I don’t know what I have to offer any ongoing exchange or collective mourning about David Berman outside of the fact that I loved this person I’d never met and that I will miss him.
Berman was one of the first singers / poets / bandleaders in whom I heard the whole of my own lived truth better than I felt capable to putting myself.
I’d heard on Wednesday that Berman died at 52, I left a dinner party I was hosting, and walked numbly and aimlessly around my neighborhood. The Silver Jews / Purple Mountains singer was a longtime resident of Nashville, he lived here for nearly the whole of the 21st century.
In this episode we spend time with Berman’s blog, Menthol Mountains, to try to get a sense of his relationship with the city and, more broadly, his relationship with the world at large.
Podcast: Download
Subscribe: RSS
More on David Berman
Silver Jews on Drag City
Purple Mountains on Drag City
Menthol Mountains Blog
Posts / entries mentioned in this episode:
(all parenthetical statements are Alex Steed – meant to offer context for what the post is about)
The Harsh Skull
what’s something you’ve been avoiding thinking about?
Nashville Predators (clippings about sex offenders)
Don’t Talk To Me About Johnny Depp (newsclipping about 10 year old Cub Scout who “ditches wheelchair to plant flags in front of headstones)
Forced Antecedent-Focused Emotional Regulation: Together We Can Stop This! (Letter to Berman from Moe’s Southwestern Grill manager)
Music City Worm Chow (vintage picture of Cars of the Stars, Celebrity graveyard map)
“What it Feels Like to Want to Kill Yourself”
God and Man at Opry Mills
Wrestling posts:
Yardsale Jackpot
Jyardsale Yjackpot ii.
Jyardsale Yjackpot iii.
Jyardsale Yjackpot iv.
Jyardsale Yjackpot v. (60s wrestling archives)
Posts / entries pertaining to Nashville or, more broadly, Tennessee
“1977†(Johnny Paycheck videos)
the hot july moon saw everything (Deana Carter videos)
1977 September 2002 (Craig Morgan song backed by imagery from Sims 2)
(Cowboy Copas and Dottie West- Mental Cruelty/Loose Talk)
* Tacky Souvenirs of Pre-Revolutionary America * (vintage photo of Evans Music City)
Paint Stripper (Jimmy Martin video)
untitled (Clint Black news clipping)
“that i could clamber to the frozen moon” (Tennessean news clipping titled “Woman, thought to be singer Lefty Frizzell’s daughter, deadâ€)
jimreevesmuseum (Tennessean news clipping from 2004 about Jim Reeves’ property / estate)
untitled (ticket to Tennessee State Museum’s “Emancipation Proclamation)
Stargate: KoiPound (an open letter about a neighbors’ drama)
Section N (Tennessean newsclipping of a letter to the editor)
untitled (link to Tennessean article titled “Less sex, fewer drugs, teen report†while also noting “Depression on the riseâ€)
Keep Nashville Harebrained (newsclipping advertising “Gogman” Award Winning Country comedian)
In Memory of a Memory (clipping about Johnny Paycheck)
My Next Door Neighbor on the Right (photo of sign that reads “voluntary support for a tyrannical dictator – brilliant!)
Shtoch Characters (Tennessean newsclipping of a letter to the editor about hunting)
Bernstein/Bare (newsclipping about Bobby Bare)
Local Man Gains World, Loses Soul (news clipping about George and Tammy)
Johnny Cash Never Meant Shit to Me (Johnny Paycheck videos)
Lovestruck Jury Finds Beautiful Defendant Not Guilty (newsclipping about Hope Mercer)
Nashville Predators (clippings about sex offenders)
The End of the Road (obituaries of Warren Evilcizer, Jim Gage, and Hugh King)
Subscription Killer (scan of the Tennessean from 2 years earlier, featuring article about Eminem and lawsuit regarding shares of digital royalties)
Roger Miller Day in Minglewood (including Tom Green at County Fair)
Cortelia Clark and “Cortelia Clark” (Tennessean newsclipping)
Cowboy Overvlow of the Heart
Someone to Look Up To (letter to the editor from Bobby Braddock about “Merry Christmas” v. “Happy Holidays)
Yardsale Jackpot
Jyardsale Yjackpot ii.
Jyardsale Yjackpot iii.
Jyardsale Yjackpot iv.
Jyardsale Yjackpot v. (60s wrestling archives)
Don’t Talk To Me About Johnny Depp (newsclipping about 10 year old Cub Scout who “ditches wheelchair to plant flags in front of headstones)
Forced Antecedent-Focused Emotional Regulation: Together We Can Stop This! (Letter to Berman from Moe’s Southwestern Grill manager)
Ger Toshav (clipping of Letter to the Editor titled “Remembering the boy we called ‘Jew baby'”)
Music City Worm Chow (vintage picture of Cars of the Stars, Celebrity graveyard map)
Tennessean Remix (including newsclipping from the Tennessean titled “CDC finds fever bacteria in Rainforest Cafe’s mist and a photo of Ralph Spicer)
Jessi Colter song
Four Hundred Children and a Crop In The Field (news clipping “‘Lucille’ writer, wife arrested on drug charges”)
Desecularization of Nothingness (picture of Nashville hat)
Occult Nashville (amateur video about Occult happenings in Music City)
Honky-Tonk Dracula (Gary Stewart video)
Remastered In Bronze (photo of Chet Atkins statue)
Goblin Technology (photo of Hunters autobody)
Dirtbag Erotica (Johnny Paycheck video)
Bill Anderson Song
God and Man at Opry Mills
More on Nashville Demystified
Official Site: nashvilledemystified.com
Instagram: @nashvilledemystified
Twitter: @NDemystified
Brought to you by Knack Factory
Talking with the folks who live, work, agitate and make art in Nashville, TN