Marc Spitz

“Did you know that ‘The Letter’ by the Box Tops is a minute and fifty eight seconds long? It means nothing. But it takes them less than two minutes to accomplish what it takes Jethro Tull hours to not-accomplish!?” – Phillip Seymour Hoffman as Lester Bangs/Almost Famous

when the weather is nice like it has been, and the village is invaded by tourists and the locals break out the sandals, i tend to go in the opposite direction.  i was the guy skulking around the waterfront, dressed all in black, listening to bill hicks on the ipod (hence the subject box above).   I should say, hence the subject box above.  I have been reprimanded about my blogsmetics.  I have a tendency to ee cummings shit.  It’s an actual effort, i think.   I like the speed of not punctuating.  How did Jack Kerouac punctuate on all that speed, writing on his endless toilet paper roll?   Was really moved by some of the Alex Chilton posts and essays and op ed pieces, etc.  and expect I will be more so when the more deliberate print stuff hits in the near future.   I don’t really have anything to add except I better not be informed via text from my ex the next time a rock n’ roll hero dies.  It’s like being informed by fax.   None of us can really brace ourselves when it comes to these things but I always find myself nowhere near my ipod.  Far away from “I’m In Love With A Girl,” or “Bangkok.”   She told me about Michael’s death too, via text.   i don’t have much to add.  i was obsessed with the Replacements and worked my way back to Big Star after Please to Meet Me like many.   then to the Box Tops, then forward again to the solo stuff and have gone in and out of phases since where i listen to nothing but his music or the people heavily indebted to it like Elliott Smith.  but i wasn’t thursday and i guess that’s what i’m saying.  look, i’ve already lapsed into lowercase.  FUCK.   Balance.  What I CAN add, uniquely, although this is an assumption, is a pdf of the screenplay I wrote a few years ago about a bunch of LES record store geeks who pile into a car and head to New Orleans after Katrina to rescue Chilton (and Fats Domino!!!!).  yes, i actually wrote 123 some odd pages of this.   my manager at the time was like, “um, Marc you just wrote the first two acts as a half a million dollar indie and the third act as a hundred million dollar action adventure disaster pic.”  it has been in the drawer since.   you can read it at the end of this post.  If you like.  I’ve been in a 90s head lately, typing up these diaires for this memoir that i want to start this week while still buried in Stones book research.  i am going to re-read the Patti Smith book and i read Forced Entries today.  it’s amazing how i have mis-remembered that book.  it’s really fabulism.  Jim Carroll is honest about it.  there’s a disclaimer at the start, but when i read it in high school none of that hit home.  it was raw, you are there, cinema verite kinda writing.  i couldn’t imagine him… crafting it.  now i can.  and i have to say i enjoy it less.  being 40 might have something to do with it.   i think a memoir will help me be a better non fiction writer action.  it’s partially an exercise to that end.   i’m going up to my mom’s on tuesday to look over old photos.  and as i posted earlier this month, it’s AMAZING how much i’ve saved given my peripatetic junkie ping pong from nyc to la and back again and all the couch surfing and running out on various checks by moonlight.  i have it all.  archived.  i guess maybe for this very moment.  some of the things i wrote then indicate as much.  the writer’s ego is a powerful thing.  i had two nickels and no juice and i was thinking about posterity????

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