On July 10, 2019, Lou discovered the work of David Berman. Lou remembers the date specifically, because discovering Berman changed Lou’s life forever. Such things rarely happen. Lou first encountered Berman by means of a lengthy article on Bill Simmons’ Ringer website. The Ringer is the source for several podcasts that Lou follows from time to time: The Big Picture and The Rewatchables for movies, The Ringer Fantasy Football Show and The Bill Simmons Show for sports. But what really gets Lou going are The Ringer’s long-form articles. In a media landscape where hard copy magazines are dying The Ringer fills the gap in providing 3000-4000 words think pieces on popular culture. Once upon a time, you could read such things in Rolling Stone and Esquire. The New Yorker and Harper’s still carry on the tradition but the long form essay, a form that Lou loves and adores, and sometimes practices himself, is a dying art.
The article on Berman was textbook long-form journalism. At the time, Berman was coming out of a ten-year period in the wilderness and returning with an album by his new band Purple Mountains. The essay was basically an advertisement for Berman, designed to get the reader to purchase the new album and explore Berman’s back catalog with his previous band The Silver Jews. Lou bit. And was never the same man. In fact, he may have changed his identity.
The Ringer article was titled, “David Berman Is Alive and Well in Chicago.” In less than a month that was no longer true if it ever was. In early August, on the brink of his first tour in a decade, Berman took his own life. The Ringer article has since been retitled “David Berman Returns.” Listening to Purple Mountains, Berman’s death seems inevitable. The album is the closest thing to a suicide note ever put on wax. It is painful to listen to, but at the same time extremely funny. Berman walked that tightrope his entire career.
The Ringer article opens as follows:
It could have been a country song: On Valentine’s Day, David Berman said goodbye to his wife and left Nashville for the edge of the world. He drove to Miller Beach, Indiana, east of Gary on Lake Michigan. Nelson Algren, the famous chronicler of seediest midcentury Chicago, lived in Miller Beach once, and an alley and a small museum pay tribute to him now. That February, Berman could’ve passed for an Algren character: heartbroken and solitary in an offseason summer cottage, all his demons howling.
Lou must admit that reading this first paragraph aboutBerman really turned Lou off. Lou had heard all this before. Berman was merely another tortured white singer/songwriter genius with a cult following that could not get out of his own way. Think Townes Van Vandt or Blaze Foley. Or the more successful but equally tortured Lou Reed or Kurt Cobain. This was common ground. Lou was so upset by the article that he told himself that any sad, pathetic white guy could do this shit. It was a shtick and a tired one at that. So, sitting on his deck with a beer and a cigar, Lou finished reading The Ringer article on his phone and opened his iPhone notes and banged out six sad sack songs in about an hour and a half. Satisfied that he had proved his point, Lou went to YouTube to listened to Berman for himself in order to put Berman behind him and never listen to Berman again. Without a doubt, Lou assumed he had heard it all before.
The Silver Jews’ American Water was the first album that popped up on YouTube and Lou sat smugly in his chair took a sip of PBR and a puff of his cigar and pushed play. “Random Rules” began, and the entire world stopped:
In 1984 I was hospitalized for approaching perfection
Slowly screwing my way across Europe, they had to make a correction
Broken and smokin' where the infrared deer plunge in the digital snake
I tell you, they make it so you can't shake hands when they make your hands shake
With an opening like that Lou knew he was in the hands of a true master. One of the great singer/songwriters of all-time. Berman was a poet at heart. A published poet at that. Berman was a genius with words. “I know that a lot of what I say has been lifted off of men's room walls.” Again,from “Random Rules.” Lou was captivated. On that day in July Lou listened to the entire catalog of David Berman and Lou has been listening ever since.
Berman’s suicide threw Lou for a loop. Celebrities die every day and Lou is generally not affected. Sure, Lou might return to the work of that celebrity and revisit and remember. When Robert Redford died recently, Lou went to The Ringer and listened to the podcasts. Lou was interested, but not devasted. The death of Berman hit Lou like the death of Lou’s father. Lou had lost someone he loved. And Lou had only known Berman for less than a month. It was strange and powerful, these feelings. And in the six years since, Berman’s death, Lou is still coming to terms with them. This is what great art and renowned artists do. They create feelings and an emotional responsein the audience. They make the audience human. That is why all forces that seek to shut down art are forces of death.
