The Starving Futurist

In 1997, I lived in a basement flat in Bayswater, West London, England. Broke as a joke, I spent what little walking-around-money I had on blooms ‘n baubles for this young lady I’d met who’d eventually become my bride. Sticking to a diet of (mostly) baguettes and canned pasta sauce, I’d lose 15 pounds. My friends Steve, Jason, Kevin, and Hans came to visit, and between my atrophy and my Dutch Boy haircut, they agreed I looked like the illegitimate son of David Spade.

When I wasn’t in class, or courting Barbara Ann, or drinking my way across London with Eric, Shane, and Mark at various and sundry pubs, I was writing music. Lots of it. Looking back at my papers (long since scanned) I wrote about 20–30 songs over the course of those 6 months.

Creatively, it’s safe to say that all of them were “inspired” by my time in London. Words like “pastiche” wouldn’t have popped into the mix if I’d been writing in South Bend, that’s for sure.

Specifically, though, I wrote two songs *about* London: 1888 and London Transport.

1888 was an acoustic morality play about life, sex, and death featuring Jack the Ripper. I’m not sure this song has aged terribly well, and in the unlikely event I ever run for office, it’ll probably be the reason I’m disqualified.