#104) "Did it in a Minute" by Hall and Oates - Like most of what Hall and Oates did back in the day, Did it in a Minute is highly stylized and uniquely their own (seriously, who else could sing a song like this and make it work so well...?), but it doesn't really move me emotionally in any way. Instead, it evokes sharp and crisp memories from childhood, and those are what move me.
It makes me think of being ten, of Little League summers, of losing a lot of games. It brings to life memories of my teammates and me watching the game unfold intently, perched in a row in the dugout like the big leaguers, smacking wads of Big League Chew with our teeth and hacking out pink saliva. I can still taste the Faygo Rock and Rye, just a dime per bottle at the corner store...how well it seemed to pair with a chocolate Charleston Chew. Every once in a while a kid had real chew....Steve W. let me dip from his tin of Skoal once or twice; it was disgusting, but there was no way I was gonna be anything but supercool and pretend to want more. But then he cruelly (calculatedly...?) cut me off, and I was forced to ride my Huffy Rawhide banana seater down to the corner store to try to buy some for myself. The lady behind the counter wouldn't sell it to me, and I wound up making my escape on my Huffy Rawhide banana seater when two town bullies strolled in and caught me in the candy aisle buying Big League Chew.
The song playing on the radio behind the counter in that corner store, and on my dad's car radio when he came to pick me up (they chased me clear to the other side of town; I lost them, but broke my bike chain in the process...), and on my older brother's little plastic boom box all through that summer as he cantered about in his tight purple shorts, knee-high striped socks and elastic head band? Did it in a Minute by Hall and Oates.
"Everybody likes to laugh at love, but what they want is to be proven wrong..."
#105) "It's a Great Day to be Alive" by Travis Tritt - Maybe I'm wrong, but I'd be willing to place Travis Tritt on the (very) short list of celebrities you could probably sit down and have a few beers with and not have to endure being reminded every thirty seconds who he is.
That makes him well suited for a song like It's a Great Day to Be Alive, a grass roots 'feel good' song if ever there were one, yet not simple by any means. There's an undertone of uncertainty permeating this song's syncopated rhythm, a gloss of (potential) doom hiding in the tall, waving grass of lyrics. The line, 'I know the sun's still shining when I close my eyes' alone is pretty heady, carries with it an undeniable - and unavoidable - subtext.
And yet, the song still manages to offer a reliable prescription for the successful management of nearly all of life's bullshit.
"I got a three-day beard I don't plan to shave..."
#106) "The Logical Song" by Supertramp - Talk about heady, if I sit and concentrate on the lyrics of this song while it plays, each word a jigsaw puzzle piece put in place, I run the risk of having my mind blown totally offshore. Maybe it's not such a good idea to bring this one along with me on 1/48/50. I might start marinating in a casserole dish of my own existence and run off the road. ;-)
The Logical Song is another good example of a piece of pop music that would be hard pressed to find any airplay these days, much less reach #6 on the charts, as it did in the U.S. in 1979.
"There are times when all the world's asleep, the questions run too deep, for such a simple man..."
Friday, April 25, 2014
Friday, April 18, 2014
Road Construction (outside of Bumblebutt, Wherever)
1/48/50 has changed significantly since I first started dreaming about hitting the highway at the tender, and clueless, age of thirteen. How I go (what mode...), when I go (time in my life) and what I do and see while I'm going, has evolved as I've aged, as tastes, interests, predilections (and cluelessness) have developed and/or dissipated. But one thing has remained the same since the beginning: this trip will take place in summer.
People might question (in fact, some have already) the logic of this. Summer is when everyone wants to go. Roadways are clogged with all manner of traveler and transportation and become stressful places, to say the very least. Even back in 1960, when our highly movable society was just getting underway, Steinbeck waited to take his road trip until after Labor Day, "when millions of kids would be back in school and tens of millions of parents would be off the highways."
Since then, that highly movable society has only become faster moving and, it may be argued quite strongly, more impatient, ruder and stress-producing than ever. It's also true (historically) that gas prices drop after Labor Day, although that doesn't seem to be as reliable a bet as it once was.
