All Write, Already!

Back to the fingers post! Shudder. No? No.

I hearken back to a little-known one-album Nebraska band named Roosevelt Franklin, which was kind of an early No Doubt clone but with rappin' instead of ska. White kiddos, of course, with an inevitably hot young lass in the lead vocals except on the raps. I remember seeing them live a few times, once with a now-former friend from Omaha. I wanted to sponsor them, I wanted to promote them, I wanted to watch them grow. Of course they broke up within six months of releasing their CD. Which as I recall was supposed to have a much cooler cover on it than they ended up using... someone I know was going to do the photos I think. This was back in the day of the Red & Black Cafe in Lincoln, with the Melp kids and the collectively-ran-into-the-dirt little band and pony show, with the users in the bathroom, and the 25 cent coffee and the pool table, and the funky art on the walls from the now-owner of the Noyes Gallery. This would have been before I bought a video camera, and sold it a couple years later, and after my film camera was stolen from the back of my brown Dodge van behind the Cafe and the strip club.

Five fingas and fourscore ago, I brought onto the earth a little doomed enterprise and loved a doomed band. Those days are long gone and doomed to funky memory, and I don't even remember the names of those band mates anymore. The title? It's a line from their self-titled song on that album. Five members of the band, you see.

Ball 'em up and you get pure memory.