Welcome to Part III: Four Weddings and a Fun Era. The part title is 77% to amuse my friend Nate Pepper who introduced me to the similarly named film when it was (relatively) new, 7% a nod to a line about a funeral being a fun era in L Extreme, and 16% a factually accurate summation of what will happen in this next set of chapters where several get married and a few ’70s rock icons (greats!) die.
Tidbits:
- The opening line directly invokes/inverts chapter 12 of Timely Persuasion: “The wedding was a modest affair held in a lakeside lodge adjacent to the nearby state park.” Although this version is fancier, it’s held at the exact same venue the other was/will be.
- As the chapter starts I want the reader to assume we’re at Local Boy’s wedding, then second guess a little before fully pulling the rug out. How’d I do?
- Speaking of Nate Pepper, he’s fond of calling the few and far between times I get spruced up “a rare appearance by sharp-dressed Jake,” which inspired Local Boy’s wedding attire.
- Confession: I never heard “Country Comfort” by Elton John until Jim Bob covered it for his This is My Mixtape bonus disc included with his 2023 record Thanks for Reaching Out. Gotta respect a great respecting a great.
- I’m not sure if I spent more time debating whether to keep or drop the O-word line or whether Local Boy’s one more encore before you’re your lyric should or shouldn’t include commas. I am sure I never questioned whether or not I was going to detail the love scene after narrating the comically bad one (between these same characters) in TP1. “Imagine the best you ever had and know this was better.” Love scene over!
- The whole “Who died on 7/9/71?” bit sets up the not so fun fact that Jim Morrison’s death was (really) kept quiet for a week to avoid a media circus at his funeral, while giving Local Boy a reason to double down on his suspicions. Weird thing I found researching: The NYT gave a wrong age for Jim in their obituary–accidentally keeping him out of the 27 club.
- Trumpeting greats Louis Armstrong & Charlie Shavers died two days apart in 1971, within the same week as Jim Morrison. The Doors second album Strange Days has a trumpeter1 on the album cover towards the back left. Sometimes weird/cool segues fall into your lap.
- Continuum Icon Assassins could be another Local Boy album title, but for me is more reminiscent of Gammalon Relictive Astral Watch Issue from LX.
Check out Local Boy Done Gone
FOOTNOTES:
- I almost wrote “trumpist” instead of “trumpeter” here, which has different connotations these days, albeit still strange. ↩︎