Probably a good reason not to schedule a winter road trip...

As far as I can tell, everyone survived, thankfully.

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 Happy Holidays! Drive safely! DON'T text and drive!

Dear Deer, Please Steer Clear...

I do a lot of driving. On a weekly basis, I cruise through heavily wooded areas and farm country where deer hang out, in an area of the country where the whitetail is king. Considering this, and factoring in the overall amount of driving I've done since January 1989, when I got my driver's license (on my first try, thank you very much...), it's actually pretty amazing that the above scenario - caught by the dash cam of a sheriff's squad car in Kenton County, Kentucky in November - hasn't happened more. But for all the highways and byways conquered in my many years of driving, all the impromptu road trips, family vacations and restless late night cruising, I've hit just one deer in my life.

I was eighteen, and driving down a heavily wooded street that was just close enough to the edge of town to qualify as a road, one evening in November. I was jamming to my tunes, cup of coffee in hand, fresh pack of cigs, and feeling pretty wonderful behind the wheel of my 1977 Chrysler Newport, that burgundy boat with the rusted wheel wells and rear bumper practically scraping along the ground. The animal came from the darkness on the left, lunging into the cone created by my headlights in an ill-considered (certainly ill-timed) attempt to cross the road.

I braked and swerved (gasped a little too, I must confess) but I could not avoid a collision. The animal's appearance was too sudden, its determination to follow through unwavering. I clipped its rear flank. It spun around and came to a grinding halt on the opposite side.

I hadn't been going all that fast, only about 30 or 35, but I'll never forget the dynamic motion with which the animal's body was sent sailing away from the front of my still-moving car, coming to rest in a shower of snow and dirt. I was young, a relatively new driver, and behind the wheel of my first car to boot. And while that last fact surely worked to my advantage (if it had been my dad's '88 Dodge Omni I'd been driving, with its pinched front end and plastic bumper, the outcome may have been quite different), it still felt like a deep, heavy tragedy. One that I was responsible for.

I pulled over, got out, discovered a broken headlight on my vehicle and the deer lying twisted in the ditch. It was making a noise, which did not help to make the situation any less unnerving (until then, I had no idea deer vocalized), and trying to get up, dragging itself by it's front legs while attempting to right its rear end. It was a buck, with two small antlers.

"Don't get too close," a voice came from the darkness, "he'll kick the shit out of you."

It easily could have been the voice in my mind saying this as I inched toward the beast flailing in the snow, but it was actually a local resident, a middle aged man who'd heard the collision from his house and walked down his driveway to investigate.

"What do I do?"

"Nothing," he replied. "He'll probably get up on his own. Or maybe not. You just don't want to get too close." He took a careful step toward the animal. "Looks like you smoked yourself a little spike."

It didn't seem possible that this deer would ever walk again. It seemed pretty well "smoked" - its hindquarters twisted, hind legs turned sideways. But then, almost as if a certain gesticulation caused its hips to snap back into place, it was on its feet. A second later, it had disappeared into the woods, the rustle and crack of branches as it made its escape the only sign of its presence.

Rarely in my life have I been gripped by so strong an emotion as when that deer climbed to its feet and took off.

"Damn, will you look at that," the man muttered.

"That's awesome," I said.

"Yeah it is," he replied. "Well, you'll want to wait around here a second, I called the police."

That annoyed me at the time, and it still does, thinking back. I was not impaired in any way, not carrying anything incriminating, had no reason not to want the cops involved, but I didn't appreciate his vigilante response, his immediate move to take charge of a situation he really had no involvement with. But I was still a kid, accustomed to listening to adults, and pretty sure he was the father of someone I went to school with, which meant news of this incident, and any related defiance on my part, was probably going to get back to my parents eventually.

I sat on the front of my car and waited. The cops came, took a statement, asked if I had been drinking, asked the man what he'd seen, said good day, and left. For reasons that to this day I can't easily explain, I drove away feeling a little bit more like an adult.

That was 1991. Since then, deer have only become more numerous on roadways where I live. I've had numerous close calls, but have always managed to veer left, or right, slam on the brakes just in time, and avoid a second collision.

The latest near-miss happened not three weeks ago, driving home for Thanksgiving. A nice looking buck sprinted right in front of me, didn't even seem aware that he was mere seconds from death. I wasn't going 35 this time, more like 75, on a state highway, and we missed each other by inches. Deer are stupid creatures when it comes to automobiles, and November is the rut. With bucks half-mad from lust roaming the woods, it's the most dangerous time to tempt fate on roadways. But collisions can happen any time of the year, and I hate the thought of it happening on 1/48/50. I can think of no more offensive and jarring interruption to nebulous living than having to a) call the police, b) file an insurance claim, c) repair whatever damage is done.

Driving 14,000 miles will really be tempting fate.

Of course, on my 2011 road trip out west - 5,000 miles there and back - I strangely don't remember ever seeing a single animal of any size or kind. And surely on 1/48/50, I don't want that to be the case. 

The NEXT Top 100 (or so) Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50 (cont...)

#172) "We've Only Just Begun" by The Carpenters - Seminal to my first glimmers of awareness so many years ago, when sunlight came from all around and adults were just large unknown figures picking me up and putting me down, this was the music my parents listened to, playing in the background and thus shaping my very young life. Sappy? Yes. Cheesy? Maybe. But look (listen) again, and then a third time. Much of The Carpenters' music possessed an unparalleled beauty, a distinctive sound that was unprecedented (dare I say, groundbreaking...?), and for my money, has never been duplicated.

