Pale Blue Eyes

Point of interest: I've been discussing this book I'm writing, Something Solid, as though everything about the book is available to be discussed. I've also suggested that there's a good deal of transparency inhering in the book itself. Fair. But I'd like to say, about Side-Armed, here's a story that, for all sorts of contingent and not-contingent reasons, can only be half-told, or not told at all. So I'll ask those watching who might be watching to reject closure, in the Hejinian mold, and understand that a lot of things about this piece involve realities you'll just have to imagine. This one does signify The Death of the Author, in Something Solid, and The Birth of the Reader. The Velvets, like Smashing Pumpkins, seem to have disappeared off a lot of maps over the last twenty years. Worth noting that when I played DJ for the ladies in Logan Square, the third Velvets album was a perennial fave. Sin and salvation would seem to be the subtext in most of the lyrics, even if the music is primitive stuff. It's also worth noting that, as Aughts Philadelphia emerges as culturally stalwart, for every worthwhile story that reaches the airwaves, a few equally worthwhile ones will be lost. The principle of waste, of things being wasted for no good reason, is a big impinging shadow on human existence. So, Side-Armed side-arms you a half-story, and we'll see if you think that's good enough. 

I'd Have You Anytime

What got spun in Mary's room at 4325 Baltimore Avenue was various. George Harrison's All Things Must Pass was one of her faves. It stands there, after all these years, being, for my money, the nicest music a Beatle ever made, and the most durable. It's also about the idea that, in Mary's room, we could get a timeless ambience going, and make everything we did as festive as possible. The big months in that room were the last four months of 2002. In early 2003, Mary moved down Baltimore Avenue to live in a flat with Abby, while I remained in Logan Square. Those last four months of 2002 were notable, not only because I wrote Ode On Jazz then, but because the whole neighborhood was in a celebratory mood. The first night I spent in the room, early in 2002, the pieces hadn't really come together to make the neighborhood take off into space. The fall of 2002 was a gift given to us, precociously about a vision of cultural Philadelphia taking back some of what it was owed.  The universe leant us a little bit of the sweet stuff, so that the daunting nature of what we would have to accomplish over a long period of time to really redeem cultural Philadelphia, wasn't too cold or intimidating. Almost a quarter of a century later, I do an intense worker bee routine so that our version of cultural Philadelphia cannot be misplaced. And remember George's slide-guitar riffs, and how they sounded on the nights we had everything harmonized and in balance. 

A Sort Of Homecoming

In the book I'm writing, Something Solid, different characters emerge, with different degrees of distinctness. Chris (DeFranco), a childhood friend of mine, has emerged as one of the less distinct characters. There were things about Chris, it is true, that could be considered generic. His main cultural pursuit was sports, and sports betting. He was a betting ring kind of dude. On the other hand, it was quirky about Chris that he had an odd, unexpected sympathy with art and creativity, and often attracted unexpected friends, like myself. His extensive connections to Abington in the Nineties became mine, too. Cheltenham to Abington then was Nineties revolution, all over again. Chris was a diehard U2 guy, as well. We went to see the Zoo TV show at Veterans Stadium in '92— incidentally, still the best rock show I've ever seen. Even if Bono speaking at my Penn graduation resembled Tom Waits himself covering Jeff Buckley. As per New Year's Eve, the one in question is '97 into '98. Most of the piece is reportage. The house I return to here is on Lindley Road, in Glenside, which followed on the heels of Upper Merion. When I returned to State College, I bought a Celtic Cross, black leather pants, and occupied a bedsit in North Halls. As of April, I would finally crack the code towards emerging as the writer I wanted to be. Manhattan would lay in wait, in the distance. Sublets would be themselves. And 1998 would become a year I would remember very fondly indeed. The last year I saw or heard from Chris with frequency. 

Lover, You Should've Come Over

Did half of Manhattan, at one point, decide that I was Jeff Buckley? In the Nineties, my resemblance to Mr. Buckley was widely noted. I hung out with scenesters who had been his friends and bandmates, too. So: this one's about Jeremy, but I've decided it would be too boring just to do The Smiths or Morrissey again, as usual. The twist is that this piece takes place in the autumn of 1997, in Manayunk. Some the action happens at the La Tazza Coffee-house, a base of operations for Jeremy, 'd' magazine, and the entire Villanova-Manayunk Nineties revolution crowd. The rumor in Manayunk at that time, related to me by an authority, is that, a few months before his untimely death in May 1997, Jeff Buckley showed up at precisely La Tazza to play, unaccompanied, for a few hours. Buckley died in Memphis. Hmm. The whole thing was even more el bizarro because, again on semester break, I myself had shown up at La Tazza to play unaccompanied, in about March 1997. Play I did. Was the whole Jeff Buckley Manayunk thing an urban legend? In any case, the night in question in the piece, Chris and I probably played some of Grace while we were car-bound. Grace, and Jeff Buckley, did take off in the world once Jeff passed. Whether La Tazza really had Jeff there, co-terminous with myself, thirty-odd years later, we may never know. Or whether people in Manhattan called me "Jeff" behind my back. Thank you, Briana and Gina... 

