Hollowed Grounds

This past July, i had the opportunity to visit Seattle for the first time since i left over 4 years ago. i was returning to old friends in a changed city and had the honor of playing a reunion show, one night only, with Carissa’s Wierd. I mention this only because Shaun was there 10 years ago when these two bands played together at Graceland. And now, just as back then, both bands would compete with the din of people talking. Ken noted this ironic parallel and how Shaun had attracted the ire, in print, of a certain music writer. This person went on to write in her column about “a hippie” talking over CW and when she asked him to shut up he replied: “You want me to shut up, but i shan’t shut up”. She took especial umbrage with his use of the word “shan’t”, which is hilarious, because this particular hippie, unbeknownst to the music writer, had once read the entire canon of Shakespeare in one summer, hence his peculiar vocabulary.
An hour before the concert, i went with my friend Mike across the street from the Showbox over to the low concrete stalls at the end of the Pike Place Market. There, overlooking Puget Sound with the Olympic Peninsula beyond, we stopped at the last place i saw Shaun. I have no recollection of what we talked about, so this memory is rendered like a silent film: a sunny, wintry day, 2006. i am about to move to Sweden and we are saying our goodbyes. we share some smokes and give each other a hug.
Standing there in 2010 brings me no closer to remembering our last words. So instead, i bring him with us on to the stage (a picture of him and Emily are on the setlist, sorry i don’t have it but the picture is up top). He was probably our biggest fan and we all have fond memories of seeing him in the crowd with arms outstretched just letting the music in.

Later in July, Emily and i took a walk through Discovery Park. Shaun used to walk his dog Lucy there when he moved up to Seattle for good in 1998. i accompanied him often on his evening walks that autumn as i was staying with him and Paige. Under the cover of darkness he would let Lucy run without a leash and we’d take turns throwing slobbery tennis balls which, though dutifully fetched, weren’t always surrendered easily. Shaun loved that park; the night air and the tall evergreens giving his walks something he needed but never got when he’d lived in Vegas. He was as happy as i ever saw him then.

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