Hi Will! My Friends Have Asked Me To Send You Some More Classic Country/blues Songs So Here Are Some

Hello!! You followed me a while ago but I'm just going through your bolg now, it's very strange but I'm intrigued. It's lovely to formally make your acquaintance!

Nice to make your acquaintance as well! Come on in!

I've visited a few juice joints in my time!

william being eighteen is crazy to me he shouldve been at the club

HENRYYYYYYYYY!! hhihihi

I made a big red box bracelet and I really like it and I wanted to show it to you so here you go and also your my favorite i hope you guys are happy together forever

and also hi Will

wow! that's tubular. wish we had real merch -- do bands still have, like, a merch table when you go to their shows? i checked out a couple shows in chicago when i was there but usually they were in bars that don't let teenagers in. but sometimes you can hear it from outside and you can ask a nice guy to go in and get you the shirt.

also, thank you. i hope you're all happy too. though you really don't need to play favorites - we're all in this together, for better or for worse, haha.

Hi! This looks swell! Thank you tons!

how did you get to know the stratagems?

I remember -- that recording booth. Four faces in that glass reflection. Long session, but boy, was it worth it! I remember jam sessions, a crowd, a banner with their names on it. It comes in bits and pieces.

The first memory of them I rightly recall, I'd say, is sitting across from them. One of their living rooms, I think, with a little brown Steinway upright in the corner. All four of them crowded casual-like onto the couch across from me. Strains of a rag in the air, with us all tapping along to it, the music vibrating through our feet and bones. Next thing I know, I'm looking down at the ivories of that Steinway, and we're all making a tune!

woah, i haven't checked your blog in a while and just noticed that now there's two of you running it! hope you like it here so far, henry!

We just found our way back here! Gettin' accustomed to these new digs and everything.

yeah, you haven't missed much. not here, anyway. and i like it here just fine. will's here, after all.

From Bay Area Reporter, 1977. 

Sorry for the strange things I will be putting onto your dashboard, William 😔

Not a problem, kid! The world is vast and full o' strange things!

Are you guys doing okay? The response to the last ask looks a bit odd

i feel ok. pretty ok. somet imes things sound different to you all than me... what's wrong?

Say that again?

what was your sweetheart's name?

Huh…goddamnit. I suppose I can’t recall.

huh. th at's certainly... interes ting. bu t, uh, no offe nse, but i'm not sur e i beli eve you all? i mean, this cou ld be me, or it cou ld jus t be a couple par agra phs writ ten by som eone who knows a h e l l of a lot about me, w hich you all see m to. and i d on't reme mbe r it the way i could with those email recordings you sent over. it's like anyth ing else i listen to on this place of yours - not rea lly a p ar t of me, yo u kn ow? I gue ss i kinda hope it's me, though. this guy so unds li ke he 's been t hrough he ll but he's a li ttle be tter for it. i wis h i was that st ro ng. and wish h e hadn't left it out the re.

@williamy3w Hi, Henry. This is the recording we asked if you wanted to see. We don’t have the actual audio from the recording, but we have the transcript:

Evidence File #81

Date of Admission: 8/23/1986

Evidence ID: 27.55555

Transcription Follows

YOUNG M. VOICE: uh. hi. um. my name’s henry bicknell, hb for short- it’s, um, well it was a sunny day today but now it’s night in the radio station. 1986. there’s some dogs outside, dunno if you can hear them. try to get a clear recording for ya if they don’t get too loud. 

yeah, uh, no way this is going in there, but will told me to record everything, so i’m going to record everything. but i got a theory that that’s because everything you don’t record kind of… disappears. i tried to ask will if i could transmit a photo of andrew mccarthy and then i’d look like him in there but he says it doesn’t work that way. bummer! 

if i don’t, i think i’ll just destroy it. or leave it near my car. i dunno, i like thinking about it existing somewhere. just in case. 

