Life before the Internet ruined everything

"Schwarzweiß-Testbild der 1950er und 1960er Jahre
auf Philips-Fernseher TD1410U ("Starenkasten") von 1952."
Wikipedia Commons (public domain).

Someone at work yesterday made the comment that they felt "nostalgic for life before the Internet."

To be honest, from the looks of him, I'm not sure he's old enough to remember life before the Internet, bet let's assume so until proven otherwise.

But that and another recent conversation about TV test patterns (yes, it was a thing) got me trying to remember what life was like and what I liked about it.

Before we get too far into this and you decide to brand me a Luddite and report me to the Social Media Police, I do want to stress that I appreciate life in the Internet age a great deal. I love the connectivity with both people and information. I love the community, the communication, the getting a glimpse of lives lived elsewhere--which has always been an interest for me.

But . . .  sometimes . . . I feel a few things have been given up along the way for the sake of information and connectivity . . . and I'm not sure we're any better (and possibly a lot worse) for it.

Below are a few examples from my memory banks. I'd be curious about what you remember and what you liked as well.

• Not necessarily pre-Internet but ... A limited number of TV channels meant that we all generally watched the same programs and could talk about the same shows and understood the same cultural references. So there's your communication and connectivity right there.
• The challenge of "discovery" -- meaning that as information wasn't so readily available, when I found what I wanted or needed, it felt a bit more special. Discovery felt more remarkable. Now I rarely get a thrill from my information and research discoveries.
• I sometimes think the quality of my friendships was a bit stronger. There was no social media, so I couldn't tune into everyone's lives as easily and thus perhaps paid more attention to those around me (maybe? maybe not!). Also, I used to write letters, long, glorious letters, to those who didn't live nearby, and I used to receive long, glorious letters from those who lived far away. Nowadays I'm lucky if I can string together a couple of paragraphs, my handwriting has become atrocious, and almost all the mail I get relates to buying or selling condos. (That may be specific to Toronto, however.)
• I used to read more and create my own, temporary world through the book I was reading at the time. Or did the same through shows I watched--for example, soap operas. I'd match Dark Shadows or Another World when they were firing on all cylinders with True Blood or This Is Us. I admit to having dodgy taste, but fork it, I'd take life in Collinsport or Bay City any day over a real or imagined Pittsburgh.
• I miss receiving magazines in the mail. And holding the newspaper, smudgy ink and all, and reading it daily.
• I miss mail in general. And stamps--although I still collect them. I used to decorate the envelopes of letters to friends. (I'm sure the post office hated it, but I enjoyed doing so.) My personal favorite decorated letter was sent to a friend in Australia back in the '80s and referenced the plot of the Oz (wouldn't you know it?) nighttime soap, Return to Eden. "On the next Return to Eden, Stephanie Harper suffers major plastic surgery setback." And side by side I featured a picture of the lovely Rebecca Gilling (who played Stephanie H.) and Jamie Lee Curtis's melting face from one of the Halloween movies, imposed over a background of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and some kangaroos. (Perhaps you had to be there.)
• Encyclopedia(s) and reference books. Out of date, sure, but did you need the latest information or could you improvise with what you had? Sure you could.
• Shortwave radio. That was a big hobby for me growing up and has influenced my life even today--the music I listen to, an interest in travel and culture, a love for information, a fascination with people from other places and what life is like where they live.
• Regionalism. I miss the uniqueness of language and culture in places. Sameness makes it easier to communicate but it also makes things duller. In North Carolina, grew up calling a toilet a "commode"--very polite and rural Southern. We called the 6-peanut-butter-crackers-to-a-pack "Nabs." We all wanted to go see Tweetsie Railroad and meet Mildred the Bear. I can still sing the advertising jingle for both Cheerwine and Ivey's. Those weren't all felled by the advent of the Internet, but it's part of a similar story--consolidation and homogenization in American if not international culture. Yawn.
• International Communism. Seriously. Totalitarian regimes were at least about something, a worldview, a cultural and economic philosophy, even if they weren't always sincere. Nowadays we get dickishness passed off as ideology. In business attire, ferchrissakes.
• Ditto for "Americanism." We ran rampant over the post-war world but at least you knew what we were about--liberty, opportunity, freedom of choice, better consumer goods, making money, exploiting resources (and people along the way), defeating international Communism -- even if we didn't always live up to the liberty, opportunity, and freedom parts, at home or abroad, as much as we said we did. But think about it--would you rather be exploited on the way to a) getting a washer & dryer or a car or b) for an extra bag of millet and increased boot production in your industrial sector? Don't kid yourself, champagne supernova Socialists: You would choose a) every time. (Who even knows what millet is, let alone why you would want more of it?)

