I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: THE BOOKMEN-“Huggin’ at My Pillow” (Moose: The Compilation, 1991).

Back in the 1990s, it was common to buy a compilation or soundtrack or even a band’s album based on one song.  Only to then find that you didn’t really like anything else on it.

Maybe that single sounded like nothing else on the album.  Maybe the movie was almost entirely one genre, but they had that one song that you liked over the credits.  Or maybe the compilation was for something you didn’t know, but a song you really wanted was on it, too.

With streaming music that need not happen anymore.  Except in this case.

I bought this compilation, used, recently exclusively for one song, Rheostatics’ “Woodstuck.”  It’s a goofy song and this is the only place you can get the studio version.  The actual compilation was not well documented, so I didn’t know what the other bands on it might sound like.  It turns out to be a compilation for Ontario based Moose Records which specialized in Rock, Folk, World & Country.  They put out another compilation in 1992 and that’s all I can find out about them.

The Bookmen were the creation of legendary Toronto musician and independent music promoter Dave Bookman.  This is a fun bluesy stomper that sounds like a song of lost love, although the final line of the chorus might reveal the truth:

I’m huggin at my pillow but it’s just not the same
My pillow don’t know the score of the Blue Jays game.

I really enjoyed this song, so it’s no surprise to see that the rest of the band consists of Tim Mech, guitar tech for Rheostatics, Tim Vesely bassist for Rheostatics, and Dave Clark drummer for Rheostatics.  Shame I can’t find a copy of their only release Volume One: Delicatessen.

[READ: July 20, 2019] “The Love of My Life”

I have really enjoyed the more recent stories from T.C. Boyle.  I haven’t read one of his older stories in quite some time, so I don’t remember if this story is representative or not, but holy crap was this story dark.

And yet it started so sweetly.

It is the story of two high school students, Jeremy and China who are madly in love.  That spring break, they were planning on going camping–a lovely five day stretch of gorgeous weather and solitude.  The first couple of days were wonderful–they didn’t even bother putting clothes on.

They were ever so much in love. He even practiced his AP Spanish on her: Tu eres el amor de mi vida.  She tried to reply but she was taking French.

They were also excellent students–he was heading to Brown (his father’s alma mater) and she was almost but not quite the class salutatorian.

The third day of camping it rained like crazy, but they huddled together for warmth and sex.  It was wonderful.

They were always careful: “I will never never be like those breeders that bring their puffed-up squalling little red-faced babies to class.”  But on this trip she had forgotten her pills and he only had two condoms.

So you know what happens.

The twist is the way she deals with it.  She doesn’t want anyone to know–no parents, not even doctors.  So she never goes to get check ups.  Neither one of them wants to have the baby but she doesn’t even want to get an abortion because she doesn’t want anyone to know anything about it.

And so nine months go by–she tries to hide it as best she can and he stews and grows angrier with her.  By the time the nine months are over, they are almost outwardly hostile to each other.

So when they meet in a motel midway between Binghamton and Providence on the icy night that her water breaks, he is put in place to deliver the baby (after looking up information on the internet).

During the hours of labor, she keeps calling the baby “it.”  “Get it out of me. It’s like that thing in Alien.”  Finally, when she has given birth, her only words are “Just get rid of it.”

The rest of the story just gets darker and darker–it is not for the faint of heart.