In any case, yes, within the dull, drab discipline of logic it makes sense to wait. But I will be craving (and in some ways relying on) the energy of summer on this trip - the heat, the light, the storms, the fragrance, long days and short nights...each a unique but critical part of a burgeoning whole. As far as I'm concerned, there is nothing in this great land of ours, nothing on this planet, that looks, smells or tastes better in winter than in summer (this includes pancakes with syrup and hot chocolate...). And the last thing I'm going to want to feel on any leg of this journey is so much as a breath of fall in the air, until, perhaps, the very end.
Fall is the time to come home. It is not the time to leave. My entire life, May - graduation time - has been the time to leave. It is when I've been most assaulted by longing, felt most despairing (or at least dissatisfied) for having roots.
When you're not going anywhere besides to work or the grocery store, or if you're on a road trip with a very finite beginning and end, road construction amounts to little more than an inconvenience. But I'm planning to leave May 15 and stay out until October 1. '1 road trip through 48 states in under 50 years' will translate into four or five months of endless highway time and countless highways, which means being stuck in a construction bottleneck could very easily become a daily or twice daily occurrence, depending on how many miles I want to cover.
And that won't do.
Sadly, there's no way to avoid construction completely. Roads everywhere break down, crack up, get pitted and pot-holed, are in need of almost yearly repair. Worse even than a bottleneck is the dreaded detour. I hate detours. I don't know why, but I have a weird compulsion to stay on course that I know runs against any 'feather in the wind' ideal, but which I've never been able to shake entirely. I hate being told I have to go in a different direction from the one I was expecting to go, and I especially hate backtracking. And while I hope to be a feather in the wind at least a little bit on 1/48/50 (because something would be missing without some of that...), I do have a basic route in mind, and I'm not going to want to deviate too much, because there are things I'm going to want to see; I won't be just meandering aimlessly. And while it's true detours usually keep you going in the same basic direction, they can turn into a major pain in the ass, a source of stress all their own, when you're not from the area.
I wonder if road construction is heavier in the northern tier of states than the southern, on account of winter. It would have to be, I think, and yet maybe the deep south's blistering summertime heat and humidity take their toll as well. Ultimately, what really punishes roadways are all those vehicles rushing along, day in day out. So wherever this trip takes me, there's no question I'm going to have to be prepared to stop, wait, and go out of my way more than once.
To combat this (and feel like I've begun 'planning' a trip that's still years off), I spent a little time searching for some kind of on-line construction tracker, an app for my phone that compiles and continuously updates road construction status state-by-state. How could that not exist, right? Well, there appear to be road CONDITION apps available, but nothing dealing with construction specifically. And the closest I've come to such an umbrella on the Internet is the Federal Highway Administration website, but they seem to deal mainly with the Interstates, and as much as possible I want to avoid them on 1/48/50. The two-lane roads I've (mostly) plotted my course along are much harder to account for. (County Road Y in Bumblebutt, Wherever doesn't get a lot of action on any given day, I imagine...). I'm usually sent to individual state sites for the smaller, lesser traveled routes. Of these, some are more comprehensive than others, but most provide at least a short list of construction projects. Just not all in one place.
This app so needs to happen.
I guess when the time comes, I simply won't sweat it. If I get balled up in traffic outside of Bumblebutt now and then, I'll just have to be thankful that I'm balled up in traffic outside of Bumblebutt, rather than sitting at home.
That's at the very heart of a restless streak: being willing to take anywhere, anywhere at all - even Bumblebutt, Wherever - over where you are currently.
People might question (in fact, some have already) the logic of this. Summer is when everyone wants to go. Roadways are clogged with all manner of traveler and transportation and become stressful places, to say the very least. Even back in 1960, when our highly movable society was just getting underway, Steinbeck waited to take his road trip until after Labor Day, "when millions of kids would be back in school and tens of millions of parents would be off the highways."
Since then, that highly movable society has only become faster moving and, it may be argued quite strongly, more impatient, ruder and stress-producing than ever. It's also true (historically) that gas prices drop after Labor Day, although that doesn't seem to be as reliable a bet as it once was.
In any case, yes, within the dull, drab discipline of logic it makes sense to wait. But I will be craving (and in some ways relying on) the energy of summer on this trip - the heat, the light, the storms, the fragrance, long days and short nights...each a unique but critical part of a burgeoning whole. As far as I'm concerned, there is nothing in this great land of ours, nothing on this planet, that looks, smells or tastes better in winter than in summer (this includes pancakes with syrup and hot chocolate...). And the last thing I'm going to want to feel on any leg of this journey is so much as a breath of fall in the air, until, perhaps, the very end.
