These days my teaching partner is reading THE WESTING GAME to our classes at the end of the school day. The important thing to know here is that this book was originally published in the late 1970s.
A couple days ago there was a moment in the story when one of the characters was listening to a transistor radio. I’m very confident I was the only person in the room then who had actually done that in real life. After my cousins introduced me to American Top 40, I adopted my dad’s transistor radio and would listen to it with the 70s precursor of an earbud, which was an uncomfortable parabola of plastic you had to jam deep into your ear canal to hear. It also kept you tethered to the radio by a cord that couldn’t have been more than eighteen inches long. I didn't care. There was more than one night, especially if Casey Kasem’s weekly countdown was on, when I fell asleep with that thing stuck in my ear, or, if I couldn’t stand it anymore, with the radio volume turned way down so I could lie in bed on my side and balance the radio on my ear until I fell asleep.
It wasn’t long after that I was buying records, both albums and singles. Truthfully, it was usually albums. Having the hit song was good, but if it was a favorite band there was a good chance there would be deeper album tracks I’d like as well. When my parents bought a cassette deck, I started adding some tapes to the collection, which eventually led to an infinite parade of obsessively planned mix tapes. If you didn't know me back then and you think I ever would have made a mix tape for you for whatever reason -- you missed out. I had it down to an art form.
Compact discs came in college. My roommate Steve had a CD player and didn’t mind if I bought a few discs of my own for us to play. It wasn’t many years later until I had my own stereo in my first apartment, at which point my CD collection began to slowly take over my life. At least until the iTunes store went live and I bought the first in a series of several iPods, and downloaded more songs and albums than I will ever admit.
Somehow though, my evolution stopped there.
I still have two iPods, and I keep music on my phone. I’ll still buy and download most of the albums I listen to. I have maybe three CDs stashed in my car for emergencies, but I’ll usually listen to one of my six preset stations from the Twin Cities radio market. No streaming services, no satellite radio, no Alexa.
Television is basically the same way. I still haven’t cut the cable, and I rarely order up anything from On Demand. I have Netflix, but I hardly ever use it. With that in mind, what about all of these other streaming services, more than any of us could ever name? I’m sure they all have good shows, but am I really missing out if I don’t know anything about them?
If I subscribed to a music streaming service, how much of it would I use to really explore the potential of what’s out there I don’t already know? If I did unload cable this summer, how would I know which streaming services were really, truly essential for what I would want to watch?
And really, how much would any of that enhance my life more than being able to listen to the radio while reading a book on a summer afternoon as my dog naps beside me?
I'm kind of serious, though. Why would I ever consider getting a streaming service, either for music or television? For people that use them -- what am I missing?
Monday, May 6, 2019
Sunday, May 5, 2019
Day 5: The Boys of Summer
Even though I’ve never been a fan of The Eagles, one of my favorite songs came from Don Henley, his solo classic “The Boys of Summer.” It was about the dead center of my high school years, a time in life when favorite songs tend to carry significant weight. The music is predominantly electronic — even the percussion, which, at the time, since Henley was the drummer for The Eagles and I was a high school drummer myself, seemed like an odd, but effective, choice. (I think I just set a personal record for the number of commas included in any one sentence right there.) It wasn’t electronic in the way of so much 80s synth-pop, but it gave the song a dreamlike feel unlike anything else being played on the radio at the time. The lyrics had a storytelling quality to them that appealed to me, though they weren’t straightforward about any narrative or characters; the guy singing was clearly looking back at an earlier time in his life, remembering time spent with a love that consumed him, and finding it difficult to leave those feelings in the past. I was still just a kid, though. The only window I had to relate to any of those lyrics was to remind myself how I was right then living through the times that guy was singing about, and the day would eventually arrive when I’d be able to look back at that part of my life with a hybrid of fondness and heartbreak.
As dated to the mid-80s as “The Boys of Summer” always sounded, it endured. It couldn’t really be called a one-hit wonder since Don Henley is pretty much a legend and has amassed more greatest hits collections than most artists have releases, but it was kind of an aberration in his career, a song so sonically different from his other work and perfectly earmarked for its time that it stands out for its unique quality. Because of that hypnotic combination of hallucinatory melody and anticipatory nostalgia, the song never got old for me.
