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Thursday, October 11, 2007
VERSES FROM THE ABSTRACT
A Tribe Called Quest
The Low-End Theory
Jive : 1991
[Buy It]
SUMMER ROMANCE
The Rolling Stones
Emotional Rescue
Virgin : 1980
[Buy It]
LOVE GETS YOU TWISTED
Graham Parker
Squeezing Out Sparks
Arista : 1979
[Buy It]
I DON'T LOVE YOU BUT I THINK I LIKE YOU
Gilbert O'Sullivan
1975
Available on : Greatest Hits
Rhino : 1991
[Buy It]
SOMEONE I CARE ABOUT
The Modern Lovers
The Modern Loves
Castle : 1976
[Buy It]
I CAN'T KEEP FROM CRYIN' SOMETIMES
Davy Graham
1964
Available on : Folk, Blues, and Beyond...
Fledg'ling : 2005
[Buy It]
I had a friend once who loved hearing stories about relationships gone bad. She was the one I went to when it happened to me, which was more often than I would have liked. I nicknamed her "Ann Slanders" because when she gave advice, it usually came with a stick of dynamite taped to it. She liked telling me that as long as I kept being stupid, I was never going to be smart.
One night, after a few beers, she turned her weapon on herself. She was good at having friends, but a bust at everything else, and starting to feel despair about it. For months, she said, she had been following a pattern whose returns had diminished nearly to nothing. "I can't keep from crying sometimes," she said. "I'll tell it to you like it's a joke, or a story that I read about, but I'm not nearly that cavalier about it."
"Let me get another beer and I'll be right back," I said. I got a pint. It seemed like it might take a while.
She explained the pattern when I returned. She hadn't had many real boyfriends. "It's not hard to see why," she said. "People are idiots. I dare you to disagree."
"Go on," I said.
"So in lieu of boyfriends, there are boys. Do you know what I mean?"
"You mean for sex?"
"Not just," she said. "Romance, too. But yes -- that thing that makes my brain sing." A Tribe Called Quest was on the jukebox, and she told me about her favorite line from Low End Theory:Girls love the jim 'cause it causes crazy friction
When it goes up in and fluctuates the diction "'Cause it causes?" I said.
"Anyway," she said, "let's stay on point. Bringing guys home now and then is fun enough, but it leaves something to be desired. I mean, I tell myself that these guys are just placeholders, that they're third-tier prospects I'm killing time with until the first-tier prospects come along, but the fact that I have to tell myself that is a problem."
"It happens to everyone," I said. "Nothing works until the thing that works."
"But you know they're not first tier," she said.
"Who's to say what tier someone is?" I tried to make my tone generous, though the fact was that I thought her picks were fourth-tier at best. The most recent guy, who she had met in line at a bagel store, had come with her to a party and told everyone who would listen that he was a "sonic manager." The big project he was dreaming of was about "how America is really all sounds--you could close your eyes and listen better and know exactly where you were."
"Well, you're first tier, but the wrong ladder."
"I wasn't fishing for a compliment. Or an insult."
"You know what I'm saying," she said. "You're my friend. I value you. But I need more from life."
"The fluctuating diction."
"Right." She sighed. "And there's something even worse. I tell everyone, including myself, that I only want these guys as placeholders, but then I dream about all of them becoming something more. You can't dream about nothing becoming something."
"Maybe you should start with something that's something."
"I should," she said. "But not how you're saying it." She had caught something in my tone that she didn't like.
"No?" I said. I was playing a Socratic card, my last.
"I don't just want someone I'm comfortable with. I want something romantic, and I want it to last a little while."
"That's all they do is last a little while." She had quoted Tribe Called Quest to me, so I quoted the Rolling Stones back to her. It was "Summer Romance," from Emotional Rescue. It wasn't much of a song, but she had told me she was in despair, and I was grasping at straws to keep things lighter: Just a few days and you'll be back in your school
I'll be sitting around by the swimming pool
You'll be studying history and you'll be down the gym
And I'll be down the pub, probably playing pool and drinking
It's over now, it's a summer romance and it's through "Yeah, well, if it's romantic advice you're looking for, you should definitely listen to Mick Jagger," she said.
"Or to you."
"That's not nice."
"No," I said. "It's not." This brought on a sort of deadlock. We sat there silently for a little while.
"I was thinking of making a list," she said.
