempest Bar, just 3 blocks away...to 30 bewildered fans.

- "I Am Becoming (Draconity)" was released for free on a special website that was only on the 'net for an hour. Fans rushed to download and copy the song before the website's countdown hit "0:00".

- And then they really broke into the mainstream: The Pinstriped Sox ended up as extras in the blockbuster film "Star Wars: The Fall of Boba Fett", playing exotic instruments in the corner of a cathedral/bar while lightsabers and laser blasts whizzed about them.

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Their achievements continued to multiply when Ana started her "blaque dress" clothing line. She posed in her own apparel for a Vanity Fair cover by photographer Annie Leibovitz. Her eyes were framed by black eyeliner in a neo-goth Egyptian motif. Her piercings were shot up-close, including the newest plugs for her stretched ears - 3/4-inch, acrylic plugs in black with an eight-armed octopus. The clothing line did well, but it was the designer plugs that sold 50,000 units over that holiday period. Every little girl needed to have the exact plugs in black with the eight-armed octopus. The "soxor" look was born.

Why the octopus? "So they can wear 8 pinstriped sox, of course," quipped Ana.

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And suddenly, they disappeared. For a year, their fans had false sightings everywhere. Munich, Tijuana, Ibiza. They were unconfirmed reports that they were in secret training to go to the International Space Station. The most likely rumor is that they rented out Prince's mansion and studio in Minneapolis after he retired that year. Their manager Shawn Foster hinted that the Pinstriped Sox were still in business, and working on music.

In 2019, they played three gigs in small venues under the pseudonym "Impending Ana". They were pierced to each other the entire show. Like the back of a corset, ribbon was weaved between them, laced to half-inch rings in their skin. Each surgical stainless steel ring was placed by Ana, who was a former piercer. The ribbon weave kept them in tandem as them played on bar stools, and they bowed together for the standing ovation.

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The Pinstriped Sox have stated that their influences were Iggy Pop, J.K. Rowling, and Jem and the Holograms. A perfect day for them would be "solving crimes during the day, and playing gigs at night". So they enlisted soxor redditers, who became a league of followers to help solve mysteries. They personally did a stake out of a crooked politician, but got bored, and let their minions carry out the rest of the work. Mostly the soxors trolled celebrities for hypocritical statements, including exposing known-vegan Gwennyth Paltrow for requesting an omelette from her personal chef.

In May 2019, they played an infamous secret show at Casey's in Downtown LA. When Ana heard a bouncer was bullying some of the fans, she allegedly took action. A small group of fans reported that she gave them a "mission to right the wrong", and that bouncer was found the next day by the LA River, with two black eyes and a broken rib. The story went national. Charged were eventually dropped.

A week later, they released a song on the 'net called "the oi song". The soxors quickly decoded the lyrics. By following a simple letter replacement algorithm, one may reveal the names of the two fans who may, allegedly, have attacked that bouncer. Did the Pinstriped Sox actually reward a fan with a song for attacking another human being?

Fans wondered aloud what tasks they could perform to get a tribute song about them.

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"For Your Idols" came out of their second studio session. On the Sony website, they hinted that a bonus song might be made for the person who really "grokked the lyrics." The words and lyrics of the title track have already been deconstructed by most major music critics many times over. At its basic level, the title song describes their "greatest fan", who is diseased and dying, deciding to sacrifice their life for glory, allowing the band to catapult to greater fame.

Shortly after the release of "For Your Idols", dozens of "soxor death vids" appeared on the 'net, prompting police investigations. Almost all of them were ruled fake.

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At 22, student Scott Gaeta was suffering from skin cancer and depression in Salt Lake City. He had bouts of acute psychosis. Scott Gaeta gave up his life on video in 2020. The song playing in the background: "For Your Idols".

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Two weeks after his death, arrests were made, and Ana and Nick were placed in protective custody. They had allegedly been contacted by "scott98soxor" prior to his death. In court, they denied contacting Scott and plead not guilty. The District Attorney made the case that they urged him to die. The band was having their own lyrics used against them.

The verdict was scheduled for November 8, 2020, which fell on a Friday. Verdict parties were held by soxors in the major metropolitan cities across the globe. And with 1100 fans cordoned off outside the court, Ana and Nick were separately given jail sentences for their part in Scott's death.

The day after their official incarceration, Sony Music released "Dungeon Dark," a concept album on fame, incarceration, and the occult. Rumors were rampant that Sony quickly hired impersonators to release the songs. They lyrics seemed to predict the bad fortune of Pinstriped Sox. But it is more likely that the songs were recorded from their time in Prince's hideaway back in 2017. The band had kept their best music in the vault, waiting for the perfect time to strike - and KNOWING they would be in jail someday.

This was unprecedented. A major band releasing two albums within months, one of them a secret unreleased album recorded years ago, and the duo had just received their numbered orange inmate jumpsuits.

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The light sprinkling of rain has stopped in front of the East Mesa Detention Facility. Marcie Ross prepares for the concert with a puff of weed, and resets all the network connections. "Dungeon Dark" begins again, and the cell walls dissolve, with the shadow-couple making an appearance to screaming fans. About 25% of the crowd have black plugs in their earlobes. After the Pinstriped Sox light show has ended, the fans will continue to chant for their idols' release. Which, given good behavior, could be in 2026.

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Like the rise and fall of many before and after them, the music industry waits for the return of the Pinstriped Sox. Are they modern tricksters? Murderers? Can they predict their own future? Or are they just musicians, making the most of their knowledge of psychology and cult fandom? Time will tell.

We can guess some of the future. Finishing the prison sentence, most likely followed by a worldwide tour. They've promised not to play "Kill Your Idols" live. And they never released a tribute song for Scott Gaeta - although it may be because they were arrested before they could finish it.

But it's probably all been predicted and planned by this musical team. "They made me so famous," affirms Shawn Foster, who continues to manage their professional affairs.

There is one thing they didn't predict. Their story will be retold in the Broadway production of "Impending Ana," coming next year.