Cryptic Tailgate of the Mourners

Metal fatigue is a euphemism. The same vibrations express sympathy or illness depending on their target. At night the broken glass looks like a field of stars. Seen from the towers, the tail lights of a car cruising for prostitutes can spell out short words, like L-U-V.

- Notes, actually the first "fiction," for track 1 of Jon Hassell's 1990 LP, City: Works of Fiction   

The name for today reminded me of this passage from almost 35 years ago.  I had been a big fan of Hassell's ever since I heard his Fourth World, Vol. 1: Possible Musics with Brian Eno back in 1980. In Boston, I used to listen to Possible Musics with girlfriend Mary Ellen in our Comm Ave. apartment. I put the record on one afternoon while we were smoking marijuana in the living room with our friends Rich and Annie, The conversation trailed off and we all sat in silence, lost together in the music, until Annie realized that for some reason a rash had broken out all over the neck and arms. Weird. 

A decade later, I still loved Hassell's sound. I was living in Pittsburgh in 1993, and copied the passage above in a fax to a co-worker in Albany, N.Y. This was just before the widespread availability of email.  I had to send him some reports, data, and other work documents, and my options then were U.S. mail, Federal Express, or fax.  I chose the latter, and copied Hassell's short fiction to make the transmittal cover interesting. I think there might have been a cartoon or something, too. Dressing up my cover sheets with odd marginalia was kind of my "thing" back in the early 90s. This was still the age of fanzines and photocopy art.

Anyway, an administrative assistant intercepted the fax - lifted it off the machine and instead of taking it to the co-worker, reported me to Human Resources for sending "inappropriate" interoffice messages about prostitution. She claimed she felt sexually harassed by having to read my text. I protested that it wasn't addressed to her to read, and besides, the content and tone of the fiction was far from harassing. Still, I got reprimanded, but I could tell my supervisor's heart wasn't into it. He knew the complaint was lame bullshit, but he had to follow through and do what Human Resources had decreed.

A year later, I transferred (voluntarily) out of the Pittsburgh office and back to Atlanta, and away from that toxic administrative assistant and lame supervisor.

Old men have a million stories, and every comment heard and passage read dredges up a million memories.