what came first? the music or the misery? people worry about kids playing with guns and watching violent videos, we're scared that some sort of culture of violence is taking them over.
but nobody worries about kids listening to thousands -- literally thousands -- of songs about broken hearts and rejection and pain and misery and loss.
did i listen to pop music because i was miserable, or was i miserable because i listened to pop music?
you don't have to go this second. you can stay until whenever.
well stay for tonight, then.
my desert-island, all-time, top five most memorable break-ups, in chronological order are as follows: alison ashworth, penny hardwick, jackie allen, charlie nicholson, sarah kendrew.
those were the ones that really hurt. can you see your name in that list, laura? maybe you'd sneak into the top ten, but there's no place for you in the top five. sorry. those places are reserved for the kind of humiliations and heartbreaks that you're just not capable of delivering.
that probably sounds crueler than it's meant to, but the fact is, we're too old to take each other miserable. unhappiness used to mean something. now it's just a drag like a cold or having no money.
if you really wanted to mess me up, you should have got to me earlier.
which brings us to number one. alison ashworth.
my relationship with alison ashworth lasted six hours.
the two hours after school and before the rockford files, three days in a row. on the fourth afternoon.
kevin bannister.
it would be nice to think that since i was fourteen, times have changed, relationships have become more sophisticated, females less cruel, skins thicker, but there still seems to be an element of that afternoon in everything that has happened to me since. all my other romantic stories seem to be a scrambled version of that first one.
number two. penny hardwick. penny was great-looking, and her top five recording artists were carly simon, carole king, james taylor, cat stevens, and elton john.
everybody liked her. she was nice. nice manners. nice grades. nice- looking.
she was so nice, in fact, that she wouldn't let me put my hand underneath, or even on top of, her bra.
penny was nice, but i wasn't interested in nice, just breasts, and therefore she was no good to me. and so i was finished with her.
what's the point? it never goes anywhere.
she cried, and i hated her for it, because she made me feel bad. i started dating a girl who everybody said would put out, and penny went with this asshole chris thompson who told me that he had sex with her after something like three dates. how had penny gone from a girl who wouldn't do anything to a girl who would do everything?
my store's right up here. it's called the record exchange. it's carefully placed to attract the bare minimum of window shoppers.
i get by because of the people who make a special effort to shop here on saturday young men, always young men, who spend a disproportionate amount of their time looking for deleted smiths singles and "original not rereleased" underline frank zappa albums.
the fetish properties are not unlike porn. i would feel guilty taking their money if i wasn't, kind of, well, one of them.
'morning, dick.
good weekend?
great.
no, that's okay. really.
yeah, i haven't really absorbed that one.
okay.
what's this?
it's the record we've been listening to and enjoying, barry.
turn it off, barry.
i don't want to hear public enemy right now.
i don't want old sad bastard music either. i just want something i can ignore.
yeah, well it's fucking monday afternoon. you should get out of bed earlier.
what's next?
say it.
how can it be bullshit to state a preference?
since you brought that bullshit tape in.
we'll do it next monday.
hey. didn't you steal that one already?
i'm sick of the sight of this place, to be honest. some days i'm afraid --
i'm afraid i'll go berserk, rip the elvis costello mobile from the ceiling, throw the "country artists male a-k" rack out onto the streets, go off to work in a virgin megastore and never come back --
standing in the doorway of the stock room. he feigns applause.
nice, barry.
you just drove a fucking customer away, barry.
not the point.
i don't want you talking to our customers like that again.
barry, i'm fucking broke! i know we used to fuck with anyone who asked for anything we didn't like, but it's gotta stop.
what did he ever do to you?
it wasn't even his terrible taste. it was his daughter's.
yeah. i'm sorry.  look dick, laura and i broke up. she's gone. and if we ever see barry again maybe you can tell him that.
fine.
i understand, dick.
no. thanks though, dick.
number three in the top five break- ups was charlie nicholson, sophomore year of college. some people never got over 'nam, or the night their band opened for nirvana. i guess i never really got over charlie.
she looked different. dramatic. exotic. she talked a lot, about remarkably interesting things like music, books, film, and politics.
so we didn't have those terrible, strained sentences, that seemed to characterized most of my relationships. and she liked me. she liked me. she liked me.
we went out for two years, and for every single minute i felt as though i was standing on a dangerously narrow ledge. i couldn't get comfortable, couldn't ever stretch out and relax. why would a girl -- no, a woman -- like charlie go out with someone who only a few years ago sewed a foghat patch on his jacket? i felt like all those people who suddenly shaved their heads and said they'd always been punks. i felt like a fraud. and i was depressed by the lack of flamboyance in my wardrobe.
i worried about my abilities as a lover. i was intimidated by the other men in her design department, and became convinced that she was going to leave me for one of them.
she left me for one of them. the dreaded marco.
and i lost it. i lost it all. dignity, faith, fifteen pounds.
any small idea of personal identity that i had acquired up to that point.
i came to three months later, and to my surprise had flunked out of school and started working in a record store.
