seems like i’m fated to go, honey

Merge at 30 is a party for the record label located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina or Carrboro, July 24-27, 2019. That implies the label was founded in 1989. I first heard about Merge or attended a Superchunk event at Cat’s Cradle in 1991, October.

I actually, apropos of the doomed or dented football hero Darrell Page, started to “Swede in” a photo of Mary Frances Spatola also known as Mary Frances Sabo getting out of a car parked in a black neighborhood in Birmingham near Legion Field, On October 5, 1991. Could that me the name of a band: Mary Frances Getting Out of A Car Near Legion Field, October, 1991?

Back in the day I would zip down to Chapel Hill at the drop of a hat.

1 was for a fashion show by Mary Michele Little, the hat maker — actually in Raleigh.

2 was to have lunch with Albertin Montoya and Kyle Campbell, at Applebees, the soccer heroes of the U-17 national team, and NC State.

never did get the story behind this, I think it was a job that Mrs. McCaughan did before she met Ralph

3 was to record an album with Chris Cotton and Justin Markovitz at the Efland Ranch of Katherine Whalen and Jimbo Mathus, the week that Shorty run off or was kilt.

4 was the time that I took the train from Palo Alto California Ave to Raleigh, stopping in Chicago to get a goodnight’s rest, then flying home.

5 was for the wedding of Richard Durante and Brooke Baker.

On trip number 6, I also went up to Greensboro to have lunch with Rosemary Yardley and see the lunch counter than helped launch Civil Rights movement. I recall giving her a couple baseball cards from the 1950s, maybe the Bowman TV era, that were in plastic sheaths and I suggested she use them — all were Southerners — as coasters. 6 and 2 might equal 1, in Plastic Alto math.

I said this about 50 times here already but: Jim Yardley, who I knew from the year that Rosemary was a Knight Fellow at Stanford, called to say that his friend Jack McCook was leaving Superchunk and visiting SF, would I show him around? 1991. That fall I was on a southern tour, old friends, some football and yes Southern Belles (especially RA in AL) and I noticed a Superchunk flyer, and hat to go. Lane and the future Mrs. Wurster gave me a ride back to Rich and Brooke’s place, and in that ride – -after he got off work at Crooks Corner, we became friends. (although the last time I spoke to Lane I was in SF because my Dad was having back surgery and I was chatting him up by phone, walking near Union Square — near A/X — and a woman was assaulted by a crazy street person so I hung up abruptly on Lane.

Also I recall watching Carolina Courage sitting next to Mac of Merge.

Also Superchunk played my Earthwise at 5 event.

These 5 illustrations are Mergelike: