HA-HA by Mates of States

The Mates of States concert transpired at the canopy club in Champaign in late autumn of that year and Joe and I would keep going outside in his Mazda to get high and then come back in and play pool and drink and wait for the concert to begin. Joe had introduced me to Mates of States three summers earlier while we were driving through the neon spines of corn abutting the highways of central Iowa searching for Dave Thompson in Des Moines, Joe placing a downloaded copy of OUR CONSTANT CONCERN into the gaping jaws of the CD player belting out the rhetorical chorus of "I know, And said forget it, " answering the clanging semi-nasal query of "Who's gonna start the wave," Joe raising his hand next to me as if in class answering the bands rhetorical keen of "I will start the wave!!!!" as the clamor of keyboard and drums continued to do nuptial battle as we drove on, smoking, laughing, stopping in Iowa City, heading out west, loosing ourselves in the vibrato and vortex of high pitched almost circus like chords.

Joe and I would later see them in concert six months later at the Metro in Chicago. It was late January and cold and we ran down the frost coated avenue of Clark st in Wriglyville wearing just our club gear since we knew we'd lose our coats if we brought them inside the bar with us. We drank Goose island and danced with beautiful anemic gypsy haired girls from the North Shore as the States broke into their picaresque melodies of loss sounding as if they were lodged inside a pinball machine with a couple violently questioning their nuptial vows as their voices echoed ill-timed cymbals in a commitment ceremony.

Now in Champaign, they were the main act and they took the stage, a duet of one, a yin-yang carousel of consciousness, the soprano and tenor of genitals welded into androgynous chorus, the pangs of love and the endearing rhythm of all time.

After all, this is the blood that we're made from, so go on and tell it like a chronicle.

"See you sometime" by Joni Mitchell

There is something about the way the chords tumble into place at the beginning of this song. A sunken arpeggio of the chest--the pulsating bellows of the heart, the heart seeking, buoyed in a melodic quagmire of panting tumult, the heart that seethes and gets pissed on and used as an ersatz ashtray by lovers who have other lovers who have other lovers. The heart that refuses to capitulate to the corona of sadness it wears for its crown. The body that seeks the cradle of her limbs and the fountain of her lips for nourishment, the sounds of Joni Mitchell treacling through his nervous system like a creek in Alberta, fresh air of her body, the tangibility of nature. The seeker. The wayfarer. The lover. The fuck-up. The fool. The romantic fraud guise in a sheath of post adolescent flesh. The dreamer. The writer. The all.








But the opening of the song. The melody giving birth in a sunrise staccato clang of piano keys each chimed in a strike of dissonance usurped gradation ascending the ivory topography of the keyboard in wrenching octaves and syncopated broken stain glass yelps only to be followed by a minor key-change, the ineffable slip of something shattered and lost that will never perhaps be returned.


The confusion of that autumn. Allison driving around grandview drive in the expensive car her parents bought her, stopping when we found an abandoned puppy, drifting along the elevated banks of the Illinois River amongst the opulent seven-figure castles of Grand view Drive.

The heart in autumn, golden winked-carousel of 1997. The bouquet of flowers forming a corral reef in front of Buckingham palace. The embalmed body of Princess Di lying supine, glassed eyes and deceased. The autumn where the lucidity of stars crashed overhead like a dilapidated chandelier. I remember making (strong as fuck) coffee in a french press and then listening to this song. I was trying to write a novel. I was lost. I had just been promoted to a supervisor at the book store where I worked. I was dropping classes at the community college I was attending because all I wanted to do was write. I lugged a copy of Infinite Jest around with me everywhere I went like a post-modern shield. The autumn of William James and of Wittgenstein. The autumn that all I wanted was a letter, anticipating gnawing open the rusty jaw of my mailbox hoping to find her smile smudged in the right hand corner in a digital area code, a place I left a long time ago.

I (borrowed) stole this album from my friend Damien. We drove around pretending to be Neal cassidy and Sal Paradise, listening to jazz. We spent nights in downtown chicago at the Jazz Showcase, listening to david Sanchez. Earlier in the day we stopped at AFTERWARDS and I bought William Gaddiss' THE Recognitions and Thomas Pynchons VINELAND. When I told the sales clerk how much I loved David Foster Wallace he just scowled and said that Wallace was too verbose for him and that I should spend my time reading John Steinbeck instead.

It is a song of yearning. A song of missing that time. Of wondering when you get that time back in your life. That time when each cigarette you smoked made you feel tha you where somehow artistic.
A song of wandering. A song that makes you contemplate once again when you think about that girl you lost oh-so many years ago in autumn wondering if ever you will perhaps see her once again.