This is probably going to be one of those things that seemed like such a good idea in the middle of the night when I wrote it....
A seed was planted in my head not long ago that got me wondering about the American Dream. I don’t think this is hard to define. Not for me, at least; I overthink everything -- I mean everything -- so I’ve spent most of my adult life with a short mental checklist of things I would want to see happen someday. Life aspirations, you might call them. And they’re relatively modest. The list was never long to begin with, and at this stage in the game there are only two things left that need to be checked off. Time was there would have been three, but frankly I’ve hit a point where I know that realistically one of them probably isn’t going to happen, regardless of what I do to work at it, and despite how much I wanted it. So that third thing -- I’ve pretty much given up. If it turns out it happens someday, great. But I don’t think it will. And for the record -- don’t ask me here what the those two or three things are. If I wanted to name them, I would have. Anybody who really knows me should be able to figure them out. And the thing of it is, I can’t say conclusively that reaching any of these goals would automatically make my life any better.
Now, is this me complaining? No, not really. I’ll admit, there are times when my life feels like little more than the result of every bad decision I’ve ever made. But even when I squirrel myself down into that kind of self-pity, I have to admit I’m better off than a lot of other people. My life isn’t one that requires a lot of complaining. In fact, there’s a lot about it that’s truly great. But is it perfect? Not even close.
I think very few people are unconditionally happy with their lives. The luckiest of us have enough working in our favor to make most of the days more positive than not. But as I look around at the people I know, I see that everyone has some kind of drama to survive, or some kind of a hole they can’t fill, or some kind of crazy they’re forced to endure. For some people it's front and center, unavoidable, and all too defining. For others it’s deeper, just an undercurrent, something that can be mentally pushed out of the way for periods of time but is always there nonetheless. Even the most cheerful among us, the people who truly love life, have some kind of crazy going on.
So where does that leave the American Dream? I think the key word here is “dream.” I fired up the dictionary on my hard drive, and this is the definition I think applies the best: A cherished aspiration, ambition, or ideal; a fulfilled childhood dream, the girl of my dreams, finding a dream home, to paraphrase some of the examples provided.
Another way to say this: It’s the hope that we’ll someday achieve what we imagine to be the perfect life. So from that perspective I don’t think the American Dream is an ending. I think it’s a process.
And the tricky word in there... perfect? Yeah. We’re never going to get there. None of us. But each day at least offers the possibility that we might get a little closer. And as long as that possibility exists, then the Dream is still alive.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Episode 2: A Collison of Worlds
If you live in the same community where you teach -- as I do -- there are inevitable moments when your professional and personal lives cross paths. Some teachers can navigate these moments with precision and grace. Me? Not so much. I’ve gotten better at it over the years, but too often I feel as caught off guard by these encounters as the students or parents themselves seem to be.
If it’s a family I know and we have some history and we all still like each other, things are very pleasant. If it’s someone I recognize well enough to place them and there isn’t any open loathing going on from either end, we can at least acknowledge each other with a polite hello. Since I live pretty close to a big shopping area, this happens a lot. I mean, a lot. It’s the rare occurrence when I can go into a store and not have to turn into my teacher self for at least a couple of minutes, or run a quick mental evaluation on whether or not there’s anything in my cart I might feel self-conscious about. As the students get older, I often have to run their faces through the mental database and try to account for age, unless their body language makes it pretty clear they either don’t remember me or would rather pretend they don’t, which is usually fine with me as well.
Here are some of the more memorable out-of-school encounters I’ve had with either students or parents over the years:
*I have seen parents and students in both doctor and dentist waiting rooms. This usually goes okay as long as there isn’t a kid there who doesn’t have the social filter it would take to not ask a question like, “Why do you have to see the doctor? Are you sick?” Though it is kind of fun to see how mortified the parents are when that question slips out.
*I was out bowling with a group of my cousins one Saturday. Someone noticed a little girl a couple lanes over, bowling with a blindfold. She was one of mine. Never got the backstory on that, but she did see me when the blindfold came off and we shared a wave.
*Many years ago, students would frequently invite me to watch their games, or recitals, or plays, or whatever. This still happens some now, but less than it once did. My favorites of these events were the girls basketball games. When I showed up I’d quietly climb up to one of the back rows, looking to keep a fairly low profile so I could minimize the number of impromptu parent-teacher conferences that always seemed to happen. There were ALWAYS parents who would be going to town on their kids with some pretty intense bleacher-coaching, throwing out the same power phrases I knew these poor girls had to listen to at home while practicing in their driveways. This would continue relentlessly up to the moment one of the girls spotted me, pointed me out to the others on the team, and they’d all wave from the sidelines and call out a hello. I’d wave back as half the adults in the stands would turn to see where I was. From that moment on the more boisterous parents started behaving themselves. I loved it.
*Another frequent collision point is church. These sightings are rarely more than a smile or a wave, which is easy enough. But I did have one girl sitting up in the balcony on the opposite side who made her family rush through the crowd when the service ended so they could cut me off at the closest exit and say hello. I only realized later she had probably been watching me from the moment she first saw me, and hoped that hadn’t been one of the mornings when I’d slipped into a quick nap.
*Restaurant sightings happen more often than not. One night I saw a student from many years before who was in college by that time. I’d stayed in touch with her, somewhat; she had earned some service hours in my classroom as part of an internship program through her high school. The problem here? I was on a date. And I don’t think it went over well that I was smiling and waving to this pretty twenty-something co-ed in the corner as we were leaving. Because it was a first date that never reached a second.
*I go to movies a lot, so I often see students or families at one of the local theaters. Usually I’ll go in the afternoon to avoid the crowds and take advantage of lower ticket prices, but one day I got stuck in a line with at least ten people ahead of me and fifteen people behind. While standing there hoping I’d have time to get a drink and sit down before the previews started, an eruption of screaming startled everyone in the line. I turn to see what was going on and saw eight of my girls charging out of a party room, sprinting toward me with wide eyes and excited smiles. I stood there kind of shell-shocked, very aware of everyone in the line watching the scene play out while I heard about all about the birthday and was invited back to the party room for some pizza when a camera flash caught the corner of my eye. I looked up and saw the parents of the birthday girl, a mom and dad I got along with very well, standing in the party room door way, holding a camera, waving, and getting the biggest laugh out of my discomfort.
