Hello, I’m Chris Parker. I’m the host of this platform in whatever iterations it eventually takes. I’m a long-time freelance journalist who has covered music, science, politics and the arts for three decades in publications like Billboard, Hollywood Reporter, Variety, The Guardian, The Daily Beast, Huffington Post, Undark, High Times, and across the Village Voice and New Times alt-weekly chains, for whom I wrote a raft of music features and did over a dozen syndicated cover stories (appearing in multiple cities the same week).
As someone who could never narrow their attention, I let my felicitous interests lead the way. I’ve had the fortune to interview Nobel Prize winners, NBA All-stars, legendary musicians, politicians and oodles of normal people just trying to make a difference or negotiate tough times. When LeBron James returned to Cleveland, I became a beat reporter and covered the team for three years, going to the finals for two of them and finishing a self-published book on their championship run by Christmas of 2016, which I got into every Ohio Barnes & Nobles store.
I’ve lived or visited most of the country, and think there’s something to the Jerry Jeff Walker line (as related to me by Joe Ely) that some people travel around the world to find what others discover in their own backyard. Perhaps as an only child without much extended family that makes sense.
So that’s a little about me. But why…… This?
I don’t think I started this site for the same reasons most people do. I believe most people have a lot of goals and intentions in mind when they start an endeavor like this. I believe that because that’s how I would typically approach things. Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with goals and intentions. Like anything, moderation is advised.
I say this because about a quarter century ago I interviewed musician/producer Joe Henry for the Big Takeover, who told me a story that remains with me to this day. Bob Dylan stories have a tendency to do that. We’ll have Henry (*fingers crossed*) on to tell the whole story himself, but the TL;DR is that Dylan appeared on an episode of Dharma & Greg, leading to the inevitable journalist question: WTF?
As Dylan explained it, throughout his life he’d had opportunities that everything suggested he should undertake, and in every case he came away disappointed. There was absolutely no reason for him to do that sitcom, so he figured, why not?
That’s a latter day zen koan! Perhaps it’s something you discover more quickly when the world’s your oyster, but it’s true for everyone. Our expectations are an impediment to joy. It’s why people want to be like children, when they had no idea what to expect. But it’s within us to do things, just kind of to do them, you know?
I’m not skilled in design. I have never done a podcast. Or a newsletter. But they are really just other modes of communication. A different microphone if you will. I am not going into this like an expert, I’m going in hoping to learn a lot of stuff I don’t know and have some fun exploring something I can’t fail at because I haven’t set any measure of success beyond the doing.
Over time in my mind, Bob’s koan has sidled alongside the immortal RFK line, "Some men see things as they are and say, 'Why?' I dream of things that never were and say, 'Why not?’” On a certain level it’s about giving over to the mystery. I interviewed John Doe for a book I’m finishing about how the ‘80s-’90s country punks seeded a new underground in Americana (or whatever you call it, really). He said, he left the east coast because it was so built up there wasn’t any room, and in Los Angeles, they tore old stuff down all the time.
If there’s no room for something new, what have you really got?