what i really learned from the charlie debacle is that you gotta punch your weight. charlie was out of my class: too pretty, too smart, too witty, too much. what am i? average. a middleweight. not the smartest guy in the world, but certainly not the dumbest. i've read books like the unbearable lightness of being, angela's ashes, and love in the time of cholera, and understood them, i think -- they're about girls, right? -- just kidding -- but i don't like them very much. my all time top five favorite books are johnny cash's autobiography, snow crash by neil stevenson, zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance, the trouser press guides to rock, and, i don't know, probably something by kurt vonnegut. i look through the new yorker when my neighbor's done with it, and i'm not averse to going down to the fine arts to watch subtitles films, although on the whole i prefer american films. top five being blade runner, cool hand luke, the first two godfathers which we'll count as one, taxi driver, and the shining. i'm okay looking, average height, not skinny, not fat. my genius, if i can call it that, is to combine a whole load of averageness into one compact frame. you might say there were millions like me, but there aren't, really: alot of guys have impeccable music taste but don't read, alot of guys read but are really fat, alot of guys are sympathetic to women but have stupid beards, alot of guys have a woody allen sense of humor but look like woody allen. some drink too much, some drive like assholes, some get into fights, or show off money, or do drugs. i don't do any of these things, really. if i do okay with women it's not because of the virtues i have, but because of the ugly flaws i don't have.  so. charlie and i didn't match. after her i was determined to never get out of my league again.
charlie and i didn't match. marco and charlie matched. me and sarah, number four on the all time break- ups list, matched. she wore more or less the same clothes as mine, had an acceptable working knowledge of music, and she had been dumped by some asshole named michael. he was her moment, charlie was mine. sarah had sworn off men. i had sworn off women. it made sense to pool our loathing of the opposite sex, swear them off together, and get to share a bed with someone at the same time.
we were frightened of being left alone for the rest of our lives. only people of a certain disposition are frightened of being alone for the rest of their lives at twenty- six. we were of that disposition. everything seemed much later than it was.
when she told me that she met someone else it made no sense. her meeting someone else was contrary to the whole spirit of our arrangement. all we really had in common was that we were dumped by people, and that we were against dumping. we were violently anti-dump. so how come i got dumped?
you run the risk of losing anyone who is worth spending time with. but i didn't know that at the time. all i saw was that i'd moved down a division and that it still hadn't worked out, and this seemed cause for a great deal of misery and self- pity. and that's when laura came along.
i'm reorganizing my records tonight. it's something i do in times of emotional distress. when laura was here i had them in alphabetical order, before that, chronologically. tonight, though, i'm trying to put them in the order in which i bought them. that way i can write my own autobiography without picking up a pen. pull them all off the shelves, look for revolver and go from there. i'll be able to see how i got from deep purple to the soft boys in twenty- five moves. what i really like about my new system is that it makes me more complicated than i am. to find anything you have to be me, or at the very least a doctor in rob-ology. if you wanna find landslide by fleetwood mac you have to know that i bought it for someone in the fall of 1983 and then didn't give it to them for personal reasons. but you don't know any of that, do you? you would have to ask me to--
yeah?
hi, mom.
great. super-fantastic.
so so. up and down.
she left. she's gone.
how would i know? gone. girlfriend. leave. not say where gone. laura move out.
she just called. she doesn't even know. it's probably the last time i'll ever hear her voice. that's weird, isn't it? you spend christmas at somebody's house, you know, and you worry about their operations and you see them in their bathrobe, and.  i dunno.
there'll be another mom and another christmas. right?
hello? anybody there?
i'm all right, if that's what's upsetting you.
well it fucking should be, shouldn't it?
i'm going to drink this bottle of wine watch tv and go to bed. then tomorrow i'll get up and go to work.
meet a nice girl and have children. i promise the next time we talk i'll have it all sorted out.
then what are you getting so upset about?
it's got nothing to do with marriage, if that's what you're getting at.
mom! for the last fucking time, i'm telling you laura didn't want to get married! she is not that kind of girl! to use a phrase. that's not what happens now.
shut up, mom.
peter. frampton. that perm! "show me the way"! a phenomenon based on a live album that was actually recorded in a studio! what is happening? i am getting misty, choked up at a song that i had the good sense at twelve to realize was so saccharine and stupid as to be inarticulatable, until michael bolton, that is.
sentimental music makes you nostalgic and hopeful at the same time. marie's the hopeful part. laura's the nostalgia part. these things happen. they happen to men, at any rate. this is why i shouldn't be listening to pop music.
i always hated this song.
but now i kind of like it.
i wanna live with a musician. she'd write songs at home, ask me what she thought of them, maybe even include one of our private jokes in the liner notes.
let's not.
i don't need to go up there right now.
good.
so you live in chicago now?
what did you tell her about the shop for?
rob here.
what's happenin'.
yeah. i just wanted to thank you for that message last night. it made me feel like.  like less of an asshole.
actually, i'm fine. i'm great. last night i got to thinking, "you know what? maybe it is time to move on. maybe we're just not right for each other. or maybe we are. but time will tell and at this point i'm going to be fine with whatever's meant to be." you know?
liz, hold on a second -- what?
liz, can you hold for a second?
i'll be out there! go! hey, liz, i gotta go.  tomorrow night? great. green mill. fine. seven? done. thanks. right. bye.
oh. hi.
no, no, i love, it's just, thinking you're, you must be so sick of it.  well.
what fucking ian guy?!!
