Bookmarks: Some stuff to read on the internet: Juliana Hatfield & Evan Dando

If this is the sort of chapter that got cut from Juliana Hatfield's memoir, you surely have to read the stuff that made it?

On the night that Carl and Evan’s mom came over, we had a bunch of boxes of shrink-wrapped Nicely, Nicely albums stacked up in the condo pad. Gary, who happened to be there at the condo pad that night, and who happened to be what some people might characterize as “radically progressive” politically, and very knowledgeable, seemed very interested in Carl.

Gary asked Carl where he was from.

Carl said that he lived in Washington, D.C.

Then Gary asked Carl what he did for a living.

Carl said that he was a journalist at the Washington Post.

Gary smiled and then it dawned on all of the rest of us simultaneously that this man, who had looked vaguely familiar, was CARL BERNSTEIN. Of Woodward and Bernstein. Evan’s mom’s friend was one of the two Washington Post reporters who broke the Watergate break-in story which helped to bring about Richard Nixon’s resignation. The two guys who, literally, wrote the book about the scandal (All The President’s Men), and who were played by Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman in the movie.

We all tried to stay cool and restrain ourselves from yelling out, “Holy Shit! You’re Carl Bernstein!” or “Oh my God!” and jumping up and down and hyperventilating but it was difficult because this man was a really important historical figure — kind of an American hero, who’d helped bring a dirty president down. And he was standing in our kitchen shooting the shit with us dirtbag indie rocker kids.

Before he left, Mr. Bernstein bought two copies of Nicely, Nicely (eight bucks each). We wanted to give them to him as a gift but he insisted, graciously, on paying. He removed the shrink wrap and had all of us Blake Babies sign both albums. He gave one to his son and left with the other one under his arm.

[An unpublished chapter from When I Grow Up by Juliana Hatfield]