Detroit

This week, work provided me an opportunity to take a road trip to Detroit, Michigan, and while it was mostly a work trip, while I spent the majority of my three days at corporate headquarters and most of my nights at a casino pissing away money one pull at a time (each with a slightly more spastic display of head-jerking frustration...very much like my dad...), I came away with a few thoughts regarding the Motor City based on what I know about her, past and present, and what I saw while I was there.

The trip took nine hours, which was not a big deal. I have no problem with long drives, and my co-worker and I took the path of least resistance, sticking to the three-digit routes that often circumnavigate major urban areas, which on this trip meant Chicago. I also don't mind driving in heavy city traffic, but living in Wisconsin, I'm not used to tolls, and whenever I drive in Illinois, it's a reminder of how lucky I am not to have to deal with them on a daily basis. Although I was pleased to learn that you can now blow past most without stopping and pay later on-line if you wish. I cringe thinking of how miserable a Chicagoland commute must have been in the days when EVERY single vehicle had to queue its way up to a toll booth, one at a time. Every once in a while there is talk of starting a toll system on a few select Wisconsin roadways, and I no more want that than I want an end to daylight savings time.

But that's another post.

After getting through Chicago, and a short stint in Indiana (an area informally called "Michiana", whose largest city is, strangely enough, Michigan City, Indiana...), we swung around the lower end of Lake Michigan and entered the Wolverine State on I-94, hugging the shoreline north for about 30 miles before breaking east and making our way through a lovely area that left me regretting not being able to do things right - that is, stop and look around, talk to someone, take some pictures, breathe in the lake-fed air. This snow belt growing region is not unlike the snow belt growing region I grew up in (different lake, and notably grapes and cherries, rather than apples), but lamentably, it slid past unexplored. And I do mean lamentably. I've always thought of Michigan as a kind of enchanted land for its strong relationship to the bodies of water that surround it.

It seems whenever I have a good long drive ahead of me, there's some kind of itinerary forcing me to forge on like Clark Griswold dragging his family cross-country to Walley World, blowing past the splendor found in every little town along the way, just to make time.  Man, I can't wait for 1/48/50, when, for a few glorious months, there will be nowhere I have to be except where I am.

I mean, come on, I had to drive past a town called Paw Paw without stopping to check it out. That really hurt.

NEVER ENOUGH TIME - At 9 hours/600 miles, my recent drive to Detroit, Michigan took me through the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, and left me wishing I could spend more time in a state that has always seemed to me like an enchanted land, for its relationship to the three major bodies of water that surround it. 

My association with Detroit actually goes back to my youth, growing up in northern Wisconsin (on the leeward side of the greatest of Great Lakes, Superior), and watching a lot of television. WKBD-Detroit was a "super station" on our cable system, along with WGN-Chicago and WTBS-Atlanta.

Outside of WTBS (which aired Braves games all summer long back then), WKBD was the station I watched most often. It aired all the right cartoons and sit-coms at just the right times, either right after school, or more or less all day long on the weekends and in the summer. I watched so routinely, its daily broadcast became as familiar to me as our local network stations, which broadcast out of Duluth, Minnesota, barely an hour away. Thanks to the miracle of basic cable, I remember things about Detroit I have no geographically legitimate reason to remember: Bill Kennedy hosting classic movie night, Amyre Makupson anchoring the news, The Three Stooges on Comedy Classics (which got a mention in the largely forgotten novelty song, "The Curly Shuffle" by the Jump 'n the Saddle Band). More significantly, I remember certain advertisers in heavy flight on "TV 50" back in the day, businesses only Detroiters would have any reason to recall: King's Island (the Cincinnati amusement park), Boblo Island (an amusement park somewhere in Detroit), Fretter Appliance ("You're entering the Fretter Zone...!"), Highland Appliance, Kaufman Furniture, and most vividly the Ontario Division of Tourism "Yours to Discover!" campaign that aired every summer in the States. Like all advertising, these spots played over and over, day and night (repetition was the key then, and remains so today), and so colored my young life, even though it was all happening 10 or more hours away from where I was, in another state.