-- fuck off!
that's fucking great, barry. we can spend fifteen bucks on a cab to save five each. fantastic, barry!
it's not my car, now is it? it's laura's car, and thus laura has it. so it's an ass-bumping double- transferring bus ride through bumblefuck or a fat wad on a cab. wow. fucking great.
who the fuck is ian?!
laura doesn't know anybody called ian. there's no ian at her office. she has no friends named ian. she has never met anyone called ian in her whole life. although there may have been one in college -- but i am almost certain that since 1989 she has lived in an ian-less universe.
as he looks at it, divining.
"i. raymond." ray. "i." ian.
mr. i raymond. "ray" to his friends, and, more importantly, to his neighbors. the guy who up until about six weeks ago lived upstairs. i knew it was him the moment i saw the letter. i start to remember things now: his stupid clothing, his music -- latin, bulgarian, whatever fucking world music was trendy that week--stupid laugh, awful cooking smells. i can't remember anything good about him at all. i never liked him much then, and i fucking hate him now.  i manage to block out the worst, most painful, most disturbing memory of him until i go to bed.
jeez. he goes on long enough.
you are as abandoned and as noisy as any character in a porn film, laura. you are ian's plaything, responding to his touch with shrieks of orgasmic delight. no woman in the history of the world is having better sex than the sex you are having with ian in my head.
number five -- jackie allen. my break up with jackie allen had no effect on my life whatsoever. i just slotted her in to bump you out of position, laura. yes, you do in fact make it into the top five. welcome. and just to remind you, the list is in chronological order, not in the order of pain and suffering.
that all depends.
record exchange.  how many records.  right, well if you could bring them -- okay, well, where do you live? right.  how about now? i can come right over.  okay.
some lady's got some singles to sell. i'll be back in a half-hour.
hi. you called about the records?
it's the best collection i've ever seen.
these are worth at least, i don't know --
but you must have --
and you must not be getting along too well right now, huh?
it must have taken him a long time to get them together.
look. can i pay you properly? you don't have to tell him what you got. send him forty-five bucks and blow the rest. give it to charity. or something.
look.  i.  i'm sorry. i don't want to be any part of this.
that's why i'm trying to compromise. what about fifteen-hundred? they're worth five times that.
thirteen hundred.
eleven-hundred. that's my lowest offer.
i'm sorry but i think you better talk to someone else.
can i buy this otis redding single off you?
oh, come on! let me give you ten dollars for this, and you can give the rest away for all i care.
how come i end up siding with the bad guy, the man who ran off to jamaica with some nymphette? i just got left for someone else, so why can't i bring myself to feel whatever it is his wife is feeling? all i can see is that guy's face when he gets that pathetic check in the mail for those records, and i can't help but feel desperately, painfully sorry for him.
what's the -- hey, liz --
it's true!
well she --
she's right, of course. i am a fucking asshole. i did and said those things. but before you judge, although you've probably already done so, go off for a minute and write down the top five worst things that you have done to your partner, even if -- especially if -- your partner doesn't know about them. don't dress things up or try to explain them. just write them down in the plainest language possible.
pencils down. okay, so who's the asshole now?
i will now sell four copies of cats and dogs by the royal trux.
it's the royal trux.
i know.
dick, ring the man up.
dick! the door!
okay, fuckos. how much is this deck worth to you, and how many cd's did you rip off? can you do the math?
and what about you, dork?
dick, call the police, please.
eno import. sigue sigue sputnik. break beats. serge gainsbourg. ryuchi sakamoto, syd barrett.  what's going on here? are you guys stealing for other people now?
oh really. you two are slamming to nico now?
i think you have more.
i can't frisk you but the cops can.
jesus. that thing's been in the bargain bin for six months! was it just your criminal nature or what? hell, i would've given it to you for free.
uh, yes i, like, do.  it's simple. you make the tracks -- recording studio -- deliver them to the pressing plant where a master is cut, the master is then dubbed to submasters, which are the "mothers," as their called, for each press in the plant. you press the cd's or records, put in your cover art, and that's it.
fuck off.
what do you mean, "what?"
i'm not snickering. i'm smiling. because i'm happy.
yeah but more than that. i'm happy because i'm proud of us. because although our talents are small and peculiar, we use them to their best advantage.
shit!
hi.
are you coming home?
my house?
first of all: the money. the money is easy to explain: she had it and i didn't, and she wanted to give it to me. if she hadn't, i would have gone under. i've never paid her back because i've never been able to, and just because she's took off and moved in with some supertramp fan doesn't make me five grand richer. so that's the money --
how can you like art garfunkel and marvin gaye? it's like saying you support the israelis and the palestinians.
