The Big Balloon
(A Love Story)
Buy local: PAPERCUTS JP, TRES GATOS BOOKS & RECORDS
Print: BOOKSHOP, AMAZON, BARNES & NOBLE, GOOGLE BOOKS, ABEBOOKS, SCRIBD, TARGET, BAM!
BOOKSHOP is the place to buy the book as they support indie bookstores internationally.
eBook: KINDLE, KOBO, RAKUTEN, BOOKTOPIA, LEHMANNS, FNAC (France), HUGENDUBEL.de (Germany)
The eBook version has links throughout BALLOON that connect you to songs, videos, people mentioned, etc. Jes’ sayin’.
Also, if you’re interested in Rick’s first book, THE PARAGRAPHS
Cover art/collage by Margie Nicoll.
'A brief encounter can be the most efficient dart to the heart’
Review in the Boston Globe 11/29/2021 (if not subscribed you can read it HERE)
Review in DIGBoston 03/01/2022 (if unable to view online you can read it HERE)
This review (a beauty) by Mark Stevens (who wrote about Orchestra Luna for the Christian Science Monitor back in the '70's) HERE
This review in from Scotland by Louise Cannon HERE
This extensive, thorough and erudite full review of THE BIG BALLOON (A Love Story) by Edward Morneau is long, but so rich with detail and observation I was floored. Incredibly he has submitted the essay to the New York Review of Books. (One can only hope.) If that never happens you can read it HERE.
Review in Metronome Boston HERE
Review by ‘Stink Eye’ on Amazon: 5.0 out of 5 stars A Life Lived with Little Instruction
Reviewed in the United States on January 31, 2022
‘Rick Berlin’s The Big Balloon is an oddly engaging book. However narratively disjointed, he admits, it is evocative of its title, shuttling from sphere to sphere, inflating with hope and deflating with deeper suspicions about a life lived with little instruction, but in totality, extrapolating “one’s own echo, wisdom, embarrassment and laughter.” He also admits that he keeps “a lot of these beyond the pale truths in my back pocket as proof against reality. ”
Stylistically invigorating and written with self-effacing humor, there is mostly a bounce in his voice, welcoming and disarming, and sometimes a thud, urgent with doubt—both effective in drawing this reader to assemble Berlin’s remembrances and his artistic and emotionally provocative puzzle of a life. Often borrowing from his own diary (“Kami-kaze”), he becomes the archivist, ruminating about his secrets, his sexuality, and his effort to navigate the subterranean essence of places, artifacts, music, but especially people—the latter his main compass for seeking truth. There is refreshing modesty to how he is predisposed to take a general observation from others to craft a specific distinctions.’ - Edward Morneau (actually)
‘'The Big Balloon (A Love Story) by Rick Berlin. A queer Boston music legend gives a rambling tour of his memories with sentimental wit, poignant reflection, and unflinching vulgarity. When I was 22, he invited me to a matinee and took me to see Pink Flamingos. Changed my life.' - Billie Best - author, manager of Orchestra Luna II and Berlin Airlift
‘Just to let you know. i finished your "Big Balloon" and enjoyed it very much.. It moved me, made me laugh, and although I feel like I know you pretty well -- I hope you feel known by me at least pretty well -- , I learned so much about about you, filling in the picture of the Kinscherf I came to know so long ago. There were elements that I felt I recognized -- for example, I thought I saw Danny Badger peeking out somewhere -- and that identified with: bananas in the morning, vitamins (lots of them!), the difficulty of cutting one's own fingernails, etc. I loved the structure you chose -- how original and fitting for the Covid Age -- circling around until you got to your bedroom -- and to love. As someone who has lived his life with a great deal of contained anger, and grudges, (as well as deep appreciation for the unusual advantages I was born to) I have tried to learn about love and have needed tutoring; my wife Cheryl over these last fifty years has been a great teacher, and my love for her continues to deepen.
I begin to think: if you haven't learned to love by the end of your life, you haven't learned anything!’ - Steve Witty (Yale friend from way back in the day)
Review in Boston Groupie News 11/30-2021 (if archived you can read it HERE)
Amidst a pandemic, musician Rick Berlin quarantined in his Boston apartment and took to cataloging his personal artifacts and detritus in photos and text. The result is a poignant reflections on 75 years of life and of love in all its forms.