*Not every real-life meeting happens in my backyard. The most unexpected one I can think of was running into a former student and his family in the concourse at the XCel Energy Center following a Queen concert. Okay, yeah, Queen and Paul Rodgers, not quite the same without Freddie, but that’s the closest I’m ever going to get so I took it. We laughed about the happenstance of meeting up there on a school night, talked about how much we’d enjoyed the show and about how important of a band Queen had been for us.... okay, this was me and the parents mostly, but the dad had a mischievous grin when he elbowed his son, prompting him, “Tell him what your favorite Queen song is.” This teddy bear of a kid, probably in middle school at the time, looked down with a shy smile and answered “Fat-Bottomed Girls.”
*The capper event to all of this has to be an encounter I wasn’t even there for. My sister and her family took a Black Hills vacation one summer, with my parents tagging along. They were enjoying a summer evening at the motel pool when my parents got to talking with another couple while relaxing in the nearby spa. After they had all been talking for awhile, my parents’ side of the conversation, as I understand it, went something like this: “So, where are you from?... Oh really, we’re from Minnesota as well. Whereabouts do you live?... Coon Rapids, no kidding? We don’t live far from there. In fact our son lives there.... He’s a teacher. Where do your kids go to school?.... Really! That’s where he works! What grades are they in?” And soon they had pieced together they had me in common. Of course I heard about this from my parents as soon as they were home, and then heard about it again from the family they had met when school started back up a couple of weeks later. It was such an unusual moment that it’s something I’ll still joke about occasionally with these parents when I see them.
Again -- a lucky thing this was a family I get along with.
If it’s a family I know and we have some history and we all still like each other, things are very pleasant. If it’s someone I recognize well enough to place them and there isn’t any open loathing going on from either end, we can at least acknowledge each other with a polite hello. Since I live pretty close to a big shopping area, this happens a lot. I mean, a lot. It’s the rare occurrence when I can go into a store and not have to turn into my teacher self for at least a couple of minutes, or run a quick mental evaluation on whether or not there’s anything in my cart I might feel self-conscious about. As the students get older, I often have to run their faces through the mental database and try to account for age, unless their body language makes it pretty clear they either don’t remember me or would rather pretend they don’t, which is usually fine with me as well.
Here are some of the more memorable out-of-school encounters I’ve had with either students or parents over the years:
*I have seen parents and students in both doctor and dentist waiting rooms. This usually goes okay as long as there isn’t a kid there who doesn’t have the social filter it would take to not ask a question like, “Why do you have to see the doctor? Are you sick?” Though it is kind of fun to see how mortified the parents are when that question slips out.
*I was out bowling with a group of my cousins one Saturday. Someone noticed a little girl a couple lanes over, bowling with a blindfold. She was one of mine. Never got the backstory on that, but she did see me when the blindfold came off and we shared a wave.
*Many years ago, students would frequently invite me to watch their games, or recitals, or plays, or whatever. This still happens some now, but less than it once did. My favorites of these events were the girls basketball games. When I showed up I’d quietly climb up to one of the back rows, looking to keep a fairly low profile so I could minimize the number of impromptu parent-teacher conferences that always seemed to happen. There were ALWAYS parents who would be going to town on their kids with some pretty intense bleacher-coaching, throwing out the same power phrases I knew these poor girls had to listen to at home while practicing in their driveways. This would continue relentlessly up to the moment one of the girls spotted me, pointed me out to the others on the team, and they’d all wave from the sidelines and call out a hello. I’d wave back as half the adults in the stands would turn to see where I was. From that moment on the more boisterous parents started behaving themselves. I loved it.
*Another frequent collision point is church. These sightings are rarely more than a smile or a wave, which is easy enough. But I did have one girl sitting up in the balcony on the opposite side who made her family rush through the crowd when the service ended so they could cut me off at the closest exit and say hello. I only realized later she had probably been watching me from the moment she first saw me, and hoped that hadn’t been one of the mornings when I’d slipped into a quick nap.
*Restaurant sightings happen more often than not. One night I saw a student from many years before who was in college by that time. I’d stayed in touch with her, somewhat; she had earned some service hours in my classroom as part of an internship program through her high school. The problem here? I was on a date. And I don’t think it went over well that I was smiling and waving to this pretty twenty-something co-ed in the corner as we were leaving. Because it was a first date that never reached a second.
*I go to movies a lot, so I often see students or families at one of the local theaters. Usually I’ll go in the afternoon to avoid the crowds and take advantage of lower ticket prices, but one day I got stuck in a line with at least ten people ahead of me and fifteen people behind. While standing there hoping I’d have time to get a drink and sit down before the previews started, an eruption of screaming startled everyone in the line. I turn to see what was going on and saw eight of my girls charging out of a party room, sprinting toward me with wide eyes and excited smiles. I stood there kind of shell-shocked, very aware of everyone in the line watching the scene play out while I heard about all about the birthday and was invited back to the party room for some pizza when a camera flash caught the corner of my eye. I looked up and saw the parents of the birthday girl, a mom and dad I got along with very well, standing in the party room door way, holding a camera, waving, and getting the biggest laugh out of my discomfort.
*Not every real-life meeting happens in my backyard. The most unexpected one I can think of was running into a former student and his family in the concourse at the XCel Energy Center following a Queen concert. Okay, yeah, Queen and Paul Rodgers, not quite the same without Freddie, but that’s the closest I’m ever going to get so I took it. We laughed about the happenstance of meeting up there on a school night, talked about how much we’d enjoyed the show and about how important of a band Queen had been for us.... okay, this was me and the parents mostly, but the dad had a mischievous grin when he elbowed his son, prompting him, “Tell him what your favorite Queen song is.” This teddy bear of a kid, probably in middle school at the time, looked down with a shy smile and answered “Fat-Bottomed Girls.”
*The capper event to all of this has to be an encounter I wasn’t even there for. My sister and her family took a Black Hills vacation one summer, with my parents tagging along. They were enjoying a summer evening at the motel pool when my parents got to talking with another couple while relaxing in the nearby spa. After they had all been talking for awhile, my parents’ side of the conversation, as I understand it, went something like this: “So, where are you from?... Oh really, we’re from Minnesota as well. Whereabouts do you live?... Coon Rapids, no kidding? We don’t live far from there. In fact our son lives there.... He’s a teacher. Where do your kids go to school?.... Really! That’s where he works! What grades are they in?” And soon they had pieced together they had me in common. Of course I heard about this from my parents as soon as they were home, and then heard about it again from the family they had met when school started back up a couple of weeks later. It was such an unusual moment that it’s something I’ll still joke about occasionally with these parents when I see them.
Again -- a lucky thing this was a family I get along with.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Why You Should Always Listen to Your Dad
I had a mullet once. For about an hour and a half. But for the record I had never even heard the word "mullet" at that point in my life, so I can promise you it wasn't intentional.
I was in 10th grade or so, in the dead center of the 80s, a decade defined by so many forms of ridiculousness, including hair styles. I had asked Jan, the woman who had been cutting my hair since probably about sixth grade, if she could just leave it a little longer in the back than usual. I just wanted to try something different. I liked the way my hair hung down below my ears when it got longer, so I thought - why not give myself a head start?
When Jan was finished and spun me around, I had to hold back my shock. This was WAY longer than I had visualized. But she had done exactly what I'd asked, and even back then I was too non-confrontational to suggest I wasn't happy with how it turned out; this is a characteristic that has resulted in me living through far too many crappy haircuts in my lifetime, by the way. My mom gave it a neutrally appraising look, paid the bill, and we left.
It's just new, I told myself. I just have to get used to it. In another week, it'll be fine. Cool, even. Full-on denial here. I looked like I should have been playing saxophone in a Tina Turner video.
I went to my bedroom when we got home. My sisters weren't home and my mom went to get dinner ready before Dad got home from work. I heard him come in, and soon after was called to the dinner table. I went to the kitchen and sat down in my usual spot across the table from him. He looked up from scooping something onto his plate and saw me with my new haircut looking as artificially nonchalant as I could.
"No. Absolutely not."
"What?" I replied, with only the most timid of nods toward everything rock and roll had taught me about rebelling against parents when it came to haircuts. But it was pretty clear this wasn't going anywhere. Before dinner went any further my mother stood up and gently steered me into the bathroom, where she got out her hair clippers and quickly fixed me up to what I would have normally looked like after a haircut. Almost as if she had expected this was going to happen.
I was a little reflexively irked at the time, but deep down I was relieved I wasn't going to have to walk around looking like that. And this was only one of countless times my dad had been there to pull me back from the brink of my own bottomless well of teenage stupidity.
So, thanks for that one, Dad. And Happy Father's Day.
I was in 10th grade or so, in the dead center of the 80s, a decade defined by so many forms of ridiculousness, including hair styles. I had asked Jan, the woman who had been cutting my hair since probably about sixth grade, if she could just leave it a little longer in the back than usual. I just wanted to try something different. I liked the way my hair hung down below my ears when it got longer, so I thought - why not give myself a head start?
When Jan was finished and spun me around, I had to hold back my shock. This was WAY longer than I had visualized. But she had done exactly what I'd asked, and even back then I was too non-confrontational to suggest I wasn't happy with how it turned out; this is a characteristic that has resulted in me living through far too many crappy haircuts in my lifetime, by the way. My mom gave it a neutrally appraising look, paid the bill, and we left.
It's just new, I told myself. I just have to get used to it. In another week, it'll be fine. Cool, even. Full-on denial here. I looked like I should have been playing saxophone in a Tina Turner video.
I went to my bedroom when we got home. My sisters weren't home and my mom went to get dinner ready before Dad got home from work. I heard him come in, and soon after was called to the dinner table. I went to the kitchen and sat down in my usual spot across the table from him. He looked up from scooping something onto his plate and saw me with my new haircut looking as artificially nonchalant as I could.
"No. Absolutely not."
"What?" I replied, with only the most timid of nods toward everything rock and roll had taught me about rebelling against parents when it came to haircuts. But it was pretty clear this wasn't going anywhere. Before dinner went any further my mother stood up and gently steered me into the bathroom, where she got out her hair clippers and quickly fixed me up to what I would have normally looked like after a haircut. Almost as if she had expected this was going to happen.
I was a little reflexively irked at the time, but deep down I was relieved I wasn't going to have to walk around looking like that. And this was only one of countless times my dad had been there to pull me back from the brink of my own bottomless well of teenage stupidity.
So, thanks for that one, Dad. And Happy Father's Day.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Breaking Up
This is kind of painful to admit, but I’m on the verge of ending one of the relationships in my life. It was good while it lasted. It helped me see how much joy and possibility life could contain, and stayed at my side through some rough times. It showed me incredible highs and disappointing lows. It shaped my happiness over many a summer. And even though I’ve managed to stay loyal over three decades, with, at times, the kind of devotion most people would attribute to a stalker, I’m starting to question if that same commitment is deserved anymore. There have just been too many times in recent years when there has a been a flash of promise that things might, just maybe, go back to the way they were, and while they were good for awhile, that goodness never held together. There will always be memories, but I’m afraid we’ve now reached the stage where the memories are all that’s left.
I’m thinking hard about breaking up with Journey.
Not an easy decision. “Escape” was one of the first vinyl LPs I bought with my own money, even though “Who’s Cryin’ Now” never did it for me. Neal Schon was the first musician I was a fan of inside of a band I liked -- it wasn’t hard to figure out his guitar playing was what drew me to start with. When Journey went on hiatus in the late 80s, I followed Neal through solo albums and side projects, including one album that a student once described as “the kind of music they play in the background when they’re showing the weather forecast on the news.” I stayed with them through the break-up, the reunion, through the Steve Perry megalomania that saw half the band fired and replaced with touring backup musicians (yes, I mean you Randy Jackson; I don’t care how much you name-drop on American Idol, you WERE NEVER LISTED AS A FULL MEMBER OF THE BAND, SO SHUT UP ALREADY), the subsequent sound-alike lead singers after Steve Perry left for good, and the mediocre albums that resulted. The spark, the magic was gone, but I still hung onto hope that someday it would return.