-- made. made. marvin gaye is dead, his father shot him in --
-- alright, alright but --
hey! marvin gaye! "got to give it up!" that's our song! marvin gaye is responsible for our entire relationship!
but don't you remember?
you used to care more about things like marvin gaye than you do now. when i first met you, and i made you that tape, you loved it. you said -- and i quote -- "it was so good it made you ashamed of your record collection."
so you weren't interested in music at all?
but laura.  that's me. that's all there is to me. there isn't anything else. if you've lost interest in that, you've lost interest in everything.
yes. look at me. look at our -- the apartment. what else do i have, other than records and cds?
not really.
okay, number two: the stuff i told her about being unhappy in the relationship, about half looking around for someone else: she tricked me into saying it. we were having this state of the union type conversation and she said, quite matter-of-factly, that we were pretty unhappy at the moment, and did i agree, and i said yes, and she asked whether i ever thought about meeting someone else. so i asked her if she ever thought about it, and she said of course, so i admitted that i daydream about it from time to time. now i see that what we were really talking about was her and ian, and she suckered me into absolving her. it was a sneaky lawyer's trick, and i fell for it, because she's much smarter than me.
you can take it with you if you want.
don't you think there are more important things to talk about than my record collection?
so. where have you been staying for the last week?
had to work it out for myself, though, didn't i?
good. so. is it my job?
i don't know. it's one of the things i thought of.
just the obvious stuff.
i don't know.
no.
and number three: the pregnancy. i didn't know she was pregnant. of course i didn't. she hadn't told me because i had told her i was.  sort of.  seeing somebody else. we thought we were being very grown-up, but we were being preposterously naive, childish even, to think that one of us could fuck around and then own up to it while we were living together. so -- i didn't find out about it 'til way later. we were going through a good period and i made a crack about having kids and she burst into tears. i made her tell me what it was all about, and she did. i felt guilty and so i got angry. she told me that at the time i didn't look like a very good long- term bet. that it was a hard decision and she didn't see any point in consulting me about it.  when the whole sorry tale comes out in a great big --
what, what?
no. so. is it working out with ian?
why is that childish? your living with the guy! i'm just asking how it's going.
well then why don't you quit it while you seem to not be ahead?
-- when the whole sorry tale comes out in a great big lump like that, even the most shortsighted jerk, even the most self-deluding and self pitying of jilted, wounded lovers can see that there is some cause and effect going on here, that abortions and ian and money and affairs all belong to, all deserve each other.
so, what, you haven't definitely decide to dump me? there's still a chance we'll get back together?
well, if you don't know, there's a chance, right? it's like, if someone was in the hospital and he was seriously ill and the doctor said, i don't know if he's got a chance of survival or not, then that doesn't mean the patient's definitely going to die, now does it? it means he might live. even if it's only a remote possibility.
so we have a chance of getting back together again.
hey, i just want to know where i stand. what chance --
well if you could tell me roughly it would help.
yeah. great.
no problem. if i can ask one question.
it sounds stupid.
you won't like it.
is it better?
well. sex, i guess. is sex with him better?
of course it is.
i don't know.
never?
but not even before, when he was living upstairs?
the sleeping together is better but not the sex because you haven't done it was him yet.
i feel good! i feel great! i feel like a new man. i feel so much better, in fact --
hi, marie.
she just wanted to pick up some stuff. no big thing. a relief, actually.
it's a great song.
is that why you came to chicago in the first place? because of, you know, dividing up your record collection and stuff?
you share a place with t-bone?
i understand completely.
awhile back, dick and barry and i agreed that what really matters is what you like, not what you are like.
what do you mean, the crumblers? you know the crumblers? nobody's heard the crumblers. except me.
books, records, films -- these things matter. call me shallow but it's the damn truth, and by this measure i was having one of the best dates of my life.
yeah, but you know what's his best film and nobody's even seen it?
exactly! fucking ex-actly!
nor have you!
references, titles, lyrics, flew and met each other in mid-air embraces. the evening goes with breathtaking precision.
yes. you?
i'm sure it isn't.
whiskey.
i'd better go. i gotta get up early. go over to my parents'.
oh, right. alright.
i use it but i don't understand it when other people use it.
yeah.
over nine million men in this country have slept with ten or more women. and do they all look like richard gere? are they all as rich as bill gates? charming as oscar wilde? hell no. nothing to do with any of that. maybe fifty or so have one or more of these attributes, but that still leaves.  well, about nine million, give or take fifty. and they're just men. regular guys. we're just guys, because i, even i, am a member of this exclusive, nine million member club. in fact, marie is my seventeenth lover. "how does he do it?" you ask. "he wears bad sweaters, he's grumpy, he's broke, he hangs out with the musical moron twins, and he gets to go to bed with a recording artist who looks like susan dey-slash-meg ryan. what's going on? listen up, because i think i can explain, with all modesty aside: i ask questions. that's it. that's my secret. it works precisely because that isn't how you're supposed to do it, if you listen to the collective male wisdom. there are still enough old-style, big-mouthed, egomaniacs running around to make someone like me appear to be refreshingly different. if you can't hack this simple strategy, there are some women out there, of course, who want to get pushed around, ignored and mowed over, but do you really want to be with them anyway?
would you like me to turn the lights out? or would you like them on?
but in the morning we were just two people, slightly hung-over, who were not in love, sharing the same space. and i feel.
sex is about the only grown-up thing that i know how to do; it's weird, then, that it's the only thing that can make me feel like a ten-year- old.
which way are you going?
that way.
i'll call you.
okay. top five side one track ones. number one.  "janie jones," the clash, from the clash.
