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

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