Down Lonely Street, to ...

Crack Crack went the lightning as the clouds rolled in -- and then rolled out, leaving nary a drop.

Alas, errors to report in last post: Wikipedia says Jeremy Spencer was the other guitar man in Fleetwood Mac, but joined before Kirwan, wasn't brought in by him. It says her name was Christine Perfect, not Best. (Hey, if you're perfect, you're best, right? So I was close.) Bob Weston was the guitar guy for Mystery to Me. Wiki also says Fleetwood joined John Mayall's Bluesbreakers after Clapton left the band. OK, but I could have sworn was Mick on the cover of that Bluesbreakers album, the one with Slowhand reading a comic book. ("Seems like a dream ... got me hypnotized.")

Now (cue sudsy violin music) we turn to tonight's story: (Music rises emotionally) "Heartbreak Alley" ...

(Read more ...)

I forget her name. I know that's not good, but it was a name I just had to forget ... to hide the pain *sobs* OK, enough of the soap opera thing: I probably did repress her name, but gimme a break, it was 30 years ago this month! What can I say? The brain sand is starting to pile up. (Is that what he's calling it now? Brain sand?)She was very pretty, bright red hair, milk white skin, a little German dumpling. She sang like an angel, studying voice at my old alma mater (Go Heels!). We dated, as only undergrads at a big campus can: on campus. One of the concerts we went to drove us both out of the room at intermission. John Cage (yeah, that John Cage) was premiering some work he'd done for piano, written, as he was describing it, about the zodiac. Cage would explain each piece, then a lady, with a nice blue print floor-length dress (think Haute Earthmother) with long black hair cascading down her back past the piano stool, would play it. Lord the atonality! Remember, I'm the guy who actually liked Ornette Coleman in high school (as he always reminds us!)! Hearing this stuff set my teeth on edge! Starting with the molars! She asked to leave first, and I just said something like the 70s version of "Right behind you!"

She asked me to come to her junior recital. I did, and was she grand! I probably should have capitalized on that at the reception, or something like that (He clearly knows nothing!), but I didn't.

Not too long after that, a guy was chasing me in the co-ed dorm I was living in at the time. It was a brick X tower (how appropriate) with guys on one side of the X and girls on the other. The sides were joined by a reception area/elevator room/mixer spot, with the girls' side locked tight after a certain time at night. This guy, I thought he had something from the toilet in what he was carrying, and so I ran like crazy down the guys' side, into the reception/elevator room, and then into the girls' side (which was what this guy was actually trying to do to him). It was daytime, but on a weekend, when you could get into trouble going there without permission from one of the girls. I was screaming curse words, partly to warn anyone watching that this guy had something in that little bucket, partly to make it look like a joke so I wouldn't get into too much trouble. The door to the far side stairwell (the fire escapes were at each end of the X) was blocked by somebody (one of the girls, Mercurius?), so I turned and got hit with a bucketload of clean water in the face. The girls were laughing their (OK, enough of that!) off. Except for one. Yeah, you guessed it. She was clearly horrified. I didn't even run down her side of the hallway! (She didn't need to, dumbass! Your voice carried plenty ... .)
I later went to my girlfriend's door and apologized, trying to maintain boyish charm (O, brother! Where art thou?). She was gracious, but clearly wanted me to leave. The guy with the water bucket never pulled another trick. He never had before. In fact, I barely knew him. But did he know her? I was way too fracking stupid at the time to ask myself that question.

The following Monday (the water chase happened on a Sunday -- see how it's working?), she cut me dead walking to class. I mean dead. She made sure she avoided me after that. It was near the end of classes, and I was graduating, so that was that. What I'd done wrong was brag (not in a bad way, we had only held hands and pecked goodbyes while "dating") to the guys weeks earlier that I'd gotten some really classy girl interested in me -- and they'd apparently set out to fix that one, and fix it good! None of the guys admitted to it, but I'm sure, looking back now, they were winking at each other behind my back.

Was it love? No, it wasn't head-spinning, earthmoving, mindbending, timestopping (OK, we get it!) stuff ... those experiences are not stories for me to tell here (to protect the innocent -- them!) But it was nice. It felt good. It felt natural.

I should have just stayed on the guy's side to let him hit me in the face with the bucketwater! D*** co-ed dorms!

(return to post)

And that (violins begin to fade) is the end of tonight's story. Tune in again, next time, for "Heart of Glass."

PS: I don't want anyone thinking yesterday's Fleetwood Mac post had any intentional political overtones. It's true, a certain successful political campaign in 1992 used one of the band's songs as its theme. The spouse of the successful candidate then is running for that same office now. How I vote is my business, and it has nothing to do with my musical taste, or political taste, for that matter. (Remember, I covered politics as a reporter for many years. You gotta look past politics on important votes. Maybe I'll post on what I mean by that someday.) Anyway, back to college days: some friends of mine who teased me about liking Fleetwood Mac pre-Rumors actually loaned me a cassette of an early album of theirs: English Rose, I think was the name. Mick Fleetwood was in drag on the cover. I think my 'friends' implied a joke in there somewhere, but I ignored it and loved the music. "Albatross" was on this thing, along with some killer Peter Green guitar on the hard blues tracks.


LJ orig.: 05/03/07