The End Of Nostalgia

I have overdosed on nostalgia (my own, others) and it has deposited me here, with this empty page and an odd aftertaste, like copper and chocolate. The copper could be blood. The chocolate is likely chocolate.

I have pored through and re dug the trenches of my hourglass memory, allowed the sand to flow back in and obliterate details, leaving me to restore. I have considered the erotic, the emotional, the historical…reconsidered the erotic (I like the erotic) and tried to walk around within these memories as I am now, keening my hearing to catch the songs playing that allowed the acts to happen, listening to the words of the songs that gave me reason or gave me pause before I made yet again another big, dumb decision.

I'm not sure that these remasterings of the memory make for a better end product or just act as historical lip-synching. I can discuss my first kiss. But what would my first kisser's story be? I could talk about the effects of a national tragedy. But am I really sure I wont lapse into someone else's story of heartbreak, survival, triumph? I can discuss great personal horrors with a laugh and a joke and I can create great (self indulgent) emotionally wracked tales about Van Morrison records. Which I probably stole from Lester Bangs.

The erotic is clear, though. I made it my business to remember every second of minute as they happened. I like the erotic.

I have used my past as a venue that my present plays out of. I'm not even sure it matters that these tales are true, or maybe an amalgam of my smoky memory and 80's sports movies, where we all triumph in the shoes of the loser in the opening scene. Which, of course, could also be me.

I have looked for great meaning in small interactions and looked past tons of bullshit. I haven't considered the worst of these moments…or maybe what I ACTUALLY am is a 'constant state of considering the worst of these moments'.

The things from the past…the important things…I have kept.

Friends and lovers and a thousand practice tapes.

Old books with fresh inscriptions.

Art from first, then second, then third grade (and so on) from Miss C-Rae.

And this still doggedly determined heart that wont allow the past to be my best days. And this mad internal clock that runs backwards and makes me faster and thinner as the world grows fat.

Lying in the Hands of God - Dave Matthews Band

Me and DMB...I was never a big fan, they were okay. Sure I knew all the songs. I even had his solo album in my collection, which I liked a lot. But I never understood the draw...

Last year, the 31 year old I was dating, well, he was a huge DMB fan. As in he was in some Dave Matthews fan club, got first crack at tickets and had pre-ordered the new CD when we were together. The day it was supposed to arrive, he got home and saw that he had missed the delivery from the UPS guy. Argh! He missed it!

So we got into my Jeep and went hunting up and down the city side streets in search of the big brown UPS truck. And sure enough, we found it. He flagged him down and found that indeed, he was the RIGHT delivery guy. The UPS man dug in the back of his truck and pulled out the delivery of Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King. Success!

There had to be a special listening party. I recall thinking...this is it...I am witnessing a full on fanatical DMB moment. And so we picked up burgers from Plan B and ate them as we drove up to the hills in Northwest Connecticut. It was nightfall by then. We were high and it was time to listen to the disk. We drove up and down all these twisty, mostly deserted roads and listened.

And it was "Lying in the Hands of God" that did it. I had my feet up on the dashboard of my Jeep. We were on a particularly hilly road. And I just gave into the song, forgot my inhibitions, the meandering roads and all my anxieties, the green leaves of the trees swaying their company in the night overhead...I was one with it all. It was amazingly intense and I cried...and it was peaceful, and I smiled all the while. When the song ended, he turned the CD player off and pulled over. And we turned to each other...awe...and I knew the experience was mutual.

And so then I finally understood.


"Why I am, still here dancing with the GrooGrux King.
We'll be drinking Big Whiskey while we dance and sing.
And when my story ends it's gonna end with him.
Heaven or hell I'm going there with the GrooGrux King."

Good night, LeRoi...

"Pink Champagne" - Joe Liggins and His Honeydrippers

San Francisco's Lombard Street is world-famous for its twists and turns. We made our way up to the top. The homes gracing this slippery serpent are fantastic to behold. And while I always appreciate beautiful architecture, today I'm distracted and anxious to get to the bottom of this curvaceous landmark. For at the bottom of this hill is the Tattoo Art Museum, and today I am going to make my mark.

We find a parking spot right out front. We enter and realize we have the place to ourselves. There are two people behind the counter, a friendly looking brown-haired guy and a very tall, very thin, exotic-looking blonde. We take a look around at all the cool tattoo memorabilia, dating back to the 1800's. This, I think, is the perfect place for me to get a tattoo. I approach the woman behind the counter. I explain to her what I want done. She stares at me intently. It's my honeymoon, I tell her. I took his name, but don't want to lose mine. Could she design a champagne bottle, maybe with a flowery label? She answers me in a heavy German accent.

“Jah. I think I can do that.”