“[Berlin] populates his writing with memories that will break your heart and wisdom tossed off as one-liners. Walk through Berlin’s house, flip on the lights room by room, see what he has left there for you and all of us” - Ryan Walsh, author of Astral Weeks: A Secret History of 1968
“I wish I had your guts.” - Lou Reed
“I think everyone wishes they had your guts, Rick. You are one in infinity.” - Joan Wassar (Joanaspolicewoman)
Rick Berlin, the queer Boston music legend formerly the front man of Orchestra Luna, Luna, Berlin Airlift, Rick Berlin: The Movie, The Shelly Winters Project and currently of The Nickel & Dime Band, is known for his zany lyurics and unflinching wit. Exploring boyhood, family and relationships, and the dynamic social workings of Boston through the decades, Rick Berlin’s work is “uncategorizable…part punk, part musical theater, part sentimental sap, part wordplay master. Gold.” (Amanda Palmer)
Rick, I just finished the book. I love it.
Your epilogue is perfect and poignant and gorgeous, and made clear what I'd been thinking maybe a third of the way through the book and onward: this is not an exploration of your house, and it's an exploration of love. I fucking adore the idea of cataloging your interior by cataloguing the items that surround you. I loved the way you used them as triggers to bring you to memories, to characters, to musings. And always with your classic hilarious and empathetic voice, wildly distinguishable and organic and just so easy to fall into and never come out of. I don't think that anyone but you could have pulled off this idea. I always thought of THE PARAGRAPHS as a book that your music mapped, or vice versa. Starting points and roads that led to the thinking and chattering and astute observations and huge juicy heart that make up Rick Berlin. I love that this book continues that mapping, and also centers us with a vulnerable, open-hearted, contemplative story-teller in what is an anxious and challenging present.
I also like that this is around a pandemic. It does feel like it captures a moment in time, as crazy as it is, and even as it covers 75 years worth of a life. - Katie Eelman (my coach throughout the entire publishing process. BALLOON could not have emerged without her)
PROLOGUE
“Small is large to me.”
– Suzanne Vega
There is no linear structure to this book. No over-arching narrative. Each entry is self-contained. One piece can relate to another, but it isn’t necessary to make that connection. The reader can pick it up, crack it open anywhere, read a section and put it down. The ‘chapters’ are just the rooms in my house.
It could be said that I chose this odd-ball format for bathroom reading. For those with short attention spans. On the other hand, much as I love the twists and turns of a full blown story, the Haiku simplicity of disparate entries exposes Berlin as if opening the paper window flaps of a Twelve Days Of Christmas holiday card in no particular order.
The Big Balloon is super personal. Most art, at least the art I love best, is personal. From another’s truth one extrapolates one’s own echo, wisdom, embarrassment and laughter. That’s what I’d hope for you, dear reader. That you’d laugh or at least find something self-relevant in these independent passages of my peculiar life.
Why The Title, The Big Balloon (A Love Story)?
Not sure when this happened or who said it, but it goes like this:
“Rick, I’ve seen three of your apartments. The rooms always look like you blew up a big balloon and your stuff wound up on the walls and floors like Bang! Drag this mess around.”
He’s right. In honor of his comment, I took photos of the inanimate in my house and wrote about each one. In so doing I fell down unexpected rabbit holes of memory, unlocking doors long shut. Portraits, observations and déjà vu recall, as humorous and amorous as they are disturbing. I pray that Balloon is not the Berlin edition of Capote’s Answered Prayers, the book that, once published, lost him all his friends. He betrayed them, exposed their secrets and burned every bridge. I also hope it doesn’t bore the shit out of you. Some are close to frivolous, but I think they offer relief from the headier, deeper cut pieces.
And this – a love metaphor:
“The balloon. It’s something you hold on to, but can also let go. But at least when you let go, it rises.’”
– Margie Nicoll
KAMA KAZI & The added fat.
KAMA KAZI is mis-spelled. It should be KAMIKAZE, but I opted for the split.
