There’s a lot of a few different horrors in the world right now (and obv. have been for quite a while) but back in the fall/winter, before the world slid further into the swamp that’s now only deeper, I was super honored to take part in this email back&forth (across months), initiated by author (and maybe less-well-known: extremely knowledgeable & accomplished musician) Rick Moody, discussing the then-recently-departed Ric Ocasek (and the Cars more generally).
The participants were like a friggin’ Who’s Who: Syd Straw; author Bruce Handy; Gail Greenwood of Belly & L7; both Johns of They Might Be Giants; Jennifer Coates and Ernie Brooks of the Modern Lovers (!)…and me, presumably because Rick's neighbor/plumber was unavailable (ha).
The conversation went on for a few months, was super long but super cool, and everyone involved was, to a person, warm, interesting and funny and Rick somehow culled all that down to maybe half its orig. size. As I said to him afterward, in hindsight, my contributions, which were more bullet-pointed than "written" under the late-night motivating force of a Dex prescription, read to me now as if transmitted by a robot, adrift in space, making poor choices.
So it’s in that spirit, a diversion from the poop going on, I give you…