Robert H Myers

I originally wrote the bulk of this post in 2013 and somehow forgot to publish it. Most of this post is new this week.

In 2013 I stumbled upon The Roving Typist (Twitter handle @RovingTypist) aka C.D. Hermelin, who creates original, one-page stories, while you wait. All for a donation price of your choosing. He does it with an old-school, real-life typewriter.

I sent him $25 and the prompt was for him to listen to the song “Twin Size Mattress” by The Front Bottoms and write whatever came to mind. It could be about the song, something it reminded him of, or literally anything. Just listen to the song first.

The song had wormed its way into my brain and I couldn’t stop listening to it. Twenty, thirty times a day. What was this even about?

It’s no big surprise you turned out this way
When they close their eyes and prayed you would change
And they cut your hair, and sent you away
You stopped by my house the night you escaped
With tears in my eyes, I begged you to stay
You said, “Hey man, I love you, but no fucking way!”

I’m sure that we could find something for you to do on stage
Maybe shake a tambourine or when I sing, you sing harmonies

The Front Bottoms – “Twin Size Mattress”

It’s simultaneously accessible and indecipherable. The song feels like it’s about 5 different things. It’s a friend song. An addiction song. A love song. A wandering what am I doing song. A song about rejection, and acceptance.

And I became obsessed.

Not obsessed in the way I needed to dissect it and wear its secrets like lampshades. But in the way you float on your back and dare it to drown you by breaching your pursed lips, promising not to move your arms to help yourself.

I wanted the song to consume me, entirely. I wanted to exist only to provide sustenance to it- energy, amplitude, volume. What was this feeling and why couldn’t I shake it?

My prefrontal cortex had no answers. My lizard brain wanted to hunt in the mud water of the first verse.

In college, in an English course, we had to write a poem. More than that, we had to print copies for the class, pick someone else to read it aloud, and then let everyone write a response about it. What did they think it meant? What were the themes? Etc…

When I got back the surveys I was shocked. No two people had the same thoughts about it. Everyone read themselves into it and my intentions were irrelevant. Their experiences with it were how their emotional or intellectual receptors were aligned to understand it.

And that’s where The Roving Typist comes into play. He would be my classmate; the wall I would bounce this ball off of hoping the echo contained some truth. The song would enter his brain, move his fingers and hands and keys, and whatever happened then would be my absolution.

The end result was cathartic. There was no piercing insight or pulling back of curtains. He hadn’t tied it to a chair and beaten it free of its secrets. What he had done was stick the landing, and I was better off for it.

I found it in a notebook a month ago with the original envelope, framed it and hung it in my office. My kids asked why. I told them I had no idea.

Make sure you kiss your knuckles before you punch me in the face
There are lessons to be learned
Consequences for all the stupid things I say
And it is no big surprise you turned out this way
The spark in your eyes, the look on your face
I will not…

I’m sure that we could find something for you to do on stage (be late)
Maybe shake a tambourine or when I sing, you sing harmonies

The Front Bottoms – “Twin Size Mattress”

I’m glad to report the Roving Typist is still going strong a decade later.

If you’re looking for a completely one-of-a-kind gift, or you just need someone to shake a tambourine, hit him up.