CASSETTE FROM MY EX

I grew up in New Jersey in the 80s, in a town that was heavily preppy. My few high school boyfriends were Lacoste-clad, clean cut types, until one summer in college when I met Russ. He bartended with my friend Melissa, and was decidedly not a prep. Unlike the guys in my town, Russ was good-looking but enticingly dipped in a light coating of scunge. Russ’s tastes were simple: he liked beer, classic rock, and hanging out. I promptly joined him, and during that halcyon summer I ditched my prep-wear, got myself some gold chains, and re-permed my perm for added volume. Soon I found myself spending my weekends driving my folks’ secondhand light blue Buick LeSabre “down the Shore,” to Point Pleasant.

Russ and I would drink beers with his ever-present crew of dirtball buddies and then take a wobbly stroll on Jenkinson’s Boardwalk (’Jenks,’ for those in the know.) Then we’d cruise around town, blaring The Doors out the open window. My hometown friends and I had more esoteric musical taste as well as carefully curated record collections, but I was a closet fan of the entire play list of WHDA, the Rock of North Jersey. With Russ, I could love it unabashedly.

Sometimes he would take me to parties at his sister Michelle’s house. Michelle had the best collection of cheesy R&B songs - another one of my weaknesses. Give me a synth-heavy 80s R&B band with a subtle name like Klymaxx or L’Trimm and I am in heaven. I had asked Michelle a couple of times to make me a tape, but to my surprise, the normally recalcitrant Russ gave it a try. Our first – perhaps only - movie that we together was The Lost Boys, so he included a few songs from the soundtrack (hence Tim Capello and Gerard McMann, below.) That was about as romantic as Russ got, but at the time I was deeply moved and read all kinds of symbolism into the songs that did not actually exist.

I’ve since lost the tape’s cover but his faint writing on the tape says Hey Babe. I remember at the time wishing that I had a cooler mix tape like some of my friends had, with songs from Wire or Big Dipper or something. I mean, you know, “Sweet Melissa?” I constantly tried to open his musical mind. Once I gave him a cassette of a New York City band I liked called Cruel Story of Youth. He put one of their songs on his mix tape to me but I guarantee he never gave it a listen beyond that. After a while I came to appreciate that he didn’t try to be self-consciously hip. He just wasn’t interested in alternative bands (nor, mercifully, the requisite William Shatner track that’s funny the first time and thereafter fast-forwarded.) And of course I played that tape to death.

This is a shorter than usual list of songs, because Russ could only be bothered with a 60-minute tape. He had some hanging out to do.

Jancee Dunn grew up in Chatham, New Jersey. She was a writer at Rolling Stone from 1989-2003, where she wrote twenty cover stories for the magazine. She has written for many different publications, among them the New York Times, Vogue, GQ and O: The Oprah Magazine, where she writes a monthly ethics column entitled “Now What Do I Do?”  From 2001-2002 she was an entertainment correspondent for Good Morning America. Prior to that she was a veejay for MTV2. Her novel “Don’t You Forget About Me” is out now on Villard Books. She and her husband live in Brooklyn, New York.

I met her at my workplace, Café Pamplona. My days there were numbered, as I was about to head away to Jazz camp.   I sensed that I was close to getting fired because I couldn’t make a good cappuccino.   I was more interested with shoving tarts in my face, getting girls’ numbers, and daydreaming. Once time, I spilled hot tea on someone’s hands and told him “a little pain is a good thing.”

When I got her number, I was excited and I placed it in my special numbers drawer.  I called her up and we talked about a trip to the town fair.  We went to a rock show, instead.  Our conversations were boring and left me feeling empty. At the time, I had been writing a song for every day; this day’s song was titled “The Sideways Song.”

A few days later I checked my new caller ID, and it informed me that she’d called.  A great wave of excitement passed through me.   Even though I felt sideways on our first date, it was exciting that a girl liked me.   On our second date, we walked to the pizza shop and played Ms. Pacman then did some candlepin bowling.  I beat her at both, showing off my athletic prowess.

I liked her.  There was something about her that was medieval, like a cute peasant women.  And there was something dirty, something real about her and I couldn’t communicate this in words.

I was determined to kiss her.  When the night was coming to a close, a nervous feeling settled inside me.  As we talked on a bench, I stopped listening to her words.  It felt like we were talking-for-the-sake-of-talking.   Words moved by but I couldn’t catch the meaning of any of them.   Suddenly I felt a wave of the absurd.  I scooped mulch and dirt off the ground and covered her legs with it. Somehow, it felt like the appropriate thing to do.  It felt like this was a REAL way of communicating.