Man Called Aerodynamics

Both Voodoo, as it showed up in Otoliths in 2017, and the revised Emily's Voodoo and where it sits now, are an attempt to come to terms with Central Pennsylvania in the Nineties: what it meant and what it was like. Central Pa has built into it a certain amount of randomness, and also of obscurity: it's not that much of a national spotlight kind of locale. Penn State means football to most of the public. Yet, to people who love the place, and went through paces there that marked the hell out of them, the center of Philadelphia's state, Pennsylvania, will always have a sense of enchantment about it. As will Emily, who could also be called Maria, for germane, if skewered, reasons. And Guided By Voices, in Nineties State College, were knowable to the kids working the indie circuit, and became household gods as such. You can deduce from this that, yes, there was an indie rock scene in State College in the Nineties. The translation from GBV and Robyn Hitchcock disciples into world, or at least national, acclaim never happened. Small town life chewed up the State College indie scene and spit it out. I never myself got worked up about Bob Pollard and GBV that much. Neither did Emily. But that State College was ever that bum-fuck— not what I saw. And, as is in the piece, townies could be licentious in an unrepressed way. Central Pennsylvania breeds libertines, along with the sense that, if you keep the noise down, you can get away with murder. Licentious murder. Amidst the earth magic of the green stuff that lives & breathes. 

Drivin'

Drivin', indeed. Drivin' in a taxi cab from Dirty Frank's at 13th and Pine, all the way into the heart of Upper Darby. Paying $35 dollars for the ride, still a lot in 2026. Yup, folks, that's who I was in 2004: always assiduous about trying to do the things I deemed worthy to do. Dawn Ananda Hulton not only lived in Upper Darby, she bothered to live in what had been Todd Rundgren's house. So that, now that I've finally kicked For Dawn into shape, we can all start talking about rock music in Philadelphia without laughing or reaching for aspirin. Dawn Ananda was a musician, with a band called The Nooses. She also had a fetish for The Kinks and Arthur. Drunken, skittish, with a rich mother. Jane Fonda look-a-like: "What's your bag, Klute?" And on that drive, I had no idea I'd be sleeping on her living room couch, hiding beneath a blanket so her mother couldn't see who I was. The footsteps stopped, briefly, near the couch, then wandered away. In 2004, such incidents and situations revealed the primary laws of my nature. The infinite complexity of pain and pleasure. The Bean Cafe on South Street, where I wrote For Dawn, was also The Ween Cafe. The proprietor was Dean and Gene Ween's sister. So, randomly, this one has a rock insignia all over it. And a Philadelphia one. So there. 

Miracles

The intense craziness of my relationship with Jennifer Strawser, as is documented in Silly Putty, took much of its velocity from our being young, but also sprung from culture-shock, hot-wired into opposites attracting, then shaken and re-stirred without either of us being aware it was happening. Jen was clearly out to impress everyone in State College, especially the Daily Collegian crew, that she was from a solid lower middle-class background. She was not. Yet the headlong lunge into hard-core mattress-thumping calisthenics took Jen and I into a slanted, enchanted la la land where I hadn't bothered to venture with Kelly or Mandee. In the middle of our antics, Jen and I might as well have looked like Yellow Submarine cartoon versions of ourselves. Jefferson Starship catches Jennifer Strawser and I red-handed with what it means to, y'know, be able to handle things. We got lost. If Jen felt she had no choice but to lie, it all got busted when I visited Liverpool that summer of '96. At that point, I was occupying more than one la la land, owing to a dose fit for a Piper. Intense craziness. But the intensity is something, in retrospect, that I like. There was nothing tepid, bland, or insipid about who we were then, or what we did. The Marty Balin character in Miracles is about as pixilated as we were. And as horny. Jen visited Upper Merion, then, too, where I was stationed on semester breaks. We did a real roundelay routine. If I had trouble tying my own shoes at that particular juncture, so be it. Jen could tie them for me.