I was musing with fellow Joup associates Chester Whelks and Kitty in Manchester UK about six weeks ago wondering about the streets of Withington about 2 miles south of city center. They told me about the burrow and its charm and pitfalls. We ate and drank at a couple of different pubs. We talked about life…and music…and art…and hopes…and aspirations. We also discussed about how I’ve lost the will to write. I told them of how it seemed there were so many people writing on the internet now, recording podcasts or producing video content that it was just overkill and disheartening. Then they, as good mates do, advised me. Kitty offered that I should just start writing and not worry what comes out. Just do it as an exercise and continue to see what happens; you could find a very strong passion again.
Chester also advised me in the form of a quote from Nick Cave which is quite long so I’ll break it down into 3 parts.
‘The Wandering Jew and You’ David Berman Interview. June 16th, 2011.
I once had this dream in which I was the Broomfield/Theroux figure in a Documentary of the aforementioned title, accompanying David Berman as he walked into intimidating wilderness, a terrain which while barren, still – as he made pains to point out to me,“…has the odd barn casting a shadow the color of dried-up blood”.
A squashed can of compressed veal. A soggy copy of Playboy, singed around the centerfold’s midriff.
“Why would anyone want to set fire to the image of a naked cowgirl?” I asked rhetorically.
Chasing him through parking lots,
Into parallels,
The Joup Friday Album: Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers – “Into the Great Wide Open”
Our family was middle class, blue collar, Polish and suburban. If you look at the average income of all the Chicago suburbs, Palos Hills falls literally right in the middle. Whatever “middle class” is these days, but in 1991 there was still a middle class and my brother and I grew up in it. As such we generally took one family trip a year, that is if my parents could afford it and get off of work. In the summer of 1991 we traveled west for not one but two weeks! I think my father’s rationalizing was we hadn’t taken a trip the previous year, and odds on after I graduated high school would not take another one as the four of us. This was “the last big family adventure!”
In late July we pilled into our tan Chevrolet four-door Suburban (the SUV before SUVs) and headed west on I-80. I will hand it to my parents, it was an epic trip and more then likely spawned my travel bug for years to come. We made stops at Pike’s Peak, the Grand Canyon, four corners, Las Vegas, The Great Salt Lake, Yellowstone National Park and The Devil’s tower. I’m sure there were a few kitch stops as well knowing my mother.
Appropriately enough, I read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy during that two weeks. I had a black Sony Walkman and I loved that machine. I played so much music through that contraption in the four years between sophomore year in high school and freshman year at the university. On this trip it was REM’s Out of Time, Sting’s The Soul Cages and of course Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers Into the Great Wide Open…today’s Friday album.
Remember that time when…we were 7th row for David Bowie?
David Bowie and NIN on the Outside Tour 1995-96
How it works:
1. I’ll start with a story from my past which happens to be the one and only time I saw David Bowie in concert
2. I’ll leave it open to the next author (whomever would like to continue on) to recall “That time when…” Perhaps then we can nominate? I leave it to the authors and my co-publisher Shawn Baker to decide.
3. The only catch: it has to relate somehow to the previous story. It could in a number of ways. For instance the setting for this story takes place at The World Music Theater in Tinley Park, Illinois in October of 1995. So a number of thing could spin off…the location, the year, Trent Reznor whom shared the stage with Bowie, or even Bowie himself. But there should be no repeats in your relations from story- to-story.
4. Continue our stream of consciousness.
The Making of a Superband – Tinley Park : Central Middle School Band
2014 ISU Invitational: The students decided they would each have a chance to touch the trophy and have his or her picture taken by it.
Do you remember what you did in your spare time when you were in seventh and eighth grade? I remember babysitting, playing baseball in the street with my friends, swimming in my backyard pool, and wasting an inordinate amount of time trying to beat The Legend of Zelda. I was also in the school band which met once or twice a week, and I took lessons for which I was rarely prepared. Our band concerts were twice a year, and I am pretty certain our audience consisted of mainly our parents because, quite frankly, they were the only ones brave enough to subject themselves to the torturous cacophony of a junior high band concert. This experience starkly contrasts with the experience the students have in Central Middle School’s Symphonic Band.
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS LATER: QUESTIONS IN A WORLD OF BLUE/ANSWERS IN A ROOM OF RED – TWIN PEAKS REVISITED (A ‘Your Fucked Up Childhood’ Special)
“Oh God. I was just a boy.
I saw him in my dream.
He said he wanted to play.
He opened me and I invited him and he came inside me.”
~ Leland Palmer
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