B O N D P H O N E.
Words and pictures by Chris Lamb.

This site's address - www.anodyne.blogspot.com - is a bit misleading; this isn't a magazine at all. You can blame the lazy persistence of abandoned blogs for the misnomer, as if it weren't for this woman I would have gone with the slightly less awkward anodyne.blogspot.com. But no, for future generations will need an account of a month in the life of some anonymous soul carrying on an ill-advised affair with her now married ex, sprinkled with poignant and all-too-telling song lyrics from Creed, N'Sync, and Enrico Iglesias. This is the sort of thing that will survive after the bombs drop, you know. When future generations attempt to piece together a picture of our troubled times, there will still be the question of whether or not these two had sex within fifteen minutes of entering the hotel room, an unsolvable riddle echoing through time to plague and divide their historians.

But I'm losing the point, which is this: Anodyne isn't a magazine.

What I've been working on instead of posting actual content here. More later, when there's not deadly Belgian beer to be consumed.

posted by chris  # 12:21 AM 0 comments

posted by chris  # 2:38 AM 0 comments

[Sitting outside of Will's apartment building, drinking beer]

ME: So I met this g-

PATRICK: I heard.

posted by chris  # 12:30 AM 1 comments

After-midnight topics, in order of conversation drift: the Girl in LA, cleaning the apartment, nails without a hammer, hammering piglets, and finally, "Flood," from They Might Be Giants.

"Flood" is fifteen years old.

I was thirteen? Fourteen? Stupid-young and awkward, the kid always at the church recreation center where his mom taught aerobics because there was nothing better to do and nobody calling me out to do it. Renee—and if there's a better name for a summer crush five years removed from your nonexistent league, it wouldn't come until the '96 Olympics brought Rose from Florida for long walks around the gymnasium track—gave me the tape after her roommate, a "nice but weird" girl packed up suddenly and left for Minnesota. She thought it was the sort of thing I would like. I have to wonder if she knew what she was doing, handing over a one-way ticket of outsider anthems to the one kid in youth group without a single Hilfiger flag in his closet. I don't, actually, but still.

'Istanbul,' obviously, and 'Particle Man.' I knew them from Dad some how as vague impressions and half-remembered lyrics, and then more clearly when they sneak-attacked the after school crowd via Tiny Tunes. What next? 'Twistin,' probably, as it's the most straight-forward and I had no taste for anything but the most harmless music to speak of. Then 'We Want to Rock,' 'Lucky Ball and Chain,' and 'Racist Friend,' in that order; joke songs until they weren't. Then 'Dead' went from sort of whiny to being played over and over through shitty, smuggled headphones in my bedroom in the middle of the night and I was lost.

Three years of thinking that was their only output until finding and buying "Then: The Early Years" because I wanted to know what a song called 'They'll Need a Crane' sounded like. Later, making out with Michelle, stopping and staring at the speakers, feeling heartbroken and knowing it was over the song. Just shy of half my life dominated by stiff, anti-social nerds from Brooklyn who once got me to ring up over a hundred dollars in long distance fees just to hear their answering machine.

2:38 A.M. and on listen number three, so burned in to my brain I'll still be hearing it when I'm deaf and dumb and dead, just a bag of groceries on the shelf.

posted by chris  # 2:04 AM 0 comments

Springtime in Manhattan, day two. I'm working at Alt Coffee on Avenue A and trawling Bowery for something full-time and during the week. It's hard to focus in a lamp store. It's hard to trust grandfatherly old Italian men when they remind you of your grandfather. More later, once I sift through my headful of noise for bits that might actually lead somewhere.

Pictured above: Roommate Patrick, rested and ready for action after a long, cold winter.

posted by chris  # 7:00 PM 0 comments