What about that old tape of ours? Dec. 22, 1985

  

Pauly asked about the tape project we did back in the 1970s called “Francis and The Wolf,” a project we had engaged upon as a spoof of Hank but had such a mean streak down its middle other people we played it for cringed asking why we hated Hank so much.

We recorded it for the 1976 Christmas season in my room in the rooming house in Montclair, following up on a similar but less lethal project the previous year recorded at “my fancy apartment” on Paulson Avenue in Passaic which we had simply called “Francis.” Pauly and I overdubbing our voices to sound like choir singing “Francis, Francis, please put on your pantses.”

Included in that recording in 1975, were snippets of a live recording Pauly, Hank and Rob had made during their trip to Nova Scotia in 1971, a tape that served as Pauly’s running documentary of their journey and a tape Hank ached to have a copy of. Giving him so little was a kind of tease. We ended up that recording with a speeded-up version of Bob Dylan’s Positively Fourth Street,” with the operative lyric “You’ve got a lot of nerve calling me your friend.”

I don’t know why we felt such rage towards the poor fool. But Hank actually liked the 1975 version, which I think infuriated Pauly, and was the impetus behind the second project a year later, for us to come up with something so outrageous even Hank would hate it.

With a pile of sound effects records and two tape recorders, Pauly and I decided to do an audio biography of Hank’s life. We even wrote original songs: Hank’s Drinking Song, Hank’s funeral song, and a song about Hank’s then romantic interests called “Rona from Corona (Let’s go all the way,” a girl we had up to that point had yet to meet.

It wound up a major project, a psychological romp at Hank’s expense, exploring our deepest feelings about one of our oldest friends, the rage visible to others at the time if not to us.

Richard Gordy, when we later played it for him, begged us never to do anything like that for him and he was dead serious.

We hand delivered the tape to Hank, meeting up with him about a week before Christmas in Toms River.

A cold spell had set in. But instead of listening to the tape, Hank insisted we go somewhere together, a flash back to those Magical Mystery Tours we all took back when we were younger. We headed south from Toms River and ended up at the Barnegat Light House and wandered the nearly vacant beach there, three strange ghosts from the past, as if there was nothing wrong between us.

I don’t know if he ever listened to the tape. Hank never indicated one way or another.

Why Pauly is interested in the old tape now is a mystery to me. But Pauly has some strange quirks and may actually be nostalgic for a moment we should all just try and forget.

 

  1985 Menu


email to Al Sullivan

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

An old nemesis December 11, 1985

Image
    Surisky hated me from early on in grammar school, although “hate” may be too strong a word to describe his reaction to me. I was simply available to him for abuse, Third grade was pivotal for both of us. Prior to that, we were simply feeling our way through Catholic School routine, emerging eventually as whole personalities from the muck of early childhood. He came across as a thug, trying to convey the image of a tough guy. He wore a leather jacket and spiked boots, and snuck into see James Dean movies. Third grade was tough on everybody, including the teachers, who considered us the worst class in the history of the school – even in the safe grades of Kindergarten, First and Second. Two of the three nuns retired after passing us on. But it was in the third grade that we began to work our magic, driving even the stout-hearted nuns crazy. Later, the nuns tried to break our spirit. But we fully represented our age and had the full impact of the 1960s behind us. So,
Read more

Pauly leaves Passaic for the final time July 24, 1985

Image
    Pauly is leaving Passaic again. This comes after two years of us rubbing shoulders after he had been cast out of paradise in Towaco, after his goddess, Jane, went and married that man Pauly calls “a bum.” This has been a tough two years, filled with Pauly’s typical manipulation, his usual shaping of reality to his own needs often at other people’s (mine) expense. When Pauly first came I had Fran’s cultist brother as a temporary guest and Pauly spent most of his time trying to push me into getting that guest out. A few months later – in November – Fran got the ax from her ex and changed her mind about moving in with me after I had committed the spare room to Pauly. He assumed she meant more to me than he did and was already packing when I told Fran no. She had no place to go except for her father’s house, a father she had a love/hate relationship with, and she held it against me, even though we continued to see each other romantically. Pauly being Pauly drove me out of
Read more

The clock is ticking July 18, 1985

Image
  We’re talking love here – silly fictional love with all the connotations of disaster. I seem to be on the meat chopping block with Safire looking for qualities in me that are lacking in her husband. The fact that there is a husband in the first place greatly disturbs me. All this said, I’m uncertain as to why I haven’t ended this already, except to know she is too much like my ex-wife to pass up without a closer examination. Even the way she thinks: slow, methodical, going from point A to point B. It has only been a week since she blurted out drunk that she wanted me in bed. It seems like much longer. And she hints of something more permanent, suggesting that I might fill in for her husband for a much longer duration. The night before last she suggested I come see her in her trailer, as if she is legally separated from her husband, when in fact she is supposed to be biding time until he finds them both a place to live in Baltimore. This is the same kind of smoke and mir
Read more