In August, after learning of Berman’s death by suicide, Lou was moved to try his hand at Berman’s craft once again:
A Love Song For David Berman
Sitting at the levee
Chewing on reds
And sipping Bud Heavy
Watching the water
Slowly rise
I see a girl
Materialize
As I Twirl a 22
In front of my face
Mind racing with
Thoughts of oblivion
And Johnny Ace
I still love you so
Never let me go
This is the world
I’m swimming in
You might have guessed
That I’m depressed
But I doubt you’d
Be impressed
If I let my finger
Squeeze the trigger
Of this 22
Just because of you
So I think
I’ll linger on
And haunt you
With this song
Suicide hits a sour note
Can’t be the last tune
I ever wrote
But it’s too soon
Cause it’s almost noon
And there still hope
And the bottom
Of this beer
It’s not good times
And cheer
I am looking for
Just something else
A little something more
Maybe a few
Minutes with you
And you can tell
Me some lies
To get me through
These rising tides
Like sweet lullabies
You might have guessed
That I’m depressed
But I doubt you’d
Be impressed
If I let me finger
Squeeze the trigger
Of this 22
Just because of you
So I think I’ll
Linger on
And haunt you
With this song
Rented rooms
And cheap saloons
Your face is in
Every mirror
But through the
Morning haze
Of a dawning day
It has never been clearer
That I’m far away
And you’re coming
No nearer
There’s nothing
Left to say
Time to walk
On my own
Turn my back
On my home
And let this
Song slowly play
You might have guessed
That I’m depressed
But I doubt you’d
Be impressed
If I let me finger
Squeeze the trigger
Of this 22
Just because of you
So I think I’ll
Linger on
And haunt you
With this song
Not satisfied Lou tried again:
Listening to the Silver Jews in the Alley at Seven in the Morning Thinking of You
You know
It’s kinda funny
That no matter
How alone you
Think you are
Someone is
Always at the bar
To take your money
It must be heaven
When the third
Seven and seven
Is free no matter
Where I
Happen to be
A saint of the dives
All that keeps
Me alive
Is my worship
Of one who
Held me dear
But is no longer here
Or am I only
Living for that
Third beer
There’s a whole world
Beyond this bar’s doors
But a girl who’s
There no more
Keeps me shut in
Within myself
And drinking
From the bottom shelf
I guess that’s
Just the cards
I was dealt
When the feelings
Were no longer felt
And you looked
Me in the eye
And you shook
Me goodbye
With a dead man’s hand
It’s all water
Under the bridge
I oughta get over it
Instead I’ll just
Dunk my head in
This river of gin
Alone and drunk
Who would have thunk
All those great beginnings
Would end where
It all began
In this bar
On a lonely night
The glint of your eye
Replaced by these
Neon lights
And the fading glimmer
Of hope that flickers
At the bottom
Of this beer
That I drink
Quicker and quicker
Wishing you were here
These are parodies really when you get down to it. Not worthy of Berman. They lack the poetry and the dark humor. In fact, they lack everything that makes Berman great. But the songs of Berman inspired Lou to try. That gets to the heart of why Lou loves Berman so much. Berman’s songs, dark and depressing as they sometimes are, inspire Lou to go on and to try.
So, let’s just say that Lou was a bit emotional when he saw a copy of The Silver Jews American Water at Vinyl Vogue. Do not go looking for it in the bins. Lou snatched it up and took it home. Like that copy of John McLaughlin’s My Goal’s Beyond that Lou bought recently. A fellow browser at the store saw Lou buying it at the counter and said to Lou, “I was looking at the record. I wonder why it wasn’t there anymore.” Lou could have said the same thing about the copy of Keith Jarrett’s The Koln Concert under the customer’s arm. You want my chocolate for your peanut butter? Or something like that.
Lou has been looking for any record of David Berman desperately, but he hesitated to buy American Waterbecause the price sticker on the album said “1/2 speed master” on it. Lou did not know what this meant and was afraid that his basic turntable set up could not play the record. Lou had to look it up and this is what AI tells Lou:
Half-speed mastering is a vinyl record production technique where both the music’s playback speed and the cutting platter’s rotation speed are halved during the lacquer cutting process. This slower pace allows the cutting head more time to engrave intricate details, especially high-frequency sounds, resulting in a higher-quality master disc. The music is then played back at its normal speed on the finished record, restoring the original pitch and tempo.
In short, you still play the record at 33 1/2 , which was all Lou needed to hear. Lou could give a fuck about sound quality. His turntable is the audiophile equivalent of a beer can bong. Primitive but it gets the job done. No gold-plated coke spoons for Lou. Listen to American Water any way you can. Just listen to it. It just might change your life.
Suggested Sites and Sounds:
David Berman Where It Began: David Berman Returns - The Ringer
David Berman Interview: Ep. #481: David Berman
Actual Air: Actual Air | PDF
David Berman Bootleg Poetry: The Curious Case of the Bootleg David Berman Literary Collection | Pitchfork
— Lou Waxman