Unstrung: Rants and Stories of a Noise Guitarist by Marc Ribot

Author:Marc Ribot [Ribot, Marc]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781617759307
Google: kj72zQEACAAJ
Publisher: Akashic Books
Published: 2021-08-03T23:39:15.940519+00:00

O Say Can You See

American life is lonely.

I call you sometimes, when I’m off the road.

We have coffee near your stop on the N train.

The trains are slower now.

Most often, I don’t call.

In our fantasies, we’re the Honeymooners, or Seinfeld, or the cast of Cheers or some other sitcom—always wandering into each other’s private spaces unannounced.

“America Mourns M*A*S*H,” the headlines read. “Psychotherapists on Call for End of TV Dynasty.”

Even Alan Alda cried a little.

* * *

We found more time when the kids were little to go to the park, or the bowling alley.

Now we’re busy. I’m writing a million e-mails while supposedly working on my solo album. You’re … what is it that you do when you’re alone?

In M*A*S*H, everyone knew what everyone did. Thin tent walls and public mess halls left every human foible exposed to Alda’s venomous sneer.

It was funny.

They were there to fight the Communists.

Communists had the nerve to choose such living situations “voluntarily.”

Communism equals war minus death. No dignity. No privacy.

“They were like a family to me,” said the weeping woman in the Daily News.

* * *

In Rome, the film score recording sessions began at ten a.m., and ended promptly at seven. A huge Rube Goldberg device attached to the projector carried the celluloid film through whatever pathways the length of the looped scene demanded, at precisely twenty-four frames a second.

The studio was grand, paneled in some kind of blond wood, big enough to accommodate an orchestra. Sometimes, channels at the edge of the board crackled with neglect, but it was no problem: there were other channels.

Sometimes Benigni stopped by to see how we were doing.

At one p.m., we did as the Romans and broke two hours for a three-course lunch: antipasto, primo, secondi, dolce, café.

This was not what we were used to in the NYC bunkers where indie musicians score indie films by the lamp of the midnight oil amid the detritus of takeout Styrofoam and cold coffee.

“Indie means independent,” I explained to the worldly Italian producer.

“Yes, I know,” he responded, lighting a cigarette. “I’ve worked in America before. It reminded me of being in the military … a huge army organized for production.”

It was a memorable meal, but that’s all I remember.

It happened a long time ago, during the “Italian miracle.”

Before Berlusconi.

Before the euro, the crash of the euro, and the inevitable restructuring, whose austerity will no doubt become what passes for fate.

* * *

When you’ve driven to the edge of America, as far north as you can go, past Augusta, past Bangor, past Houlton, past the fenced-off SAC base at Limestone and the last all-night Dunkin’ Donuts, up where “the wind blows heavy on the borderline” and the long winter’s wear and tear has made your Kodachrome superfluous months ago, then you’re at the end of America, the border, the limit.

But for Canadians, it’s just the beginning.

And here’s what every Canadian—in fact, everyone in the world who’s not American—knows about America: it is the land of sex.

And that’s why you’re here, in a

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.