um, so, the reason we moved out of missoula- this year, in the spring, we moved and i remember… that it was still snowing when we pulled into the driveway of our place in chicago, and i thought we had bought the whole apartment building for a second. pretty disappointing, haha! but i really like it here. i think. i mean, i met will here, so it’s a nice place. 

but yeah the reason we moved out of missoula -- and i don’t mean to insult chicago by trying to leave it, and will says i can come back and listen to the radio here anytime i want. it’s lonely here but then again it’s lonely for me everywhere. i make a lot of friends but i can never get them to… stick. and they stay, i mean, people like me, but…

the reason we moved out of missoula is -– the thing is, even if i’ve got tons of friends, even if i’m surrounded by them, i always feel a little bit like i’m faking it. i’ll be laughing and talking and then i’ll be watching myself laughing and talking, and going, oh, boy, they liked that one, they’ll like me a little longer before i get found out. dunno what they’re gonna find out. i never stick around to see. 

because, like, we had to leave missoula, because, and i totally understand… okay, like, nothing was wrong, was the problem. it was, what, sophomore year? i didn’t have any college applications to worry about, i was doing really well on the track team, i had some friends. but every day it felt like something was hollow. like, i dunno, the colors in the world weren’t as bright as they were before. like when i heard music it was through a film. i love making tunes, i love making friends, i love finding new forgotten places in the city. like the radio station here! h3vn 33.3- boy, is that a spooky story!

but um. yeah, i really like those things. i know i like them. but i just… stopped doing them for a little while. like i’d lie on my bed and know i’d love to be up making a new tune. i’d hear it in my head. like this! 

​

MUSIC: [A short jingle]

​

YOUNG M. VOICE: but i just couldn’t bring myself to move one muscle over to the theremin and write it. i’d watch the light on my ceiling come up and go out and come up again. i could go to school more or less, but it was like whenever i was alone i’d just stand there, like a doll someone had stopped playing with. it took all my energy just to smile at someone.

so i guess the reason we had to leave missoula is that i kind of fell off a bridge. into water! deep water, like i bet i knew i wasn’t going to really- you know, but you do something like that and then everybody’s got a fucking opinion. i couldn’t really go to school. people talked about me. it was bad. i don’t remember too much about the time around it, just my dad kind of asking me when i felt like i could go back again and me saying whenever but not being able to move at all. 

i guess eventually someone gave me a potted sunflower. i think it was my mom? i uh, stopped seeing faces for a while, just like, didn’t care enough to look. but i bet it was my mom. 

so i don’t know why i really did it. i was watching it get all shrively and start to die over there on the other side of the room. and i knew i was the last thing standing between it and dying early. and just -- suddenly, i could move. i could water it. and then a week later there was a new little green leaf on it and i just… well, now i was responsible for this stupid little plant. i had to go outside to put it in the sunshine. and then i planted more. and then more. i grew a whole garden there. started making music. started going outside. and my dad finally felt like maybe we should move, get a fresh start in a new place.

i’m ok now. mostly ok. i find things to do with my time. but i haven’t been able to bring myself to make friends here, really. or, like, i feel myself running away from them again. and it’s because… like… everything is kind of a little fucking sunflower, right? like a friend. a life. it’s all for someone else. i feel like everyone else has some kind of power that i don’t- some secret, authentic way to make their own happiness. and until then what happens when the sunflower isn’t enough- when just, i’m not a good enough person, not selfless enough to make its existence my reason for existing… what happens? what happens to it then?  

so you see how i gotta put this here. i gotta leave this kind of thing outside. i really like will. like, really like him. i want this to be perfect. but i still can’t tell if he’s another fucking sunflower. i don’t think so. this feels different from everything else i’ve felt before. like my chest is all warm just from thinking about him. like i want to live forever just to be with him. but i don’t want any of this memory getting in there and making things… less than perfect. 

maybe i’ll plant it in the ground. or put it somewhere nice. somewhere with sky.