Last weekend at brunch the topic of Dan Treacy of Television Personalities came up. My friend Jay (not rackrat Jay) mentioned a rumor he had heard that Dan had recently been released from a floating prison. I was intrigued and decided to look to the internet for more information.
Years ago, I was a really big TVP’s fan. The first time I saw them play was in 1992 at TT the Bears. Those were the days. I was still pretty new to Boston, and the shows would last long past the time when the buses stopped running, so afterwards I would have to figure out how to get back to my dorm late at night with only a vague sense of which direction to go. I also didn’t quite know what to do with myself before the music came on. I remember either the night of the TVP’s show, or a Miracle Legion show, I got to the club early, and ended up killing a few hours wandering aimlessly around Cambridge in the freezing cold. Basically, the shows I went to, were sandwiched between miserable experiences physically, psychologically, and socially, with the exception of the time I went to see Bob Mould in Providence with no return trip home, but luckily befriended Jon Manders, who later convinced his roommate that I was an old track rival/friend from Pennsylvania (which was partially true, but not as true as the fact that I was a complete stranger two hours previous), and I got to crash on his floor.*
Aside from the misery, or maybe in some way owing to it, the shows were usually great. I remember nervously checking the time as the TVP’s were setting up. It was getting late, and as excited I was to see them, I was also getting ready to accept the fact that it would be a very long and confusing walk home. At the time I was only familiar with two TVP’s songs that I had recorded off of WXPN’s radio station before they turned into NPR. There was a deejay named Kirby that I really liked, and I would tape his shows, and then edit out the songs I didn’t like.
Usually at rock shows, I like hearing songs that I am familiar with, but that night, the new songs, well new to me, blew me away. TVPs were so much more than I expected them to be. In particular, I remember very clearly hearing “I look back in Anger” for the first time.
I look back in anger, I look back at you./
I look back in anger at you.
Treacy’s voice was so childlike, and yet the lyrics were so incredibly bitter. I thought it was all wonderful stuff. I was hooked and then they came back to the states a few months later and I kind of followed them around. I even worked up the nerve to say hello to Jowe Head at one point. I think I even freaked him out, to tell the truth. Because, over the course of a week I saw them play three or four times, the last show of which was in Providence. As usual, I got to Providence way earlier than I needed to, and proceeded to walk around the town with my copy of An Introduction to Analytic Philosophy, which I ended up reading on the steps of the Dunkin Donuts Coliseum. I was wearing a pair of excessively short blue shorts that day. I don’t know whatever possessed me to buy them, but for some reason I thought that they were okay in a weird way. I was awakened to the fact that they weren’t when two boys, no older than twelve, began throwing stones at me. I didn’t know how to respond. I was a lot older than them, so I couldn’t really fight back. A well-timed passing of a police cruiser ended the torment. I pointed out the little bastards, and the cop picked them up, but I feared they would only get a slap on the wrist, and in retaliation for my getting them in trouble, they might soon take to the streets again, this time with older brothers, maybe 14-15 years old, which is why I was at the Dunkin Donuts Center, because I could sit quietly hidden behind a giant slab of concrete reading Quine.
Now, I bet you’re saying to yourself, this idiot probably doesn’t understand a word of analytic philosophy. What a poseur. I wouldn’t mind throwing a few rocks at him myself. For your information, I did pick up, after spending about five or six hours with my nose in that book, and sitting like a zombie for a semester in a subsequent class, what the words empirical and tautological meant. You may notice me sometimes using these words in an effort to make you think that they are just the tip of the iceberg, but in reality my understanding of philosophical concepts is more comparable to that melted ice shelf I was reading about in the paper today.
Since the reading wasn’t all that enthralling, I ventured back to the club and decided to just wait for it to open. What I should have done was gone and bought a decent pair of pants, but anyhow, hanging out outside the club hours before the show and who should I bump into but Jowe Head, who tried to be nice, but I could tell, he thought I was a psycho stalker. Again, if I had been in a decent pair of slacks, maybe he wouldn’t have been so worried about me, but I felt very discouraged at this point, I had scared one of my favorite performers.
The Providence show was the last time I would ever see the TVPs, and it provided me with what I remember as one of those truly TVPs moments. In between songs there was a great deal of banter with the audience, lots of jokes and laughs, everybody was having a good time, so much so that before one song late in the set, as Dan approached the microphone, the audience smiled as one would when expecting a punch line from a great comedian on a roll. That’s when he told us that he had been addicted to drugs and alcohol for years and that when he got back home he was going to try and fight it because it was ruining his life. Sucked the air right out of the room. I thought it was one of the most brilliant things I ever saw.
There are some TVP videos on Youtube. The first one I watched, a few months ago actually, is from around 1980, for a song called The Painted Word the title song of the first TVPs album I was able to find in a Boston record store. The next one is from a more recent album, it’s called All the Young Children. In the beginning of the video we see Dan in a darkened studio with a hat on laughing about how young he looks even those he’s forty-five. Then we see the song start up, and the video shifts to some urban wasteland type place. Dan looks extremely young for his age. I watched the video a couple of times, freaked out about how young he was, until I realized it was a kid from some band called Dustins Bar Mitzvah doing the singing. The kid looked kind of like Dan.
Sadly, from reading Dan’s blog, it turns out he’s not in such great shape lately. There are all sorts of information about fluid on the brain, getting MS, needing new kidneys and stuff like that. He also uses his webpage to viciously lash out at any and everything he doesn’t like. It’s pretty obvious that he’s really miserable often, however, and maybe it’s awful of me, but I am really enjoying reading the entries.
Here are some from July 17th:
July 17
help
look i am not joking..will some nice young lady please be my new girlfriend…
i am desperate for comfort.. i am good in the kitchen ,quite tidy
…not particularly a monster in the trouser stakes..
but i do pen the occasional good tune……(please no freaks
…i am willing and capable to be gay but riGht now i would like a LADDDDDDEEEEEEE……X
(I AM AVAILABLE FOR CHILDRENS PARTIES) AND HERES EDWARD WITH HE WEATHER…July 17
first bt cut off my phone…now noboby calls me..
not an ex girlfriend,,,boyfriend….
oh i give up…i am a sad lonely 45 year old……….July 17
i am so bored this morning..call me an idiot..but here is my number///
…if anyone wants to come and see my paintings and etchings
and lend me a tenner til wednesday
…domino pay day…i think its errr,,, £8,ooooo something
…..make it after 121..30daylight hours///x
There are also a few entries in the beginning written from jail. How many blogs have that?
Another interesting tidbit that I found from the website was that Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love, and Blondie all went to one of their shows at the Wetlands. I was at one of those shows, but I don’t remember seeing any of them there, although it was crowded, so you never know. I think you know what I am getting at here. From here on out I will be telling people the story about how I saw the TVPs with Debbie Harry and Kurt Cobain.
*Bambi has been on my case about naming names here, because GOD forbid, some potential employer might come barging in here and discover that their potential employee smoked percocets with me in 1988. I’m going to try to keep all of the information about people whose full names I mention laudatory. All of the jerks I know will get made up names. To the people google searching Manders (I know you are out there), I think it should be mentioned that when I crashed on his floor he was a month into his freshman year of college, but had already polished off a complete bookcase of philosophical books, which hung precariously over his bed. When I asked him the books, he offhandedly mentioned something about his high school history teacher allowing him to write papers on classical philosophy to keep him interested in class. With the exception of Andrea Brady, Manders is the smartest person I know. Although, to be fair, Brady and Manders wouldn’t stand a chance at beating Scott Heim in Trivial Pursuit.
You know who *should* be stoned? W.V. Quine. For destroying philosophy.
clark