XVI. "The Divorce and the Sweetness, Sit me Down"
On August 11, 2005, I came home from work at an advertising firm. It was approximately 7:37 when I got out of the subway and walked 0.5 miles to find oh my god to find my father at my apartment.
What? I thought you were coming tomorrow?
A phone message of my mother losing her luggage at the airport and about to get in line to get a cab.
In the mailbox was a burned copy of the new record by Seattle band The Divorce.
Sit me down oh sweetness sit me down oh sweetness sit me down with Joe DiMaggio
Sitting down trying to write a column about the blues about roots music about why I've suddenly been listening to nothing but the Allman Brothers but Eric Clapton.
Sit me down oh sweetness sit me down
Sit me down oh sweetness sit me down
Sit me down oh sweetness
Oh pretty Dimaggio's weakness
Sit me down oh sweet Marilyn Monroe
"It's sort of like a blues song," I explained to my father, while my garage sale copy of Simon and Garfunkel in Central Park played "Mrs. Robinson" in the background.
He watches me write he watches me type on a Mac on a computer he doesn't like but bought for me as a present a year ago anyways. I love my computer and he knows it and that's what love is between a father and son I guess. Knowing the love of the other one.
"There's a bunch of your mail I picked up on your table there, Joe" my dad says while I type. I look.
"I think one of them has a CD or something in it."
Opening, excitement, ripped paper scraps like scabs of manila on the floor. New Divorce record is in the CD player (only 19.95 at Best Buy, get yours fast!) and I am sitting down — oh sweetness! — cross-legged like the bottom of a totem pole in front of a CD player on the floor in front of a window.
"SHHH!" at my dad.
You get a new record, certain new records, you can get new ones and they are like pacifiers like suckers at the dentist like some sort of fantastic, magical drug that turns the ordinary to the fantastic magic. Fantastic magic, that's what getting the new Divorce record is when you are sitting hot and tired. Sweetness sits you down.
Sit me down oh sweetness, sit me the fuck right down and play some Seattle rock.
Magic all weekend in my ears like water like infection.