In the late summer of 2010, I went on tour with my band, Veronica. With my bandmates (Ted Thacker and John Call), I spent a week motoring across the frontier from Denver to Reno to SF to Eugene to Portland to Seattle and back home. It was a whirlwind of highway hum, gas station sandwiches and dive bar whiskies, all shot through with loud-ass post-punk and (in the long hours in the back seat of our rented van) immersive reading in Brian Greene’s The Elegant Universe. The contrast between the gritty reality of rock’n’roll and the infinite complexity of the cosmos struck me as a fertile area to explore. Years later, as I was writing my thesis manuscript for the Regis Mile High MFA program, I keyed into a character who I thought might be a perfect conduit for that roadtrip experience. “One for Babette” was the result.
I’d already written about Goldy in an earlier (still unpublished) story, “Goldy’s Keys to Classroom Survival,” and my workshop group at Regis expressed an interest in finding out more about Goldy’s enigmatic twin, Babette. By dividing Babette’s attention between nightly gigs and cosmic exploration, I found space to explore her (ahem) strangely symbiotic realtionship with her sister Goldy.
I should also mention how many influences I drew on to write Babette’s character. Many years of immersion in Denver’s live music scene exposed me to a whole gaggle of incredible frontwomen and rock goddesses, each of whom informed some element of Babette’s persona. To name a few: Denise An, Molly “Universe” Franklin, Libby Knock, Chanin Floyd, Sara Fisher, Joaquina Lluma, Tig Notaro, Monica Ward, Rekha Ohal, Jen Korte, Julie Peasley, Rebecca Vera, Tammy Ealom, Natalie Genghis, Karen Walton, Lisa Cook, Kate Warner, Sherry Hern, April Renee Soll, Kate Innes, Toddy Walters, Elizabeth Rose, Elke Wisseborn, Becca Mhalek, Riley Martin, Johnette Napolitano, etc.
I’m sure there are many more I’m forgetting. I was ecsatic when this piece was chosen by editor Amy Dupcak to appear in Cagibi issue 24 in January of 2025. This is one of the stories I most wanted to be able to share with friends, many of whom I think will recognize details and anecdotes from shared experiences in and around the cosmic space of rock’n’roll in the lonesome twilight of America.