Journey released a new album about a month ago, and soon it appeared on iTunes. I dismissed it at first, thinking it was going to be a rehash of the last one with the newest singer, a guy they discovered on YouTube singing in a cover band. But then I saw it actually get a review in Rolling Stone. Which was a surprise, because usually Rolling Stone, a magazine that prides itself on being far too cool for everyone except its own writing staff, would just dismiss a Journey album as another typical legacy money-grab. It didn’t get a great review - 2 stars out of 5 - but a few of the comments in the review made me curious. So I decided to give the band one more chance before we break up for good. If this album doesn’t work, we’re done. And right here, right now, you get to see this decision unfold in real time as I give the album my first listen.
The album is called “Eclipse.” It starts out promising because the cover art references “Escape” in three different ways: The one-word title starting with an “E”, the trippy way they substitute some of the letters with numbers like they did with “Escape,” and a return to the little outer-space June bug that came bursting through some kind of spherical prison on the “Escape” cover, a cover I knew well since I sketched it with some accuracy on my eighth grade social studies notebook. Also most of the songs are between five and seven minutes long, which is a plus for me.
Okay, here we go. Tuning out the world, volume slider up all the way. Please, Journey. Don’t screw this up.
City of Hope - Yeesh. Kind of a pandering title to start with. A fire alarm guitar riff in the beginning. This guy really does sound like Steve Perry... most of the time. Not bad musically, pretty good solo that wasn’t long enough. A lot of the lyrics sound like something a middle school girl would post on a friend’s wall if that friend needed extra encouragement after a bad day. A little extra guitar in the last minute, which gets ugly in a good way. Overall it’s sort of bland, but there’s promise.
Edge of the Moment - Hey, this one starts out pretty cool. Much more of a rock song from the get go, with a funky rhythm section. Almost makes me want to turn to the drum kit and play along. Two minutes in and I’ve decided I really like this one. Two shorter solos with a nice bridge in the middle. Definitely gets the job done.
Chain of Love - Opens with some spacey keyboards... hmm... let’s hope this is going somewhere soon.... Whoa. Some full-on steam-engine metal guitars as soon as the keyboard melody is resolved, but they get a little buried in the mix when the vocals start up again. Typical Neal solo... I’d rather see more fireworks from him, especially on a song like this.
Tantra - Piano with subtle strings in the background - this has token ballad written all over it. Guys, seriously, you really took this kind of song to its logical peak with “Faithfully.” You aren’t going to top that, so I don’t know if it’s worth trying. Hmm, the rhythm changes halfway through, kicks up the tempo. That’s interesting. Playing around with the time signatures a bit - I can respect that. Guitar solo is still kind of bland, though. I’ll stop commenting on that until something comes up worth a comment. It kind of plods along until the piano/string wash returns at the end, for no reason at all.
Anything is Possible - Just from the title, and the first ten words, I’m guessing this song came from leftover lyric ideas from “City of Hope.” I’m wondering if whoever Journey’s primary songwriters are now have melodramatic middle-school kids, and if they are raiding their diaries when their lyrical ideas run dry. Anything is possible? Except remembering anything about this song ten minutes after I hear it. Oohh.. nice solo at the end though. Sounds like something from Neal’s 90s band Hardline. Yeah, I know you haven’t heard of them. Just take my word on this.
Resonate - Nice title; I just like this word, so that’s a good beginning. Kind of a proggy, dramatic beginning... okay, keep this up... nice rhythm guitar going on here, good energy in the drumming. Just caught myself bobbing my head along with it. Yeah, baby. I’m diggin’ this one.
She’s a Mystery - Jangly, almost acoustic guitars - 12-string? I can never tell for sure, but that’s my guess. A nice, laid-back sun-on-your-face summer kind of song. If Joe Satriani’s “Rubina’s Blue Sky Happiness” had any lyrics, it would sound a lot like this. And then in the last two minutes huge power chords come pounding in, and it still fits everything that was happening earlier. I was liking it before, but now it’s awesome.
Human Feel - Longest song on the album -- let’s see if its merited. It starts out with drum beats accompanied by percussive guitar chords, then an old-school organ and the bass come in. It gets repetitive after awhile, and doesn’t seem like it’s going anywhere new. It would have been a better song at 3:30 instead of 6:43.
My Ritual - I am stunned by the percentage of the lyrics on this album that are nothing but clichés. I’ll have to check the songwriting credits online to see if either Bryan Adams or Chris Daughtry was involved. We’ve got a faster song here, one that seems to be engineered to inspire fists pumping at the sky during a live show. It’s not bad, but it’s hardly noteworthy. I think I’d like this one more if it were only one song out of nine instead of one out of twelve, if that makes any sense.
To Whom It May Concern - Okay, if that’s what you call a song, you just aren’t trying hard enough. This is a good example of what I’m harping about with the clichés. Surprisingly enough, it’s a ballad... sure didn’t see that one coming. Ultimately its so forgettable it could have appeared on their last album, “Revelation,” or the one before it.... and I honestly can’t remember the title of that one without looking it up in the iTunes library. Oh, right. “Arrival.” Man, there’s still two more minutes of this? When a musical artist has worked their way up to a professional level, I’d think they’d want to put forth the best product they can, both to make sure they sell a lot of albums and to preserve their artistic legacy. And yet... filler like this.
Once You Let Someone - Once you let them what, exactly? This seems a little open ended, like that whole Meat Loaf “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)” deal. Oh, okay. Once you let someone love you. There. Mystery solved. Two more words in the title didn’t work? Maybe they figured this song was already so generic they needed something that wasn’t blatantly trite for a title.
Venus - Shortest song on the album as the closer? Hmm. Bucks a trend, but whatever. We’ve got distortion and feedback to begin with, which eventually morphs into a riff that sounds vaguely familiar... I think this is some kind of instrumental reprise to an earlier song on the album, but I don’t remember which. Maybe it’s just a chance for Neal to shred things up a little, because he’s going to town here. The drummer is even coming to life. Not Mike Portnoy soloing or anything, but more than just keeping a beat. Then we start to fade out, but fade back in again? What’s up with that? There’s nothing going on here that needs to be revisited for another twenty-four seconds.
