Calvinist + Robin C. Jones
My dad would have been 87 today. He died, suddenly, in 1997. Presenting this information suggests a response. He’s sad and we should feel sad now. I’m not. I think of him every day, but that thought rarely connects to any recognizable emotions. Sadness is not a word I would use. I want you to know what he was like. I take pictures of flowers because he did. I was a total asshole to him about it when I was a teenager. “Why do you keep taking close-ups of flowers? They all look the same.” I assumed that how narrowly I saw the world represented the size of the world.
I love movies because of my Dad. He introduced me to Them! and Fantastic Voyage and Sweet Smell of Success. Waiting makes no sense to us now, but once we had no choice. He taught me that it was worth waiting for movies, first in theaters and then in their chopped-up TV versions. Frustration was part of the movie experience, tension and release built into the before, during, and after.
I want you to know how funny he was and how he always cried when he played opera on Saturdays. That was my cue to leave the house and go rambling with my friends, tagging up empty parking lots and drinking Ballantine 40s.
Last April, I went into the studio for the first time in a long time. The music I made was intended to heal and I listened to it during the summer as I was healing. I didn’t know what to do with it or when I would put it out. That when seems to be this today. So here is Calvinism Vol. 1, on the Bandcamp platform. My Dad hated popular music.