This was in the early 1980s, roughly 1981 to 1986. Before '81, I was too young to really be paying attention to what I was watching, and after '86, I was not watching nearly as much. Detroit was just a distant city. I had no idea (and it certainly wasn't WKBD's job to make this known) that even then, it was in its economic death throes: job layoffs, plant closings, population loss, the implosion of the industry that made the Motor City, would plague it for the next two decades, contributing to a severe (and worsening) urban decay that really had to be seen to be believed, leading to nicknames like the "arson capital of the world" (I DO vaguely remember this being talked about on the WKBD 10 o'clock news once actually, long ago...), until by 2006, The Onion's headline, "Detroit Sold For Scrap", was too close to being true to be funny. Further distressed by political scandal, Detroit filed for bankruptcy in 2013, the largest American community ever to do so.

Detroit wasn't the only community to struggle. Its decline was part of a larger economic collapse in the latter half of the 20th century that created what's known as the rust belt. Sprinkled throughout the Great Lakes region are the remnants of past industrial glory, numerous towns and cities who overnight found themselves contributing mightily to the nation at large in some way, and then, seemingly the very next night, had nothing (left) to contribute. Truth be told, the outer reaches of this rust belt include my small hometown as well...so I guess it could be said I had a direct connection with Detroit growing up.

But my town was too small to completely fail the way Detroit did.

In the interest of "having to be seen to be believed", one YouTube user has done an impressive (as in impactful) job of illustrating the extent of Detroit's plight, and resulting blight. With a camera and microphone mounted on the dashboard of his vehicle, he methodically drives up and down the streets of rough Detroit neighborhoods, capturing street scenes as they are happening and painting a stark and haunting portrait of a city in utter distress. He rarely says anything, meaning he doesn't distract by commenting, just lets the video do the talking, and so the viewer comes to understand - with nothing lost in translation - what has gone on there, and is still going on.




It's completely shocking, as well as compelling, to watch, and rendered more potent (in my opinion) for his lack of commentary. But every American should watch. Every American should be aware that this is going on...not just in Detroit, but other cities, in and out of the "rust belt". The individual's YouTube username is CharlieBo313; over the last couple years, he has shot similar video in other cities as well. I don't claim to know why he does it, nor do I pretend to have a connection to him in any way. I don't. I simply like the way he goes about it.  I believe that, for better or worse, he's created some "historic archive"-caliber scenes.

While I was there, I stayed in a resort casino that is close to some of the city's most impoverished neighborhoods, and while it was a nice stay, the feeling I had for the duration was similar to what I experienced on the Vegas strip a few years back: there's something unnatural and weird about being cradled in the arms of so much opulence, so much contrived glitz and glitter, when there is equal or greater amounts of deprivation and struggle under my feet (in this case literally...). From my hotel window, I could see some of the city's worst neighborhoods in the distance, rows of homes lining streets, every few either boarded up or burnt out, and at night, large swatches of pitch black gouged out of the glitter of urban sprawl that otherwise stretched to the horizon - areas where I knew there were homes with people living in them, just apparently no working streetlights.

Bear in mind as you watch the video above: this is not some abandoned town in the middle of nowhere that hasn't had more than 25 residents since 1971...these are active streets, where people still live, in a city of nearly 700,000, a metro area of 4.3 million.

But all is not lost. The city came out of bankruptcy in 2014, fairly quickly, and its current mayor, Mike Duggan, laid out some specific plans for turning things around in his State of the City address this week: tearing down abandoned buildings, finding new use for vacant lots, linking job training directly TO available jobs, a program called "Detroit at Work". It was the type of stuff that sounds good in a political speech; hopefully it spurs real action, not just more talk.




There's also a restoration/renovation movement going on downtown, thankfully, as there is some gorgeous art deco architecture trimming the Motor City skyline that city leaders are working hard to preserve. These kinds of buildings stand as vestiges of not just Detroit's past, but our country's past - a time, now given to the ages (talk about lamentably...), when a certain aesthetic mattered even in something so basic as brick and mortar, when all those uniquely shaped windows and sweet, supple lines said something about not just the people building the structure or the people who would inhabit it, but everyone in that community.

Nowadays of course, it's all just featureless fiberglass forming shapeless right angles...

As we walked to lunch through these ornately detailed concrete canyons (in beautiful 60 degree weather), I was sheepish about snapping too many pictures. I didn't want to look like an annoying tourist tripping over the curb in his feverish attempt to capture it all. But by the time we walked back from lunch, I had decided there was too much to see not to try to capture some of it, at least.

