b1-66er:
There was a man. He lived in an apartment. And put a wall down the middle.
On one side he had furniture, clothes and books.
On the other side he had different clothes. Different furniture.
And a TV set...
He'd live on one side, until he got tired of it...
He'd put his book down. Take his clothes off.
And walk over to the other side...
And he'd live there until he got tired of it...
And he'd flip flop...
And he did this back and forth until he died...
After he died, they went in to clean up the apartment so they could rent it out to college students...
These people went back to the closet in the very back of the apartment. And the whole closet was filled with these books...
... And each book was exactly the same...
... And this man had written all these books and had them all published...
... He never sold one, or gave one away...
... The name of the book was
Life and How to Live It
Special K: Thoughtful book story. Where is it from? Did you write it?
b1: No.
Did you ever see REM in their early days?
Stipe had this ability to just go off and tell these long stories in concert.
I saw them enough times that I heard some stories multiple times...
K: Cool. I didn't see them until they were already huge.
b1: On one of the anniversary releases of Document, that story is the intro to a live version of Life and How to Live it.
I thought the story was not only fascinating and compelling; but also provided a spectacular Polaroid of what it was like to be in an REM audience...
They were a strange band because they came from a place no one (yet) cared about...
... And at their very deepest core were all record store weevils...
... The result was they liked what I liked.
They'd play requests.
They'd play without a set list and argue about what to play next.
They'd pimp other bands touring the music that they liked, or where they were from.
Document is the album where it all changed and they started getting played on more than just lowly college radio.
