I was intrigued with the thought of Jonathan Richman as a boy, growing up. What was his room like? Did he have friends? What influenced him? Did he dress funny? I figured he must have listened to The Beach Boys and especially Brian Wilson. Jonathan and Brian are very much alike. They are introspective and are not afraid of baring their feelings in their music. I truly feel they are cut from the same cloth.
Dig, Richman wrote a song called “Ice Cream Man” and Brian posed as a Good Humor ice cream man on the Sunflower LP cover. Pet Sounds is one of the most tender, soul baring LP’s ever made and Jonathan often bared his soul onstage (crawling on all fours) and on entire LP’s and songs like “Affection”, “Back in Your Life”, “Girlfren”, “Hospital”, “That Summer Feeling” etc..
Also, Jonathan is a baseball freak. He knows about “Walter Johnson” and several times we have talked baseball in person and in correspondence. This is why I added the poster of Red Sox pitcher and 1967 Cy Young winner Jim Lonborg and the Spalding mitt and Red Sox pennant on “In JoJo’s Room”. I put the Sinclair (east coast thang) dinosaur up there because of his “I’m a Little Dinosaur” and if you notice the time on the clock is almost 3:00 (“Almost Three”, but the song is about an infant, I couldn’t paint a three year old in there) from Jonathan Sings LP).
By the way, Richman loved the painting. He loves Brian Wilson and Brian in turn dug the painting too! (note: both signatures on frame, uber rare, no?!) . Brian claimed at the time of the autograph that he didn’t know who Jonathan was but his guitarist that was right behind him nodded and told me that Brian knew who he was and was just messin’ like Brian does.
The empty box and wearing of the hand puppet symbolizes the control freakishness of Jonathan and his yearning to unbox the talent and soul of one of music’s geniuses and to encapsulate the essence of Wilson in the solitude of one’s room, which also happens to be Brian’s favorite spot.
Of course, The Beach Boys represent summertime and quite possibly that summer feeling is going to haunt you the rest of your life…so enjoy it as a child would…of course, I could be making all this crap up…TBH
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