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A few years back I was doing this little piece on long term commitment & love for The Drunken Canal and I emailed Jonathan Richman for a quote. He told his publicist to tell me (he doesn't use computers) to just pick one of his songs, they're all about love.
I then asked Phil Elverum of The Microphones, who responded-
Not sure if this would be helpful at all, but the only thing that pops to mind is a Jonathan Richman song: https://youtu.be/LVB49knyJvI
It captures some of the funny subtleties of commitment/fluidity, the contradictions of trying to hold an inherently impermanent thing.
It's not exactly a quote from me, but it's the best I have.
Kismet if you ask me
Mar 8, 2024
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Seeing lots of JR love on here lately so here is my contribution
Mar 9, 2024
Hard to believe it's nearly twenty years old now.
Three things stand out for me, reading it again today. Took like 3 months of reporting, or so, to get it all done.
1) The Courtney Love vignette from the Shins' show at the Hollywood Bowl (it was all very Ab Fab and unintentionally hilarious). She is every bit the piece of work she was described to be.
2) James was living in a house in Portland, OR that Elliott Smith used to live in. We smoked pot in the basement and he showed me the washer/dryer that was basically where Elliott four-tracked the "Roman Candle" album.
3) He had a guitar hanging in his home studio that had "You'll be Dead" spray painted on it -- a line from Star Wars (I think his brother, an artist I worked with at Starbucks, did that). I used to have a photo of that but IDK what happened to it.
It was a fun era to be writing about rock music.
Apr 5, 2024
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most of my favorite music is made with intention. every song has a purpose, within that every line, every note has a reason to be there to move the story forward or build emotion or something. somehow bob dylan escapes all of this.
not every single word or verse in a bob dylan song is essential. you could delete plenty of verses and not feel lost or even emotionally incomplete. why? how?
most people like me are curators. we find things that make us say THAT. THAT right there, that has something. you can’t say what and that’s why it’s so special. most of us couldn’t fathom making a THAT if we tried. the essence is that its intangible, it couldn‘t be designed. it has to be found. i’ve made a THAT of my own once, maybe twice in my whole life.
anyway bob dylan is a factory of these. they just come, they happen. the lines that bypass your intellect, your reason, and go straight to your emotional centers. “my warehouse eyes, my arabian drums.“ i couldn’t say what it means but it pulls my heart out of my chest every time i hear it. that’s what his verses are for. each one is space for another nugget, another THAT. it’s incredible.
6d ago
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this site is pro sincerity
Dec 15, 2023
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tomorrow PI.FYI launches to the public
this project is the result of thousands of hours spent coding everything from scratch after I got laid off six months ago
no thiel-bucks or weirdo outsider money, just a pure desire to make something fun and true to Perfectly Imperfect’s day one goal of helping people find new things from real human beings, not algorithms or AI
a pure labor of love that I’ve been quietly plotting for two years and it’s completely self-funded from my (rapidly) dwindling savings account
so thank you for coming along for this weird ride 🫶 let's see where it goes
Jan 21, 2024
Feb 2, 2024