"My Walls (First Look)"
<The Reckoner>
I'm in love with my walls.
We got a deal that's cozy.
They caress me just like Niagara Falls
and my whole world looks rosy.
Lester Bangs,
"I'm In Love With My Walls"
<i.>
<The Reckoner>
I'm in love with my walls.
We got a deal that's cozy.
They caress me just like Niagara Falls
and my whole world looks rosy.
Lester Bangs,
"I'm In Love With My Walls"
<i.>
Six weeks ago or so, our whole world unwound, and it hasn't been the same. Mind you, it's taken me this long to address the whole COVID-19 situation, since The Squawker and I have been so busy dealing with all the relevant fallout, like planning the grocery runs, searching for those household supplies that used to come so easily, including paper towels and toilet paper, working out when to pay this bill, or that...it's not like we've had loads of time to think about the implications.
And, of course, we here at Ramen Noodle Nation HQ don't always chase the headline of the day, when the latest crisis shifts like so much eroding beach sand. Think back to 9/11. How many recording studios should have stayed locked and barred, to spare us odes like Toby Keith's "Courtesy Of The Red, White & Blue" ("We'll put a boot in your ass/It's the American way")? I rest my case.
And, of course, we here at Ramen Noodle Nation HQ don't always chase the headline of the day, when the latest crisis shifts like so much eroding beach sand. Think back to 9/11. How many recording studios should have stayed locked and barred, to spare us odes like Toby Keith's "Courtesy Of The Red, White & Blue" ("We'll put a boot in your ass/It's the American way")? I rest my case.
I remember pointing out this small fact during the Northeast Blackout of 2003, when one of my idiot bosses mightily berated me for being the only staffer who didn't report to the newspaper office. When he finally ran out of breath in mid-rant, I ventured: "Well, there was one small matter that held me up..."
"What's that?"
"We didn't have electricity, so we couldn't have printed a paper. Besides, whatever we'd report would have been out of date by the time they'd got the power back on."
My boss clenched his face, but said nothing. I'd made my point, even if I didn't feel like celebrating.
Then and now, though, it's the strange moments that stick with you longest, like in 2003, when The Squawker and I drove around our little town, searching for somewhere to grab the dinner we hadn't yet made when the Great Blackout came calling.
Finding nothing in or around our home, we drove 10 miles to the next town, where we spotted a long line of cars that literally snaked into the main drag, where we discovered... "Oh, wow! That's for McDonald's! McDonald's is open!" I shouted.
"You mean, we'll actually get something to eat?" Squawker said. "Well, it's not the greatest, but..."
"It'll do the job," I finished.
So what's the COVID-19 version look like, exactly? Well, as Squawker gently admonished me, "All those jokes you made about 'hiding in the nest,' you never imagined how we'd end up, did you?"
"Er, no," I conceded. "Not exactly."
"I've been warning people about this stuff since 2000..."
"For sure," I agreed. "But this is part of the usual cycle that we go through with these things, isn't it?"
"Meaning what?"
"When something like this hits, everybody runs around like ants, frantically trying to scoop up enough sand to put the anthill back together," I sighed. "Once the storm passes, though, it's all duly forgotten again. Until next time."
I'm thinking of the "60 Minutes" story I this Sunday, where one of the interviewees was earnestly proposing that America create a preparedness office that, like the National Weather Service, would strive to warn against future pandemics. Otherwise, the guy ventured, we'd risk getting burned, again and again and again.
It's a rational and reasonable response, but not one that's getting heard above the whims of the political class who screwed up so mightily in the first place. They're the reason why our town, like so many others, resembles an outtake from The Omega Man, minus the strapping Charlton Heston figure ready to put things right with a few well-placed blasts of the old AK-47. But I digress.
"My Walls (Second Look)"
<The Reckoner>
The more I love them, the more they shrink.
Can't even get them to get another drink.
I don't even care if they make me small.
No one ever loved me better than my walls.
Can't even get them to get another drink.
I don't even care if they make me small.
No one ever loved me better than my walls.