"thunder road," bruce springsteen, from born to run. "smells like teen spirit," nirvana, nevermind.
shut up. "let's get it on," marvin gaye, from let's get it on. "airbag," radiohead, from ok computer.
hi.
i'll look for 'em. how you doing?
fine, i'm sure it's in the file at home. i'll call you when i find it, and then we'll talk.
great.  that's great.
there's something different about the sound of her voice.  and what did she mean last night, she hasn't slept with him yet. yet. what does "yet" mean, anyway? "i haven't seen.  evil dead ii yet." what does that mean? it means you're going to go, doesn't it?
-- barry, if i were to say to you i haven't seen evil dead ii yet, what would that mean?
just.  come on, what would it mean to you? that sentence? "i haven't seen evil dead ii yet?"
yeah, yeah, i know. but say i hadn't seen it and i said to you, "i haven't seen evil dead ii yet," what would you think?
no, but would you think, from that one sentence. that i was going to see it?
just listen to me. if i said to you --
would you.  would you get the impression that i wanted to see it?
but in your opinion, would i definitely go?
why would they care?
let's pack it up. we haven't had a customer in four hours.
ha.
how do you know about that?
shut the fuck up, barry.
don't be sad, barry. you'll find true love someday.
terrific.
don't worry about it, dick. barry's an asshole.
why does it bother barry that much that dick is seeing someone? he's worried about how his life is turning out, and he's lonely, and lonely people are the bitterest of them all.
hi. it's me.  i'm right outside.  i know.  i know.  i figured i could just walk you to the train and you could go.  home. or whatever it is.  no! of course not -- okay. i'll be right here.
laura looks different. less stress- out, more in control. something has happened, maybe something real, or maybe something in her head. whatever it is, you can see that she thinks she's started out on some new stage in her life. she hasn't. i'm not going to let her.
have you slept with him yet?
no, not -- i mean have you, you know --
i guess.
i want you to say that you haven't, and i want it to be the truth.
tonight we're gonna figure out the five best angry songs about women. let's go.
you kind of have to start with elvis costello, but where? "motel matches?" "i want you?" "i hope you're happy now?" "green shirt?" his records should be sealed in cases that say "in case of vicious betrayal, smash glass." "where did you sleep last night," sure, but by robert johnson or by nirvana? maybe a liz phair track. there are a couple to get angry at instead of being angry with. some devil's advocate stuff. the silver jews could be good when you're ready to start putting it all behind you.  but i think we're getting ahead of ourselves there. ah. dylan. bob fucking dylan. now bob dylan would --the phone rings. he pulls off his headphones and picks it up but says nothing.
nothing.
look, i gotta go. i work too, you know.
i don't have your number.
you do, huh.
yes, a residence, a mr. ian raymond, north side.  thank you.
you know the worst thing about being rejected? the complete lack of control due to loss of control.
if i could only control the when and how of being dumped by somebody then it wouldn't seem as bad. but then, of course --
-- it wouldn't be rejection, would it? it would be mutual consent. it would be musical differences. i would be pursuing a solo career.
it's me.
i think the big question here is where are you, if you don't mind my saying so, and i think i know where you are. you're running. on the run. you're running from a point that everyone hits in any relationship, and you're just going to hit it again with ian but it's going to be with a world music bunny- rabbit-looking earth-shoe-wearing "doctor who"-watching twit who doesn't really understand you, not the way that i do and will more in the future, and you'll have just wasted more time and arrive in the exact same place that you're in now, only later. and with.  him.
are you still in love with me?
think about what i said. i mean, if you want to experiment, or whatever --
i don't want to. don't need to. i love you.
no.  not really.  i mean, i think about it.  but no, i don't really think about it.
i wish i could be one of those guys who doesn't call, the kind of guy that gets broken up with and appears not to give a shit. he doesn't make an ass out of himself, or frighten anybody, and this week i've done both of those things. one day laura's sorry and guilty, and the next she's scared and angry, and i'm entirely responsible for the transformation, and it doesn't do my case any good at all. i'd stop if i could but i --
do i know you?
you're mrs. ashworth. i'm rob. an old boyfriend of you're daughter's.
alison's.
long time ago. i was just thinking about her. i was her first boyfriend.
rob. rob gordon. circa junior high.
you gotta be kidding me.
really? married kevin? her junior high sweetheart.  what chance would i have had against that? none, no chance. that's just fate.
technically, i'm number one. i went out with her a week before kevin did. her first boyfriend. me.
i think she will. but it's okay if she doesn't. i'm fine now.
and suddenly i am fine. for the moment there is not one extra pound on my chest. this is fate. alison married kevin. you get it? that's fate. that's got nothing to do with me, that is beyond my control, beyond my fault.
i want to see the others on the big top five. penny, who wouldn't let me touch her and then went and had sex with that bastard chris thompson. sarah, my partner in rejection who rejected me, and charlie, who i have to thank for everything: my great job, my sexual self-confidence, the works. there's this springsteen song, "bobby jean," off born in the usa. about a girl who's left town years before and he's pissed off because he didn't know about it, and he wanted to say goodbye, tell her that he missed her, and wish her good luck. well, i'd like my life to be like a springsteen song. just once. i know i'm not born to run, and it's clear that halsted street is nothing like thunder road, but feelings can't be that different, can they? i'd like to call up all those people and ask them how they are and whether they've forgiven me, and tell them that i have forgiven them. and say good luck, goodbye. no hard feelings. and then they'd feel good and i'd feel good. we'd all feel good. i'd feel clean, and calm, and ready to start again. that'd be good. great even.