Of course, that was the very moment when my phone died on me.

I did manage to snap two illustrative shots, however. The first is of the Broderick Tower, built of limestone in 1928, its neo-Classical design caught my eye almost immediately, before I was even aware of other buildings downtown.

AIN'T SHE PURDY...? - Even from a distance, the aesthetic value of the 369-foot Broderick Tower's architecture is apparent, and striking. Built in 1928, it's one of several impressive skyscrapers in downtown Detroit having been (or currently being) preserved.

The other picture I snapped was at the famous Lafayette Coney Island, where we went for lunch. The location, along with its long-time next door rival American Coney Island, has been featured on shows like The Travel Channel's Food Wars and Man V. Food, and while I can't say this kind of urban setting - sitting on uncomfortable 50s-era vinyl stools in a cramped space with harsh lighting and even harsher acoustics - is my ideal place for lunch, I can say the dogs (chili and mustard, no onions...please and thank you...;-) were fantastic. I also had a Vernor's ginger ale - a Detroit/State of Michigan institution for over 150 years now - for the first time since I was a kid.  It's weird how some tastes take you back to old times as reliably and strongly as some songs do.  For instance, Sunkist orange soda to this day tastes like 1979 to me, to being seven years old and drinking it out of a glass bottle...and Vernor's, well, that taste hasn't changed either...and will always remind me of vacationing with my parents - strolling down a Michigan beach with my can of Vernor's and my fish belly both glinting brightly in the summer sun, blinding the other tourists.

While I was waiting for my food, something caught my eye on the cash register directly across from where I was seated, prompting me to do something I don't normally do: take a photo in a public place. I'm glad I indulged the impulse this one time. Of the two pictures I managed to take before my janky phone decided it had had enough, this is the one, the image, I've taken with me. I think the (top) sticker pretty much says everything that needs to be said about the Motor City. It's both an acknowledgement of the past (good, bad and ugly), and a rallying cry for the future.

And a life lesson for us all.

Yet ANOTHER Top 100 (or so) Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50

#227) "Angel" by Aerosmith - One night in May 1988 found me walking briskly through the streets of my hometown. It was after dark, after 11 p.m., later than I  - all of fifteen - was used to being out...at least without a reason.

"Just out!" I'd grumbled earlier, when my parents asked where I was going. "I don't know!" was my response when pressed about when I'd be back. "I'll be back when I'm back!"

That level of saltiness toward my parents was not only unprecedented, but unwarranted, and I'm surprised one of them (my dad especially) didn't intervene. But they were nothing if not amazing parents, always seeming to know when to rein me in, and when to let out the leash a little. I like to think they must have sensed this was one of those teenage moments that just had to be left alone, allowed to fix itself.

And it surely was. My first love was out with someone else that night, and as I put on my shoes and shouldered into a light jacket, I was, for the first time ever, experiencing the slow, agonizing shred of jealousy.

Sadly, it wasn't even a true relationship. She and I had a strong connection, had made out a few times even, but at the end of the day, it was really just the dreaded "friendship". She knew this, because she was older and smarter, and I guess I knew it too. I just didn't want to accept it.

She lived a ways out of town, so it wasn't at all easy to get together. Behind us lay a year of long but largely unsatisfying phone conversations, during the most recent of which, the words no guy wants to hear had reluctantly but determinedly escaped her lips: I was such an amazing person, she loved and respected me...but as a friend. She had designated (demoted) me to friendship status, then went off to her prom with some douche...

Okay, I don't know if he was a douche. In my mind he was, anyway.

Plopped onto that was an extra greasy dollop of futility surrounding the difference in our ages. This girl was not a freshman like me, she was a senior, and about to graduate high school. Long, unsatisfying phone conversations lay behind, and now a long summer of frustration lay ahead, at the end of which she would go off to college, and I would enter 10th grade. Let me tell you (or maybe I don't have to, actually), it's one sorry state of affairs when you're the sophomore in that equation.

A year later, Summer of '89, I would have my drivers license and my own car, and I would stay out all night for the first time, wind up on a beach on the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore of Lake Superior, watching dawn crack the sky in the east at 3:30 in the morning, and everything would be put into perspective.  In other words, so much would be different in barely 12 months' time. But it wasn't even imaginable now. Now, I was feeling sort of helpless. I had no car, no license, a heart overflowing with feelings I didn't know what to do with, and I was about to be left behind to boot.