"What kind?" I said.
"My sister's always saying that when she was my age, she was very free with her idea of who might work for her, and that it was a waste of time, because most of the people ended up being dumped for the same narrow set of reasons: they were stupid, they were boring, they were selfish, they were lazy. Maybe I shouldn't even talk to people who don't meet some minimum standard. When I meet a guy, I'll check him against the list."
"Check it twice," I said.
She got out a pen and started to make a list on her napkin. While she made the list, my mind drifted. Graham Parker was on the jukebox now, singing "Love Gets You Twisted":Love gets you twisted, love gets you twisted all the way
The hearts are enlisted, the hearts are enlisted to break each day
I try to straighten out but I'm too wrapped up to see
I don't know how it's supposed to be Was that what she wanted? Who wanted to be twisted?
She finished her list, folded up her napkin, and went to get us one final beer. Up to that point, I had listened to her with controlled self-interest, but when she stood up, the dam burst. A few months earlier, when it became clear to her that I was not above thinking romantically, she sent me a poem that detailed the difference between friendship and love, and one line stood out:In front of the person you love, winter seems like spring, but in front of the person you like, winter is just beautiful winter. The poem was printed in flowery ironic script to hide what was obvious: that she believed it. At the time, it all seemed like a slap in the face. But when I was sitting with her in the bar, and she was getting a beer, it seemed like a truism. Say you feel comfortable around a friend. As you move through the rest of the world and find yourself treated badly--or, worse, indifferently--you'll find yourself wanting to spend more time with the people who make you feel comfortable. You may even want to dig in deeper, in which case you'll have to go outside in the middle of winter to decide exactly what it is you're feeling. I took another sip of beer and lost the thread of my argument. I wasn't even twenty-five yet. I was no philosopher. Worse, I was not being a good friend. She had asked me for a solution to her problem. How could she break the cycle of inadequate men? The only answer I could come up with was a bad one, in the sense that it was not about her but about me. Gilbert O'Sullivan's "I Don't Love You But I Think I Like You" wasn't on the jukebox, I don't think, but it had some lines that I was thinking about:I don't love you but I think I like you
Think I like you and I think you know
If there's a question you'd like to raise
It really depends on how much it weighs That evening in the bar ended blearily, and without victory for either my friend or my friendship. Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers eventually came on the jukebox, as they always do. The song was "Someone I Care About," in which Richman outlines his romantic ambitions: Well I don't want just a girl to fool around with
Well I don't want just a girl to ball alright
What I want is a girl that I care about
Or I want nothing at all I thought Richman understood perfectly. The challenge was about being one special person with special access, not one of many friends who would be cast off when that one special person arrived. I feared that the guys she was taking home weren't the placeholders, but rather that I was.
At that point, the list of my friend's romantic criteria was tucked away in her purse. A few minutes later, I'd forget about it. A few hours later, we'd be standing in front of her house, and I'd have my hand in her hair. A few weeks later, we'd sleep together. A few months later, we'd see less and less of each other, until the friendship flickered and went out. I would come to feel that I had proven my point, that I had elevated myself above mere friendship. I had gotten her, after all.
A little while back I heard that Ann Slanders got married. No one else knew her by that nickname. It was an inside joke, purely so. The mutual friend who attended the wedding told me that at the reception, she was showing the napkin to guests. "I wrote this years ago," she told them. "It took me a while to find the guy it described."
"That's funny," I said. "Everyone's married now. What's the husband like?"
"Nice guy," he said. "They were friends first."
"She always said that she wanted a person she felt comfortable with," I said. This was a lie, of course--she had said the opposite--but I felt okay about correcting for wisdom. I went back and listened to the Jonathan Richman song. It was a song I associated with getting her, but what was more interesting was what I had missed in the process. In the song, Richman doesn't devalue the friends who can't be his lovers so much as the lovers who can't be his friends:Well I don't want some cocaine sniffing triumph in the bar
Well I don't want a triumph in the car
I don't want to make a rich girl crawl
What I want is a girl that I care about
Or I want no one at all Time has passed and passed again and it's hard to call anything from back then a regret, but there's always something a little sad when a song fades out. I would have liked to be at her wedding, one way or another, and for her to have been at mine. I should have closed my eyes and listened better and known exactly where I was.Labels: ben, folk, rock and roll
posted by Ben
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