Dear Mr. Browne

Jackson Browne

c/o Donald Miller

Donald Miller Management

12746 King Street

Studio City, CA. 91604

Dear Mr. Browne,

You may be unaware, but you and I are closing in on our 45^thanniversary, that is, as musician and devoted fan.  Before we launch into fond reminiscences, we must temper our mood by quietly honoring two of your rock & roll contemporaries, Ric Ocasek and Eddie Money, who passed away last week.  As to the former, I owe a great debt of gratitude, for to hear any Cars’ tunes from the late 70’s is to instantly be transported back to my wedding reception in 1978.  If I remember correctly, it was my brother Chris who crafted a tape cassette playlist overwhelmingly favoring music by the Cars (“Just what I needed”, memorable melody but lyrics perhaps too imperfect to hail it as a wedding theme song), The Talking Heads (“Psycho Killer”, the lyrics of which also aren’t worth the exercise of interpretation, but as a wedding punch was an ambrosial antidote to the insane heat), Bruce, of course, and even more of course, YOU.  Your Pretender album was still causing us fans to weep with sorrow; in truth, it would become one of those albums that reflexively – and for all time – call to mind its sad circumstances.  And your “Running on Empty” album, of course, became everyone’s favorite.

I don’t know about you, but I could be running on empty, and I would still be proud of my nostalgic sensibilities.  Too bad I was wrapped up in final wedding preparations, otherwise I would have come to see you perform back then at the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant.  One irony is that for nearly 35 years I have lived within five miles of that accursed scourge of our beautiful coastal landscape.  To me it represents a ticking time-bomb, but for a long time I comforted myself with the thought that it would be taken off-line, as feebly promised by company executives, upon reaching its life expectancy.  Earlier this year, however, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission extended the plant’s license, so it seems – short of a disaster – that the year 2050 is the next best hope of shuttering the plant.  Now we “Citizens within a 10-mile radius” (familiarly known as C-10) naturally worry about concrete degradation.  Anti-nukes these days can’t seem to muster the same degree of righteous indignation that drew 20,000 protesters to Seabrook that June day in 1978.  I can rely on you, my stalwart friend, to keep up the good fight, though; don’t let the bastards grind you down.  (I will not dignify the phony Latin expression by writing it here.)

The first time that I attended one of your concerts was in September of 1977 when you played at the Cumberland County Civic Center in Portland, Maine.  Admittedly, your later recording (in fact, immediately upon departing Portland) of “Nothing but Time” fails to thrill me to the extent that “The Load Out/Stay” blend did that night as an encore, but your references to “rolling down 295 out of Portland, Maine, Still high from the people up there” have always produced a happy sensation when I hear the song.    My boyfriend George and I had a well-thought out plan of weekend camping and concert-going. Somewhere in this house I still have the two-sided, exhaustive checklist of camping gear.  We headed up Route 1 and as we were crossing the Tobin Bridge, a spray of water hit the windshield of our ’67 Mustang.  George instantly knew that his radiator had sprung a leak. His calm reaction was to tap his engine temperature gauge on the dashboard and declare, “When the needle reaches this point, I have to turn off the engine.”  I can’t overstate my sense of panic.  Breaking-down cars is one way to trigger it; being lost – a carryover from childhood – also provokes it, as much as I try to convince myself to instead view it as “an unexpected adventure.”  So, at a bend in the road in Revere, George pulled his car into the breakdown lane, and turned it off.  He handed me a long screwdriver, commanded me to use it. . . if necessary, and struck out on foot for an auto parts store.   I stood for half an hour, fending off every offer of help, and, really, there seemed to be a steady stream of concerned travelers. . . or potential abductors.

Memory escapes me, but I have a hazy recollection of George returning without whatever it was he sought; either that, or he realized that replacing the radiator in the breakdown lane of Route 1 was an unrealistic objective.  Thus, for the entirety of the trip we had to have a sufficient store of water constantly at the ready to keep filling the radiator.  We made it to the concert. . . loved it (even from seats located behind a conspicuous post). I can’t say that the camping was a total success; I remember very little about it, but there are a couple of photos in my collections that capture a couple of downcast young people.

With all the touring that you’ve done over the decades, I wonder if you remember summer of 1978 when you performed at Tanglewood in Lenox, Mass.; I believe it was your third appearance there.  For you it would have been memorable in that it was in the same year that your live album “Running on Empty” was released.  For me, an uncultured country girl accustomed to all things small scale, the experience was transformative.  Even though your concert at Tanglewood the year before had drawn a record-setting crowd for that venue, your August, 1978 reappearance brought in over 21,000 fans.   Lenox neighbors were still– closing in on a decade now of Tanglewood’s Popular Artist Series - grasping at strategies to cope with decibel levels and unprecedented numbers of attendees, who tended toward pot-smoking and standing on their chairs and screeching along with the band.  With my limited concert-going experience, I had by then at least learned what that pleasant fragrance wafting about our heads was.  

I don’t imagine that you’ve ever been in a situation that demanded a high degree of car repair skills.  Your skill set being what it is, I now arrive at the purpose of my letter.  I’d like to provide you with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to stay at my house – just one night.  I can show you the wonders of a New England coastal town.  It’s at its best in the fall, and the tourists are largely absent (although in recent years the number of retired Nova Scotians lurching around in their over-sized RV’s has been sufficient to slow down local traffic to a maddening degree.) The contrast between New England and Southern California could not be more dramatic, both aesthetically and culturally.  (To begin, our street addresses don't use numbers that go up into the tens of thousands, like I notice your King Street address does.). Bringing things full circle, a visit to the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant will allow you to re-kindle your sense of outrage.  

My daughter thinks I’m a little bit “touched in the head” for writing to someone so famous, but then she knows how fond I am of sending letters via the U.S.P.S.  My earliest correspondence with a famous person was when I was 7 years old; I sent a letter of condolence to Jackie Kennedy, soon after her husband was assassinated.  I treasure the boilerplate response that the White House sent to me.

Well, I should sign off now.  I’m planning to pen a letter to Stephen Colbert, to ask him to invite you back to the Late Show.  It’s been over ten years since he put you on the hotseat about suing John McCain for his unpermitted use of “Running on Empty” in his smear campaign against Barack Obama.  I figure you’ll have plenty to catch up on, and you can promote your “Lantern Tour II”. I stand solidly with you in your disapproval of how the current Administration is handling migrants and refugees.  But don’t get me started on that!  I’ll save my indignation for my next letter to you.  Stay well, and let me know if you want a quintessential New England experience.  (Just go to my blog, and leave a comment at the end of this post.  Please feel free to follow me – I only have 12 followers, and if you join my small group of admirers, my credibility just might soar.)

Fondly,

Joyce

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