The Post-Rockist

Dear Khaela,

I’ve never actually written a fan letter before, let alone a letter destined not for the artist but for the small yet ardent readership of a music blog. However, after flying from Detroit to Washington, DC, to see you, The Blow, play at the Black Cat on October 4, I felt that I had to tell you how much I enjoyed the show.

My roommate Annie introduced me to your music and I’ve been a big fan ever since. Based on a bunch of bootlegs I’ve been downloading illegally lately, it seems as though you don’t like the song “Parentheses” anymore, that you play it begrudgingly, perhaps because the broken heart you talked about during the show was broken by the fellow for whom “Parentheses” was written. That sucks. But Khaela, that song is where we began, even though you didn’t know it. To be honest, I quickly moved on to the other songs on Paper Television, particularly “Eat Your Heart Up” and “Pardon Me” (thanks for playing those). And I know it sucks to have to play it over and over again because it’s everyone’s favorite. I hear that Manilow feels the same way about “Mandy.” But Khaela, “Mandy” is actually a pretty good song, and so is “Parentheses.”

One my favorite things about your performance and your personality is your sensuality. Your show was one of the sexiest shows I’ve ever been to. I think it’s your honesty and insight into life and relationships and bodies and feelings, because I think most of us get wrapped up in our defense mechanisms and aren’t able to express those repressed needs and wants and the disappointments that are part of life. But you were able to express all this so artfully and with good humor, but with truth as well. That was awesome. I bet Emily Dickinson would be really jealous of you. She could express so much, but in cloaked, disguised metaphor that probably made dudes just kind of shrug her off. She just wanted to be held, perhaps, but I wonder if she would have produced much if she had been held all the time.

At the beginning of this letter, I named it a “fan letter.” But I think you guessed it. It’s more than just a fan letter. I really, really like you, Khaela. I don’t “love” you because I don’t even know you, but I have a big crush. After the show, you were talking to some cool kids and I was kind of behind the kids trying to look awesome so that you would recognize me but, you know, you didn’t, which is cool because you just played a show and probably just wanted to chill and had those bright lights in your face for the last hour and stuff. But I was way too scared to go talk to you. That definitely means I like you because I’m never shy about going up to artists to talk after shows. I was about to walk up to little Bob Dylan to give him a hug if his security guard hadn’t have pushed me to the ground.

As I sat down to write this, I looked through the illegible notes that I took on my little notepad that I bought at CVS. I tried really hard to write down all of the great stories you were telling and the funny banter with the audience, but I found that I missed a lot because I kept on writing “I love her so much” on the pad. I missed a lot of the subtleties, so it’s a good thing that lots of fans taped your shows so that I can recall the things you were talking about. Memory is so ephemeral.

A correction to the previous paragraph: I don’t “love” you–that would be crazy. But I like you enough without knowing you to use those words interchangeably on notepads from CVS that nobody else is supposed to see but me.

Here’s a list of reasons why I really like you, in no particular order:

• I like how you tapped on the microphone to “How Naked Are We Gonna Get?” It was a great way to start the show because it established the show as a kind of beat poetry performance art karaoke.
• When you sang “You remember the route from her heart to her thighs” on “How Naked Are We Gonna Get?” you inhaled right before “thighs,” which made my whole body shudder. That line and its delivery gave me a sudden urge to study cartography.
• I like how you mentioned Spaulding Gray. I’ve been on a really big Spaulding Gray kick lately and can see how his monologues might have influenced your performance. I would be more than happy to talk to you about Spaulding Gray, not only because it would be a great conversation but because my friends have never really seen any Spaulding Gray movies or read any of his writings and I pushed other fascinations upon them so fervently (Glenn Gould, Strangers with Candy, Guy Terrifico, that Professor Brothers sketch about picking up the dean at the airport) that I’ve used up all of their charity and they don’t really let me sit them down to make them watch stuff I like anymore. They are all out there, right now, seeking out their own particular fascinations without allowing me make them watch or listen to things that would so obviously change their lives.
• I like how you asked fans to come up on stage to do the “Little Sally Walker” dance, but I didn’t like how my roommate Annie didn’t get a chance to go up on stage to dance. For a few seconds there, it was almost over between us, Khaela. But I forgave you.
• As a music critic (well, I don’t really “criticize” as much as praise and interpret and say positive, interesting things about music, but you can read all about that in the “About” section of the blog) and a songwriter, I liked how you described your songwriting and liked your interpretation of “Loving You,” that after “Loving you is easy ’cause you’re beautiful” there’s nothing else to sing but “la la la la la” and how we all need to have lots of experiences that are not happiness (some, in fact, that are the opposite of happiness) in order to create interesting songs and art, because really happy people will just write songs like “Loving You” over and over again.
• I really enjoyed your body language and the motions you were making with your hands. During “Eat Your Heart Up,” you were making chomping motions with your thumb and fingers, kind of like Pac-man (or Ms. Pac-man, I should say), and then you pretended to be holding a heart in your hand, and then pretended to eat the heart. That was cool, but as I read what I just wrote, it does sound kind of weird. I guess you should have been there, readers.
• I like how you dance.

Not everybody enjoyed the show. I met a girl after the show who said she hated it–that you were much better when you played last time with Jona–and after defending your performance and telling the girl how much I liked the show, the girl told me, jeeringly, that she knew she wouldn’t like me from the start, just by my looks.

Well, I guess that’s it. I guess I should have just walked up to you and talked to you for awhile after the show. I should’ve told you in person that I really love your music and that I think you’re a rad person. I was shy. I guess I didn’t learn any of the lessons you were teaching us boys that night. Maybe I’ll have another chance someday to just say “hello.”

Sincerely,

Scotter