Perhaps the only intelligent comment David Lee Roth of Van Halen ever made was pointing out that most albums only have maybe three or four really good songs on them. If you follow music at all and really think about it, he had a point. And it holds true here.
You had a couple good moments on Eclipse, Journey. But I’m not sure it’s enough for me to see you again or buy whatever you do next.
I think it’s time we went our separate ways.
I’m thinking hard about breaking up with Journey.
Not an easy decision. “Escape” was one of the first vinyl LPs I bought with my own money, even though “Who’s Cryin’ Now” never did it for me. Neal Schon was the first musician I was a fan of inside of a band I liked -- it wasn’t hard to figure out his guitar playing was what drew me to start with. When Journey went on hiatus in the late 80s, I followed Neal through solo albums and side projects, including one album that a student once described as “the kind of music they play in the background when they’re showing the weather forecast on the news.” I stayed with them through the break-up, the reunion, through the Steve Perry megalomania that saw half the band fired and replaced with touring backup musicians (yes, I mean you Randy Jackson; I don’t care how much you name-drop on American Idol, you WERE NEVER LISTED AS A FULL MEMBER OF THE BAND, SO SHUT UP ALREADY), the subsequent sound-alike lead singers after Steve Perry left for good, and the mediocre albums that resulted. The spark, the magic was gone, but I still hung onto hope that someday it would return.
Journey released a new album about a month ago, and soon it appeared on iTunes. I dismissed it at first, thinking it was going to be a rehash of the last one with the newest singer, a guy they discovered on YouTube singing in a cover band. But then I saw it actually get a review in Rolling Stone. Which was a surprise, because usually Rolling Stone, a magazine that prides itself on being far too cool for everyone except its own writing staff, would just dismiss a Journey album as another typical legacy money-grab. It didn’t get a great review - 2 stars out of 5 - but a few of the comments in the review made me curious. So I decided to give the band one more chance before we break up for good. If this album doesn’t work, we’re done. And right here, right now, you get to see this decision unfold in real time as I give the album my first listen.
The album is called “Eclipse.” It starts out promising because the cover art references “Escape” in three different ways: The one-word title starting with an “E”, the trippy way they substitute some of the letters with numbers like they did with “Escape,” and a return to the little outer-space June bug that came bursting through some kind of spherical prison on the “Escape” cover, a cover I knew well since I sketched it with some accuracy on my eighth grade social studies notebook. Also most of the songs are between five and seven minutes long, which is a plus for me.
Okay, here we go. Tuning out the world, volume slider up all the way. Please, Journey. Don’t screw this up.
City of Hope - Yeesh. Kind of a pandering title to start with. A fire alarm guitar riff in the beginning. This guy really does sound like Steve Perry... most of the time. Not bad musically, pretty good solo that wasn’t long enough. A lot of the lyrics sound like something a middle school girl would post on a friend’s wall if that friend needed extra encouragement after a bad day. A little extra guitar in the last minute, which gets ugly in a good way. Overall it’s sort of bland, but there’s promise.
Edge of the Moment - Hey, this one starts out pretty cool. Much more of a rock song from the get go, with a funky rhythm section. Almost makes me want to turn to the drum kit and play along. Two minutes in and I’ve decided I really like this one. Two shorter solos with a nice bridge in the middle. Definitely gets the job done.
Chain of Love - Opens with some spacey keyboards... hmm... let’s hope this is going somewhere soon.... Whoa. Some full-on steam-engine metal guitars as soon as the keyboard melody is resolved, but they get a little buried in the mix when the vocals start up again. Typical Neal solo... I’d rather see more fireworks from him, especially on a song like this.
Tantra - Piano with subtle strings in the background - this has token ballad written all over it. Guys, seriously, you really took this kind of song to its logical peak with “Faithfully.” You aren’t going to top that, so I don’t know if it’s worth trying. Hmm, the rhythm changes halfway through, kicks up the tempo. That’s interesting. Playing around with the time signatures a bit - I can respect that. Guitar solo is still kind of bland, though. I’ll stop commenting on that until something comes up worth a comment. It kind of plods along until the piano/string wash returns at the end, for no reason at all.
Anything is Possible - Just from the title, and the first ten words, I’m guessing this song came from leftover lyric ideas from “City of Hope.” I’m wondering if whoever Journey’s primary songwriters are now have melodramatic middle-school kids, and if they are raiding their diaries when their lyrical ideas run dry. Anything is possible? Except remembering anything about this song ten minutes after I hear it. Oohh.. nice solo at the end though. Sounds like something from Neal’s 90s band Hardline. Yeah, I know you haven’t heard of them. Just take my word on this.
Resonate - Nice title; I just like this word, so that’s a good beginning. Kind of a proggy, dramatic beginning... okay, keep this up... nice rhythm guitar going on here, good energy in the drumming. Just caught myself bobbing my head along with it. Yeah, baby. I’m diggin’ this one.
She’s a Mystery - Jangly, almost acoustic guitars - 12-string? I can never tell for sure, but that’s my guess. A nice, laid-back sun-on-your-face summer kind of song. If Joe Satriani’s “Rubina’s Blue Sky Happiness” had any lyrics, it would sound a lot like this. And then in the last two minutes huge power chords come pounding in, and it still fits everything that was happening earlier. I was liking it before, but now it’s awesome.
Human Feel - Longest song on the album -- let’s see if its merited. It starts out with drum beats accompanied by percussive guitar chords, then an old-school organ and the bass come in. It gets repetitive after awhile, and doesn’t seem like it’s going anywhere new. It would have been a better song at 3:30 instead of 6:43.
My Ritual - I am stunned by the percentage of the lyrics on this album that are nothing but clichés. I’ll have to check the songwriting credits online to see if either Bryan Adams or Chris Daughtry was involved. We’ve got a faster song here, one that seems to be engineered to inspire fists pumping at the sky during a live show. It’s not bad, but it’s hardly noteworthy. I think I’d like this one more if it were only one song out of nine instead of one out of twelve, if that makes any sense.