I’ve stolen words from the past, written in my long lost Dear Diary, typed onto construction paper and folded into parts of The Balloon. I kept the day-to-day archived in my silver room on Ridgemont Street. I didn’t want Balloon to be a puff piece for The Ladies Homosexual Journal. Diving back into KAZI I was assaulted by details long forgotten, submerged or hidden out of fear of brutal self-sabotage. Nevertheless, they belong here. A subterranean, even painful return to those early years when I was trying to figure out who the fuck I was as an artist, a lover, an identity.
I thought I’d lost it, KK. I’d given a copy to Oedipus. He gave it back and I left it with Chet Cahill for safe keeping. Billie Best shuttled it home to me after Chet died. Re-reading it took me back to those first days when Orchestra Luna I and then II were formed. The writing isn’t bad. I made edits, but not many. I was in my late twenties when I tapped away on a hospital blue Smith Corona portable – snap, snap, SNAP! I miss the clickity clack, as everything I write these days is on a Mac.
KK, which I had printed and bound at Copy Cop years ago, was falling apart. I transcribed it. In so doing I realized that that period of my life, the people I loved and the work I was attempting startled me. That long ago Self seems so unlike the dude I imagine myself to be today. It’s way more gay than I remembered. I guess back in the 70’s I didn’t give a shit about how I’d be perceived. I still don’t, but (maybe) I’m less gay, gay, gay in my old age.
Why the title, KK? When I was in Grenada, West Indies, shooting a never to be completed, edited or released film for an Amherst grad and drug dealer, Frank Height, he said, from behind his reflector sunglasses and in his slow, Jack Nicholson drawl:
“You know what you are, Rick? You know how you lead your life?”
“How’s that?” I asked.
“You live it like a Kamikaze pilot.”
Not sure if this was a compliment, but I gotta say, I’m in favor.
“The person who loves you has picked you out of the great mass of uncreated clay which is humanity to make something out of, and the poor lumpish clay which is you wants to find out what it has been made into. But at the same time, you, in the act of loving somebody, become real, cease to be a part of the continuum of the uncreated clay and get the breath of life in you and rise up. So you create yourself by creating another person, who, however, has also created you, picked up the you-chunk of clay out of the mass. So there are two you’s, the one you yourself create by loving and the one the beloved creates by loving you. The further those two you’s are apart the more the world grinds and grudges on its axis. But if you loved and were loved perfectly then there wouldn’t be any difference between the two you’s or any distance between them. They would coincide perfectly, there would be a focus, as when a stereoscope gets the twin images on the card into perfect alignment.”
– All The King’s Men – Robert Penn Warren
“Love is just friction and ego.”
– Michael Stipe
From Clea Simon’s blog:
Early comments:
‘You bare your soul like no one else.’ - David Mueller
‘Ambience is pure poetry.’ - Joan Anderman
‘The Big Balloon (A Love Story) starts in the foyer but instantly explodes into the middle of a what will be a whirlwind of friends, places, things, skies, lovers, bands, family (a series of longer and gorgeous pieces: mom and dad, oh my), and the kinds of ideas that can only come at the far end of a full life. Ideas that go from a contemplation of love to how many sheets of toilet paper will clog the john. Yes, Balloon is a memoir constructed through the portal of personal objects, but what animates it is the love that surrounds each and every one. A watch brings you to a wedding, a toothbrush to a dentist who prints 3-D crowns while-you-wait. Artworks introduce you to the amazing people who created them, all people you wished you’d known and now feel like you have. This is armchair traveling at its best. Berlin’s writing is confident and energetic. You trust him, you know this guy won’t drop you. And he’s generous—with private thoughts, other people, music, opinions, and of course, heart. Berlin’s heart is everywhere in this book: broken, mended, searching, hidden, raw, full. Finish Balloon and you’ll feel like you’ve been at the Brendan Behan Pub for a long, amazing, surreal, hilarious night, and when you come out, the world looks magnificent.’ - Lesley Bannatyne
‘The Big Balloon" is a wry, witty, deeply revealing read. Berlin tells short, engaging tales about the various objects in his home … how he’s acquired them, their deeper meanings, and the strong emotional associations he has with each item. He uses these snappy little vignettes to spin tales of lost love, bad decisions, hilarious misfires, crazy parties, weird roommates, memorable customers, family, death, pets, drugs, sex, music, magic, and growing older. It’s beautiful stuff, very moving at times, and every paragraph is conveyed in his unmistakable, inimitable voice. This is a great book to keep on hand for those “in-between” moments, when you suddenly have a little unstructured time on your hands … just enough time to bite off a bit of good writing and chew on it for a while. This book swings between being laugh-out-loud hilarious, wistful, and unexpectedly stirring. I enjoyed it far more than I imagined I would, and I’ve been a HUGE fan of his music for a long time. Highly recommended.’ - Corey Michael Smithson
‘It's poetry really. Images and emotions.’ - Peter Walsh
‘I first saw Rick Berlin perform with his band Orchestra Luna two nights in a row during the summer of '74 in Nantucket at Preston's Airport Lounge. They were one of the coolest musical acts I've ever seen--and that includes the Stones w/ Brian Jones, Janis Joplin, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, and the group I was destined to join a few years later, Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band. An exceedingly tight and heady mixture of glam rock, jazz, cabaret, Hollywood musicals, and everything else under the sun, led by the demonically driven and fascinating Rick Berlin (Beyond Bowie, in other words). Based in Boston, Rick has maintained the same super-high level of musicianship in his later band reincarnations (Luna, the Berlin Airlift, and on and on)-- and he is still pumping out the goods to this day. Written during lockdown, this is a fascinating and compulsive read that covers a lot of ground and gives up many secret tales of Rick's life, spring-boarding off the various odds and ends he's collected and examined while held captive in his apartment by the pandemic (lots of cool photos). Even if you don't know his music you will succumb to Rick's verbal dexterity and the utter truth-telling vitality of his many-splendoured stories.’ - Gary Lucas
‘Of course I found the part about me (Steve Brown Frames The Band),. Once I started looking though it I knew. I was always so happy that you liked that gift. I smiled big time after I read it, felt like texting you at 11:30 last night. All day today I thought about what I wanted to say to you . So here it is! The simplest way for me say that you helped me by getting that hatchet buried, is that you helped me bury some anger. Sometimes slowly that anger (that we try to hide), goes away. And sometimes you need someone to forgive and move on with life. I hate disliking people (yet I still have a few, I’m only human), but at one time I used it to make myself feel good. That resentment only hurts you as time goes by. So I say with a smile, thanks for helping me move on with our friendship. I truly appreciate it, and I was so humbled to see that you put the whole thing into words. People forgiving each other is what makes us human, too bad we have a hard time figuring it out, that makes us human too. Thanks Rick, from the bottom of my grumpy heart.’ - Steve Brown
‘Hey Rick, I finally finished your book. You did say that it would be a good bathroom book, and there it lived. Not sure how many shits it took to complete. That being said, I thoroughly enjoyed it. There were enough pages to get to know you better. It was nice to learn more about your family and upbringing. Now I will pass it on for others to enjoy. Thanks for the memories.’ - Iris McCarthy
‘Following his debut book, "The Paragraphs" (2016), here is Mr. Berlin's voluminous second effort...filled with household tchotchkes and touchstones, meant to melt your heart and mind. Career-strolling memories of a life spent in search of love, musical definition, and never-ending dreams. Brief chapters easy to read, comprehend, and blown up bigger than life! "The Big Balloon" will lift any reader up, up, and away! Joyously still in it, more casually drifting now, more deeply absorbing since wildly rushing through from room-to-room after purchase.........IT'S DAMN GREAT!! ’ - Curt Naihersey
‘Only just begun the journey of the big balloon and I’m already about to laugh and weep.’ - Rene Rives
‘I am enjoying the beautiful range of this book and the organic way it links narrative, memories, stories and symbols. A profound work of memory. A beautiful, complex, and fascinating narrative of existence that forces the reader to examine their own lives through the artifacts and objects they, inherit or acquire.’ - Jason Gray
‘Loving the read by the way. Kinda can’t put it down.’ - Vice V’Ersatile
