Lately, I've been thinking a lot about the Psychic Eye Book Shop. Why, I'm not sure… my brain is often at odds with everything else I should legitimately be paying attention to—especially so in this turbulent eddy of our current times—and yet here I am reflecting on this ridiculous strip mall store in the South Bay of LA that specialized in anything and everything of a New Age persuasion. What's historically relevant if not funny about this is that I first learned about the business from Rodney Mullen, circa 1991–92, when I started working, aka living, in the World Industries environment.
It would be wrong of me to try and place accurate words to such an abstract memory now, but when Rodney first explained this bookstore to Marc McKee and I, it sounded like a super witchy place. You know, dark, mysterious, foreboding—all those gothy things. So, imagine our surprise when we sought it out on those very spooky pretenses, only to be greeted by a run-of-the-mill strip mall store in the South Bay of LA that was not at all like the supernatural den of iniquity we'd been lead to believe. I mean, we also should've known better. Rodney was heavily into his occult reading phase then—Anton LaVey, Aleister Crowley, the usual Satanic suspects—so no doubt the sight of all those crystals, dreamcatchers, and Eye of Horus trinkets could be more unsettling than usual to the casual observer. But again, this is all just based off a remote, foggy memory, one shrouded by the mist of time and perceptions of a no longer trustworthy nature.
Perhaps most alarming, though, is the fact my train of thought can be so easily derailed at the sight of a site called the Village Psychic. Seriously. That's all it took and now this is my mental state for the day. Well, at least it's set to a subconscious soundtrack of Pavement, a band that I do happen to like and, come to think of it, had a bizarre set of encounters with in the alt '90s that I don't believe I've ever fully processed? There's a lot to unpack there, so I'm just gonna leave a few stray bullet points and try to go about the rest of my day:
• On the Big Brother "Midwest Tour" in 1994, we happened to be in Chicago, Il, the night Pavement was playing at the Metro on May 5. I don't remember the exact circumstances now and I'm far too lazy to dig out Issue 12 from my archives, but we somehow had backstage access to interview them—probably through our PR contact at Matador Records then—and this resulted in Earl Parker creeping out onstage during their performance to take photos of the band members. Like full on over the shoulder photos of the drummer while he was mid-song. This is, of course, a capital letter NO-NO offense. The band was clearly distracted and less than enthused by his intrusion to their set, and someone eventually grabbed Earl and shoved him back into the wings. Tensions ensued in the inevitable way that followed in the wake of most any Big Brother encounter, but cooler heads prevailed and everyone made nice, making for one-of-three unconnected Pavement sidebars in the exact same issue.
• Then, while traveling along as the Big Brother journalist who was meant to cover a skateboard sideshow accompanying the Summersault Festival in Australia over the New Year's hump of 1995–96, I ended up on a bus seat next to Mark Ibold, the bassist of Pavement. We reminisced about the aforementioned egregious instance in Chicago, which he did in fact remember, along with some of his skateboarding past. This, to me, meant we were now friends (friends!) and I looked forward to seeing them again in LA just a few weeks later on January 20.
• I did in fact see them play at the Troubadour then, but I was unable to say hello to Mark after the show and our friendship disappeared into the thin air from which I'd entirely imagined it.
• My last experience with Pavement never actually happened. I mean, it did, I was supposed to see them play at Spaceland in LA, circa 1997, but unfortunately Spoon happened to be opening for them. I say unfortunately, because my Big Brother compatriot that night had an even more unfortunate and awkward experience with Britt Daniel years prior in Austin, TX, and she'd arranged an interview with him prior to the show that wound up taking a surprise turn and resulted in Spoon having our press credentials pulled and names removed from the VIP door list. And, since the show was sold out, I was never able to see Pavement play that night... or ever again.
Is that what happens in life? Things just never happen again? It's kind of sad when you stop to think about it like that, but, then again, it's not like anyone ever really stops to think about anything anymore. And, as much as I'd like to say it's because of "carpe diem" and all those other ludicrous Latin inanities, it's not. It's simply because of handheld devices and our ever devolving attention spans, which ultimately begs this last question: Why are you still here? You really should have flicked off many, many minutes ago, and now you're just making me feel bad for hijacking your life. —Sean Cliver