I had gotten into the habit of coping with unrequited love by doing something creative; over the course of that year, I'd written all sorts of songs about that girl, made funny videos for her (and her family's) amusement, written poetry, started novels ("Jared Glovsky is the author of several unfinished novels..." was for a long time a critical element of any "author bio" I composed). But none of that was working on that night in May 1988. I didn't want to "create"...if anything I wanted to destroy something, destroy everything. I knew I couldn't do that, but I also knew I couldn't sit still...I couldn't stay seated. It was almost like a panic attack. I had to do something. I had to get out.

Six years before the movie came out, it was a real Forrest Gump-type moment in my young life. I didn't have anywhere to go, just felt I needed to go somewhere. I simply could not sit cooped up in my bedroom with the silence of my phone blaring in my ear. Forrest Gump started running. I starting walking.

By some miracle, I'd made it past my parents, and as I stepped outside and started down the block, I felt like I was discovering the night. There really was something magical about being out so late, so close to the midnight hour...even past the midnight hour....and on a lovely spring night smelling of the rain that had passed through earlier, to boot.  I avoided downtown, where so many of the kids I knew from school were cruising and hanging out (God forbid I run into her...). I hit the side streets instead, and I liked feeling incognito...

...even kind of nebulous.

That first late-night walk was a monumental step in my life. I was in turmoil, but for the first time ever, I found myself coping with that turmoil within the framework of something larger than myself. And what I really discovered was an undeniable comfort in knowing that I was part of a larger state of affairs. It made my turmoil seem less Earth-shattering, somehow. Not any less painful, necessarily, but less important...if that makes any sense.  Perspective.

That I grew up in a place where I could take a late night walk safely was itself a miracle not lost on me. I had a cousin who was my age, had grown up in New Jersey, in pretty much a concrete jungle surrounded by expressways and neighborhoods he was well-advised to stay out of. He had a single path to and from the Sears store near his house, and not much else. It made me feel better to think that whatever he was doing on that night, whatever teenage malaise he might have been going through at the dawn of adulthood and however he was coping with it, it wasn't by walking around the streets of New Brunswick. He couldn't walk anywhere he pleased. He simply didn't have that option.

I would eventually get a Walkman, and on walks like these (of which there would be countless more in the next two decades) I would bury myself in my music (Smokey Robinson would be discovered as a powerful inoculation that September, right around the time that girl went off to college). But for now, I had just the sounds in my head, and I'm not sure why, but the sound in my head as I made my way up and down the tree-shrouded streets of my hometown, the sound accompanying so much newness, so much revelation in that sweet spring darkness: "Angel" by Aerosmith. It was on the charts at the time (in fact, I think it was the theme of the prom she went to with douche guy...) and positively ringing in my ears as I conquered each new block, visible for just a moment or two passing under the streetlight at the corner.

I came back from that walk feeling better about things, really a new kid, ready to be a new young man...and the song has kept a special place in my heart ever since. It's not a happy song, I don't think, but there's a spaciousness to its sound that was well suited to the new space in my mind back then, and to this day, it makes me think of excitement and anticipation...the hopeful notion that each exit in life is merely an entrance to someplace else.

"I'm in love, and I don't know if I can face the night..."

#228) "Blinded by the Light" by Manfred Mann - Another one of those rare examples of a cover version that outshines the original, although I'm sure many purist Bruce fans would disagree. The driving force of this song is the lyrics; Bruce's early stream-of-consciousness style is pretty obvious here. And if you know that, I guess it's hard to take Manfred Mann's "interpretation" seriously. In a way, Bruce Springsteen is like The Beatles, and Tom Waits...maybe everyone ought to just leave him alone. Don't try to "cover" him.

That being said, this is an instance where I simply came to like the first version of the song I heard. Bruce's version is a deep track, whereas Manfred Mann's has been residing on classic rock radio for three decades now.

I also think Manfred's arrangement does the poetry of the lyrics justice, particularly the bass line and the dreamy middle section, which crescendos to the most important line in the song: "Mama always told me not to look into the eyes of the sun, but Mama, that's where the fun is..."

