Those files below should work now — I had the file-sharing site’s preferences set to “private.” Auto-tune! Auto-tune!
I played the SG for two hours yesterday, and my fingers are stinging with the best kind of pain today. I still remember the basic chords from long ago, and taught myself a few new ones with the help of the Internet. First up? A cover of “I Don’t Really Love You Anymore,” which is surprisingly very easy. I was trying to do “Papa Was a Rodeo,” which was sadly very hard.
I think I’m entering a new phase of mourning wherein I am ruled by this constant feeling of panic. Maybe it’s because I used to spend every second of every day worrying about Clark, and now that he’s gone, I don’t have anywhere to put that anxiety. So I apply it to my own life, most often unnecessarily.
I am finally able to listen to the three tracks we recorded together, and it makes me upset while feeding my urge to make more music. Performing as Geezer was only the beginning, and Tina and I have been talking about forming a new project. I will have to learn how to play an instrument that’s not the trumpet, but she said she’ll help me fiddle around on the keyboard. I was never good at guitar — all one year of lessons got me was a poorly configured cover of Jeff Buckley’s “Last Goodbye.” I can still play the opening chords, though.
Clark already had the music for our songs as Stitches and Staples recorded on his MPC. They sat there for a few years and he didn’t do anything with them, and I became obsessed with one song, which eventually became “Still Belong To You,” and we decided that this would be our guilty-pleasure-pop endeavor with sugary wanna-throw-up lyrics.
I wrote the lyrics to “Kiss Your Face” first while working a shift in the box office at the club. It’s about sitting in the waiting room for five hours as he underwent a surgery. Then, I stole a quote from my favorite book, Michael Chabon’s “The Mysteries of Pittsburgh,” for the chorus of the second song, which we never got around to naming and just called “Pop & Lock.” I wrote the verses to that one too. Then we co-wrote “Still Belong to You.”
The times we worked on those tunes together were some of the best. I’d get home from work on a Friday with a 12-pack of PBR cans and we’d hole up in our room, play around with harmonies and take turns doing vocal takes.
We recorded them in Jason’s basement in one session, which was the most fun because I felt real big-time. By the time we got to the third song, “Still,” my voice was fading a little bit. When the mixes came back, Jason had auto-tuned me to cover up the rough patches! I was super weirded out by it at first, but Clark liked it right away. Now I love it. I am T-Pain.
You can listen to “Pop & Lock” here, “Kiss Your Face” here, and “Still Belong to You” here.
I got Clark’s tattoo on my back on Tuesday. The roots are still there, but the leaves are gone.
(Don’t worry, the scabs will heal)
The chilly, clean-smelling weather today is the same as it was exactly two years ago. I went to work as normal, when the Blade’s offices were located on U St. We took a group photo that day, and here it is:
I didn’t know that later that day, I’d go to a happy hour on 17th Street, get bored and text Jessica. She’d tell me she was thinking of seeing Deerhunter at the Black Cat Backstage, but that for now they were just having beers in the Red Room, and I should come by. All right, I thought. The night’s still young.
I went up to the bar to order a beer, picking a spot next to the cute guy perched on a stool, texting furiously. I looked over his shoulder and saw he was saying something along the lines of “I’m tired of playing games …,” and thought, oh whoa, no thanks! Eventually he noticed me standing there and apologized for his lack of scoot-over.
“Yeah, get your text message elbow outta my way!”
He looked at me, surprised, and invited me to sit down next to him. Clark would later tell people he liked that I sassed him. We told bad pick-up lines. Mine was one I stole from Sarah: “How much does a polar bear weigh?” “I don’t know.” “I don’t know either, but it’s enough to break the ice. Hi, I’m Rebecca.”
“That’s TERRIBLE!” he said. But he’d eventually tell that story to each and every nurse we encountered. And there were a lot of them. I remember I said, I work at the Blade, but I’m not gay. And he said, these things always come in threes … there have to be two more. I said, I was born in Utah, but I’m not a Mormon. It kills me that I can’t remember my third. Same for him, I can only remember two of them: I’m in a band, but I’m not insane, I’m divorced, but I’m not crazy.
He got my number when we went outside for a smoke, and called me the next night … or I guess, Saturday morning at 3 a.m. Happy anniversary, baby.
Clark’s friend Ron has been around for a while. Clark’s mom says she remembers them drinking beer and getting into trouble in her basement. They were in a band, the Halo Project, when Clark was so babyfaced I can’t even handle it:
Ron’s in a ton of bands, including Grand Archives and the Fruit Bats, who are coming to the Black Cat next Friday, 9/11. Ron came to see us the night before we took Clark to hospice, when he was so out of it he barely knew what was going on. The morning of the visit, Clark anticipated it so much he thought it had already happened. “Where did Ron go!?” he asked in a panic. “He hasn’t even come yet!” He couldn’t really keep his eyes open that night, let alone talk to Ron, but he knew he was there, and for the five minutes he was fully awake, he got to see this:
He thought that was pretty awesome.
