AJJ- People Who Can Eat People are the Luckiest People in the World

I first heard this album in, mustve been 2014 or earlier, when i was in freshman year of high school. I was amazed by the way he seemed to talk about the questions i’ve always, always had. It reminds me, like a lot of things, of a time I was in the Taco Bell parking lot with Mark, taking our food back to the car and I put a quarter on the trunk to spin it like a top — this was a thing I was doing a lot at the time (middle school). The quarter (or was it a nickel?) spun until it ran out of momentum and there was something incredibly specific in the way it landed on the metal that reminded me of all those questions that I used to ponder when I was a kid (does the universe really exist, what happens when I die, etc) that I don’t really have the energy to ponder anymore.

Anyway, the coin spun and settled in such a way that reminded me to think about these questions, and to never forget them, because I think around this time was the first time I had started to stop thinking about these things. Now, all these life questions are tied up inexplicably with this coin spinning and being on the car. The car was dark red. Burgundy, sure. I know now what I didn’t then that people avoid calling cars red even though the color is obviously a shade of red because the idea of a red car is loaded with social baggage that they don’t want to invite.

Anyway, this AJJ album seemed to me like a reminder that I wasn’t alone in thinking about these things, and he said the world was the way that I thought it was which I found very comforting. Eventually though, I stopped listening to that album because it’s very sad and really takes it all out of you, and after I moved to California I did want to have fun, quite as much as I could and the AJJ album was not fun.

Then when we were in Southern California on our first big road trip, it was the second day and I had taken over driving duties while you slept in the backseat with the seatbelt off which worried me because I don’t want you to die (“Just don’t crash then” you probably said with a wink, i’ve been falling in love with you ever since) and I was listening to this album because you were asleep. I know you were definitely awake for some of it, I’m sure you talked a couple times, but I didn’t look to the backseat to keep track of you, because I didn’t want to crash and kill you, have your body thrown up against the back of my seat at 60 miles per hour.

I think you really liked the bit in the song about Miss Robinson. “Here’s to you Mrs. Robinson, you live in an unforgiving place”, and all the lines in that song about bipolar illness and your nervous system. I don’t know why but I feel like I remember you sticking your head up to say you really liked it.

I had started driving at the coffee bean and tea leaf in i think Santa Barbara, I got a pastry and a coffee and you probably just got tea if you got anything. Blue jacket still. The big blue jacket in which you could probably fall asleep anywhere. When I started driving your car (Beepbeep at the time, or maybe ole Ivan Valentine) I noticed that when I drove 45 miles per hour the car started shaking so much that I couldn’t really even see out the rearview mirror. If I went faster or slower it was fine. Whenever I hear any song from this AJJ album I remember the shaking rearview mirror.

Another thing that happened while we were on this stretch of the journey (it was extremely beautiful in case you forgot. All gold and sunshine, palm trees and ocean) was that we saw a exit sign for Santa Claus Lane and we took it and drove to the end to see what wonders waited for us there. What was there was nothing, just a bunch of houses.

It was still pretty exciting because we saw a police car, and even though we weren’t doing anything illegal, we still acted like we needed to avoid them. I drove exactly the speed limit, and they were right behind me for maybe a mile, probably annoyed that I was slowing them down. I don’t think that we were even aware that this act was totally unnecessary. The way I remember feeling was that we were having so much fun, and being so irresponsible that surely any adult or agent of authority would do anything they could to stop us.