To Whom It May Concern - Okay, if that’s what you call a song, you just aren’t trying hard enough. This is a good example of what I’m harping about with the clichés. Surprisingly enough, it’s a ballad... sure didn’t see that one coming. Ultimately its so forgettable it could have appeared on their last album, “Revelation,” or the one before it.... and I honestly can’t remember the title of that one without looking it up in the iTunes library. Oh, right. “Arrival.” Man, there’s still two more minutes of this? When a musical artist has worked their way up to a professional level, I’d think they’d want to put forth the best product they can, both to make sure they sell a lot of albums and to preserve their artistic legacy. And yet... filler like this.
Once You Let Someone - Once you let them what, exactly? This seems a little open ended, like that whole Meat Loaf “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)” deal. Oh, okay. Once you let someone love you. There. Mystery solved. Two more words in the title didn’t work? Maybe they figured this song was already so generic they needed something that wasn’t blatantly trite for a title.
Venus - Shortest song on the album as the closer? Hmm. Bucks a trend, but whatever. We’ve got distortion and feedback to begin with, which eventually morphs into a riff that sounds vaguely familiar... I think this is some kind of instrumental reprise to an earlier song on the album, but I don’t remember which. Maybe it’s just a chance for Neal to shred things up a little, because he’s going to town here. The drummer is even coming to life. Not Mike Portnoy soloing or anything, but more than just keeping a beat. Then we start to fade out, but fade back in again? What’s up with that? There’s nothing going on here that needs to be revisited for another twenty-four seconds.
Perhaps the only intelligent comment David Lee Roth of Van Halen ever made was pointing out that most albums only have maybe three or four really good songs on them. If you follow music at all and really think about it, he had a point. And it holds true here.
You had a couple good moments on Eclipse, Journey. But I’m not sure it’s enough for me to see you again or buy whatever you do next.
I think it’s time we went our separate ways.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Episode 1: Origin Story
This entry is the first in the summer workshop series I promised a few posts back, in which I reflect upon my teaching career as I’m about to begin my 20th year. I’m not saying anything I write here will wind up being included in the eventual manuscript, but hopefully along the way I’ll find my voice and decide exactly what it is I want to say.
I can honestly remember the moment I decided I was going to teach. One morning my friends and I walked into our 6th grade class to discover that Miss Fischer, our teacher, had gone and done an extreme makeover to the whole room the night before. New bulletin boards, new posters, new name tags on our desks, and a brand new desk arrangement, new everything. Our classmates arrived with building energy, taking in the sights, looking for their desks and discovering (either with excitement or a notable lack thereof) who they sat by now. My first thought when I walked in that morning was, “It would be so cool to be the one who gets to do this.”
I grew up in an extended family of teachers. I do not exaggerate when I say that if you took everyone in the three generations of teachers who were either born into or married into the family and put them all to work in their areas of expertise before the retirements began, we could’ve operated our own K-12 charter school, including the administration, the health office, the band, the choir, and all of the coaches.
I lived my live hearing my aunts and uncles and cousins talk about their classes. When I got to high school, I kind of cheated on an aptitude test the guidance counselors made us take -- I read into what the questions were trying to find out and answered them in ways to guarantee my counselor would tell me to become a teacher. Originally I considered being a band director because I thought music was the only thing I came close to excelling at, but declared myself a Communications major after one of my high school English teachers told me my writing would be wasted in the classroom. An ego stroke like that is hard to brush off when you’re eighteen, it seems. But it became clear in a hurry that it wasn’t right for me, and soon after that I was back in the Ed. program, now focusing on English instead of music -- the thing I was actually good at instead of the thing I just wanted to be good at.
English was okay. A lot of the class work was pretty subjective since it seemed like all we ever did was read archaic literature and then write papers that agreed with what the professors told us the books meant if we wanted good grades. But it got old pretty fast... the example course I always fall back on was “Survey of 18th Century British Literature, Part 2.” Because only one survey class wasn’t enough to contain all the boring. At about the same time I was home for a weekend and watched a really awful B-movie called “The Principal,” starring Jim Belushi. He was the tough guy with the heart of gold and aluminum baseball bat that was going to clean up the horrible high school he’d been assigned to as a punishment, even if it meant crackin’ skulls with that bat when the students came after him all weaponed up. Being preternaturally naive, I started to wonder if that’s what high school was really like: Is EVERY kid in a gang? Do they ALL have guns and knives? Will I need to rely on my wits when they stalk me through the deserted locker room, after they’ve stabbed security guard Louis Gossett, Jr. and handcuffed him to a radiator so he can’t help me? This was seeming like too much. I wondered a version of this concern aloud to my mother, who nonchalantly said, “You have a day off next week. Why don’t you come to my school and spend the day in my classroom? See what it’s like.”
She taught second grade, so this was nearly unthinkable. Little kids? Didn’t they all still constantly cry and wet their pants at the same time? But that bloody gash on Jim Belushi’s forehead made me think it was at least worth a try. Good thing I did too, because nothing in my life before or since clicked as hard for me as the first full day I spent in an elementary classroom as one of the adults.
From that point on, I had a calling. The professors in my Ed. courses were finally talking about things that mattered. The people in class with me got it. We weren’t in it for a career -- we were designing a life. I got a job at the Boys and Girls Club, which turned out to be way more educational than too many of my classes were. I survived my field experiences without failing miserably, and managed to get through my student teaching with some degree of success. It all culminated in a frustrating year of my life spent as an indentured substitute teacher who landed the occasional job interview that never panned out. I even had a rejection letter from one show up in the mail not two hours after my interview had ended.
Subbing was no ride around the lake, but it gave me some great experience. I got a lot of sub calls from the school where my mother taught, which turned out to be pretty important later on. By the end of the school year, I’d had enough days in the building to feel I could ask the principal there to write up a recommendation letter for my application file, and he obliged.
When I made it all the way to Job Interview #11, two weeks before school was about to start, that letter paid off. At the end of my last interview, the principal who would be hiring me the following day asked if there was anyone in particular she should contact from my recommendations. While she asked me this, I noticed she had already started writing down the name of my mother’s principal. It turned out the two of them were good friends.
The phone woke me the following morning. Bonnie, my new principal, offered me the job, and we talked about formalities for a few minutes.
“I’m very happy to have you joining our staff,” she said as we ended the call.
