Chicago Bedtime is Jerusalem Sunrise

4:56 AM Seth: how's it hangin?
me: slow and low = tempo
you?
Seth: that's a good one
pretty good, writing is actually happening
after worrying for months, I'm 'leaning into the end'
(mysterious phrase from old Pavement song)
4:57 AM there's just so much to say...
me: man, send me an email...or better yet, a real-live paper letter...
Seth: you know I owe you one, and I will pay
me: leaning into 5 am chicago time here
4:58 AM Seth: that is a good idea
OK, let me put that on the list for today or tomorrow
me: but lots to say on my end too
discovering unclehood/(fatherhood?) in the expanses of Iowa
4:59 AM when you gonna be back?
Seth: 'uncle' apparently means 'little father' in latin
June 27
Amelia sent me that Townes van Z bio
me: wanted to have an uncle, but instead I had a little dad
5:00 AM Seth: so tragic
me: hey, I listened to the first two TVZ lps on the way back from IA
hot damn
probably perfect weather, too
Seth: hot damn is the right weather for it
5:01 AM me: pissant tornado tantrum truckstop precipitate
Seth: I think I agree
but I am not sure
me: where the horizon's like a gradient from wet dirt to dry dirt?
5:02 AM after like 6-7 songs, I was like, "this is kinda weird, eh"
Seth: the clouds didn't look like rain
they didn't even look like clouds
me: I mean the sky looked like dirt
Seth: was it a tornado?
5:03 AM or just a dirtlike sky?
me: no, but it was raining like gangbusters
Seth: eee
super fucking great Job reference in Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian
having to do with dustspouts
me: anyway, amazing stuff...more understated than I thought
Seth: the TvZ?
me: yeah?
yup
5:04 AM Seth: esp his later stuff, it's uncanny, because by the time he's like 40 he's this burnt alcholic wreck
so he clips off his words and inflections
me: god, you can hear all that
Seth: his vocal delivery in "sanitarium blues" is stunning
on the early albs he's not damaged yet
me: makes you realize how much Son Volt sucks
Seth: I have always been mortally terrified of all that neoconservative counterinsurgent country stuff
5:05 AM I was forced to admit that Whiskeytown could do a good cover of TvZ's "A Song For" but it doesn't make me actually want to listen to them
me: weird -- I-88 is like the classic rock bloc
no country at all
old Paul McCartney and ZZ Top
Seth: regular country nowadays for me is like sheer ethnography
5:06 AM half the songs are pure identity marking
talking about 'being country'
me: the ethnography of the diaper aisle at Walmart
Seth: clearly aimed at fucks in scaled-down SUV's who've never touched a cow
pre-zactly
5:07 AM me: well, it's tough to escape nostalgia all round
Seth: yeah, and what's funniest is that at this point country itself is exactly like alt.country
me: totally
Seth: neither has one darn thing to do with cowboys or people who sleep outside or whatevs
me: exactly the way rock is alt.rock
Seth: both 'bear highly mediated relationships' to hank williams
5:08 AM me: de-emphasis on astounding performative/sonic freako feats
5:09 AM "grandma music", as John described Paul's ca. 1969-70 songwriting
gotta have those sturdy old hooks
(rather than people enjoying their guitars)
Seth: like when ZZ Top went synth
me: hA!
Seth: that's the archetypal cynical event
5:10 AM me: but that stuff is so good
Seth: it's still catchy
but it's not Tres Hombres
me: it's so blatant tho it defies the cynical view
fuck
Seth: and it's still sleazy
me: this minivan had SUCH a good soundsystem
Seth: why were you in a minivan?
me: I kept playing with the pan - balance
5:11 AM rented a car
Seth: like my damn volvo, dude
you had a lot of people to haul?
me: James Gang - Funk 49
Seth: which fucking [dude] has refused to tell me about
me: mixed like Ramones 1st lp
Seth: he hasn't returned email in months
hope he's still alive
me: huh
Seth: yeah
me: he refused to tell you about James Gang's Funk 49?
Seth: no, he [something]
me: Tami and I went to west Iowa to see her brothers family
