Somebody sent me this 1987 interview that I conducted for WNTN, the Newton, Mass, radio station where Howard Stern got his start. In the clip, my best friend and I talk with now-defunct Boston postpunk band Soothing Sounds for Baby. We are all so freaking earnest, deploying such terms as “facism” and “cogs in society” with audibly straight faces. Which does not prevent me from giggling obligingly at a girlygirl high pitch whenever the boys make a stab at humor. Even funnier: one of the members of the band (the lad pictured above right) subsequently established himself as my first true love—serenades at my bedroom window, shared pieces of gum, broken hearts, XTC mixtapes, and all. The best friend is still a best friend, now the mother of two girls who are my goddaughters. And the boy and I forged permanent memories together, only to part ways just as permanently. Tis strange, tis wondrous strange, that our first meeting was preserved in this time capsule. How ever were we that young?