Lester Bangs,
"I'm In Love With My Walls"
<ii.>
<ii.>
Lester Bangs, often regarded as America's greatest rock critic, recorded the above-quoted song for Jook Savages On The Brazos (Live Wire: 1981), the only full-length album that he'd release in a life that ended -- 38 years ago, on April 30, 1982 -- from an accidental overdose of Darvon.
Countless songs name-check his presence, notably REM's "It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)," for instance. Fittingly, the song's shown back up on the charts, undoubtedly goosed along by such lyrics as, "That's great, it starts with an earthquake." If that doesn't creep you out, nothing will.
At first glance, "I'm In Love With My Walls" is basically an ironic celebration of a reclusive man's unwillingness to leave his apartment. The second glance, according to Jim DeRogatis's biography (Let It Blurt), is a punning salute to the late CREEM writer Richard C. Walls, a close friend and colleague, whose fear of public spaces and situations often prevented him from going out.
I wonder what a Lester Bangs or Richard C. Walls, who died himself in 2017, might make of the madness that's literally keeping us cooped in and closed off, though hardly by choice.
The biggest adjustment, as one mom told us during our weekly Unitarian Zoom gathering, is dealing with kids who now are home all the time, since school is closed, and because "parenting is a full-time job," she laughed.
I describe the irony of not being able to capitalize on my long-standing enjoyment of live performance -- as someone who gives them, and goes to them, too. "Here I am, with a little more time and money on my hands," I said, "but it's not even something I can think of doing at the moment."
"So are you doing any recording right now?"
"Well, yeah, because that's the only game in town right now," I shrugged. "It is what it is."
The Squawker and I spend the rest of our Sunday attending to various household and creative tasks -- which is how this post started -- amid the usual bite-sized discussions of where this madness is heading. At one point, Squawker ventures, "We should have gotten out of here when we had the chance."
"Yeah, well, that's the sticky part," I sigh. "We never settled on a place to go. That's the first rule of these things, isn't it?"
"I'll keep looking into it."
This week, I'm almost finished with reading Stalin: The Court Of The Red Tsar (Simon Sebag Montefiore), a book that I started during a frigid Christmas holiday week in December 2018...as wind chills fell into the 30 and 40 below range, and the authorities warned people to stay home at all costs.
I still wound up having to buy $100-plus worth of groceries, because our latest bout with food insecurity had stripped us of nearly everything. The gas tank lid froze shut, so I pried it open with a screwdriver.
And now? Our refrigerator's the fullest it's been in three years, thanks (in part) to an additional writing check that came before COVID-19 hammered the global economy, whatever that was. Thanks to our surplus funds, the bottom line has never looked better, but it feels strange when you can't leave those four walls behind for any extended length of time.
My mind drifts back to the odd couple of this song, Lester and Richard, thinking how they must have felt behind their four walls, pecking out their latest movie or record review and/or feature, railing mightily against a world they didn't always want to encounter, one that didn't often treat them well.
It's the same feeling that strikes me, when I hear these words ring out from The Kid From Silicon Gulch (1981), a rarely staged slice of sci-fi noir from Hawkwind's late frontman, Bob Calvert:
And that's when one last thought crosses my mind on this soggy wet Sunday, as the rain dribbles down our front window... Maybe we were just being primed, all along. -- The Reckoner
Links To Go (Quickly Now,
Before It Starts Closing In):
CNET
Coronavirus Puts REM's
"It's The End Of The World As We Know It" On Charts:
https://www.cnet.com/news/coronavirus-has-r-e-m-s-its-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it-climbing-charts/
Dangerous Minds
Hawkwind Poet Robert Calvert's
Prophetic Sci-Fi Noir:
https://dangerousminds.net/comments/hawkwind_poet_robert_calverts_prophetic_sci-fi_noir
Metro Times
Remembering The Writer Richard C. Walls:
https://www.metrotimes.com/the-scene/archives/2017/05/22/remembering-the-writer-richard-c-walls
Countless songs name-check his presence, notably REM's "It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)," for instance. Fittingly, the song's shown back up on the charts, undoubtedly goosed along by such lyrics as, "That's great, it starts with an earthquake." If that doesn't creep you out, nothing will.