“Words don’t exist to tell you how happy I am,” I replied. She laughed at the joke, but in the moment I was completely sincere.
This is what I knew I was supposed to do with my life, and now I was going to get the chance.
I can honestly remember the moment I decided I was going to teach. One morning my friends and I walked into our 6th grade class to discover that Miss Fischer, our teacher, had gone and done an extreme makeover to the whole room the night before. New bulletin boards, new posters, new name tags on our desks, and a brand new desk arrangement, new everything. Our classmates arrived with building energy, taking in the sights, looking for their desks and discovering (either with excitement or a notable lack thereof) who they sat by now. My first thought when I walked in that morning was, “It would be so cool to be the one who gets to do this.”
I grew up in an extended family of teachers. I do not exaggerate when I say that if you took everyone in the three generations of teachers who were either born into or married into the family and put them all to work in their areas of expertise before the retirements began, we could’ve operated our own K-12 charter school, including the administration, the health office, the band, the choir, and all of the coaches.
I lived my live hearing my aunts and uncles and cousins talk about their classes. When I got to high school, I kind of cheated on an aptitude test the guidance counselors made us take -- I read into what the questions were trying to find out and answered them in ways to guarantee my counselor would tell me to become a teacher. Originally I considered being a band director because I thought music was the only thing I came close to excelling at, but declared myself a Communications major after one of my high school English teachers told me my writing would be wasted in the classroom. An ego stroke like that is hard to brush off when you’re eighteen, it seems. But it became clear in a hurry that it wasn’t right for me, and soon after that I was back in the Ed. program, now focusing on English instead of music -- the thing I was actually good at instead of the thing I just wanted to be good at.
English was okay. A lot of the class work was pretty subjective since it seemed like all we ever did was read archaic literature and then write papers that agreed with what the professors told us the books meant if we wanted good grades. But it got old pretty fast... the example course I always fall back on was “Survey of 18th Century British Literature, Part 2.” Because only one survey class wasn’t enough to contain all the boring. At about the same time I was home for a weekend and watched a really awful B-movie called “The Principal,” starring Jim Belushi. He was the tough guy with the heart of gold and aluminum baseball bat that was going to clean up the horrible high school he’d been assigned to as a punishment, even if it meant crackin’ skulls with that bat when the students came after him all weaponed up. Being preternaturally naive, I started to wonder if that’s what high school was really like: Is EVERY kid in a gang? Do they ALL have guns and knives? Will I need to rely on my wits when they stalk me through the deserted locker room, after they’ve stabbed security guard Louis Gossett, Jr. and handcuffed him to a radiator so he can’t help me? This was seeming like too much. I wondered a version of this concern aloud to my mother, who nonchalantly said, “You have a day off next week. Why don’t you come to my school and spend the day in my classroom? See what it’s like.”
She taught second grade, so this was nearly unthinkable. Little kids? Didn’t they all still constantly cry and wet their pants at the same time? But that bloody gash on Jim Belushi’s forehead made me think it was at least worth a try. Good thing I did too, because nothing in my life before or since clicked as hard for me as the first full day I spent in an elementary classroom as one of the adults.
From that point on, I had a calling. The professors in my Ed. courses were finally talking about things that mattered. The people in class with me got it. We weren’t in it for a career -- we were designing a life. I got a job at the Boys and Girls Club, which turned out to be way more educational than too many of my classes were. I survived my field experiences without failing miserably, and managed to get through my student teaching with some degree of success. It all culminated in a frustrating year of my life spent as an indentured substitute teacher who landed the occasional job interview that never panned out. I even had a rejection letter from one show up in the mail not two hours after my interview had ended.
Subbing was no ride around the lake, but it gave me some great experience. I got a lot of sub calls from the school where my mother taught, which turned out to be pretty important later on. By the end of the school year, I’d had enough days in the building to feel I could ask the principal there to write up a recommendation letter for my application file, and he obliged.
When I made it all the way to Job Interview #11, two weeks before school was about to start, that letter paid off. At the end of my last interview, the principal who would be hiring me the following day asked if there was anyone in particular she should contact from my recommendations. While she asked me this, I noticed she had already started writing down the name of my mother’s principal. It turned out the two of them were good friends.
The phone woke me the following morning. Bonnie, my new principal, offered me the job, and we talked about formalities for a few minutes.
“I’m very happy to have you joining our staff,” she said as we ended the call.
“Words don’t exist to tell you how happy I am,” I replied. She laughed at the joke, but in the moment I was completely sincere.
This is what I knew I was supposed to do with my life, and now I was going to get the chance.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Snowpants in June, or The Last Day of School
The last day of school for the kids. Some general reflections / observations:
- It's really kind of incredible to think how long an unwashed food container can go unnoticed in the bottom of someone's desk or hidden beneath a stack of old papers on the top shelf of a locker. Those airtight seals really do get the job done, it seems.
- Anyone who tries to accomplish something of lasting academic significance on the last day in an elementary school is insane.
- There was a great little moment when one of my boys had his sister and their mother come to visit during our annual end-of-the-year awards ceremony this morning. A great moment for me since his sister was also one of my fifth graders from way back when. She had just recently finished her first year of college, and came back so beautiful and poised and mature that at first glance I thought she was somebody's parent.
- During the lunchtime small talk when the discussion inevitably came around to what plans people had for the summer, I actually had something to say other than "Write." Which just made me feel so darn included....
- It wasn't at all cute to see my girls break down crying at the end of the day. It's usually kind of an "Aww, how sweet" moment that a lot of people can easily dismiss and chuckle about, but this time I can think of a few who were sad about ending their days at the only school they've known, and were taking some very real pain with them as they left.
- All of the gift cards I received for last-day presents were for Caribou Coffee. And I don't drink coffee, which means my sister will be very happy. Though one observant girl did give me a case case of Vitamin Water, so that was kind of cool. But I drink Vitamin Water Zero, and this was the regular stuff. So again, bonus for my sister.
- I had more than a few people looking around my room and wonder aloud why I had stripped it bare, and packed everything away, and even completely emptied out my desk. What can I say -- I know I'll want to start the next school year with a blank slate. Sure, it's probably more putzy work than is really necessary to achieve that goal, but you know what? If you saw the kind of numbers my kids put up for their spring tests scores you might have second thoughts about questioning the methods.
