{"id":41678,"date":"2026-05-18T02:56:40","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T06:56:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/?p=41678"},"modified":"2026-05-18T02:56:40","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T06:56:40","slug":"its-all-crumbling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/2026\/05\/its-all-crumbling\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s all crumbling"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve known for quite a while that human memory is malleable and surprisingly easy to alter, and while there are certainly some things that I believe<\/em> I recall correctly, I know I’m just as likely fooling myself. But I definitely don’t like it when it’s proven to me.<\/p>\n

I was speaking to my cousin the other day, and remarked how, many years back, I’d been picking through the records in the record shop attached to, and affiliated with, the House of Guitars in Rochester, NY. I grew up a little over a hour away, and the TV commercials for the “great great House of Guitars” were common, so much so that I can still recall their address from the repetition, yet altogether bizarre. The HOG was a huge place jam-packed with every kind of musical instrument you can imagine – I’d purchased my first electric bass there – and it also had a custom guitar shop upstairs that catered to some of the biggest names in the business. Meanwhile, the record store was a great place to find the obscure, out-of-production LPS that you might be looking for.<\/p>\n

I told him that I recalled seeing at least the lead singer of Therapy?<\/a> (an Irish thrash rock band,) but possibly a few of the other members as well, shopping for records in that record shop – the thick brogue drew my attention, and he was instantly recognizable because I was quite familiar with the video for their release, “Screamager<\/a>.” And despite them being from Ireland, the HOG was one of those places that bands visiting the US were fairly likely to stop at if they were in the area, so this wasn’t that farfetched. I didn’t, however, say anything, because I was drawing a blank on the band’s name at the moment, and didn’t even know the lead singer’s name (Andy Cairns.) So, rather than embarrass myself and them with some version of, “Hey, aren’t you… that guy?” I just let it slide.<\/p>\n

“When was the last time you were there?” my cousin asked after I’d recounted this.<\/p>\n

“I don’t know – ’88 or ’89, I think,” I replied;<\/strong> I’d moved from NY in 1990, and probably hadn’t been in a while before then.<\/p>\n

“Well, ‘Screamager’ was released in ’93,” he pointed out, and I knew he was right because you never question his knowledge of music, ever<\/em>, plus I remember watching it on MTV in North Carolina while I was actually rooming with him. And abruptly, some fairly distinct memory that I’d had for quite a while was suddenly revealed to be false, indisputably so, and I was left wondering how I got it in the first place, and whether I’d been shopping somewhere else and somehow remembered it as the HOG, or if I’d spotted some other<\/em> band members, or if it was only a distant dream that got accepted as real after a period of time (not that I recall anything of the sort ever happening before, but then again…)<\/p>\n

It’s easy to say (and I have, internally anyway,) “But I remember his goatee, and that he was shorter than I would have thought,” Yet, once one memory is shown to be unreliable, it’s easy to question anything else, and pretty soon you’re just going, “What the hell, man?” I’m inclined to put it down now as a dream, except that it was the accent that drew my attention and I don’t think I knew they were Irish. That little fact may have come along at any time, though, and remained in my subconscious. Who knows? I mean, seriously, because I don’t anymore.<\/p>\n

The thing is, my memory is usually pretty decent, and I can find my way back, even on a map, to a place I’d visited only once<\/a>, years before. Or at least, I think<\/em> I can. It’s entirely possible I’m just a replicant brain in a jar, with implanted memories of terraforming Mars with catfish…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve known for quite a while that human memory is malleable and surprisingly easy to alter, and while there are certainly some things that I believe I recall correctly, I know I’m just as likely fooling myself. But I definitely don’t like it when it’s proven to me. I was speaking to my cousin the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,12],"tags":[8697,8694,2436,8696,8695],"class_list":["post-41678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-frustrations","category-random","tag-andy-cairns","tag-house-of-guitars","tag-memory","tag-screamager","tag-therapy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41678"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41697,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41678\/revisions\/41697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}