“What are you doing?!” she said of my dirt-throwing.  I got the sense that she also found it charming.  As we were waiting for the train I asked her if I could kiss her and she said “yes.”

When I got back from Jazz camp, we went out on our third date. We awkwardly made out in a public park next to an old grey couple, also making out.  Then we ate ice cream before my gig at the restaurant/clothing store, Louis Boston. I spilled ice cream all over me.  It dripped on my shirt and pants, then fell to the ground.  I didn’t care.

Shortly after, she made me this mix tape teaching me how to properly eat ice cream.

Eliot Krimsky is a musician who lives in Brooklyn, New York.  He performs, plays keyboards, sings, and writes songs. He plays in bands Glass Ghost and Flying.  He also writes movie scores, plays piano for modern dance, and teaches music to kids.

Why is it so hard for me to write about this mixed tape? I don’t have left over bad feelings about the guy that made it for me. In fact, I can’t imagine anyone else at any other moment in time being a more perfect first real boyfriend for me than Chris.

I moved to Chicago after living with my parents for about eight months following college. I’d been in New York studying art for the previous four years. I needed a new city and a new start in life. Some friends from high school rented a cargo van and were driving back to the Midwest to continue their education at the Art Institute of Chicago, so I figured I’d better get in that van, too, or I’d get stuck in suburban Maryland for the rest of my miserable life. Had never been to Chicago, but it sounded a helluva lot better than my parents attic in Kensington, Maryland.

Chicago was like a big, fun, music and art party back then. I moved into an apartment with other artists. I painted, learned how to play bass, fell in love. A classic early twenties scenario, to be sure. Chris was in a band with three good friends of mine. We enjoyed similar cultural influences, especially music, film and books. His writing moved me. He obsessed over and played guitar like it was a girlfriend (we were a threesome in more ways than one). He played me music I hadn’t heard before, he made me mixed tapes that I read way too much into. When a man makes you a mixed tape after you’re already dating, puts Dog Faced Hermans “Madame La Mer” on it sandwiched betwixt Bjork and The Stranglers , you know it’s some kinda love.

The Pressure of Life is a great tape. It is more playful than romantic — playfully intelligent. Fun Boy Three’s “The Pressure of Life” followed by Duran Duran’s “Hungry Like the Wolf.” Not just any schmuck would have a run like: X/Adult Books, Aerosmith/Last Child, Stevie Wonder/Maybe Your Baby, and Prince/The Beautiful Ones. This person had real musical knowledge and taste that crossed genres. I take back the romantic statement I made… he did include Bow Wow Wow’s version of “Fools Rush In”, which is gratingly and agonizingly romantic, as well as being very cool because it is sung by the fifteen-year-old sexpot Annabella and laced with one of the most intricate and accomplished bass lines I’ve ever heard.

Really, what more could I have asked from this young man than his eternal devotion and mixed tapes? He thought enough of me that he managed to set aside time during his busy days of bike messenger-ing and barista-ing (and don’t forget being a rock god), to contemplate the more esoteric side of life, and then he shared it with me! His history and mine, as well as this tape includes appreciative nods to 80’s New Wave and electronica: Siouxie and the Banshees/Israel, The Cure/At Night and Kraftwerk/The Model.

Even at a time when Nirvana was overplayed and tedious, he still had the huevos to put it on the playlist. The songs are powerful and immediate, “Very Ape” and “Milk It”. I hadn’t listened to this tape until recently, since we broke up in 1995. The Nirvana songs sound good super loud in a car.

The saddest, sweetest song is from Bjork’s ‘Debut’ album–“Come to Me”. It is a song about caring for and protecting someone she loves deeply. It could be one of the many reasons I was unable to listen to this tape, or any of the other tapes he made for me, for many years. Too many memories of a time when things were easier and far more difficult. When we were still young enough to be boyfriend and girlfriend. The end of a youthful relationship sometimes coincides with the end of youth itself, and objects associated with that time must rest for a spell before they can be appreciated again in a new time and place.

Juliette Goodwin is a writer , photographer and artist living with her husband Brantley Davis in Baltimore, MD. She is currently staying home with her 22-month-old twin daughters, trying to keep them from hurting themselves and one another. Her artwork has shown in New York, Chicago and Baltimore. She still loves music and is sharing as many musical possibilities with her toddlers as they can stand. Juliette is the “Food Examiner ” for an online newspaper and is trying to complete a book of photography based on her ailing/possessed digital camera before the end of 2008.