Two people. Both talkin’. Sometimes talkin’ makes you sound stupid, but they manage to pull it off. Especially the gal with the red hair. Lucinda Williams didn’t have red hair, but people still talked about her. —Remixing the opening lines of Local Boy Done Gone Chapter 22 in the style of the dreamy non-dreams from…
LBDG Commentary 21: Keep Fishin’
For no particular reason except to see if I could while still respectin’ the greats, all of the chapter/song titles in Part IV contain words endin’ in apostrophes. Due to either a fun coincidence or my future self havin’ fun with me, the first two were Dinosaur Jr. and Weezer doin’ the singin’. If “Start…
LBDG Commentary 20: Start Choppin’
Part IV of Local Boy Done Gone is titled “The Kids are Alright,” respecting the greats in The Who while signaling Local Boy’s two kids will be just fine even though the sequence of their births may have changed. This isn’t the first time the Timmons family tree had some leaves unnaturally re-grafted. In Timely…
LBDG Commentary 19: Wrong Way
Originally this was part of the previous chapter, but a desire for shorter sections with cliffhanger twists earned it a number (and title) of its own. The namesake Sublime song is fitting, with “Wrong Way” coming on the heels of the “wrong girl” reveal. The scene here is mostly an internal rant debating the right…
LBDG Commentary 18: A Wife, A Butterfly
Remember when I said my favorite chapter title was If Only No One Won? This one is right there with it and another piece of the AWAB redemption arc. Title rankings aside, it’s one of my favorites from a story and writing standpoint. Four weddings were promised in the part title. You’re about to get…
I Went With Some Friends to See Dinosaur Jr., The Flaming Lips, Weezer, Jon Lindsay, Benji Hughes, and Soul Coughing…
…and it might’ve been the greatest music weekend I’ve ever had. Feeling a little underwhelmed by the 2024 ACL Fest lineup (no offense — I still went Friday), I accidentally built my own 3-city fester the weekend before when the stars magically aligned. How’d it come to be? Bought tickets to the epic Friday night…
LBDG Commentary 17: Timely Persuasion
In the last commentary I mentioned an aversion to albums that share their title with a song on the record. I prefer album titles to come from lyrics or overarching concepts vs. having a title track. (See: Nevermind, Skittish, A Love Extreme). On the other hand, I’m a big fan of cheekily naming a record…
LBDG Commentary 16: New Age
I almost called this chapter “Fourth Time Around” but I’ve never liked when an album has the same title as a song on it. (Yes, I already sort of did this earlier…) “New Age” is fine, but I considered it a placeholder of a scene title until I was agonizing over where to set the…
LBDG Commentary 15: Double Trouble
Reasons this ended up being a short chapter vs. combined with the preceding and/or following: a) The break points made dramatic sense. b) I really wanted to use the Double Trouble title, which actually references my favorite Breeders bootleg and not Stevie Ray’s band. b2) The live version of “Saints” here is especially good —>…
LBDG Commentary 14: Devotional Deviations
Making Local Boy Done Gone a standalone sequel meant telling a self-contained story, but also allowing it serve as either book one or book two depending on your reading order. (Or the other book two, but I’m getting ahead of myself much like Local Boy often does.) Part of that involved the Back to the…