You’re funny and you don’t know why
You’re funny and you can’t even cry
You’re funny and you don’t know why
You’re funny and you don’t even try
‘Cause your head’s shaking and your arms are shaking
And your feet are shaking ’cause the earth is shaking
You’re hungry and you don’t know why
You’re hungry and you can’t even cry
You take a walk and you try to understand
Nothing can hurt you
Unless you want it to
There are no answers
Many reasons to be strong
You take a walk, you take a walk
You’re in love and you don’t know why
You’re in love and you can’t even cry
You’re in love and you don’t know why
You’re in love and you don’t even try
Crazy is perhaps the best-known Pylon song because R.E.M. recorded a cover of the song, which was the b-side for the single Driver 8 (from their 1985 album Fables of the Reconstruction). Crazy was included on their first compilation, Dead Letter Office. Dead Letter Office was released in early 1987, a few months before R.E.M’s last decent studio album, Document. After Document, they signed with Warner Brothers and became superstars, even said by some to be the world’s greatest rock and roll band. I don’t know about that (The Grateful Dead is the world’s greatest rock and roll band, IMHO), but the band has stayed close to their Athens roots all this time.
Dr. Phinizy Spalding (for whom Phinizy in the story is named) was a legend in the UGA History Department and my favorite professer at UGA. He had a passion for his subjects and was very demanding, but was also a hip cat on the Athens music scene. He once invited a few of his students, myself included, to a cocktail party at his house on Cobb Street in Normaltown, and R.E.M. showed up. As it turned out, we students were invited because Dr. Spalding needed bartenders. I fixed a gin & tonic for Mike Mills and opened a Budweiser for Pete Buck.1
Company Ale on the Weekend was originally part of Night of the Long Knives, but the exposition was dragging on. I turned the exposition into a scene where the Sorceress comes to visit. In reality I think Tropicalia is just fine, but the gratuitous shot (if you worked there) was simply too funny to pass up, like the “stab your finger on the treble hook” line in Driving School (it’s actually a railroad spike, Lord knows why, but the purpose is similarly infantile).
The real Sorceress doesn’t drink or smoke (and may not wear minidresses) and is totally organic/paleo diet and probably has a whole closet full of Birkenstocks and buys all her clothes at REI. How she became the corporate sorceress is anybody’s guess.
Making the Sorceress as outrageous and irreverent as possible served the dual goals of making the story more entertaining, while relentlessly teasing the real Sorceress, which she and I both thoroughly enjoy.
“Sorceress, you’re like a Size 2 on a fat day.”
I planned to drop the whole pink-polkadot-minidress bit at the end of Company Ale on the Weekend because I thought it was too corny. Then, Sandy and Melissa read it, and they thought it was one of the funniest moments in the book. I guess you never know. It does serve to make clear that the Sorceress is not my wife, but they do know each other and are great friends, which in the real story turned out to be crucially important.
1 While this may or may not have actually happened, note the proper Southern usage of the verb “fixed.”
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