One either gets this or doesn't. One either understands the difference between a throwaway love song filling dead air on Adult/Contemporary radio, throwing up either bombastic, overwrought allusions ("It's All Coming Back to Me Now" by Celene Dion, for instance), or completely sterile affirmations ("Always" by Atlantic Starr), and what The Carpenters were able to accomplish in their best moments. They may have been sappy, but they were not bubble gum.

Nowhere is a Carpenters "best moment" better evidenced than by "We've Only Just Begun", which began life as a jingle for a bank commercial in the late 60s, and was turned into quintessential AM Gold by combining Karen Carpenters' voice with her brother Richard's inspired arrangement and production. The end result was a sound so intimate and organic it could be (and was...and is) trance-inducing, possessing a dream-like melancholy that truly doesn't merely play, instead fills the room.

In a 1997 documentary about The Carpenters, one of the song's composers, Paul Williams, says that he often heard The Carpenters dismissed as being "vanilla".

Maybe they were vanilla, he concedes,  but what an exquisite flavor.

Hallelujah.

"And when the evening comes, we smile..."

#173) "I Was Young When I Left Home" by Antony and the Johnsons - Appearing on Dark Was the Night, a 2009 compilation album for AIDS research/awareness, Antony Hegarty flexes his artistic muscle a bit with a moving rendition of Dylan's I Was Young When I Left Home.

Hegarty is an amazing talent, but casual listeners tend to be put off by his unique vocalization (perhaps something else you either get, or don't...). Here, his voice is inserted comfortably, and sturdily, into a folk-oriented arrangement that does Dylan justice, even, I'd venture, lending a new emotional layer to the melody and lyrics.

Which, if you know and appreciate Dylan, is saying something.

"But I can't go home this way..."

The NEXT Top 100 (or so) Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50 (cont...)

#170) "River" by Joni Mitchell - For me, music is just music. I either like something, or I don't, and I resist labels that try to tell me what I "should" be listening to. But I can't deny there are some performers who are geared specifically - solely - toward a certain listener. Katy Perry, Adele, Rhianna, Taylor Swift, for instance...these singers make music for girls and/or women, no question. It is the female psyche, not the male, being represented in their songs. At the same time, plenty of their male counterparts in popular music pander solely to the instincts of men, although (and this shouldn't be too surprising) generally speaking, it's more acceptable for a female to rock out to Guns and Roses, or Kid Rock, or Eminem, or Korn, to shave her head, get a tattoo and stage dive at OzzFest, than it is for me to ever admit there's something about the song Teenage Dream that appeals to me. (Even now, I sit with my fingers poised above the backspace key, contemplating taking that last line out...;-)

Recently, I was called out, good-naturedly but seriously, by someone (a woman, and Millennial) for listening to "River" by Joni Mitchell. She thought it was funny, as though the song was too drenched in estrogen for any man to have on his phone. Privately, I was thinking, aren't we all supposed to be beyond that?, but I just smiled and shrugged, saw no need to get into a debate. I was - and am - unflinching in my love of "River", for a couple of reasons.

Number one, I think what distinguishes a performer from an artist is universality - the ability to touch hearts and minds across gender, and race, and nationality. In some songs, from some artists, it doesn't matter if you can relate specifically to what's being sung about. You feel. And the need society has to tuck things away into a nice, tidy genre so that it may be digested easily, sucks. Not just music, but movies, books...marketing really is the killer of art.

Number two, the exquisite beauty of "River" completely transcends gender, even THOUGH, yes, it's very much a song about a woman's experiences/thoughts/emotions.  No matter. Its evocative brew of woodsy imagery and equally woodsy foreboding, lovely piano work and Mitchell's astonishing voice, are impossible not to be moved by, and testament to her artistry. And of course, there is the line, "I wish I had a river I could skate away on...."  The depth and range of that sentiment is not likely to wind up in a Katy Perry song anytime soon.

And don't let them kid you, men have feelings like this. If they don't, it's only because they won't allow themselves to. They protect themselves from anything the least bit emotionally challenging, or potentially messy, usually with jokes, sarcasm, or (too often) anger. Hey, sometimes I do too. And to that end, make no mistake, I'm all for men being men and women being women. I cringe mightily at the thought of a politically correct, gender-neutral world. But at a certain point, a man just starts being repressed. We are all outfitted with the same complement of emotions at birth. It's what we do with them, or what happens to them perhaps, as time passes, that determines who and how we are.

I personally would not want to be a man living his life (or driving 14,000 miles) without a river to skate away on, at least in his mind.

"I wish I had a river so long, I would teach my feet to fly..."


#171) "Come Monday" by Jimmy Buffet - I'll say right off the bat, that in general I'm not a fan of Jimmy Buffet. The whole "parrothead" thing repulses me, not sure why. Maybe because "Margaritaville" is wholly overrated, even as a cult classic.

But "Come Monday" wins me over. Part of this might be that it was one of those songs "rocking" my cradle, drizzling out of a little AM transistor radio when I was very, very young. If you're listening at all at that age, you don't forget what you hear, and for better or worse, what I heard early on was a heaping helping of AM Gold, thanks to my parents.

But even today, there's something about "Come Monday" that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. As the refrain ramps up, the instrumentation works in tandem with the melody (and Buffet's voice) to create a powerful little moment of anticipation, of longing, of anxiety. I can never say quite what I'm anxious about listening to this song, only that I am.  Like Joni Mitchell's "River", it is at once beautiful and haunting.  Dated, and yet timeless.

"I spent four lonely days in a brown L.A. haze..."