Fall is the time to come home. It is not the time to leave. My entire life, May - graduation time - has been the time to leave. It is when I've been most assaulted by longing, felt most despairing (or at least dissatisfied) for having roots.
There's a significant downside to summer travel however - beyond traffic, but related nevertheless. Summer's when the orange barrels are in full bloom along roadsides; that is, construction season comes into full swing. Every year, select city streets, county roads and state highways across the nation get torn up section by section, resurfaced or replaced, a ponderous process that creates one-lane bottlenecks that have a way of reducing traffic to a crawl or a standstill, and/or detours that draw motorists miles out of the way, for weeks on end.
When you're not going anywhere besides to work or the grocery store, or if you're on a road trip with a very finite beginning and end, road construction amounts to little more than an inconvenience. But I'm planning to leave May 15 and stay out until October 1. '1 road trip through 48 states in under 50 years' will translate into four or five months of endless highway time and countless highways, which means being stuck in a construction bottleneck could very easily become a daily or twice daily occurrence, depending on how many miles I want to cover.
And that won't do.
 |
The orange construction barrel is a perennial weed found in all 50 states,
throughout Canada and the world. It blooms from May to October
along roadsides and in ditches, on highway overpasses and on city street corners. |
Sadly, there's no way to avoid construction completely. Roads everywhere break down, crack up, get pitted and pot-holed, are in need of almost yearly repair. Worse even than a bottleneck is the dreaded detour. I hate detours. I don't know why, but I have a weird compulsion to stay on course that I know runs against any 'feather in the wind' ideal, but which I've never been able to shake entirely. I hate being told I have to go in a different direction from the one I was expecting to go, and I especially hate backtracking. And while I hope to be a feather in the wind at least a little bit on 1/48/50 (because something would be missing without some of that...), I do have a basic route in mind, and I'm not going to want to deviate too much, because there are things I'm going to want to see; I won't be just meandering aimlessly. And while it's true detours usually keep you going in the same basic direction, they can turn into a major pain in the ass, a source of stress all their own, when you're not from the area.
I wonder if road construction is heavier in the northern tier of states than the southern, on account of winter. It would have to be, I think, and yet maybe the deep south's blistering summertime heat and humidity take their toll as well. Ultimately, what really punishes roadways are all those vehicles rushing along, day in day out. So wherever this trip takes me, there's no question I'm going to have to be prepared to stop, wait, and go out of my way more than once.
To combat this (and feel like I've begun 'planning' a trip that's still years off), I spent a little time searching for some kind of on-line construction tracker, an app for my phone that compiles and continuously updates road construction status state-by-state. How could that not exist, right? Well, there appear to be road CONDITION apps available, but nothing dealing with construction specifically. And the closest I've come to such an umbrella on the Internet is the Federal Highway Administration website, but they seem to deal mainly with the Interstates, and as much as possible I want to avoid them on 1/48/50. The two-lane roads I've (mostly) plotted my course along are much harder to account for. (County Road Y in Bumblebutt, Wherever doesn't get a lot of action on any given day, I imagine...). I'm usually sent to individual state sites for the smaller, lesser traveled routes. Of these, some are more comprehensive than others, but most provide at least a short list of construction projects. Just not all in one place.
This app so needs to happen.
I guess when the time comes, I simply won't sweat it. If I get balled up in traffic outside of Bumblebutt now and then, I'll just have to be thankful that I'm balled up in traffic outside of Bumblebutt, rather than sitting at home.
That's at the very heart of a restless streak: being willing to take anywhere, anywhere at all - even Bumblebutt, Wherever - over where you are currently.
Friday, April 11, 2014
The NEXT Top 100 (or so) Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50 (cont...)
#101) "Time For Me To Fly" by REO Speedwagon - There's something about Kevin Cronin's voice when he's not warbling a diabetic love song that appeals to me. 1978's Time For Me To Fly has a distant, restless sound that suits not just the subject matter, but his thin vocal quality and featureless Midwestern drawl, and the middle 8 guitar section sounds a lot like a long, helpless sigh.
