Hello friends. Hello June!
Context:
I just got back from Spain where I reread Franny and Zooey while sipping gazpacho in a hammock and it made me want to write but also to never write again because how can anyone ever come close to Salinger’s brilliance wow.
Preamble:
The return journey was almost rough enough to undo all the relaxation of the holiday. Certainly not the sunrise-from-the-deck-and-sea-breeze-in-my-hair final scene I’d envisaged. After days of perfect, clear waters, with only the gentlest waves reminding us we weren’t swimming in an infinity pool, a storm descended on the island just in time for our departure. Not a terrific storm, nothing spectacular, just threatening grey skies, menacing gusts of wind, and enough waves to make the 7am ferry feel like 30 minutes of fairground hell, even under the influence of Kwells travel sickness pills. We came off green and pasty, had an emotional reunion with solid ground and took a speeding cab to the airport, where we had so much time to kill we lost track of it completely and very almost missed our flight.
Excuses:
This month’s Substack — i.e. this email you are reading right now— is almost rough enough to undo 4.5 years worth of high-calibre content. It’s certainly not the delightful new song I was imagining when I promised you a ‘tune in June’ last month. I’m not sure why. The holiday made me lazy? I’m no longer convinced by the original premise of sharing half-baked work on Sunday mornings? Of being less precious, less precocious? Recording an album turns me into a secretive person? Whatever the excuse, my sincere apologies to new subscribers with high expectations. I’ll take each unsubscribe as well-deserved punishment for what is about to transpire.
Crux:
Our son Milo turned 5 while we were away. This may have contributed to the obsession he developed with one particular Jonathan Richman song, which he asked to hear multiple times on every drive to the beach. And to sing multiple times on every drive back home… So to mark this momentous birthday — (and, yes, as a meagre place-filler while I stall for time before whatever it is that is eventually coming and potentially worth waiting for) — I share with you a car recording of JF & Lail & Milo singing My Little Kookenhaken by The Modern Lovers.
Disclaimer:
This is not half-baked work. This is raw dough. And missing key ingredients. Like a band. And an ending. This is not Family Von Trapp. This is approximated lyrics and croaky voices. This is accidental key changes while driving down a dirt road with the windows down. This is one full minute of outsider art, starring the boy who told us in no uncertain terms that good singing = high singing. Please enjoy. It doesn’t get better than this. Except maybe for the original.
So long, farewell,
Lail
p.s. This is my 99th Substack. See you at the jubilee…
Half baked - no. Raw - perhaps. But raw like a fingerful of cake dough stolen from the mixing bowl.
This very Modern Lovers CD you were listening to in the car was bought at Sam Goody’s in New York when you were a teenager!