FEELING NOSTALGIA'S PULL

I've been there, I know the way

Tonight, I will relive a very special time in my life that changed pretty much everything for me: college.

Actor Michael Shannon has joined forces with Jason Narducy, Jon Wurster, and others to form the ultimate tribute band. They’re performing R.E.M.’s entire “Fables of the Reconstruction” album and other songs in Portland tonight at one of my favorite venues. My head is full of a billion different mental images connected to this band, that album, that time, that town.

I’ve seen R.E.M. live 10 times (more than Foo Fighters, tied with Squeeze) at various venues, from the Fox Theatre in Atlanta to arenas to the 40 Watt Club in Athens in January 1992. That show in particular was legendary AND it’s all on this grainy video and I’m in the front with the Wasband right behind me. Athens is R.E.M.’s hometown. My love for them goes back to 1983 when I first heard Wolves, Lower” on WLIR, which I could only get on the clock radio in my New Jersey bedroom.

I have so many memories connected to R.EM. that it only takes a note or two of any of their songs to immediately transport me back to my years in Athens, especially the albums that were released while I was living there, particularly “Automatic For the People.” No song invokes Athens for me more than “Nightswimming” and it always hits me in the feels in the best way.

I feel a lot of things when I think about the years I spent at the University of Georgia in Athens after my family moved from New Jersey to Atlanta in 1989. I had to transfer from Emerson College in Boston to UGA, and the culture shock for me was a big one. I’ve written about some of my experiences there, but I’ve always thought it should be a book someday.

You want to talk about a fish out of water?

Reader, she was a Great White Shark.

I didn’t want to leave Boston, but knowing I’d be living in the same town as my current favorite band made the move hurt a bit less. Adapting to the South was a whole other thing.

When I arrived in Athens, the vibe around town was to leave the band members alone if you spotted them around town. So when I spotted Mike Mills at Wuxtry Records, all I did was smile. When I walked past Bill Berry in front of R.E.M.’s office downtown, all I did was smile. When Michael Stipe showed up at the UGA drama department to see a play that our mutual friend was in, all I did was smile. And I have no idea how many times my roommate, Becky, and I drove past Peter Buck’s gothic mansion after we closed down The Georgia Bar, hoping there would be a party going on that we could crash (never once).

“Fables of the Reconstruction” came out years before I moved to Athens, but I started listening to it more after I moved there. It just sounded like the town felt as I tried to make it feel like home.

The opening notes of “Feeling Gravity’s Pull” immediately call up memories of heading down the Atlanta Highway (which was immortalized by The B-52’s in “Love Shack”). “Driver 8” is lazy Sundays, breakfast at The Grit or The Downstairs. “Green Grow the Rushes” is my apartment on College Station, running out to grab a bite at the Taco Stand.

When I met my now ex-husband (aka the Wasband) in 1991, I started making the 90-minute drive between Athens and Augusta, where he was going to medical school, nearly every weekend. On one such drive, I popped in my Fables cassette and began the usual commute. And in a moment of musical kismet, “Can’t Get There From Here” was playing just as I hit the town of Philomath. Yes, it’s a real place! I can’t even tell you how much that pleased me, even if maybe only one or two people in my life at the time would’ve gotten it.

I’ll be thinking about all of this and so much more tonight at Revolution Hall when Jason Narducy, Jon Wurster, and Michael Shannon play this entire album and other R.E.M. songs. If that isn’t cool enough, my friends Ned Failing & Allen Hunter are backing opener Dave Hill. How lucky am I to have all of this awesome as a break from the current garbage fire?

I’m still mulling the idea of how to spin my college stories into a book. It most likely should be a memoir, because in this case, the truth is stranger than any fiction I could whip up. I’m toying with calling it DEN OF SIN, because that’s what I called the Drama Department from the beginning.

But first, we have to make The Sound of Settling a thing, so that we can make the follow-up a thing, and then I can write the college book. February has been a sluggish sales month thanks to the raging Trumpmusk fuckery of a garbage fire of abnormalities, but I contend that we’re all allowed to take breaks from it. If you can’t get out to see a band tonight, READ ABOUT ONE while also boosting your struggling writer friend Tara. Hey look, it’s another satisfied reader!'

BE LIKE JEANETTE, everyone! We’re up to 1019 copies sold and I’m still trying to get an agent, so please buy/boost my beloved book.

I’ll leave you with the tiniest smidgen of politics, but only because it’ll make you laugh. I'm fortunate to be part of a semi-regular rotation of political voices who join Dean Obeidallah on his SIRIUS XM show for his Friday segment, “What Just Happened?”

It’s a look back at specific issues of the week delivered with sass as well as the truth, an excellent combination. This week, the legendary Lizz Winstead was part of the panel along with “Comedy Daddy” Keith Price. I feel so lucky to have this kind of outlet for all of the truthful things right now, and there are more opportunities on the way.

Have a weekend, everyone!