This is Porn. Emo-Cowboy-Porn. And A Letter.
It's a little sick, really.....just how obsessed I've let myself get. Fell off the wagon with a resounding thump and I don't even give enough of a shit to care about getting up, dusting myself off, and trying to regain some semblance of sanity.
I think he follows me.
And I'm not making that shit up, because someone had written his song lyrics on a bathroom stall in a shitty bar in Denver and someone else wrote his lyrics on a lamp post in Philly, and they both took me off guard when I spotted them. I even saw signs in the background of a news report on the Occupy protests that were his lyrics.
His words are hiding everywhere.
So - I wrote him a letter, much in the same way that one girl wrote that one letter to Ryan Gosling and demanded that he quit being so damn perfect:
Dear Conor Oberst,
This shit has to stop.
I’m breaking up with you.
(That's a lie. I'm not.)
When we met started this liason, I was pretty cool, you know? Listened to a lot of seventies rock bands and this one folksy chick with a guitar who I still think you should collaborate with. (I wrote you another letter concerning this about a year ago. Did you get it? I’m thinking not, because there is no duet on the near horizon.) I basically survived on the Allman Brothers and the Doobie Brothers (lots of brothers, don’t ask me why) and The Band (because they’re not just any band, they’re THE Band.) I scoffed at anyone who couldn’t name any particular Grateful Dead song off the top of their head and was fairly convinced that there was nothing better in the whole entire world than a glass of wine and some Modest Mouse.
Then you weaseled your way onto my iPod, and everything went to shit.
I thought you were pretty good at first.
But then you up and ruined me.
You morphed into something else all together. A righteous-cowboy who wears ridiculous boots and ridiculous hats (we’ll touch on this again later, I promise) and is sort of emo but also sort of red-neck. A scruffy dude with hobo hair and wobbly voice that does something funny to my insides.
I’m married, for fuck’s sake. I have a wonderful husband who thinks I shit gold and for some reason still wants to put up with my crazy self, much less the fact that I’m not all that quiet about our relationship. He knows about us. He just rolls his eyes at me and suffers(?) through endless car rides with only you for company, because I wont let him talk over your music.
So, I have this list. It’s list of things you can do, right now, to stop tormenting me. To give some modicum of maturity and reality back to my life. To let me move on and experience the joy of life without maintaining my constant daydream about our wedding in Omaha and where the fuck I’m going to find myself some red cowboy boots to wear under my dress by that time.
Stop being a cowboy:
I get it, ok? You're from Nebraska. I mean, how cowboy can you get? You were practically smack dab in the middle of cow-ville, USA, where they grow cowboys like they grow corn. I’m sure you were probably born wearing a flannel shirt, so it’s not like it’s something you can just stop. But I think you should try.
There’s just something about cowboys. Maybe it’s the roll-up-your-sleeves-and-get-shit-done attitude, or the fact that they aren’t terrified of horses, like I am. Maybe it’s the leather gloves and the big machines. Maybe it’s the romanticized idea of it that I have a feeling the Marlboro Man is to blame for, but I have a weird fascination with anything remotely farm-hand.
Now, I live in cowboy country. I have plenty of friends who totally qualify as cowboys, and there is no lack of them in my life. It’s not like I am feeling short-changed on the cowboy-quantity of my existence. But, just as you judge every sunset of your life by the standard of the first one you ever saw, I judge every cowboy I know up against you.
They fail. All of them.
Stop being a damn genius
You’ve ruined music for me. Thanks a whole lot for that.
Now I only want to listen to bands that sing in foreign languages that I cannot understand, or have a boy singing who is so hot that it distracts me from the fact that they’re not you. I still moderately enjoy the old rock bands and I’ve even found the wherewithall to enjoy some new bands. In particular,m your other secret girlfriend, the one with the hot pants and the red hair and the voice like an angel. Yeah, she’s alright . . .
Your music is like poetry. Seriously, if you were only publishing books, I’d still be fan-girling around the country, following your book tour. (This is something I completely support, think about it.) I’ll be the first to admit that I’m totally addicted to words. They are the most powerful drug known to mankind and yours in particular are like fucking black tar heroin. Words that fill my veins and go racing toward my brain like puppies on speed.
At this point, you’re the one holding the needle to my arm.
Stop singing:
Yep. I said it.
The ‘wobble’ thing you’ve mastered? The uneven pitch that makes you sound like an eleven year old on the verge of a hormonal nuclear war? The moment when your voice wavers on the edge of tears . . . .yeah, it kills me. This is probably because it’s exactly what I would sound like if I tried to sing, which is why I don’t try. (At least not in public. Me and you, however, put on personal concerts in my car every time I drive.)
I know the voice is one of the things a lot of people can't stand about you. My friend Stephanie calls you Goat Boy and it really only makes me want to punch her right in the nose, even if I do love her a lot too. I've heard the entire spectrum of insults, and really don't give a shit about anyone's opinion enough to even mildly care, much less about something as monumental as your voice. I really think that sometimes music can make your heart hurt just because it's so fucking beautiful and I totally get off on that whole 'song's so sad, he made himself cry' thing.
You’ve even said it yourself, you could have been famous with someone else’s voice, but failure always sounded better . . . .
Well, I suck at singing and I’m not saying that you do too, but you’ve managed to make something appealing that not a lot of people could.
Stop wearing weird clothes:
W.T.F. is he wearing? (This is the exact reason why I love him. Questionable fashion decisions that sort of distract from my monster urge to molest him.)
The ridiculous boots, dude . . . They have to be retired.
The diamond shirt? Please mail it to me.
The weird shawl/cape things you seem so obsessed with lately, and the ankle boots?
Uhm......
The fact is, you pull them off so well that they’ve come to define you, sort of like the flannel shirt. I bet you were born with a pair of boots on, too. And the hats? They keep getting more and more ridiculous as the years go by, too. Bigger and whiter, and you use them to taunt me, I swear to God. The one you bought on Pearl Street in Boulder and then wore to your show that night? Biggest, funniest, touristy-hat I’ve ever seen. Period.
But you looked good in it, which has to be some sort of miracle.
Or a crime.
Stop trying to let illegal immigrants into the country:
I get the bleeding heart thing, I really do. I’m one too, and it’s not easy to be concerned about other people enough to actually do something about it. But eff, would you stop it already with the supporting of liberal political candidates and rallying against all that immigration nonsense? Next you’re gonna try to defend my uterus, aren’t you? Or fight to protect almost-extinct flying tree squirrels or frogs or whatever. I can just see you busting into some dank puppy mill and walking out with armfuls of thankful animals. It’s totally your style.
I bet you’d do it in a cowboy hat.
Got all that? The things you can do to give me back my life? Re-read if you must, because I expect you to remember this, forever.
And, go.
Love you always.
Honeybee