The Boys of Summer by Don Henley
A few years after the world settled down from Y2K panic, back when the cultural landscape was populated by post-millennial neo-punk emo guitar bands following in the wake of Green Day and Blink-182, a band amusingly calling themselves The Ataris had a cover version of “The Boys of Summer” on the radio. The first time I heard it I was afraid it was intended to be an ironic cover, like when Alien Ant Farm covered “Smooth Criminal” or just recently when Weezer covered Toto’s “Africa.” That wasn’t the case, though. While their interpretation of the song charges at you with a fierce energy, it still carries just enough of the loneliness and melancholy to stay true to the spirit of the original. Other than changing up the lyric of seeing a Dead Head sticker on a Cadillac to a Black Flag sticker, the song stayed surprisingly true to the original. You could enjoy how much the song rocked, but, and probably because the Ataris were at least leaning toward being an emo band, you could still enjoy how much it felt.
The Boys of Summer by The Ataris
A few years later I was browsing my way through the iTunes store one day, looking for any available music I didn’t know about but was probably going to love when I found it. (I will never admit to anyone exactly how much time I’ve spent doing this over the years.) I came across a fairly new album from an old favorite band — The Hooters. Remember? “And We danced?” “Day by Day?” “All You Zombies?” They were a great group of musicians and songwriters with a most unfortunate band name, and they’d had their commercial peak right about the same time Don Henley’s original “The Boys of Summer” was cycling out of heavy radio play. Most people wrote The Hooters off after a couple of hits, but they’d become a favorite of mine. I saw them live, twice. And so many years and decades later in two-thousand-frickin’- eight, here they were again with a new album out. Immediately downloaded without even bothering to preview, and it was great.
One big surprise was another cover version of “The Boys of Summer.” I saw that on the track list and was intrigued. When I heard it, I was overwhelmed. It was the version of the song I’d been promised at sixteen, the version I would need so much at forty. Now I was the guy who could look back at my past, and maybe sometimes for a little longer than I should. I had the authentic nostalgia, magnified by a version of the song that was simpler, quieter, beautiful, and devastating.
The Boys of Summer by The Hooters
Even now, years later, whenever I play “The Boys of Summer” by the Hooters, the version of the song that, due to the passage of time is now the version I connect with the most, I’ll stop what I’m doing and listen. Usually the song ends up sticking with me for the rest of that day. The same holds true to a lesser degree for the other two versions, but that newest one is the one that always breaks me.
I don’t think it happens often when you get to revisit a favorite song from different perspectives spread out for more than thirty years. I’m glad it happened for me.
As dated to the mid-80s as “The Boys of Summer” always sounded, it endured. It couldn’t really be called a one-hit wonder since Don Henley is pretty much a legend and has amassed more greatest hits collections than most artists have releases, but it was kind of an aberration in his career, a song so sonically different from his other work and perfectly earmarked for its time that it stands out for its unique quality. Because of that hypnotic combination of hallucinatory melody and anticipatory nostalgia, the song never got old for me.
The Boys of Summer by Don Henley
A few years after the world settled down from Y2K panic, back when the cultural landscape was populated by post-millennial neo-punk emo guitar bands following in the wake of Green Day and Blink-182, a band amusingly calling themselves The Ataris had a cover version of “The Boys of Summer” on the radio. The first time I heard it I was afraid it was intended to be an ironic cover, like when Alien Ant Farm covered “Smooth Criminal” or just recently when Weezer covered Toto’s “Africa.” That wasn’t the case, though. While their interpretation of the song charges at you with a fierce energy, it still carries just enough of the loneliness and melancholy to stay true to the spirit of the original. Other than changing up the lyric of seeing a Dead Head sticker on a Cadillac to a Black Flag sticker, the song stayed surprisingly true to the original. You could enjoy how much the song rocked, but, and probably because the Ataris were at least leaning toward being an emo band, you could still enjoy how much it felt.