If you really think about it, there aren't a lot of songs like this on the radio anymore. When was the last time you heard a heavily barbed break-up song in the Top 40? Plenty of songs about self esteem, about eternal love, about sex ratcheting the frequency of body and soul up into the stratosphere, lots of songs about friendship and drinking and clubbing, some cheating songs, and in country music the usual complement of redneck puns...
No songs about two people at an impasse, and the long helpless - and a little sarcastic - sigh it engenders.
"I make you laugh and you make me cry..."
#102) "Little Jeannie" by Elton John - This is one of Sir Elton's under-appreciated songs. Released in May 1980, to me it would seem to serve as a bridge between his wacky sunglasses/Donald Duck costume days and the more staid and matured performer he became in the 1980s. Staid, I guess, until he put on the powdered wig for his Australia concert in '86. By then it clearly was not as shocking (or interesting) a thing to do as it once was, more a caricature. He was looking a lot like a middle aged man dressed like George Washington, even if the songs he was singing were already well on their way to becoming 'classics'.
Little Jeannie is one of them. Nothing flashy, nothing dramatic, it falls like gentle rain through the time and space of a time and place in history.
"And I want you to be my acrobat / I want you to be my lover..."
#103) "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" by Green Day - What haunts me about this song isn't the lyrics or Billie Joe's boyish vocals delivering them, it's the string section, notably the viola, the way it seems to seep up from the ground, how it drives the sentiment home with a bittersweet sandpaper edge that rubs against the grain and always draws a shiver up my spine. Reportedly never intended to become, as it has, the official anthem to every single momentous occasion in our lives - from weddings to proms to graduations to bar mitzvahs to potty training - Good Riddance is emotionally complex. It is the conjoined sorrow and relief over the passages that punctuate our lives.
'Good riddance' indeed, but I won't forget.
How could I forget...?
Still, good riddance...
"It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right..."
If you really think about it, there aren't a lot of songs like this on the radio anymore. When was the last time you heard a heavily barbed break-up song in the Top 40? Plenty of songs about self esteem, about eternal love, about sex ratcheting the frequency of body and soul up into the stratosphere, lots of songs about friendship and drinking and clubbing, some cheating songs, and in country music the usual complement of redneck puns...
No songs about two people at an impasse, and the long helpless - and a little sarcastic - sigh it engenders.
"I make you laugh and you make me cry..."
#102) "Little Jeannie" by Elton John - This is one of Sir Elton's under-appreciated songs. Released in May 1980, to me it would seem to serve as a bridge between his wacky sunglasses/Donald Duck costume days and the more staid and matured performer he became in the 1980s. Staid, I guess, until he put on the powdered wig for his Australia concert in '86. By then it clearly was not as shocking (or interesting) a thing to do as it once was, more a caricature. He was looking a lot like a middle aged man dressed like George Washington, even if the songs he was singing were already well on their way to becoming 'classics'.
Little Jeannie is one of them. Nothing flashy, nothing dramatic, it falls like gentle rain through the time and space of a time and place in history.
"And I want you to be my acrobat / I want you to be my lover..."
#103) "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" by Green Day - What haunts me about this song isn't the lyrics or Billie Joe's boyish vocals delivering them, it's the string section, notably the viola, the way it seems to seep up from the ground, how it drives the sentiment home with a bittersweet sandpaper edge that rubs against the grain and always draws a shiver up my spine. Reportedly never intended to become, as it has, the official anthem to every single momentous occasion in our lives - from weddings to proms to graduations to bar mitzvahs to potty training - Good Riddance is emotionally complex. It is the conjoined sorrow and relief over the passages that punctuate our lives.
'Good riddance' indeed, but I won't forget.
How could I forget...?
Still, good riddance...
"It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right..."
Friday, April 4, 2014
The Top 100 (or so) Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50 (cont...)
#98) "Roll With the Changes" by REO Speedwagon - Like the Eagles, I've always had kind of a love/hate relationship with REO Speedwagon. I think their discography possesses more than a few solid gems. I've argued that Gary Richrath is among the most unappreciated guitarists. I've maintained that there's just something about this nice, non-threatening good time band from Champaign, Illinois missing in music these days. They're not that great to look at, they aren't musical innovators, they don't have a particularly tight sound, but they put on a good show, can raise the roof even. And there's a grass roots quality to their rock and roll. To me, they always seemed like they would feel equally at home playing to a packed stadium of 40,000 or on the second stage at a county fair (which might very well be where they play these days...), and there is something to be said for this.