If nothing else, it's just a fun song, great to sing to. And oh yeah, it's "revved up like a deuce", not "wrapped up like a douche"...

Unless we're talking about my first love's prom date. ;-)

"She got down but she never got tight, she's gonna make it through the night..."


#229) "Tik Tok" by Kesha - Yes, it's true I've complained about Kesha pretty negatively (and loudly) in the past, and I guess I stand by it, for the most part. Her saccharine, image-saturated (and yet completely contrived) persona is probably more emblematic of the times we live in, and the generation that spawned her, than anything.  She is the Millennial fantasy girl, absorbing all the self-absorption, willful ignorance and infantile emo leanings of what academic Mark Bauerlein has called "the dumbest generation", and blowing it back into our faces in a kind of musical and aesthetic belch.

That being said, I've mellowed out tremendously about her and her generation. My objection was mostly about the larger thing that created her, but screw it, I don't care anymore. And at this point, for better or worse, Kesha, and all that her glitter and dollar sign posturing implies, has become historical. She is to the Millennial generation what the flannel-wearing goatee "grunge" guy eventually became to Generation X...or the hippie-cum-yuppie to the Baby Boomers...a totem for an age that is passing faster than we (or they) realize.

So therefore, "Tik Tok" is no longer an annoying (rather than impressive) affront to the senses, so much as just an extremely catchy pop song. Maybe that's always what it was. For her part, Kesha, it would seem, has known it all along. I admit, I may have been mistaken: it would seem she's not the persona she presents, and isn't really expecting anyone to take her (or it) too seriously or literally...even if they have.

I think "Tik Tok" is a much better produced song (more complex) than anything she's done since, more listenable, less laughable. Although I still can't watch the video without feeling a little grody.

I laugh a little too, however, and I think I'm supposed to...so, there's that.  ;-)

"But we kick them to the curb unless they look like Mick Jagger..."

Yet ANOTHER Top 100 (or so) Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50

#225) "I'm In" by The Kinleys - Man, I really miss The Kinleys. Whatever happened to the smokin' hot twins (Heather and Jennifer) with the smokin' hot harmonies?  One minute they were putting out an album, then a second, holding their own on the charts and in the minds of country music fans against Shania and Jo Dee and Brooks and Dunn and Faith and Martina...and then they were gone. Just like that. Just about forgotten.

I love their voices, together and apart (but especially together), and it's really a shame they didn't keep going. In terms of the music they were making and the manner in which they were making it, I think they could have etched out a solid spot in the annals of country music. I mean, I guess they did, because here I am talking about them nearly 20 years later...but am I mostly talking to myself? Are The Kinleys largely forgotten? Possibly.

If it's true, then it's too bad. They shouldn't now be a mere footnote to the tail end of 1990s country. The good news, I guess, is it would seem the choice was theirs to walk away, and they made it. Sometimes stardom isn't for everyone. You really can never tell what's going to happen, and there's no guarantee you'll ever know the actual reasons something did.

"I'm In" was written by Radney Foster and Georgia Middleman. It was recorded by Foster in 1999, and just a few years ago, covered by Keith Urban. But it's a uniquely female song...or at least, The Kinley's version (2000) makes it so. It wasn't even the biggest hit of their too-short career, but for my money it's one of the best ballads in country. A song that really deserves the description: hauntingly beautiful

"Baby, come on in, the water's fine / I'll be right here, you take your time..."

#226) "I'm Trying" by Trace Adkins - A big man with a big stage presence, Adkin's persona can't help be kind of a walking caricature. That isn't to say it isn't real, or honest, just that too much of anything is too much. But he's got a sense of humor, doesn't take everything, or himself, too seriously, which goes a long way toward making "too much of anything" palatable.

Written by Jeffrey Steele, Chris Wallin and Anthony Smith, 2001's "I'm Tryin'" was sort of a different musical path for Adkins, an artist who has never gotten too weepy or sappy in his songs. Like Hank Williams Jr., he's mostly rocked the "good timin' good ol' boy" thing, the antithesis of, say, Randy Travis or Vince Gill, or any other silky country "crooner".  He keeps things upbeat, always moving forward, charging ahead. With songs like "Honkytonk Badonkadonk", "Brown Chicken, Brown Cow", and "Chrome" (each an unapologetic rallying cry for a lifestyle), here is an artist who marinates in his own bottled brand of (southern ) testosterone.

