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caitlin

@trustpunch.bsky.social

860 followers 370 following 1K posts

she/they, tenants’ rights proselytizer, police scanner enthusiast, bylines elsewhere // opinions my own, etc. etc.

https://boxd.it/jeu9

📍baltimore

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caitlin

@trustpunch.bsky.social

All the time, I think about Paul Westerberg’s obit for Alex Chilton archive.is/DNJf

HOW does one react to the death of one’s mentor? My mind instantly slammed down the inner trouble-door that guards against all thought, emotion, sadness. Survival mode. Rock guitar players are all dead men walking. It’s only a matter of time, I tell myself as I finger my calluses. Those who fail to click with the world and society at large find safe haven in music — to sing, write songs, create, perform. Each an active art in itself that offers no promise of success, let alone happiness.
Yet success shone early on Alex Chilton, as the 16-year-old soulful singer of the hit-making Box Tops. Possessing more talent than necessary, he tired as a very young man of playing the game — touring, performing at state fairs, etc. So he returned home to Memphis. Focusing on his pop writing and his rock guitar skills, he formed the group Big Star with Chris Bell. Now he had creative control, and his versatility shone bright. Beautiful melodies, heart-wrenching lyrics: “I’m in Love with a Girl,” “September Gurls.”
On Big Star’s masterpiece third album, Alex sang my favorite song of his, “Nighttime” — a haunting and gorgeous ballad that I will forever associate with my floor-sleeping days in New York. Strangely, the desperation in the line “I hate it here, get me out of here” made me, of all things, happy. He went on to produce more artistic, challenging records. One equipped with the take-it-or-leave-it — no, excuse me, with the take-it-like-I-make-it — title “Like Flies on Sherbert.” The man had a sense of humor, believe me.
It was some years back, the last time I saw Alex Chilton. We miraculously bumped into each other one autumn evening in New York, he in a Memphis Minnie T-shirt, with take-out Thai, en route to his hotel. He invited me along to watch the World Series on TV, and I immediately discarded whatever flimsy obligation I may have had. We watched baseball, talked and laughed, especially about his current residence — he was living in, get this, a tent in Tennessee.

November 19, 2025 at 1:58 AM

caitlin

@trustpunch.bsky.social

She forgives

November 18, 2025 at 11:22 PM

caitlin

@trustpunch.bsky.social

Uh oh woke her up

November 18, 2025 at 11:19 PM

caitlin

@trustpunch.bsky.social

Omg hi

November 18, 2025 at 11:11 PM

caitlin

@trustpunch.bsky.social

Mods asleep post Catullus you read at a vigil

Many the peoples many the oceans I crossed —
I arrive at these poor, brother, burials
so I could give you the last gift owed to death
and talk (why?) with mute ask.
Now that Fortune tore you from me, you
oh poor (wrongly) brother (wrongly) taken from me,
now still anyway this — and a distant mood of parents
handed down as the sad gift for burials —
accept! soaked with tears of a brother
and into forever, brother, farewell and farewell.

Catullus 101

November 17, 2025 at 3:38 PM

caitlin

@trustpunch.bsky.social

Come through @redemmas.org 11/28 and hang w/ @baltimoredsa.org for a screening of WTO/99 and discussion with @prophetkotto.bsky.social, @jessdouglas.bsky.social, and @bsoderberg.bsky.social!

$10-$15 suggested donation to @baltlegal.bsky.social: bit.ly/WTOBALT

RSVP: actionnetwork.org/events/wto-99

6 p.m. November 28th at Red Emma’s (3128 Greenmount Avenue): Greater Baltimore DSA presents WTO/99 with panel discussion with WTO/99 producer/editor Alex Megaro, archivist Jess Douglas, and journalist Brandon Soderberg to follow.

November 16, 2025 at 9:24 PM

caitlin

@trustpunch.bsky.social

Anyway, if you’re not busy from 12-2 p.m. or somewhere in between today, come grab coffee at @redemmas.org and let me pitch campaigns to you under the guise of being super chill and just here for some coffee :)

November 16, 2025 at 4:45 PM

caitlin

@trustpunch.bsky.social

Rewatched Jaws last night and went back into Letterboxd to look at my reviews from all the times I’ve rewatched Jaws, and I feel like I should be buried alive with all my takes for cooking too hard on this one from 2023. If you’d like to kill me hmu.