Aimee Mann, Ray and a Faux Writer on the Alaska Highway

I was perusing the LA Times online in my writing studio when I came across mention of a new record by Aimee Mann. Of course I’ll never hear it because I don’t download music and record stores have gone extinct in rural areas across the land. Perhaps I could hear a cut or two from the new release on a website or Pandora. Who knows? I hadn’t thought about Aimee Mann’s music in many years, but reading the review returned me to a golden time when her music, actually one album, accompanied me on one of the more perilous and pretentious journeys of my life—driving the Alaska Highway.

In the summer of 2001, right before America took a terrible turn, I drove a pickup camper north from the Oregon Coast with the intention of seeing the Arctic Sea, forging an identity as a Jack London-esque writer, and exploding into the region’s literary scene with stories and essays that would blow away the pampered, effete MFA crowd.

Of course my vehicular inspiration was Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley and thus I brought along my trusty canine sidekick Ray, while my wife at the time, Cindy, took care of sonny the husky, at home.

The idea was to drive, camp out, write, repeat. See the Last Frontier. Meet its crazies, see moose and wolves. Pan the story gold. Become a writer.

As it turned out, Ray and I drove roughly 6000 miles in little over a month, averaging 30-40 mph on the worst potholed and dangerous roads I’ve ever driven. As it turned out, I never wrote a single word on the trip. I was too exhausted after 12-14 hours days of driving. I never saw the Arctic Sea. I quit 200 miles short. I did see a moose. I did see a man walking the highway in loafers and carrying a briefcase. It was snowing at the time, at 6000 feet, in August.

Later, I wrote a 5000-word short story, “In Dubious Camper” about the adventure but could never get it published. I think writing this story was more of an exercise of teaching myself how not to become a writer. It later paid off.

During that 6000-mile journey, I listened to Aimee Mann’s Bachelor No. 2, released in 2000, at least five times a day and I really can’t remember why I inaugurated that routine. I had never done that before with a record and haven’t done it since.

I memorized all the lyrics, all Aimee’s vocal inflections, and would often sing along in the middle of nowhere where a breakdown would have been certain disaster. Ray used to watch me when I sang. He looked at me like I was losing my mind. I think I was. But I had him and Aimee with me and we made it home alive.

I sold the camper a month or two later. I never played Bachelor No. 2 again…until a couple of days ago after reading the article. Frankly, I am surprised I still had it considering I got rid of most of my CDs during my recent terrible hospice care of my former self. Somehow it survived the purge. (Exile on Main Street did not and I miss that record these days.)

Listening to the album some 16 years later was a curious sensation. It took me right back on the highway, right there with my great old dog, the first of my coastal pack, the yearning to become a writer and the folly of that particular approach in becoming one. What was it about her songs that so mesmerized me in the midst of such desolate and overwhelming nature. I still can’t pin it down. It might have simply been her indelible soft voice in concert with the cadence of the bumpy road. I will never know. Music is like that to me. I don’t try to hard to figure it out.

If you’ve never heard this record, you might want to check it out. There is something still haunting and enlightening in there, at least for me, and I suspect for others. My favorite songs are:

Red Vines

Susan

How Am I Different

Calling it Quits

You Do

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