A few minutes later, she shows me her work. It's perfect. A small black champagne bottle with a pink poinsettia at its center.

“Let's do it!” I say.

She begins to work and the sizzling, pleasurable pain begins. The music (isn't it always about the music?) as usual, adds to the ever growing soundtrack of my life.

I say to the guy behind the counter, “Hey, listen to this song! You gotta tell me who it is!”

He cocks an ear towards the speaker.

“Woah! It's perfect, aint it?” He says.

I'm stupidly grinning through the pain.

“The song's called, Pink Champagne, by Joe Liggins and His Honeydrippers."

Need I say more?

"Lua" - Bright Eyes

'I know its really freezing but I think we got to walk....'
It’s a Tuesday Morning; right after the 4th of July holiday. The humidity is already making its way into my Yankee bones, and when combined with that queasy, vertigo feeling of returning to work after a long holiday weekend, has a hammering effect on the crystal condition of my senses.
I am working; I am driving. The traffic is already snarled by the river. And Morning comes to Middletown.

It’s me and Frank. I am transporting him to his job du jour, this time warehouse work, and we don't talk. I rarely talk to my workers in any type of personal way; I could claim professional decorum, but really its just that I have no ability to edit myself in conversations, even the most casual. I don't want to reveal anything about myself, ever. That could be dangerous. I stare straight out at the morning traffic, as does Frank.

But there are things we share in common, Frank and I. We are both wasted, empty this morning. A too late night before, too many drugs, too many cigarettes, too little sleep.

Frank is a convict, and I was there his first day. The convicts tend to be my best workers; they know what they risk, and have little interest in the drama the addicts rely on for their non pharmaceutical kicks. It’s a circle, of course; every convict is fine till they pick up the needle; every addict is unpredictable till they get out of jail. Roles get reversed, the wheel spins.

Meanwhile, I lay my odds not on who will survive, only who will survive the day. I'm a Labor Pimp: I send out people in transition (to put it kindly) to do slave labor for little reward. Its not actual slavery; they make a buck. And sometimes, after the Child Support, after the Garnishments, they get to keep it. This is a circle too; I cant exist without them. And it’s never lost on me that I could be them with a few missteps. They are my errant, addicted, dangerous children.

'But me I'm not a gamble, you can count on me to split'
And a song comes on, pops out of the six CD Changer, in my brand new shiny red car (which I certainly can not afford); Its 'Lua' by Bright Eyes, an album that, despite my best efforts to resist, I have come to love. And especially this song. It’s a broken- hearted, broken-voiced tale of addiction among the privileged youth in Manhattan. It’s a tale told to simple, pretty acoustic guitar and a voice that makes you feel every ounce of the weight of the words. Its locations are actors lofts, and trains; a tale of Manhattan so far away from Middletown, so far away from this tangle of traffic and commuters and pollen on the wing.

'It takes one to know one, kid, and I think you got it bad...'
It’s a tune we both know intimately, though I'm sure he has never heard it before. It’s about desire. Desire for drugs, desire for another night of excess, desire for human touch, for love or simple acknowledgement.

It’s about me, stoned and trawling the web for companionship, holding the hits in deeper and longer till the letters on the screen go fuzzy.

It’s about Frank on the street tonight, copping a dime and shooting up in Harbor Park, watching the sun trip on the water, all beneath the looming shadow of the Portland Bridge.

A privileged kid sings a song of loss, of little hope for his 'model' girlfriend, and a world away, two men ride out of the suburbs to contemplate it. We're all taking too many drugs, too often (only the drugs change). We're all scared about it, and want to stop.

And I watch Frank out of the corner of my eye. And he looks out the window beyond the river and traffic, beyond anything I could see. He is weighing is own desires, and is a million miles away from Middletown now. And I watch his foot raise and fall in beat to the song. As does mine.
'Cause what's so simple in the evening, in the morning, never is'

"Don't Think I Don't Think About It" - Darius Rucker

(The following blog was sent in by a Grimm Generation fan. If you would like to contribute to The Grimm Generation Sings! submit to thegrimmgeneration@gmail.com for consideration.)

Timing is everything. Somehow, in the case of this particular pair, timing was anything but kind. She stumbled across him recently, and a smiled washed over her. The same smile that used to be painted across her face every time she would see him running down the halls in their junior high school. He was the cutest boy she had ever seen and she was the biggest chicken in the world. He was loud, obnoxious, athletic, and maybe the funniest person she had ever known. Everybody liked him. Students, teachers, coaches, everyone.

