Dear Slim Volume,
Remember how you got Today by Galaxie 500 in Iowa City? You
said you’d been meaning to listen to it for, like, ever.
It was summer and we were in Iowa City so that you could
meet with someone at the university. You were applying for graduate school. We
rented a car in Waukegan, Illinois, where my grandparents live. Uncle Roger
insisted we get a Prius. I didn’t like it because it had a really lousy blind
spot for someone my height. I guess we were 24.
We borrowed some CDs from Uncle Roger, notably Tonight’s the
Night. We listened to Neil Young a lot but we didn’t have that record. We
listened to “Albuquerque” and said it really sounded like the city Albuquerque,
although in hindsight I’m not sure we’ve ever been to Albuquerque; maybe we
drove through once.
We stayed at a motel with a pool. I went swimming by myself
while you organized your papers. It was just after dark. It’s really great to
swim at dusk. Later I drove to a convenience store for beer and Sun Chips and
dried apricots, with the moon roof open. I listened to “Albuquerque” over and
over and wished I had rolled a number but I certainly had not tried to bring
weed on the airplane. I dreamed of getting stoned and the longing was almost
better than getting stoned.
We probably watched shows about serial killers or “dumb
criminals” in bed because that’s what we did when we stayed at motels then.
In the morning we went to a motherfucking Perkins, where we
ate omelets with toast and meats both inside and outside the omelets, and the
meals also came with enormous peach pie muffins. What the fuck.
Later, once we’d been to more college towns, we realized how
much Iowa City was just like any college town: Bellingham, Eugene, Boulder,
Tuscaloosa. They’re all more similar to each other than other cities in their
states.
The University was like a “real university”, we marveled, as
we’d gone to The Evergreen State College which, like every other institution in
the South Puget Sound area, was built by Californian architects in the 60s and
70s who disregarded our extended rainy seasons and made all the buildings
squared and separated from one another (both my elementary school and high
school have been heavily renovated from
their original 60s and 70s designs and are now unrecognizable).
We got a parking ticket and never fucking paid it. We were
in a rental car.
While you were in your meeting, I went to a vintage clothing
store. It was well curated and in a little cobblestone alley. I could
definitely imagine living there. I got a groovy psychedelic shift dress. Once
when I wore it several months later, your coworker picked me up and spun me
around in the middle of a crowded bar.
The professor you met with focused on Asian history; your
focus was on the American West.
We went to an antique store that had really great shit and
we brought home an enormous Miller High Life sign; I don’t know what we were
thinking but clearly we got it on the plane without checking luggage, and we
also carried on a rather large rock my mom found on the beach in Zion. She had
you carry it on. The security people made you promise not to hit anyone with
it; you agreed. I also purchased a backpacking backpack and a sleeping bag;
what the fuck; how did we carry all that on the plane? How did we eat that
Perkins breakfast?
We drove through Amish country, the Imana Colonies. I had
been there 6 years before, with my BFF and her girlfriend, on our roadtrip. I remembered
it as the most magical part of the roadtrip; the most beautiful part of the
country. The two of us who weren’t driving had just woken up from naps and
gotten stoned.
This time you wanted to listen to Joanna Newsom in the Imana
Colonies which were tacky and touristy and not nearly as lovely as I remembered
them. The surrounding country was fine and provided a bit of magic. I wouldn’t
let you listen to Joanna Newsom because I couldn’t stand her but we listened to
Today. I don’t think I really gave a shit about it, but it was good to listen
to in Amish Country.
We drove home listening to Weedeater in the dark watching
fireflies streak past. Fireflies amused us to no end; we don’t have them in
Western Washington. We got stuck in traffic for a long time in Chicago. We got
lost when we got back to Waukegan. We arrived at Uncle Roger’s while everyone
else was watching the end of an old black and white movie.
Our return flight dropped us in Portland and we insisted on
driving two hours home. We called Brianna and she was working late hours so
still wanted to come over and party at 1AM. We made the tweeker at the nearest
gas station unlock the beer case at 6AM and went to bed at 9AM. You said you
were surprised that we partied when we got home but I wasn’t; I expected it the
whole flight home.
You didn’t get into grad school in Iowa City but at Western
Washington University in Bellingham. Even though I didn’t have to leave my home
state I cried for two days about moving two and a half hours away from my parents
and my home town. But Bellingham had a lot of good food and I got a job I loved
at a copy shop and we had a damn good two and a half years there.
Shortly after we moved to Bellingham we saw Dean Wareham’s
autobiography displayed in the public library. You convinced me to read it. I
remember reading it in the bathroom of our daylight basement apartment,
subdivided out of a turn of the century timber baron’s mansion. The book’s
epigram was a quote from Wareham’s Galaxie 500 bandmates talking about how they
broke up the band after because Wareham was literally taking over the spotlight,
which is a pretty weird way to start an autobiography if you want the reader to
feel sympathetic. After reading about how he lived in an apartment where he
painted everything white except for the radiator and exposed pipes which he
painted red, I decided I had to quit reading the book before he ruined the
magical sadness, indeed the aesthetic cuteness that Galaxie 500 held. I thought
the line in “Tugboat Captain” was “I don’t want to open your presents” – you
know, since he also doesn’t want to go to your party or talk to your friends.
But it’s “I don’t want vote for your president”. This refusal to participate
(Wareham’s New Zealand background aside) can be read as a political action
rather than a childish woundedness. This explains the attraction to Galaxie 500
“…cute objects—formally simple or noncomplex, and deeply associated with the
infantile…and the unthreatening—get even cuter when perceived as injured or
disabled.” (Sianne Ngai in this interview http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/43/jasper_ngai.php)
It’s harder to enjoy Galaxie 500 if Dean Wareham is not
wounded and adorable. Now when I listen to Today, I have to imagine him being a
sad sap having a bad acid trip and the girl he loves not giving a shit about
him and he, you know, forgot why he came to this town. I mean, he is a good
narrator of that narrative, the sad sap getting too wasted with his hair in his
eyes, which I still love as a fictional narrative –simple, adorable, wounded. Not in real life and not the real Dean Wareham. Here again I
am reminded of Ted Bundy with crutches.
Later we listened to other Galaxie 500 albums and they kind
of sucked, except for the two live albums.
Love,
Lifeguard of Love
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