Primitive Radio Gods - “Standing Outside A Broken Phonebooth With Money In My Hands”
Do you remember this song? Of course you do. What does it remind you of? Reblog with your memory if you like.
This song was forever coming on the car radio during my solitary lunch hours from my summer internship when I was 19, after my first year of college. I’d drive to a nearby park and sit in the front seat with the air conditioning on, eating Wendy’s, reading Siddhartha, regretting my life decisions. It actually reminds me of my first panic attack, which also happened on a summer lunch hour. I was always wearing this short-sleeved snap-front dark denim shirt? I do not remember ever really liking this song, but if you’re wasting your nineteenth summer sitting alone in a car with the windows rolled up and telling yourself it’s too late to change things, you can’t be expected to just change the radio station.
I got a tape deck/CD player in my car the next year. Things improved.
First, what this song reminds me of. I don’t know that I ever paid much attention to the words other than the line that says, “A plane takes off in Baltimore and touches down on Bourbon Street” but at least there’s a good reason it became meaningful to me.
Back around 1993-94, my cousin Deanna and I met a fantastic group of people through a message board on AOL called Children of the Night. We met in the Vampire “folder” through posts about Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles. Someone got the bright idea to set up a chat room called Lioncourt and every Friday night at 9pm central, we would congregate and chat. In 1995, Barb and Kim put together a tour group to go to New Orleans and explore the city through the filter of the books. The first group went in June. My cousin and I went on the October tour, and met many people who have become life-long friends. We met up again in October 1996, when this song had been on the radio for several months. One of those fantastic people, Ruby, is from Baltimore. She’s very well traveled, and New Orleans is one of her favorite places on the planet. Every time I hear this song, I think about Ruby. We stopped having regular chats years ago, but our mailing list is still called Lioncourt, and all of us still refer to each other as the Lioncourtiers. I miss getting to see everyone.
Second—SarahB, I wish I could write like you :)