She heard a song the other day. One she had never heard before and honest to God it made her cry. It made her remember things she had long since forgotten. Things buried so deep into her subconscious that she forgot they were there. She remembered walking her dog on Saturday mornings, going way out of her way just to see if he would be outside shagging balls on the field or having a catch with his partner in crime. She spent endless summer days splashing around in the local pool hoping that he would show up for a swim. Many times it paid off because there he was. It didn't make a difference, however, because she was too afraid to speak to him. The only time she ever got close enough to him to have a conversation is when he was with said partner in crime. And even then all her conversation was directed toward his friend. I don't think she ever once looked this boy in the eyes.

She saw him one night at the local drive-in. She was coming out of the girls room and she heard this loud laughter going on just outside the doors of the concession stand. She and her best girlfriend decided to walk in that direction to see what was so funny. There were the boys, cutting up and having a great time. One boy pushed another and he lost his balance and stumbled right into me. I almost fell over. I surely would have had he not grabbed my arm to get me back in balance. “Oh my God” she thought as she looked up at his handsome face. She had never stood so close to him before. He was so tall!

“You okay?” he asked in a quiet voice that she had never heard before. He was always laughing or yelling or acting a mess but quiet was a new one on her.

“Yeah” She manages as she felt him release her arm. She was sure her face was beet red. Thank God for dimly lit drive-ins. Her friend had know this boy for years and had no problem picking up the conversation. She wasn't sure what they talked about. She just stood there as the words faded to silence and she watched his lips move. Insane, the crush she had on him.

She didn't see him for years after that. She was moving away that next day. Yet another move she didn't want to make, but was not given the option to stay put. She thought about him as she drifted off to sleep on the car ride to her destination. Soon, he was a distant memory.

Listening to this song, over and over, more memories came flooding back. She had moved back in state and during her lunch break one day she heard the whine of a very fast motorcycle. It was close and it caused her to look up. She could not believe her eyes, for there he was...all grown up. She had grown up as well and her inability to speak to him had left her. She smiled that smile, the one she always got when he was around. The smile she thought for sure he had never noticed. They talked awhile and laughed a lot. They talked about getting in touch and they exchanged numbers, but as fate would have it, she was moving again. This time her journey would take her clear across the country. Pretty soon he was back to being a memory.

After a couple years away, she moved back home. She got a job and life was ok. She thought about that boy from time to time. She tried to look him up every now and then too. She ran into a mutual friend at a concert and she asked about him. He was married and had a couple kids. Timing was just as unkind as she had ever been. She was glad that he was doing well and felt a little silly for the tinge of jealousy she felt over her childhood crush being married. Soon, he was a distant memory once more.

The song she heard the other day was one that he had played for her. You see, she ran into him again. Timing being what she has always been caused this encounter to be bittersweet. He was single having gotten divorced but that was not the case for her. She was married. He was still as handsome as he ever was and he still had a smile that would light up the sky if the sun should ever decide to go on strike. The things that killed her about him playing this song is that for all those times that she was afraid to speak to him, for all those opportunities she didn't take to just say hello, for all those extra miles she walked just to catch a glimpse of him...she found out that he felt the same way about her. If timing was unkind, irony was a bitch.

He played this song for her because he remembered that day in the bank parking lot. He remembered the laughter and the smiling. He remembered the exchanging of numbers. He remembered it as being the day that he never saw her again and over the years he has thought to himself about how he should have once again grabbed her by the arm and asked her if she was okay. She would have answered differently that time. Behind her tears there is a smile in knowing that way back where it all began, the shy girl with the huge crush was being crushed on herself.

Timing can be as unkind as she'd like, but she can not steal her smile, her memories, her crush that silently exists...still. Don't think she don't think about it.

~Anonymous

"Roxanne, Roxanne" - UTFO

Catholic School Kids
It's a big finished basement. The pool table dominates the room. A few of the guys are playing a game. I'm with Daphne. We've been friends since we were four years old. We both moved out of Frog Hollow when we were nine. My family stayed in Hartford, moved to a neighborhood right on the West Hartford/Newington town line. Her family moved to West Hartford. Her high school life includes dating the captain of the football team and a plethora of well-to-do friends. I date the burn outs until they drop out of school and join the service.

I'm sitting on the couch with my bi-level haircut, my favorite blue, Forenza V-neck sweater, black tank top, two-toned Gasoline jeans and my low-heeled, pink leather pumps. The rest of the kids have their jeans tucked into their slouchy socks and white leather high tops. Their crisp buttoned-down shirts have the collars turned up. As usual, I don't fit in.

Suddenly, there's talk of an eight ball, and I know they aren't talking about billiards anymore. A permanently flushed-cheeked boy leaves the house for a bit. When he returns, the room tilts and flocks towards him. Lines are cut and the snorting begins. On the stereo is UTFO's, Roxanne, Roxanne. The city life I am trying so hard to escape from drowns me; my swimming pool of irony. At least I have a straw.