penny hardwick? this is rob gordon.  from high school.  yeah.
penny is as beautiful as she was in high school when i broke it off with her because she wouldn't sleep with me. in fact she's even more beautiful, and really grown into herself.
she tells me about her life, and i get it. and i tell about mine, and she's interested.
and then, with no real explanation, i just launch into it: i tell her about laura and ian, and charlie and marco, and about alison ashworth and kevin bannister.
and you wanted to sleep with chris thompson instead of me, and.  and i thought you could help me understand why it keeps happening, why i'm doomed to be left, doomed to be rejected and.
so that's another one i don't have to worry about. i should have done this years ago.
check.
sarah's easy to find. she still sends me christmas cards with her address and phone number on them. they never say anything else, except for "merry christmas, love sarah." i send her equally blank ones back.
well.  probably seemed like a good idea at the time.
i haven't got the heart for the rejection conversation. there are no hard feelings here, and i am glad that she ditched me, and not the other way around.
i could've ended up having sex back there. and what better way to exorcize rejection demons than to screw the person who rejected you, right? but you wouldn't be sleeping with a person. you'd be sleeping with a whole sad single-person culture. it'd be like sleeping with talia shire in "rocky" if you weren't rocky.
charlie's in the fucking phone book. she has come to assume such an importance, i feel she should be living on mars. she's an extraterrestrial, a ghost, a myth, not a person with an answering machine, in the phone book.  i call and hang up on her voice mail a couple of times, then i leave my name and number and throw in a "long time-no- see" i don't hear anything back from her for a few days. now that's more like it, if you're talking about rejection: someone who won't even return your phone messages a decade after she rejected you.
can i help you?
what needs sorting out?
funnily enough i haven't been too thrilled about it.
yeah, well, i've stopped all that now.
yeah.
i dunno.
i've already left it, you pathetic rebound fuck! now get your patchouli stink out of my store.
we won't leave it, ian. not ever.
leave town. leave the country, you little bitch, because you're gonna look back on walks by the house and ten phone calls a night as a golden age. get ready, mutherfucker.
i dunno.
hello?
yeah, sure.
yeah. a billion. right.  how are you?
uh. yes, at the moment.
hey charlie.
why did you break up with me for marco?
huh?
c'mon, just answer the question. you can say what you like. what the hell?
did you tell that to marco when he did his what-does-it-all-mean thing with you?
i wanted the works and i got it. none of alison ashworth's fate, none of sarah's rewriting of history, and no reminder that i'd got all the rejection stuff a little backward, like i did about penny. just a perfectly clear explanation of why some people have it and some don't. all i've learned from charlie is that maybe my one talent, my genius for being normal, is a little overrated.
what the fuck is that?
what band?
you are not in a band, barry. you are not a musician. and no posters.
barrytown. barrytown? is there no end to your arrogance?
you can't be called barry and sing in a group called barrytown.
that's why you got the gig, isn't it?
isn't it?
great! that's fucking great! they only asked you to sing because of your name! you can stick it above the browser racks over there.
none. christ!
of course i'm not coming. do i look like i'd want to listen to some terrible experimental racket played in some hideous cave? where is it? the fucking bucktown pub? ha!
bitter? because i'm not in barrytown? you should be shot like a lame horse, you jerk. just keep that out of my window.
is that the last of it?
those look heavy. where's ian?
it was kind of funny.
you still together? going all right?
that bad, eh?
it's a dump, isn't it?
i'll bet you can't remember what you were doing here, can you? i mean, how much are you making now? sixty? seventy? and you were living in this shitty place.
i'm sorry, but can we get this straight? what is his fucking name, ian or ray? what do you call him?
i hate him too. so i just call him "mavis." or "sissyboy." or "mavis the sissyboy."
this is where you're supposed to say that you haven't laughed this much in ages, and then you see the error of your ways.
you know i'm a good person.
you know that i can cook my ass off when i feel like it.
you know my favorite beverage is your bath water.
don't forget your cds.
sure they are.
okay, okay. i get the picture.
i got it. you like sting but you don't like gram parsons, because you've never heard of him.
i guess i am.
fuck.
what's the point in thinking about it? if i ever have another relationship, i'll buy her, whoever she is, stuff that she oughta like but doesn't know about -- that's what new boyfriends are for. and hopefully i won't borrow money from her, or have an affair, and she won't need to have an abortion or run away with the neighborhood, and then there won't be anything to think about. laura didn't run off with ian because i bought her cds she wasn't that keen on, and to pretend otherwise is just.  just.  psychowank. if she thinks that, then she's missing the brazilian rainforest for the twigs. if i can't buy the plastic people of the universe's first album for new girlfriends, then i might as well give up, because i'm not sure i know how to do anything else.
hey, how ya doin'?
guess who i just saw, right by my store? ian. in starbuck's. neat, huh?
god, that's a cold and a half. maybe you should bet back in bed.
are you alright?
don't worry about it. just get into bed. worry about that when you're better.
who the fuck's pig?
laura. her dad died.
you're a horrible person, barry. i mean it.
it was jan, and it was a long time after--
fuck off, barry.
because it's in the big chill.