There's nothing wrong with that. Truth be told, I really like "Chrome", because I really like chrome. It's a redneck part of my psyche, I guess: you just cannot have enough chrome on any vehicle...well, the right vehicle, at least. Might not be the best option on a BMW or a Mercedes, but on the sidesteps, stacks, grills, flaps, forks and roll bars of anything American made? Load it on. Load it on. It'll only get sexier.

But I digress.

"I'm Tryin'" is about a divorced man struggling to cope with his post-marriage life and an ex whose vigilance taking care of herself and (presumably) their kids, has him working overtime and trying not to crack under the pressure. That's not necessarily a new theme in country music, but "I'm Tryin'" digs a little deeper, speaks to the specific struggles men face - in situations like that, and life in general.

To that end, the second verse of the song is especially potent. Almost every boy, at least in American society, no matter what kind of family he grows up in or where - north, south, east or west - is told how men are supposed to act, and perhaps more importantly not act. A rigorously prescribed code of conduct is spelled out early on, by fathers, teachers, coaches, pastors, Scout leaders, mentors, other kids on the playground, even by the women in their young lives.

And again, on paper at least, there's nothing wrong with any of it. But the tenets surrounding the concept of "being a man" can lead to daunting pressure in adulthood, pressure to provide, to perform, to never fail, to keep that code of conduct in place, even after it's revealed that life is complicated, messy, downright shitty at times....not at all what you expected it would be when you were a kid.

I am in no way an expert (not pretending to be, just thinking...), but I'd venture the type of social problems generally associated with men - repression, anger, hyper-competitiveness, uncommunicativeness, etc. - might in large part be the result of how we raise our boys, what they're told from an early age is expected of them. 

To be clear, some of it is biological. I'm not big on a three-day gully washout of emotion myself. I don't want to spend all night talking about how I feel, nor will I ever sit down to pee (until time and fate make it necessary). In other words, there will always be (and should be) differences between men and women, sometimes causing tension, yes, but also keeping things interesting. Women overthink, men don't think enough, they just react. I get it. Most couples know how to strike a balance.

But repressing everything, refusing to embrace the full spectrum of emotions each and every one of us is outfitted with at birth, just because that's "how men are" or that's "what men do" (or don't do), is dysfunctional. Especially in difficult times.

Women have their pressures too, of course. No question, they are the more disadvantaged of the genders. But men are expected to take it on the chin without complaint, and just accept it as their lot. In many cases, they are led to gauge their manhood, their worth as a human being, not so much by what they can contribute, but what they can put up with. That's almost guaranteed to lead to problems.

I'm not going to gray-fade these lyrics. I think they should be easily read.

"I remember Daddy saying keep your eye on the ball, run like hell, play to win, get up when you fall...I'm tryin' / Don't say nothing that you can't take back, never do anything you might regret, no don't do that...Daddy, I'm tryin' / Know the difference between heaven and hell, go easy on the bottle, be hard on yourself....and I know he meant well...but all I can do is all I can do..."

Yet ANOTHER Top 100 (or so) Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50

#223) "Dandelion Seeds" by July - July was a short-lived British band that never charted in either the UK or the States. They were only active for a year or two in the late 60s, before the various members went on to other things that, as far as I can tell, were also pretty forgettable.

Listening to "Dandelion Seeds", it's not too surprising that July didn't exactly take the world by storm. Not because the song is no good, it's actually pretty great, but because it's so psychedelic and "trippy" as to almost - at least viewed from today's perspective - come across as a caricature. The name of the song alone would seem to confirm this.

But in 1968, it wasn't a caricature, it was just something new that was happening, something revolutionary and boundary pushing. Its problem was that, as a piece of pop music, it probably was never ready for - or worthy of - prime time. It's not polished, not dramatic in any way, and it doesn't cast a wide net, doesn't grab any of the totems normally associated with the times - there's no evident concern over the war in Vietnam or political strife around the world, nothing about burning draft cards or bras or race riots leaving a permanent mark on society. There's certainly a desire, it would seem, to "turn on, tune in and drop out", but no acknowledgement of that Tim Leary phrase being a rallying cry for a generation.

