I Did a Freehand Sketch of this Picture Two Hours Ago and Yes, It Was For a Girl and No, Sorry, You Can’t See It
Son: Dad, what was Radiohead, really?
Dad: Well, it sounds dumb now, but we thought that computers were going to rule the world and that our watches would all stop and that the banks would go silly at midnight on 2000 and Radiohead was this massive, billion-selling shaggy dog story about alienation on the horizon of dystopia and dark blossoms of modern paranoia in an eerily technocratic world and it had lots of chrome words that don’t grow in our beautiful jungle anymore.
Son: So they were like the evil U2?
Dad: Yeah, but with more pedals and tighter shirts.
Son: So that was before the Wild Gospel?
Dad: Well, it sort of happened at the same time. Nobody believed Devendra Banhart when he hawked love and freedom. I mean, Animal Collective had started doing things like—
Son: Like actively espousing hope and sincerity, right?
Dad: We were ashamed to call it that then because the cynics were in the cockpit, but yeah. And then there was that TV on the Radio record.
Son: Well what I read was that everyone was sort of lukewarm on wild gospel until that record came out, and then they realized that there could be something weird enough to snare the freaks but with enough testosterone to make kids throw out their Staind CDs.
Dad: Yeah, it hedged its bets well.
Son: So was Jesus a rockist then?
Dad: Kind of. I mean, in 2006, “transcendence” was basically a cuss word.
Son: That was during the great Self-Policing, right?
Dad: (shudders) We just wanted to make room for everyone’s love.
***
Son: Daddy, who was Washington Phillips?
Dad: He built a house a hundred years ago and he filled it with the most beautiful music you’ll ever hear.
Son: Like tumbling through iridescent motes of sound?
Dad: Like making love under the spray of a dandelion in June.