yeah, he probably bought a Wii or something
5:13 AM hey, I bought an amp
Seth: what kind?
5:14 AM me: '70 Fender Bassman 100 and matching '68 Fender Dual Showman 2x12" cabinet
Seth: aha
me: with the silvery cloth fronts
Seth: the coveted bassman for guitar
me: sounds crazy as sin
Seth: I'll betcha
5:15 AM me: been modifying this f'd up Strat I bought at a pawn shop in Seattle
Seth: when were you in Seattle?
me: EMP
Seth: aha, it happened again
how was it?
me: been buying used old Gibson pickups on ebay
subdued
5:16 AM you're right
Seth: because I wasn't there
me: very easy to write a hot paper
Seth: I'm sayin'
me: my goal now
got drunk with [dude]
5:17 AM feminism is very important
so is being kind to minorities
5:18 AM [dude] is writing for the damn [something] now
Seth: did he drop that on you?
well, they'll make [dude] form complete sentences
me: no, just the ho-hum vibe of EMP
Seth: anyhow, it just shows that persistence plus ambition outweighs talent
but I already knew that
5:19 AM me: [dude] was much more dorky that I expected
Seth: he's heteronormative
what did you talk about, hamsters?
me: heh
can't remember
Seth: figures
me: I'
5:20 AM I'm very burnt on rock writing these days
Seth: that also figures
me: maybe explains the renewed interest in guitar
Seth: you were doing it til you dropped
me: just not creatively satifying at all
a total chore
Seth: yeah, let some air into that fucker
write about cooking or history
me: yeah, totally
or a novel
5:21 AM that would be novel
Seth: absolutely!
write one or about one?
not both
me: write one
Seth: that's david foster wallace
good
me: very tempting
Seth: you'd like blood meridian
me: read it, dude
Seth: what do you think?
me: we talked about this
5:22 AM Seth: oh dear, now I'm being [dude]
me: fucking great
5:23 AM maybe a bit too henry james in places, what I don't like about Faulkner
but devastating imagery
crazy-poetic at times
Seth: James, really?
5:24 AM me: like giant knotty sentences that bow under their own weight
for southerners, they're extremely verbose
weird, eh? the laconic stereotype
5:25 AM strange to see people reading Cormac on the el
Seth: they heard Steven OMalley talking it up in Kerrang!
5:26 AM me: heh
Seth: apparently the border trilogy was his first set of books that sold really well
me: bought this Omalley side project cd
Seth: he should just pony up and do a cd of Gravediggaz covers
lots of hand-waving
5:27 AM me: possibly caused me to reinvestigate the possibilities of playing the backside of the guitar only
5:28 AM I was playing tonight, just hammering on the back of the Strat with my fists
Seth: niice
5:29 AM maybe that's what Meltzer meant by 'unknown tongue'
me: this place I buy gear from had a sale and I bought a DOD Yngwie J Malmsteen overdrive pedal for $29.95, so I was trying it out
Seth: though nobody, not even he, really knows
aaaahhh
an unknown rectum
me: really just a stock reissue of the DOD 250, with better capacitors
Seth: in addition to the MSR blue box
5:30 AM me: what's the tongue?
Seth: there's that corporate grunge-era King Buzzo custom box that is like the blue box but worse
it's some thingamabob meltzer spews about in Aesthetics
looooong convo
and I have work to do
me: no kidding
got sleep to do
Seth: do it up
me: I'm gonna sleep the shit out of it!
5:31 AM Seth: when you wake up email me your address
actually [gf] was the most aggressive sleeper I know
me: look in any of my emails in the signature
yeah?
Seth: not in being aggressive while sleeping but in being way the fuck into sleep, such that she was stumbling out of it for about an hour after she woke up
and was pretty unwakeable before then
5:32 AM yeah, it was a little annoying but also cute
me: apnea?
hypoglycemia?
Seth: hmm, maybe
go to sleepland and investigate
me: ok---send me that letter
5:33 AM Seth: u got it
(but not yet)
me: OR DIE!!!!!!!!!!
Seth: zzzzz
me: just kidding
Seth: xxxxchhhh
drool
me: latr
Seth: nod
thump
5:34 AM me: squish

NP: Dykehouse, Midrange [Ghostly Int'l, 2004]

posted at 2:49 AM