The Boys of Summer by The Ataris
A few years later I was browsing my way through the iTunes store one day, looking for any available music I didn’t know about but was probably going to love when I found it. (I will never admit to anyone exactly how much time I’ve spent doing this over the years.) I came across a fairly new album from an old favorite band — The Hooters. Remember? “And We danced?” “Day by Day?” “All You Zombies?” They were a great group of musicians and songwriters with a most unfortunate band name, and they’d had their commercial peak right about the same time Don Henley’s original “The Boys of Summer” was cycling out of heavy radio play. Most people wrote The Hooters off after a couple of hits, but they’d become a favorite of mine. I saw them live, twice. And so many years and decades later in two-thousand-frickin’- eight, here they were again with a new album out. Immediately downloaded without even bothering to preview, and it was great.
One big surprise was another cover version of “The Boys of Summer.” I saw that on the track list and was intrigued. When I heard it, I was overwhelmed. It was the version of the song I’d been promised at sixteen, the version I would need so much at forty. Now I was the guy who could look back at my past, and maybe sometimes for a little longer than I should. I had the authentic nostalgia, magnified by a version of the song that was simpler, quieter, beautiful, and devastating.
The Boys of Summer by The Hooters
Even now, years later, whenever I play “The Boys of Summer” by the Hooters, the version of the song that, due to the passage of time is now the version I connect with the most, I’ll stop what I’m doing and listen. Usually the song ends up sticking with me for the rest of that day. The same holds true to a lesser degree for the other two versions, but that newest one is the one that always breaks me.
I don’t think it happens often when you get to revisit a favorite song from different perspectives spread out for more than thirty years. I’m glad it happened for me.
Saturday, May 4, 2019
Day 4: Childhood's End
I saw my nephew’s final high school play last night, “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.” It was a great production, and he did a fantastic job. Since he's been involved in drama for a few years now, I recognized a lot of the other kids in the cast from different productions. Seeing them come together one more time for a production that was so entertaining, and one they clearly enjoyed, was a lot like watching them take a victory lap. As a teacher and an artist and an uncle, I was proud of them all, for so many reasons.
But it was also a sad night.
In less than a month, my nephew will go through his high school graduation. The commencement ceremony will be held on the campus of the college he’ll be attending in the fall. Because he’s the youngest of my sister’s three sons, his moving on to college signals the end of any familial attachments I’ll have with anything related to childhood.
Because of whatever twisted path of decisions and indecisions I ended up making throughout life, I’ve gotten this far into the game without having been married or having any children. I know there are people in the periphery of my world who look at that fact and wonder about it; my only response is I often wonder how things happened that way myself, so you’re more than kindly invited to mind your own @#$%&^! business on the subject. However, this meant my nephews were the children in our family. My sister Erin and I always tried to be an active aunt and uncle team for the boys, and, at least in their younger years immediately following Erin’s passing, I tried to step in and make up for her absence. My reasons were both because I felt the responsibility — especially for the oldest one, since I was the only godparent he had left — but also because part of me craved even a sampling of this whole category of life experiences I was all too aware I was going to miss. As a teacher, I’ve been to more dance recitals and basketball games and church concerts than I could ever remember, but those were all for students. Going to those activities for students can be its own kind of special experience, but it’s not the same when you have that blood connection to the kids you came to watch.
I had years when my Wednesday nights meant picking up Nephew #1, driving him a couple suburbs over for Tae Kwon Do class, then taking him to the Subway at the other end of the strip mall for dinner, where he ordered the same sandwich, without fail, every single time. Nephew #2 was the one who was game to try just about anything once, as long as it had something to do with a ball, running around, and teams full of kids he could play with. Football, basketball, soccer, baseball — it’s entirely possible I’m forgetting a sport or two. There were enough games spread out over the years I seriously considered buying my own collapsing canvas chair to use on the sidelines, so I wouldn’t have to borrow one from my sister or sit in the grass.
Nephew #3 gave sports a try early on, but they didn’t stick. For the longest time he was that kid content to play video games, eat cheese tortillas, and, as was his birthright and responsibility as the youngest child, irritate his older siblings. Then in middle school he found music. One instrument wasn’t enough, so he tried others. He got older and there was speech. He got to high school and saw a lot of his friends trying out for plays, which led to some parts in drama and voice lessons so he could be in musicals.
