When I downloaded my archive, I was surprised at how much I’d forgotten from a decade’s worth of tweeting. (Previous installments here and here.)
Most of my tweets were about music, but there were also a few life stories.
Taking the tweets out of Twitter and editing them into a highlight reel is bad for the content. It would be better to post photos of all the tweets (like the one at the top of this post). But that would take too much work. While paging through this diary, these are simply the snippets I don’t want to forget.
Varied personal tweets from past decade that made me laugh or go “hmm”:
If yr stopping at Hotel Michelangelo in Mestre, the wifi code is easy to remember: 49O36j7ha9KpLZZzpxXDDt4y
In juice shop right now, “Summer of ’69” by Brian Adams is playing. I learned it on piano in 8th grade to impress a girl. Horrible song
At Newark Airport I checked in, tagged my bags, and bought food and coffee with barely any human interaction. It was all machines. We need basic income for all, sooner rather than later. Human workforce is not required
I never got into Scrabble because my mom was too good at it. Playing her was like banging your head against a cement wall
Mayweather/McGregor odds keep “improving.” Damn I might need to place first-ever sports bet. Anybody recommend online bookie for NYers?
Whoa. Almost got sucked into researching whether Earth is flat or not
OMG I’m verified…that means whatever I say goes, right?
It’s very important for artistic geniuses to hold incorrect opinions. Any worthy aesthetic is unruly
In Paris: my cabbie drives like he’s auditioning for a RONIN remake while listening to saxophone-heavy instrumental Afro-pop. It’s awesome
I hope my text messages never come to light
I want to eat something with carob as the main ingredient. (Last time I had carob was probably 1982) [Update: I ate some carob and it was OK]
Saw there was a “what was your best casual NYC celeb sighting” meme going around — FWIW, around 1999 I watched a performance of Schoenberg GURRELIEDER “accompanied” by Susan Sontag and Annie Leibovitz. (I sat next to them and exchanged a few unmemorable words)
Tom Baker and Josef Hofmann have same birthday
Just drove through Woodville, Mississippi, birthplace of Lester Young
I’m not *really* a fan of JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR anymore, but as a teenager it landed reasonably hard. Definitely The Right Honourable Lloyd Webber’s best work
Claressa Shields stayed at our place a few times when training in NYC and it was always my “job” to carry the bags of the GWOAT down to the taxi when she went to the airport. *Put it my official bio!!*
“I can’t tell you what hotel I’m staying in, but there are two trees involved.” — Another related classic Mitch Hedberg quote: “I met a girl who works at the Double Tree front desk, she gave me her phone number. It’s zero.”
Just walked by what used to be Bleecker Bob’s Records. I remember delightedly finding Ornette Coleman’s CRISIS there in ‘92 and paying $20 for the LP, which was a fortune for me at the time (I was living off ramen or a dozen day-old bagels for a dollar)…which leads me to idly considering scarcity and wondering if my relationship to music would be different if it was all a click away like it is in 2021…who knows
In 1992 I wrote an inept paper on the John Corigliano soundtrack to ALTERED STATES for a college course
I was being self-deprecating about some of my more fossilized behaviors and Sam Newsome suggested I was an “Iversaur.” Not bad!
The first flight out is underrated. No crowds at TSA, the plane has been sitting on tarmac gassed up ready to go since last night, the chances of delays are small. Of course, you don’t sleep. But you know what? You’ll sleep when you’re dead
I composed a negative tweet, but my internet was down on an Italian train so I was unable to send it off. After a few hours I was back online and deleted my tweet (rather than post it). I win Twitter for today!
Congrats to my home state, Wisconsin, for going blue in the electoral college. Those denizens can be a misanthropic bunch, and I can be the first to criticize…but for the moment, all is forgiven!
I was a little worried about the ethics of using Uber…but since they sent me an email declaring they are firmly against racism, I guess they are totally cool
Back to school today. Serious respect to all committed teachers: it’s a hard and lonely gig
Yale art professor: “I’m really looking forward to seeing what works the students come up with to counteract or undermine my own narratives.” Just to be reassuringly clear, if you study with me at NEC, I will basically ignore your undergraduate opinions about jazz
20 years later thread:
My 9/11 memories are banal. The Mark Morris Dance Center had opened the previous night; at the gala I danced with my ultimate crush in the Merce Cunningham company…
I was hungover the next morning. My apartment was lo-fi, almost a tenement, and I left the kitchen window open even though there was no screen. When I woke up, there was ash everywhere, for debris from the first tower’s collapse had blown straight over the East River into Brooklyn…
Since I had neither a TV nor a computer, I couldn’t figure out where all the ash was coming from. People were standing everywhere on rooftops in my neighborhood to look at something but I couldn’t imagine what…
The coffee shop on the corner had a little TV. When I went in, the owner was staring at the set. He handed me a coffee without a word. I gratefully took the cup and turned to look at TV. Just after my first sip, the second tower collapsed…
That’s what I remember best, the warm coffee cup in my hand while watching the second tower fall on that tiny TV.
Grandpa thread:
At MSP, I got a little impatient waiting to board the shuttle headed north because a dude took a long time looking for keys his wife had left on previous van. Dude turned out to be ex-mayor of Duluth.
Speaking of: My father’s father was the mayor of Duluth for a few years. He was a minor public official who stepped in and took the post (unelected) when the old mayor died.
Apparently grandad didn’t like the job because his home phone was listed and people would call at all hours demanding action about minor problems.
3 AM: phone rings: “A cow is loose on county road 19! Help us Mr. Iverson!”
Attendees at grandad’s funeral in Duluth in 1974 included Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale. The legend goes that the Mondales and the Iversons were related going back to a small town in Norway, maybe Mondale was my grandpa’s distant cousin. My dad’s earnest advice, which I abide by to this day: “Always vote Democratic, and never vote Republican.”
Don’t tell me there wasn’t a Minnesota Democratic machine!
(In conclusion)
There were two notable changes in tone in my decade-long twitter archive. The first was when the platform went from 140 to 280 characters. The second was when I stopped drunk-tweeting. (I was never too bad, but if you know, you know, and I know. The worst of those are now permanently deleted LOL)
DO THE M@TH 