At first glance, "I'm In Love With My Walls" is basically an ironic celebration of a reclusive man's unwillingness to leave his apartment. The second glance, according to Jim DeRogatis's biography (Let It Blurt), is a punning salute to the late CREEM writer Richard C. Walls, a close friend and colleague, whose fear of public spaces and situations often prevented him from going out.
I wonder what a Lester Bangs or Richard C. Walls, who died himself in 2017, might make of the madness that's literally keeping us cooped in and closed off, though hardly by choice.
The biggest adjustment, as one mom told us during our weekly Unitarian Zoom gathering, is dealing with kids who now are home all the time, since school is closed, and because "parenting is a full-time job," she laughed.
I describe the irony of not being able to capitalize on my long-standing enjoyment of live performance -- as someone who gives them, and goes to them, too. "Here I am, with a little more time and money on my hands," I said, "but it's not even something I can think of doing at the moment."
"So are you doing any recording right now?"
"Well, yeah, because that's the only game in town right now," I shrugged. "It is what it is."
The Squawker and I spend the rest of our Sunday attending to various household and creative tasks -- which is how this post started -- amid the usual bite-sized discussions of where this madness is heading. At one point, Squawker ventures, "We should have gotten out of here when we had the chance."
"Yeah, well, that's the sticky part," I sigh. "We never settled on a place to go. That's the first rule of these things, isn't it?"
"I'll keep looking into it."
<"Welcome to the unwave.">
<...this music
has no future.
<...this music
has no future.
But it does have
a vindictive present.">
Richard C. Walls,
No New York LP review,
Richard C. Walls,
No New York LP review,
CREEM, April 1979
<iii.>
The strangeness never stops piling up. Earlier this month, I paid $74 to renew a PO Box that may not exist in a few months, because, well...the Post Office didn't get any money out of the recent bailout package (The CARES Act). Maybe Trump's bringing back the Pony Express? That's how it looks from here.This week, I'm almost finished with reading Stalin: The Court Of The Red Tsar (Simon Sebag Montefiore), a book that I started during a frigid Christmas holiday week in December 2018...as wind chills fell into the 30 and 40 below range, and the authorities warned people to stay home at all costs.
I still wound up having to buy $100-plus worth of groceries, because our latest bout with food insecurity had stripped us of nearly everything. The gas tank lid froze shut, so I pried it open with a screwdriver.
And now? Our refrigerator's the fullest it's been in three years, thanks (in part) to an additional writing check that came before COVID-19 hammered the global economy, whatever that was. Thanks to our surplus funds, the bottom line has never looked better, but it feels strange when you can't leave those four walls behind for any extended length of time.
My mind drifts back to the odd couple of this song, Lester and Richard, thinking how they must have felt behind their four walls, pecking out their latest movie or record review and/or feature, railing mightily against a world they didn't always want to encounter, one that didn't often treat them well.
It's the same feeling that strikes me, when I hear these words ring out from The Kid From Silicon Gulch (1981), a rarely staged slice of sci-fi noir from Hawkwind's late frontman, Bob Calvert:
<“This is my beat. The heat drenched empty sidewalks and all the millions of lonely electronic hotel rooms and cybernetic apartments. No one goes out any more. They all stay in their rooms pressing their buttons, staring at their terminals. I call it The Gulch. Silicon Gulch.”>
Links To Go (Quickly Now,
Before It Starts Closing In):
CNET
Coronavirus Puts REM's
"It's The End Of The World As We Know It" On Charts:
https://www.cnet.com/news/coronavirus-has-r-e-m-s-its-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it-climbing-charts/
Dangerous Minds
Hawkwind Poet Robert Calvert's
Prophetic Sci-Fi Noir:
https://dangerousminds.net/comments/hawkwind_poet_robert_calverts_prophetic_sci-fi_noir
Metro Times
Remembering The Writer Richard C. Walls:
https://www.metrotimes.com/the-scene/archives/2017/05/22/remembering-the-writer-richard-c-walls
YouTube
The Kid From Silicon Gulch: Full Recording:
https://dangerousminds.net/comments/hawkwind_poet_robert_calverts_prophetic_sci-fi_noir
The Kid From Silicon Gulch: Full Recording:
https://dangerousminds.net/comments/hawkwind_poet_robert_calverts_prophetic_sci-fi_noir
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