- And for the record.... Yes, there was one kid in my class who only took home his recess snowpants today, June 9th. Even though they haven't been required for at least two months, and even though we've had 100-degree temperatures since that last snowfall, and we even took on a school-wide locker clean out before spring break. Still. This kid. Snowpants. In the locker. In June.
Welcome to my life.
- It's really kind of incredible to think how long an unwashed food container can go unnoticed in the bottom of someone's desk or hidden beneath a stack of old papers on the top shelf of a locker. Those airtight seals really do get the job done, it seems.
- Anyone who tries to accomplish something of lasting academic significance on the last day in an elementary school is insane.
- There was a great little moment when one of my boys had his sister and their mother come to visit during our annual end-of-the-year awards ceremony this morning. A great moment for me since his sister was also one of my fifth graders from way back when. She had just recently finished her first year of college, and came back so beautiful and poised and mature that at first glance I thought she was somebody's parent.
- During the lunchtime small talk when the discussion inevitably came around to what plans people had for the summer, I actually had something to say other than "Write." Which just made me feel so darn included....
- It wasn't at all cute to see my girls break down crying at the end of the day. It's usually kind of an "Aww, how sweet" moment that a lot of people can easily dismiss and chuckle about, but this time I can think of a few who were sad about ending their days at the only school they've known, and were taking some very real pain with them as they left.
- All of the gift cards I received for last-day presents were for Caribou Coffee. And I don't drink coffee, which means my sister will be very happy. Though one observant girl did give me a case case of Vitamin Water, so that was kind of cool. But I drink Vitamin Water Zero, and this was the regular stuff. So again, bonus for my sister.
- I had more than a few people looking around my room and wonder aloud why I had stripped it bare, and packed everything away, and even completely emptied out my desk. What can I say -- I know I'll want to start the next school year with a blank slate. Sure, it's probably more putzy work than is really necessary to achieve that goal, but you know what? If you saw the kind of numbers my kids put up for their spring tests scores you might have second thoughts about questioning the methods.
- And for the record.... Yes, there was one kid in my class who only took home his recess snowpants today, June 9th. Even though they haven't been required for at least two months, and even though we've had 100-degree temperatures since that last snowfall, and we even took on a school-wide locker clean out before spring break. Still. This kid. Snowpants. In the locker. In June.
Welcome to my life.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Elementary School as Reality TV
I will admit that I don't plan on using all seventy-nine of my upcoming vacation days productively.
Most of them, sure. I have to. I'm self-aware enough to realize that if I don't have some tangible goals in front of me during the summer, I'll go a little crazy. But I plan on doing my fair share of time-wasting in front of the TV as well. And during the summer, a good way to make hour-long increments of life disappear without anything to show for it is by watching reality TV.
I'm not a reality junkie or anything, but I probably spend more time watching this worthless crap than most people with my combination of education and mildly (?) elitist nature. And I've seen enough to think there's a fair case to be made that a year spent in an elementary school classroom is analogous to a typical season of reality television. Here's a short rundown of the similarities:
-- They are both centered around a group of people who have been randomly assigned to spend time together.
-- Both groups of people start out with nothing but peace, love, and happiness. And it doesn't take long for the cliques to emerge and the infighting to begin.
-- At some point, it's revealed that some of the people in the class / on the cast are not precisely the people they initially appear to be. A kid gets caught stealing, or bullying, or lying, or really bad work habits and attitudes come to the surface. And let's face it, anyone who would voluntarily be involved, and in fact pursue involvement with a reality TV show, often has some fairly deep character flaw.
-- Each group has a few people in it who simply live to create drama where drama did not previously exist, just to draw attention to themselves.
-- Each group, over the time they are together, has the potential for several different romantic pairings. In the classroom, this amounts to two kids simply declaring they are "going out" and then refusing to acknowledge the other person's existence, even when they stand beside each other in the lunch line. Reality TV? So much creepier, but probably with the same amount of actual emotion involved.
-- When the season or the school year comes to an end, there are always people who end things with great dramatic flourish as to give the impression their lives will not be complete once they've been separated from the group. Even if they have just spent the past several weeks or months complaining about how much they can't stand each other.
Both can be equally entertaining in their ridiculousness, but unfortunately I only get paid to watch one of them happen.
Most of them, sure. I have to. I'm self-aware enough to realize that if I don't have some tangible goals in front of me during the summer, I'll go a little crazy. But I plan on doing my fair share of time-wasting in front of the TV as well. And during the summer, a good way to make hour-long increments of life disappear without anything to show for it is by watching reality TV.
I'm not a reality junkie or anything, but I probably spend more time watching this worthless crap than most people with my combination of education and mildly (?) elitist nature. And I've seen enough to think there's a fair case to be made that a year spent in an elementary school classroom is analogous to a typical season of reality television. Here's a short rundown of the similarities:
-- They are both centered around a group of people who have been randomly assigned to spend time together.
-- Both groups of people start out with nothing but peace, love, and happiness. And it doesn't take long for the cliques to emerge and the infighting to begin.
-- At some point, it's revealed that some of the people in the class / on the cast are not precisely the people they initially appear to be. A kid gets caught stealing, or bullying, or lying, or really bad work habits and attitudes come to the surface. And let's face it, anyone who would voluntarily be involved, and in fact pursue involvement with a reality TV show, often has some fairly deep character flaw.
-- Each group has a few people in it who simply live to create drama where drama did not previously exist, just to draw attention to themselves.
-- Each group, over the time they are together, has the potential for several different romantic pairings. In the classroom, this amounts to two kids simply declaring they are "going out" and then refusing to acknowledge the other person's existence, even when they stand beside each other in the lunch line. Reality TV? So much creepier, but probably with the same amount of actual emotion involved.
-- When the season or the school year comes to an end, there are always people who end things with great dramatic flourish as to give the impression their lives will not be complete once they've been separated from the group. Even if they have just spent the past several weeks or months complaining about how much they can't stand each other.
Both can be equally entertaining in their ridiculousness, but unfortunately I only get paid to watch one of them happen.
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