November 14, 2008
My Best Friend
I work and live and have gone to school with Cate my whole life. We wake up at seven, and get break fast, and then we drive to work together and sit across from one another at work. I am usually in control of the music that is listened to, since it matters more to me, but I try and be reasonable and not play Jandek for all four hours. Nothing if not benevolent. But in the past few days I’ve found a way to even things out. I order them alphabetically by song name, and then Cate picks a letter. Today’s letter is N, so I sort it and push play. We each get three veto’s, which means that I then skip to the next song, no matter what it is.
She asked how long Jandek’s Naked in the Afternoon was, and then veto’d it when I said it only had 1:30 left. My interesting facts about how it was the first song on any Jandek recording, and therefore an important piece of the puzzle, these fell on deaf ears as we skipped into Beirut’s Nantes.
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Amanda Mae, it sounds as though Cate tolerates your fascination with Jandek about as well as my friend Andrea did an obsession that a mutual friend and I developed with Asta.
“Stop it!” she finally blurted. “Both of you! I don’t want to hear one more thing about that damned Asta!”
It was his versatility and range that we would rave on and on about. Asta as Himself, Asta as Mr Smith, Asta as George, Asta as Mr Atlas. Each is a finely nuanced and distinct performance.
There is now an Asta fan site.