Mapping Robert Pollard’s Brain

Havent Got A Stitch To Wear

atop her woven basket and her two pairs of cutting shears, along a 5,000 year old wall of built of uneven stones with wild yellow primrose peeking out from the layered shale, a ladybug rambled

And this is for when you feel lucky

a fancy for starling

Prior to getting here, when my bus driver had dropped me off in Cork, in the strongest Irish accent, he very kindly had directed me how to locate my bus to Carrigaline. 

While walking, I saw people of different ages and backgrounds, scantily clad and seductively dressed as well as stately and prim, the latter was a statuesque woman who I’d asked if she knew where Carrigaline was.

She was headed there as well so we spoke for a little while.

I had said to her that I’d just left Dublin and to my surprise, I saw fluffy white sheep peacefully grazing in a meadow (in a measure of probabilities, the likelihood of one seeing that in California was a probability of zero). 

When she had said that, “Camilla was visiting here today.”

I hadn’t any idea who Princess Camilla was and I explained to this woman with the fairest complexion and dark hair wearing a long tan wool coat and pressed slacks that my only knowledge of the British monarchy was from watching the Crown.

song from London

the hurting kind (a song for lee)

She took me to gather sorrel along a 5,000 year old stone wall.

Along that chilly road, she pointed to the shimmering reflection of light upon the waves.

She said something to this effect, “That’s the sun walking on the water.” 

I’d said to her that it looked like these were wise old walls. 

In the distance, ahead of her beloved car which she’d referred to as “She,” I could see a woman steadily jogging like a thoroughbred.

Without affectation, but wielding a bewitching expression like the inescapable draw of a calm blue sky, she’d matter of factly replied, “That’s my cousin.” 

I’ll have yet to try the nettle she gathered.

Perhaps tonight in a teacup of searing water I’ll steep the nettle she’d imparted me as I was leaving her home. 

One must mind himself as the nettle can sting.

 “Seven for a secret never to be told…” indeed.

this is not a victory march

She was lovely.

I wasn’t able to handle my shyness with her smiling, her delicate tousling of her dark brown hair as she tilted her head, or her piercing eye contact (these Irish women are very different than people at home). 

I thanked her and boarded our bus to Carrigaline.

shes just like a dream

To the doubts that complicate your mind

Mats off to you

“It’s a disturbing story. The origins of the band, for one thing, are disturbing. Bob Stinson got out of state care for delinquent children and moved back home with his mom. He knew some guitar licks and wanted to start a band, so he forced his half-brother Tommy Stinson, still a child, to play bass. Bob was a mess, in large part because his stepfather—Tommy’s dad—sexually abused him, with no one else knowing but his sister, who suffered the same abuse. According to Chris Mars, the neighborhood kid they recruited to play drums, Bob would punch Tommy in the face when he made mistakes. Somehow this forced labor in the family basement made for a rock band so good that a janitor walking past the Stinson family home would crawl into the bushes to listen to their rehearsals through a basement window well.

Paul Westerberg was that meandering janitor. He crashed the Stinson basement, joined the band, deceived another singer so he wouldn’t join, and took over. Chris Mars, who had been writing songs for the band, would no longer have his songs played. Bob Stinson, who formed the band (as “Dog Breath”), would eventually be forced to leave it. Mars would be the next to go, after being castigated for his failure to learn the drum machine parts that Westerberg began to program for his home demos. Yet before Westerberg drove them away, they would make a series of remarkable rock ‘n’ roll records that merit this serious, unsentimental investigation into how it happened and what it meant and what it cost.”

https://youtu.be/-NBfCgW-qMw

pageantry for bob stinson

all about the girl who came to stay

Po Win is an American musician from Long Beach. Aside from his live performances, for songs with multiple instruments he used a Tascam digital four track recorder (DP004). James Trace mixed numerous of those home demos.

To the doubts that complicate your mind

Po Win

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