Thursday, January 27, 2005

The Way He Were

Music Wonkery

Let me get a little personal here. Go, go fetch a drink and a crying towel; I’ll wait.

Back in 1996, just after I graduated college, I drifted for a time rootless and aimless. After a summer whiled away drinking gin and tonic and reading books, I moved to Pittsburgh for lack of anything better to do. At the time, I wasn’t in the greatest shape in any sense, thanks to a late college regimen of heavy drinking, late nights, a succession of (let’s call them) ‘thorny interpersonal relationships,’ and world class self-flagellation. It wasn’t a very good time.

Pittsburgh was a good place to be. I met some people and became a regular at a couple of the less reputable drinking establishments in Squirrel Hill. One night I was abducted and forcibly exposed to nudie bars. Thus it went that my first year after college was a time of assing around, personal growth, and various indeterminately enjoyable false starts.

Sometime in the summer of 1996, I picked up Freedy Johnston’s album, This Perfect World (Elektra, 1994) on the strength of a review I found in an old music magazine. It came along at a perfect time. I listened to it constantly, sometimes letting Freedy sing me asleep (some would call it passing out) on the couch after last call.


Posted by Johno on 01/27/05 at 01:08 AM
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