21 Dec 2004
Happy Birthday, Gene Clark!
Today is Gene Clark’s 34th birthday. Damn, but that sumbitch is old.
It is theohreally tradition to wax poetic on the subject of The First Time I Met [Insert Birthday Haver’s Name Here], and today will be no different. Let us all share stories of when we met the one formerly known as the Short Bald Whore.
Mine: It is January 1996. I have started the master’s program in English at MSU and I know absolutely no one. It is the first day of classes, and my first class ever is Craft of Poetry. I enter the classroom and sit down. Gene Clark comes in with a messenger bag, which I thought was weird, but also cool. (Boys did not carry bags where I was from.) xyz also came in and sat near Gene Clark. The first words I ever heard Gene Clark speak were these:
xyz, have you heard the new Cranberries album?
Heh. Much later in the semester, I was at the library one day and thought I dropped a penny. I reached down to get it and another one fell. No, I didn’t have a hole in my pocket. It was just Gene Clark throwing pennies at me. You know how sometimes you think back on something someone did and think, that one very act completely sums them up? Gene Clark throwing pennies at me in the library totally and completely sums up our friendship. He gets on my nerves, I get on his (I have inspired a lot of muttering and scribbling in notebooks in the past almost-9 years), but somehow I still think he is kind of funny.
Also: he once, when I was apparently in complete denial and having some sort of breakdown, came to my house, washed my dishes, loaded up what turned out to be ELEVEN LOADS OF LAUNDRY in his truck, and took me to the laundromat. (Penny-throwing-esque reveal: he left me there and came to get me later.)
So happy birthday to our fearless leader, the one and only Gene “The Jackal” Clark.
December 21st, 2004 at 9:17 am
GC:
happy birthday!
December 21st, 2004 at 10:30 am
I knew gclark was truly awesome when he wore his Catherine Wheel “Eat My Dust You Insensitive Fuck” t-shirt to my house for a symposium (one at which, I believe, he himself was reading). I have coveted the shirt and the cojones ever since.
Happy birthday, g!!
December 21st, 2004 at 10:38 am
Happy Bday. I first met GClark and Sally for that matter in August 1996 (after a new faculty/grad student teacher meeting in building named after a semi-famous Confederate general who sounds like the most famous one) at [smoky, dirty, hole-in-the-walls motel bar] when they mentioned something about something happening somewhere else. It was one of those non-invite invites which makes me uncomfiortable: do they really want me to come, are they just being polite etc. So I didn’t go. My bad. For a while I assume the grad students thohgt I was a snob; then for the rest of the year they had another reason (or so the thought) to disdain me. I also wasn’t sure yet what the unwritten [you think the ever write anything down at Cotton state cow college, NISSAN Institue and Remote Sensing Emproium if it might mean they have to adhere to it?] policy was re: Student/professor general fraternization. I best got to know gclark during the summer of 1998 and the World Cup in France. we also hung out a bit at the (formerly) student radio station here.
December 21st, 2004 at 12:32 pm
I would like to point out that Kicker of Elves just said he covets gclark’s cojones.
December 21st, 2004 at 1:00 pm
I seem to remember GClark in a public display of self-conjones coveting at the reading aforementioned when Marxist new yawker got his car stuck 9and I mean stuck) in the mud.
December 21st, 2004 at 1:11 pm
His new rap side project
G Clark and the NutSaK SCRATTAZZHH
December 21st, 2004 at 2:49 pm
i first saw gclark with sally at a ta workshop (puke). i thought sally was a preppy tennis player-girl due to her monogramed “sjn” polo shirt, tiny, white shorts, and tretorns. i was too scared to talk to them that day. later, at a ta party, gclark was sitting on the professor-host’s couch, laughing at a photo album that was sitting on his coffee table. he beckoned for me to come see. the album turned out to be full of pix featuring the professor’s teen daughter posing upon–NOT NEXT TO–the professor’s mid-life crisis sportscar. vroom. vroom.
happy b-day, gclark!
December 21st, 2004 at 2:56 pm
I want to go to a TA party/symposium, stat.
December 21st, 2004 at 3:20 pm
Personally I like another professor’s daughter’s come hither peekaboo tennis net photos on her living room wall. Har Har. bSides the [Uber Deutsch car make and model deleted here] is a classic.
December 21st, 2004 at 3:24 pm
Re: Professor the First
I had to laugh when said Daughter came home from college one year and newbie MAs were worried that professor was having a mid-life career crisis affair cuz some hot chick was seen driving his car.
remember that hubbie of Professor the 2nd bought the little red, not-really-a-sportscar and therefore a totally impractical piece of shit to make up for his wandering eye.
Hmm . . .
December 21st, 2004 at 9:02 pm
HAPPY BIRTHDAY goober. See you this weekend.
December 21st, 2004 at 10:32 pm
bulb wrote:
“I best got to know gclark during the summer of 1998 and the World Cup in France.”
I’m glad you two could commiserate together on France’s victory.
bulb: what’s your blog address again? I’ve had it on my list to frequent but can’t remember the URL shizz.
December 22nd, 2004 at 12:27 am
The Nevermind Aesthetic which has made theohreally’s blog list
the uRL is: http://www.aesthetics101.blogspot.com
Frannce was the best team what with Ronaldo injured.
Comme ci Comme sa
December 22nd, 2004 at 3:36 pm
omg it’s a gene clark love fest…
gene clark, you go to hell. you go to hell and you diiiieee!