A Free Man

When I was a younger man I lived in Athens, Georgia and worked behind the counter of a popular coffee house. It was a wonderful job because built into it was the opportunity to meet and chat with the illuminati of the Classic City. One of them, the lead singer of a rock band who shall remain nameless, used to come into my coffee shop when he was in town. He was a shameless flirt and when I crossed his path, he would turn his twinkling blue eyes on me. I was well rooted into heterosexuality by that point in my life so I considered it little more than flattering.

OK, that’s not exclusively true - this guy was one of the biggest rock stars on the planet at the time, so flattery is an understatement. As for my heterosexual roots, I’m not sure how far my protestations and denials would have stretched.

I used to get teased incessantly by friends and co-workers about this incessantly. They would call me Mrs. Rock Star X, they would turn on some of his more suggestive songs as soon as he walked into the coffee shop and so on. One late Friday night I had been drinking in the way I drank, immoderately, at the bar next door. I stumbled over to the coffee shop to try and straighten up a bit. I came up to the counter and asked one of my coffee-slinging colleagues for a perk me up. My barrista buddy started giving me the business about my rock star paramour and, in a fit of frustrated drunken rage, I loudly proclaimed: “I will not fuck Rock Star X!”

The rest happened in slow motion. My friend’s face dropped and his eyes focused on a point behind me. I knew before I turned, but I turned anyway and saw not only Rock Star X, but his manager, lawyer, and another well known chanteuse of the day, let’s call her “Ophelia”. I couldn’t actually tell you the expressions on their faces as I was sprinting in shame out of the shop.

From that point on whenever Rock Star X came into the shop, I would dart to the back and swap with whoever was doing the dishes so I didn’t have to deal with my shame. I did that for months.

There’s a happy ending. One day, whilst I was washing the dishes, Rock Star X poked his head around the corner and said in his inimitable voice, “Hi Chris, long time no see. You OK?” That’s why I still buy their albums even though they haven’t done a great one since 1996.

And that’s why I bought “Accelerate” on the release date. It’s good, it’s not what a lot of the critics had hyped it as - the new “Monster”. I’m not sure the new “Monster” is something I would want to hear. It’s a good late career R.E.M. album and that’s a pretty damn good thing. Stipe, Buck & Mills are never going to make another “Murmur” or “Fables” or “Automatic” or “Hi-Fi” nor should we expect them to. To use the currently most hackneyed catchphrase, “Accelerate” is what it is. I’m a fan and I’m enjoying it - you?

MP3: R.E.M. - “E-Bow The Letter”

R.E.M.’s essential “New Adventures in Hi-Fi” is available from and Amazon.