liar. we saw it in the lawrence kasdan double-bill with body heat.
not really.
record exchange.
no, no. when are you going home?
can i do anything?
me?
do you want me to be there?
yes, of course.
sure. i'll see you on friday.
so the minister says nice things, and then, what, we all troop outside and they bury him?
you're kidding. a crematorium? jesus.
is ray going?
isn't that how it is for everybody?
i hear something in laura's voice, but i know what it is, and at that moment i want to go to her and offer to become a different person, to remove all trace of what is me, as long as she will let me look after her and try to make her feel better.
and when she let's go of me, i feel i don't need to become a different person. it's happened already.
don't mind me. no problem. just pretend you're talking about somebody else.
enough, liz.
i know i can't speak now because laura's father died, and i just have to take it because otherwise i'm a bad guy, with the emphasis on guy, self-centered. well, i'm fucking not, not all the time, anyway, i'm really sorry jo. but you know, liz.  i can either stick up for myself or believe everything you say about me and end up hating myself. and maybe you think i should, but it's not much of a life, you know?
only because it's never the time. i can't go on apologizing my whole life, you know?
i'm sorry.
uh.  no.
mmnn.
i can see why you say that. look, i'm sorry. i really am. the last thing i wanted was.  that's why i left, because.  i lost it, and i didn't want to blow my top in there, and.  look, the reason i fucked everything up was because i was scared. i just wanted you to know, that's all.
what do you mean?
sure, i understand. look, i don't want to take up any more of your time. you get back, and i'll wait here for a bus.
what do you want to do?
when are you going back?
what?
i've only got a couple left. i'm saving them for later.
hi.
you know, with ray.
no, no. it's not.  are you still on the pill?
i didn't mean that. i mean.  was that all you used?
look, we can do other things.
later, i wonder if i was really worried about where ian has been. i have no idea where he's been, and that gives me every right to insist on protection. but in truth, it was the power that interested me more than the fear. i wanted to hurt her, on this day of all days, just because it's the first time since she's left that i've been able to.
laura.
so if you had a bit more energy we'd stay split. but things being how they are, what with you wiped out, you'd like us to get back together.
what about ian?
mission accomplished.
okay.
but wouldn't you know it? suddenly i feel panicky, and sick, and i want to run around and sleep with female recording artists.
c'mon. i want to know.
what it was like.
was it like good sex or was it like bad sex?
you know the difference.
okay, that's cool, okay. but the nice time we just had.  was it nicer, as nice, or less nice than the nice times you were having a couple of weeks ago?
oh, c'mon, laura. just say something. lie, if you want. it'd stop me asking you questions and it'd make me feel better.
well why the fuck would you want to lie, anyway?
oh, great.
okay.
hey, great idea. what i'll do is, tomorrow i'll get a hold of a box full of mint elvis presley 78s on the sub label, and i'll pay for it that way.
fantastic. the girlfriend lottery.
but it wasn't supposed to be like this. when i met you we were the same people and now we're not, and.
well, you were the kind of person who came to the artful dodger and i was the kind of person who deejayed at the artful dodger. you wore jeans and t-shirts, and so did i. and i still do, and you don't.
no, but.
but why doesn't it matter that we're not the same people we used to be?
and hairstyles and clothes and attitude and friends and.
you're tougher.
harder.
i'm alright.
you're being stupid.
no use.
what is this.
who's that?
no way.
your tape. it's good.
it's rough. but it shows promise. we record a couple of songs right, in a studio. i'll take care of the rest. i'll put out your record. any profits after recouping expenses get split down the middle, between us and you guys.
we're not there yet, justin.
whatever.
hey. what's the name of your band?
what?
nice.
broken records. welcome aboard.
what?
so? you even said they're good.
hi.
nothing.
where?
oh. well. we don't really get along. paul and i.
ha.
we're at a point where i can't really walk away from gauntlets she might throw down, and so i go. and wouldn't you know it, i sort of fall in love with paul and miranda -- with what they have, and the way they treat each other, and the way they make me feel as if i'm the new center of their world. i think they're great, and i want to see them twice a week, every week, for the rest of my life. only right at the end of the evening do i realize i've been set up.
oh, i don't know. the beatles are okay.
hey, to each his own, i say.
sure, sure. any time.
you did that deliberately. you knew all along i'd like them. it was a trick.
has drag city records, i know, i know. you told dan koretzky about this?
what?
and the "triumphant return of dj rob gordon?" "triumphant?" "return?"
you had no right. supposing i was doing something that couldn't be cancelled?
that's not the point. i mean, what if the single isn't done in time?
barry? barry knows about this?
like fuck you are.
i'll give you 10% of the door if you don't play.
what is she doing? okay, 20%.
