UPDATE: This post has been re-uploaded 08/09/2013 Enjoy, NØ
Although I've lived permanently in California since Orwellian 1984, I've been bi-coastal since the Summer of Love, dividing my time between Cali & Pennsylvania, where I grew up & graduated high school...northwestern Pennsylvania to be more exact, not far from the Ohio & New York state lines.
Now, when I was coming of age, New York had 18 drinking age & Ohio had legal fireworks of the unsafe & insane variety. These facts precipitated many a back-roads adventure throughout the beautiful desolation of rural Amerika. Once musick became the driving force in my life, many Ohio sojourns revolved around live shows in Cleveland, the nearest metropolis to this country hick's native soil. Rocket From The Tombs & Pere Ubu were essential fodder for my twisted cerebrum.
The last time I was back in that neck of the woods was when my mother was dying. She had a failing heart & late stage dementia. I went back to be with her at the end. It was a trying experience to say the least. I had stayed with my father when he was dying from liver cancer. It was a dignified & spiritual time. The time of my mother's dying was anything but...there were times when I was a complete stranger to her. I don't really do funerals & would much rather endure the final days & hours of a person's life than the phony emotions of funerary folly. When my mother would be sleeping or otherwise occupied, I would drive through the countryside to clear my head...smoke some righteous bud & crank up the Father Ubu.
Here are some pictures that I took that go with this song...
"I wear a suit
& honey, I wear a tie...yeah-yeah-yeah.
I'm gonna look good
each & every day I say goodbye."
"I love that highway, US 322...yeah-yeah-yeah,
yeah... yeah..."
"Six miles south of Meadville,"
"all bare cinder-blocks,
sitting there is Moose Lodge 2505.
& outside there's a sign that says,"
" 'Good Cod Dinner, Fridays, $5.95'
'Good Steak-eye Dinner, Saturdays, $5.95'
& it says, 'Welcome'."
"You are welcome..."
"...to the crazy green
of the midsummer nowhere...yeah-yeah-yeah.
Mr In-Between is showing up fair,
four-square."
"I love that highway, US 322...yeah-yeah-yeah,
yeah... yeah..."
"& I saw stars in strange constellations,
trapped inside the blackness of never-ending night,
seen thru the pearly luminescence of shatterproof glass,
framed by the wrong side of green velour
& maybe it felt like home.
Maybe for just a little while."
"I love that road,
I love the way it yields to me.
It sorta breathes & whispers out my name...
...that's how it feels.
I love that highway, US 322...yeah-yeah-yeah,
yeah."
Writers: Herman - Mehlman - Temple - Thomas - Wheeler.
from
St. Arkansas
Enjoy,
NØ