I Broke A String…Where’s Thom Yorke?

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Piper Johnson was a leaning-towards-the-delusional guy who introduced himself years ago at a concert and kept me cornered for the rest of the night. When he focused and engaged with someone, they were held captive, conscripted to hear all about his concert blueprints that utilized international stars to stop conspiracies that would destroy the environment.

He had about 4 lbs of photocopied handouts with hand drawn illustrations to help people understand what he was going to do – (the massive concerts to alert the world about military conspiracies). Maybe the only delusional part was that he thought I was someone capable of adding to the drawing power of these concerts.

He always started friendly enough,

“How are you doing Bobby?”  Then he would start to explain he was on the telephone moments ago with Radiohead, Bono or the White Stripes, blah blah blah –

“Will you play as well?” He would ask very sincerely.

“Sure count me in but I want Thom Yorke to lend me his guitar if I break a string ok?”

“For sure Thom would be happy to help you out.”

“Glad that’s settled.”

One time at the Horseshoe when the lights went up after the Sadies finished their last song and people were still wanting an encore, I noticed Now Magazine’s music writer Tim Perlich standing near by. People were very polarized by Tim. Some people thought there was something good about him, I was in the camp that saw more value enlisting Idi Amin to take Tim camping. Years earlier he wrote about how unoriginal and untalented my writing and singing was. But if you’re going to stand on stage and sing your songs you need to grasp that negative reviews sometimes materialize, come with the territory and you have to be a grown up about it.

The fact that Tim went out of his way to never have pictures available on the internet doesn’t mean I would, as a well adjusted adult years after his mean review, be so immature as to take pictures of him with my smartphone, (Like if I accidentally saw him at a vinyl buying event at the Tranzac) and then post them on my blog. Nosireebob. I am a well adjusted adult, thank you very much.

But back to the story – people were applauding the Sadies for an encore and then I noticed Tim to my right and then from out of nowhere Piper materialized and was making a bee line for me,

“Hi Bobby how are you?”

“Piper, hello. See that guy?”

“Ya.”

“He’s the main music writer at Now Magazine. Weren’t you planning a concert? I’m sure he would help you.”

“Whoa thanks Bobby!”

“No sweat Piper. His name is Tim Perlich.”

“I’ll tell him we’re friends.”

“Please do.”

I watched Piper tactfully slip up to Tim’s side as the Sadies came out and played their encore. No doubt he would wait for just the right moment to introduce himself. Now that he knew what Tim looked like, he would probably stop him every time in the future and keep him informed. My work here was done, I went home and slept well.

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1 Comment


  1. That’s some entertaining shit right there.

    Thanks Bob.

    Reply

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