It's sort of a song that time forgot, but at this point, nearly fifty years later, it's historically significant. In fact, I'd go so far as to suggest "Dandelion Seeds" might just be the singularity that was "acid rock" in the late 1960s. 

There is a potent "of the moment" quality to this song. Here we have just a person, or two people, or a group, on a single afternoon, somewhere, anywhere, expanding their minds. Whether or not they should have been doing it with chemicals is not the point. They simply were, or thought they were, in a precipitous time in American history that saw everything - social constructs and mores and philosophies - being challenged, and all those challenges holding great promise (before it was revealed that in the end, only consumerism and corporatism seem to matter). It certainly could have been swinging London where these dandelion seeds were being spread, or New York or LA, any of the places one might expect, but it also could have been (and probably was) going on in every little town in-between: a college campus in La Crosse, Wisconsin, say, on a frigid Monday night in the dead of winter, or a one room apartment above a main street barbershop in Stanton, Nebraska on a warm afternoon in May when the sky was full of broken clouds drifting eastward, or a park in Eugene, Oregon, on a gloomy Saturday evening threatening rain off the Pacific.

"Dandelion Seeds" captures and re-broadcasts that short but potent period of time when everything was changing amidst great anticipation, and while it may not be as polished or as dramatic as "White Rabbit", for me at least, its rawness makes it far more interesting to listen to, and kind of impossible not to.

"High above the trees, looking down on leaves, birds fly by my side / People look up hopelessly, at dandelion seeds..."

#224) "Same Old Lang Syne" by Dan Fogelberg - I've had a rule when it comes to compiling this playlist that, for the most part, I've abided by: if I make the decision to include a particular song, put it on "the list", it stays there. I don't rethink its inclusion, even if it's an odd or embarrassing choice, some musical dirty little secret, or something that - on paper, at least - doesn't seem to fit on a road trip mix. My vigilance has resulted in a playlist that is nothing if not eclectic.

I've probably come closer to taking "Same Old Lang Syne" off "the list" than just about any other song. I placed it about a year ago, after hearing it for the first time in a LONG time and thinking (gripped by a little burst of nostalgia), man, this song really meant something to me once.

That is true enough. When I was nineteen, at that age when we all like to think our life is a movie, I was really moved by the story-teller aspect of this song, and the sentimentality that drips off each note. I mean, come on, the chance meeting of an old flame in a grocery store on Christmas Eve...romantic? You betcha! Straight from the Nora Ephron playbook, baby (and I don't mean that in a disparaging way). I imagined myself being in this situation eventually, one day, and moreover, I thought I knew who the girl was I would happen upon in that grocery store. I think I may have known what grocery store it would be, too...which, take it for what you will, no longer exists.

But lately I've been thinking: you know , this song is actually pretty cringe-worthy. Those drops of sentimentality are really just a sticky substance that gets all over everything, leaves stains on fingers and clothing alike, and doesn't really smell all that great. Not to mention, it's really no secret that prolonged exposure can be detrimental to one's emotional health.

In other words, the older I get, the more perverse and dysfunctional "looking back" becomes. Out of sight, out of mind. There is no past, there is only the present, which matters most of all, and the future, which is constantly changing. I can't say I always feel like that...I still do have moments of reflection, when I look back on people I once knew and the times we shared, and indeed, wonder where all that time has gone.  But I do it far less now than I did when I was nineteen. And when a song comes along that weaponizes sentimentality with the clear intention of turning it into melancholia, like this one does, I don't get moved. If anything, I bristle.

That being said, I'm keeping "Same Old Lang Syne" on this list, because, well, first of all, not two weeks ago I included "Aubrey" by Bread on this list (you can't get any more sickeningly melancholic than that), but also because I think, sort of like "Dandelion Seeds", it is a compellingly ground-level, organic portrait of an intimately personal moment, one that many of us do find ourselves in at some point. We love, we lose, we long. The circumstances might be different, the names of the towns and bars and street corners where it all plays out never the same from heart to heart, but I'd be willing to bet the sax solo at the end, as the "snow turns into rain", probably sounds the same for all of us the world over...in swinging London, New York, LA, and every little town in-between.

I'd bet it's happening right now. This very moment.

"Just for a moment I was back in school, and felt that old familiar pain..."