110%. that's my final offer. i'm not kidding. that's how much it means to me not to hear you play.
you couldn't be. look, barry. there's going to be people from laura's work there, people who own dogs and babies and tina turner albums. how are you going to cope with them?
sonic death monkey.
barry, you're over thirty years old. you owe it to yourself and your friends and to your parents not to sing in a group called sonic death monkey.
you'll be going over the fucking edge if you come anywhere near me next friday night.
it's no joke. i'm responsible for what happens, you know. embarrassment aside, there's a lot of money and effort in this, at least by my standards. i have to put down a deposit for the room. i have to pay the pressing plant for the records, sleeve them, sticker them --
i suddenly feel choked up. it's not the money, it's the way she's thought of everything: one morning i woke up to find her going through my records, pulling out things that she remembered me playing when i deejayed and putting them into the little carrying cases that i used to use and put away in a closet somewhere years ago. she knew i needed a kick in the ass. she also knew how happy i was when i used to deejay. from which every angle i examine it, it still looks as though she's done all of this because she loves me.
i'm sorry i've been acting like a jerk. i do appreciate what you've done for me, and i know you've done it for the best possible reasons, and i do love you, even though i act like i don't.
i know. i don't get it.
but if i had to take a wild guess, i'd say that i'm pissed because i know i'm stuck with laura, bound to her, and i don't like it. that dreamy anticipation you have when you're fifteen or twenty or thirty even, that the most perfect person in the world might walk into your store or office or friend's party at any moment.  that's all gone, i think, and that's enough to piss anybody off. laura is who i am now, and it's no good pretending otherwise.
may i help you?
uh. that's me.
right. why?
oh. okay.
huh. you used to come to the club? i shouldn't have let you in. you must have only been about sixteen.
what i mean is, i didn't mean you look young. you don't. you don't look old either. you look just as old as you are. a bit younger maybe, but not a lot. not much. just right.
yeah. i could show it to you if you want to come over and see it.
pardon me?
oh boy.  in the club, or at home?
of course.  well yeah, a bit. "sin city" by the flying burrito brothers is an all-time top five, but i wouldn't play it at the club. it's a country-rock ballad. everybody'd go home.
what do you mean, four more?
can i go home and work this out and let you know? in a week or so?
oh, i'm sure i can manage something.  "sin city." "new rose," by the damned. "hit it and quit it" by funkadelic. "shipbuilding," elvis costello, japanese import, no horns, or different horns, anyway.  um.  "mystery train" by elvis presley.  and.  "spaced cowboy" by sly and the family stone. a bit controversial, i know, but.
is that it?
sure, but is that it for the list?
well it was a friend's idea, really, and the record release party seemed like a good place to do it. so.  i should really put a james brown in there --
yeah.
who? oh. my friend. my friend is laura. a girl. a friend who's a girl.
look, i'm sorry about this, but i'd like "the upsetter" by lee "scratch" perry, in there. instead of "sin city."
oh, you know.  a lot of people aren't too old for clubs but they're too old for acid jazz and garage and ambient and all that. they want to hear old funk and stax and new wave and old school hip hop and some new stuff all together and there's nowhere for them.
oh, well, the kinky wizards are -- you know what? why don't i just make you a tape?
haha. right. it's no problem. i love making tapes.
a good compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do and takes ages longer than it might seem. you gotta kick off with a killer, to hold the attention. then you have to take it up a notch, but not blow your wad, so maybe cool it off a notch, and you can't put the same artist twice on the tape, except if some subtle point or lesson or theme involved, and even then not the two of them in a row, and you can't woo somebody with joni mitchell's "big yellow taxi" and then bash their head off with something like gbh's "city baby attacked by rats," and.  oh, there are a lot of rules. anyway, i worked hard at this one.
this? oh, just that woman who interviewed me for the reader. carol? caroline? something like that.
hi, caroline.  oh, it's rob. yeah, listen, i have a new list for you and -- oh. yes. of course.  well maybe next week they could print a, uh, retraction. or a correction. because the list i have now it really much more -- right. okay. anyway, i have your tape. that's right. shall i mail it to you? or.  would you like to have a drink?
how are you not going to fall for someone who wants to interview you? now caroline is all i can think about. and in the daydreams i imagine every detail, the entire story of our future relationship, until suddenly i realize that there's nothing left to actually, like, happen. i've done it all, lived through it all in my head. i know the whole plot, the ending, and the good parts. now i'd have to watch it all over again in real time, and where's the fun in that? and fucking--when is it all going to stop? am i going to jump from rock to rock for the rest of my life until there aren't any rocks left? am i going to bolt every time i get itchy feet? because i get them about once a quarter, along with the store's tax bill. i've been thinking with my guts since i was fourteen years old and, frankly speaking, i've come to the conclusion that my guts have shit for brains. you know what's wrong with laura, what my problem is? what's wrong with laura is that i'll never see her for the first or second or third time. that's all. fuck it. i'll probably mail the tape. probably.
not really.
i'm going to talk to you.
i'm going to talk to you about whether you want to get married or not. to me.
i mean it.
oh, well thanks a fucking bunch.
not in love, exactly, but.
would you marry me if i was?
right. okay, then. shall we go?
i don't know.
are you persuadable?
fair enough.
i'm just sick of thinking about it all the time.
this stuff. love and marriage. i want to think about something else.
shut up. i'm only trying to explain.
i dunno. didn't think about it, really. it was the asking that was the important thing.
uh, thanks for uh, coming out tonight. i hope you have a good time. and i hope you like the record. the one by the kinky wizards. the record that we're having this record release party for. thanks. listen to it first, though. okay. we'll get to that later. right now, i'd like to introduce.  sonic death monkey.
i'm an idiot. i should have played the record first. this place is about to get burned down.