MARCH MIX by Giancarlo DiTrapano

BONER JAMS ‘14

Here are some the songs I’ve been going to lately, for whatever reasons. I’ll be going to others sometime soon.

I grew up on Thin Lizzy. I remember being at a pot dealer’s house when I was like 12 and there was a baby crawling around on the floor, and on the back of the baby’s pampers was scrawled THIN LIZZY in black Sharpie. A few minutes later, the ceiling fan, which was going really fast, blew the cherry out of the bong and into my shoe. It burned my foot. I have the scar.

2. “Telephone Line” -ELO

“Doo Whaa Doo Laaaaang”

3. “Street Hassle” -Lou Reed

This crept back into my life this past summer. I never knew that that was Springsteen at the end when I was younger. Scott McClanahan enlightened me to this fact at my parents’ place in WV where we were resting and reading on opposite beds, across the room from one another, on Thanksgiving, I think.

4. “I Wanna Be Adored” -The Stone Roses

Rolling one time, I called my friend Thomas and asked him what song I needed to hear at the moment. He told me this, and thus revealed his oracle nature to me in all its blinding glory.

5. “I’d Rather Go Blind” -Etta James

Lost some of my vision in my right eye last month so I wrote this song now.

6. “Baby” -Ariel Pink

Sweaty summer this year, very late night in Harlem at Sam’s place with him and Mira and Sam played this and those five minutes distilled into a New York moment for me that I’ll remember forever or for another day or two.

7. “Love Is Alive” -Gary Wright

This is basically a Jesuit Prayer from Anthony De Mello or some shit. Pay attention.

8. “96 Tears” -? & the Mysterians

I was walking down the Sunset Strip when I was like 13 and some guy was playing this from his boom box and it got under my skin and never left

9. “Don’t Worry Baby” -The Beach Boys

I had a crush on a mobster one time and this song reminded me of him and I used to play it over and over and still do play it and I think of him when I hear it

10. “Dear God, Please Help Me” -Morrissey

I lost my fag virginity in Rome from a room with a view of the Pantheon at sunrise by a man named Michelangelo Minervini. Morrissey wrote this song about my story.

11. “The Chalet Lines” -Belle and Sebastian

I have my reasons.

12. “Maybe” -The Chantels

I like this doo wop stuff, when I’m in the right mood

13. “Anemone” -Brian Jonestown Massacre

Everything BJM does, I usually like.

14. “Where Are We Now?” -David Bowie

Bowie released an album this year. This is the good song from it.

15. “I’ll Be Seeing You” -Martha Wainwright

This sometimes makes me see my parents, young, dancing, before I was born.

16. “Downed” -Cheap Trick

This was in Over the Edge.

17. “Metamorfose Ambulante” -Raul Seixas

This was in City of God.

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— Giancarlo DiTrapano publishes and edits Tyrant Books and New York Tyrant.