Yes, I've gone out of my way to defend REO Speedwagon over the years, even though they've gone out of their way to embarrass me in front of my friends with songs like Can't Fight This Feeling or In My Dreams, songs that, were they played loud enough, at the same time, might cause the entire world to go flaccid all at once.
But the boys of REO manage to keep it up long enough to pound their way rousingly through Roll With the Changes. It's not only a tight little jam - energetic, tireless even, reluctant to give up the stage at the end - but also sage advice for a happy and successful life. Leaves nothing else needing to be said, really...
Keep on rolling.
Keep on rolling.
"I'll be here when you are ready to roll with the changes..."
#99) "Mary's Prayer" by Danny Wilson - One hit wonders Danny Wilson (a band, not a person, named after a Frank Sinatra film) pretty much defined my high school years with this song. All these years later I still enjoy its uniquely sophisticated sound. Though I didn't realize it back then, Mary's Prayer reminds me of Steely Dan - not only the slick musical engineering that reveals rhythm engaged in an effortless side-by-side stride with melody, not only (to a lesser extent) the vocals, but the grim subject matter nestled into the silver glint of an auspicious sounding melody.
Mary's Prayer is deceptively bright, deceptively cheeky. Its 1987 release provided my first opportunity to wrap my head around that concept.
"Leave a light on in heaven for me..."
#100 "Running on Empty" by Jackson Browne - Back in his hey-day, Jackson Browne was kind of a minstrel for the Baby Boom generation. I would go so far as to say he was to the 1970s what Bob Dylan was to the 60s. With a highly tuned awareness, he saw things happening as they were happening, and within his music materialized a sometimes uncanny foresight that predicted certain outcomes as the 70s ground along and his generation left its ideas and ideals in the past (dust).
Running on Empty is no exception, though it is a more personal, and thus more universal, example. This song could be the story of just about anyone, of any generation, pushing 30, or 40, and realizing, with a burgeoning exasperation, that for every question that gets answered, two new ones arise.
"I don't know where that road turned onto the road I'm on..."
Yes, I've gone out of my way to defend REO Speedwagon over the years, even though they've gone out of their way to embarrass me in front of my friends with songs like Can't Fight This Feeling or In My Dreams, songs that, were they played loud enough, at the same time, might cause the entire world to go flaccid all at once.
But the boys of REO manage to keep it up long enough to pound their way rousingly through Roll With the Changes. It's not only a tight little jam - energetic, tireless even, reluctant to give up the stage at the end - but also sage advice for a happy and successful life. Leaves nothing else needing to be said, really...
Keep on rolling.
Keep on rolling.
"I'll be here when you are ready to roll with the changes..."
#99) "Mary's Prayer" by Danny Wilson - One hit wonders Danny Wilson (a band, not a person, named after a Frank Sinatra film) pretty much defined my high school years with this song. All these years later I still enjoy its uniquely sophisticated sound. Though I didn't realize it back then, Mary's Prayer reminds me of Steely Dan - not only the slick musical engineering that reveals rhythm engaged in an effortless side-by-side stride with melody, not only (to a lesser extent) the vocals, but the grim subject matter nestled into the silver glint of an auspicious sounding melody.
Mary's Prayer is deceptively bright, deceptively cheeky. Its 1987 release provided my first opportunity to wrap my head around that concept.
"Leave a light on in heaven for me..."
#100 "Running on Empty" by Jackson Browne - Back in his hey-day, Jackson Browne was kind of a minstrel for the Baby Boom generation. I would go so far as to say he was to the 1970s what Bob Dylan was to the 60s. With a highly tuned awareness, he saw things happening as they were happening, and within his music materialized a sometimes uncanny foresight that predicted certain outcomes as the 70s ground along and his generation left its ideas and ideals in the past (dust).
Running on Empty is no exception, though it is a more personal, and thus more universal, example. This song could be the story of just about anyone, of any generation, pushing 30, or 40, and realizing, with a burgeoning exasperation, that for every question that gets answered, two new ones arise.
"I don't know where that road turned onto the road I'm on..."
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