‘Dude, I’m loving The Big Balloon. You’re such a compelling person, in so many ways, and I’m glad you’re continuing to leave your mark on the public consciousness, sharing all your wit and memory before you finally get taken out by The Magic Ice Cream Truck that is death. I’ll write up a solid review when I’m finished … but even partway through this book I’m fully relishing your cranky, quirky, wistful, wry, crackling voice. It takes me back to that not-so-secret crush I had on you back in my Boston days. You’re a rare gem, Rick Berlin. Please keep writing.’ - Cory Smithson
‘Still going strong in his seventies. Rick Berlin's new book, titled "The Big Balloon" should prove to be a saucy read of stories, giving his readers real-life experiences in the brightest and darkest cavities that 'the hub' has to offer. For Bostonians and those abroad, 18 and older. ...And probably NSFW. We wouldn't want Rick to tell us in any other way!’ - Måtthew Griffin
‘Breathtaking and incredible, powerful as he takes you on a journey you never thought you wanted until now.’ - Lyndon Fuller
‘Buy Rick's book and your heart will grow 3 times as big! - Kate Layte
‘I finally finished the latest Rick Berlin masterpiece - The Big Balloon (A Love Story). I bought it on the first day of JP Porchfest at Papercuts J.P. He had told me there was a little something about me in there. I didn't expect it to be so heartfelt. I cried outside the pickleball court reading it and then went and watched him play on the sidewalk on what felt like the hottest day of the year. Everyone should read this book. It is relatable, funny, charming, and somehow really captures what the lockdown portion of the pandemic felt like to a lot of us. 'Drill Bit' is one of my FAVORITE pieces in the whole book.
Thank you, Rick, for being such a light in my life and in the world.
‘I am beyond excited to be reading a passage at the launch event on Sunday at Tres Gatos! Please come by and please, please buy this book and read it from cover to cover.’ - Kelly Ransom
‘I knew Rick wrote a short story about me for his new book. I put off reading it. Finally read it tonight and now I’m crying at work.’ - Shamus Moynihan
‘Just flipping through this thing is making me feel weird and happy and anxious. That’s positive feedback. Opened to yer sis’ water color of yer mom in the little frame n it knocked me out a bit (my mom died recently).’ - Jeff Chasse
‘You hooked me from the first page, and I found it a fine fast-moving ride from start to finish. Your household items make excellent hooks on which to hang the stories you want to tell. The photos are plain, but the stories are curious, startling, touching, warm, sad, always somehow significant. The variety itself is a joy. Many, especially those having to do with home maintenance, are told with a kind of piled-on dazzle of very funny wit. You give us vivid views of former households, creative people living together, making music and art, falling in and out of complicated relationships. Also family history, candidly told and moving. You have fully and deeply experienced your life, for better or worse, you have loved abundantly, your creative gift is extraordinary, and finds many outlets besides music. The Big Balloon has an open-ended feel to it, bursting with life, past, present and future. I’m grateful to have read and loved it.’ - Louise Herman
‘Such an excellent read. It was bigger than I expected but is basically a collection of short stories from his life, so it’s an easy read. Rick has seen so many thing in his time on this planet. We’re so lucky he decided to share them with everyone. Definitely check it out!’ - John Q
‘An amazing book by a man who has tackled a life of music and held on tight. There are cover bands and unique singer/songwriters. Rick Berlin is a great example of the latter. So good to see him still turning out great words and music.' - Billy J.
‘I love, love the cover......just read some reviews- I better not cry as I read- but rather reflect and ponder my own past and upcoming destinies. You are indeed - a character, a genuine historical figure of our generation.’ - Tammy Sullivan
‘Ricky…I’ve listened to some readings of your recent masterpieces, and read them myself, and I want to tell you something (even though you definitely already know). I’ll say it anyway. You hold perfect command of capturing the “imperfect,” while allowing and including. The things that give weight to the little things so many miss. The things we hide from each other but wish someone might notice on their own someday. The things that might embarrass or make us shy. What’s weird (and awesome), is when you shine light on them, it’s somehow okay. With perfectly chosen words, you place pockets of love and acceptance in stories that some may not choose to remember, otherwise. In stories that tell the truth, without it being shameful. You capture the truth artfully, intuitively, and with a depth of understanding that most won’t ever have. I am grateful for you. I love you Ricky.’ - Celia Dudley (my neice)