All of that’s done now. Any melancholy I feel isn’t about giving up the activities — which were not always a thrill — but knowing those three boys and the world of their childhood is over. I cringe a little at the phrase “young men,” but when my youngest nephew is probably able to grow a heavier beard than mine and he’ll be in college in a few months, I can’t really call him a boy anymore. They are all three young men, each seeking their own direction, trying to navigate the worlds they live in, and figuring out what will come next.
They’ll still be a part of my life, but not to the same degree or in the same way anymore. Even though I’m happy to have had so much time with them when they were younger and I’m happy to know who they are now, there’s a distancing that seems inherent with growing up. I’m glad I was able to have that with them, and I hope the Buffalo Wild Wings lunches we had and the Lego Halloween fairs we built and the movies we saw made some kind of positive difference for them. They certainly did for me. Whatever comes next for them, I’m going to miss what isn't there anymore.
But it was also a sad night.
In less than a month, my nephew will go through his high school graduation. The commencement ceremony will be held on the campus of the college he’ll be attending in the fall. Because he’s the youngest of my sister’s three sons, his moving on to college signals the end of any familial attachments I’ll have with anything related to childhood.
Because of whatever twisted path of decisions and indecisions I ended up making throughout life, I’ve gotten this far into the game without having been married or having any children. I know there are people in the periphery of my world who look at that fact and wonder about it; my only response is I often wonder how things happened that way myself, so you’re more than kindly invited to mind your own @#$%&^! business on the subject. However, this meant my nephews were the children in our family. My sister Erin and I always tried to be an active aunt and uncle team for the boys, and, at least in their younger years immediately following Erin’s passing, I tried to step in and make up for her absence. My reasons were both because I felt the responsibility — especially for the oldest one, since I was the only godparent he had left — but also because part of me craved even a sampling of this whole category of life experiences I was all too aware I was going to miss. As a teacher, I’ve been to more dance recitals and basketball games and church concerts than I could ever remember, but those were all for students. Going to those activities for students can be its own kind of special experience, but it’s not the same when you have that blood connection to the kids you came to watch.
I had years when my Wednesday nights meant picking up Nephew #1, driving him a couple suburbs over for Tae Kwon Do class, then taking him to the Subway at the other end of the strip mall for dinner, where he ordered the same sandwich, without fail, every single time. Nephew #2 was the one who was game to try just about anything once, as long as it had something to do with a ball, running around, and teams full of kids he could play with. Football, basketball, soccer, baseball — it’s entirely possible I’m forgetting a sport or two. There were enough games spread out over the years I seriously considered buying my own collapsing canvas chair to use on the sidelines, so I wouldn’t have to borrow one from my sister or sit in the grass.
Nephew #3 gave sports a try early on, but they didn’t stick. For the longest time he was that kid content to play video games, eat cheese tortillas, and, as was his birthright and responsibility as the youngest child, irritate his older siblings. Then in middle school he found music. One instrument wasn’t enough, so he tried others. He got older and there was speech. He got to high school and saw a lot of his friends trying out for plays, which led to some parts in drama and voice lessons so he could be in musicals.
All of that’s done now. Any melancholy I feel isn’t about giving up the activities — which were not always a thrill — but knowing those three boys and the world of their childhood is over. I cringe a little at the phrase “young men,” but when my youngest nephew is probably able to grow a heavier beard than mine and he’ll be in college in a few months, I can’t really call him a boy anymore. They are all three young men, each seeking their own direction, trying to navigate the worlds they live in, and figuring out what will come next.
They’ll still be a part of my life, but not to the same degree or in the same way anymore. Even though I’m happy to have had so much time with them when they were younger and I’m happy to know who they are now, there’s a distancing that seems inherent with growing up. I’m glad I was able to have that with them, and I hope the Buffalo Wild Wings lunches we had and the Lego Halloween fairs we built and the movies we saw made some kind of positive difference for them. They certainly did for me. Whatever comes next for them, I’m going to miss what isn't there anymore.
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