Yeah, I know, nostalgia's for suckers. For everything I miss, there are probably a zillion things I don't--and with good reason. Lack of access to information might mean more ignorance--although more information doesn't seem to have made us smarter, that's for sure. Old-styled Americanism and Communism abused and killed people. Opportunities for "deviant" behavior or "alternative lifestyles" were definitely circumscribed in a world with less information and connectivity. Even being a gender other than straight male or a race/ethnicity other than white seemed rather deviant back then. 

Still, it wasn't all bad, was it? I'm sure I was frustrated then as I am sometimes now, likely more so, but occasionally I feel like a few of my more cherished possessions got lost in transit while moving rapidly to the future.

So take at least some of the above with a grain of salt, a tongue firmly in cheek, the musings of a privileged goofball at 50+, whose greatest hits collection is dropping off the pop charts after a good run in the top 10, 20, 30, and 40.

I'm Weird Montag Yankingyourchainabit, and I'm here as long as you'll have me.

Now 'eat it.

Touch me again

Oh to know what I know now way back in 1991. I felt so old then, even though I was not yet 30. But already I was out of the dance club and into . . . what exactly? Certainly not the streets. Hibernation maybe. Escape. Transitions.

A year or so after meeting my friend S., a friend I've now had for nearly 30 years. Several months before leaving Washington and only once creeping back to live in its shadow again. Two years before graduate school. Two years before meeting G. Four years before moving to Texas, which feels like home to me and perhaps always will. Thirteen years before leaving Texas and moving back east. Twenty-two years before meeting Cairo. Twenty-four years before moving to Canada. Twenty-six years before now.

Oddly, I've written about this some before. This little fluffy pop tune that somehow captures my hope and longing, my regret and sorrow.

Some moments during the previous 26 years have been, frankly, terrible, including this last week or so. And then other moments have been spectacular, such as living with Cairo and talking to him this week, during one of my sadder, more frustrated, more anxious times.

My father's passing. But my mother still lives and is as vibrant as ever.

I still loathe my job and am wary of my colleagues. And yet I had probably the most successful week I've had since arriving in Canada two-and-a-half years ago, have a great staff and supportive bosses.

One of the biggest reveals this week was that once my anxiety and stress subsided, I realized that I had actually had a good week, at least professionally speaking. The anxiety has been too much of late, but I'm actually doing OK.

Would I go back in time? Would I do anything differently? Maybe or maybe not.

Except maybe . . . I'd dance more, even past the age of 30. To hear that piano again, those drums, that whistle, that call to "hold me baby/drive me crazy/touch me/all night long." To put aside the fears imagined and real, to trust in myself, to take a moment, to enjoy, to cavort, to laugh, to be carefree, sans souçi, to grab life and run with it. That I would do, at least for one night, return to the scene and dance, dance, dance away the heartache, dance away the tears.

But then I'd hurry right back to the present to savor what I have now, the good and the bad, and look forward to a better tomorrow, week, month, and year ahead.

Do you know the way to Sacha Distel and Dionne Warwick?

Honestly, I was just looking for a video of Dionne Warwick singing "Do You Know the Way to San Jose?" Still in my Mad Men finale mourning phase, that particular tune has been in my head since last weekend's Mad Men marathon on AMC, during which my Mom, sis, and me watched not quite all but most of the 92 hours of Mad Men broadcast from 2007 to 2015.

Was that any way to spend a vacation with family? Well, yes, it was. It was quite relaxing and enjoyable, having a long overdue visit with my Mom and sister, savoring past memorable moments from the show, dissecting the characters and their motivations, and speculating about the finale and the characters' futures. Did we guess the outcome? Not really, other than to say that we thought Don Draper would survive and persevere, as would Peggy Olsen. Other than that, we didn't have a clue, which was as it should be. We ended up pleasantly surprised along with the rest of the long-time aficionados of the show.

What was also surprising was how sad we felt watching the end of series. Seeing the outcomes for each character was touching. In my mind, for the most part, each character got what they wanted, not what they felt they should have, a recurring theme in the series, the tension between desire and obligation. Peggy found love, Joan found success, Pete found his family again, Roger found fun and maturity, and Don found his true self.

What Betty Draper Francis and her daughter Sally Draper found exactly deserves a separate, fuller discussion. For another day.

At least that's my interpretation. There are a zillion others out there, so please read and determine for yourself. And that's another beauty of the ending: You are left with some ambiguity. How long will each character's happiness last? Are they doing what they want or doing what they feel they should do? And what does Don do next? Follow his bliss, his own path in life? Which may or may not include returning to New York and recommitting himself to his profession as an advertising executive and becoming more creative and successful than ever. Or it may also include being true to the values of the 1960s and 1970s and rejecting the old ways, striking out in new, countercultural ways--all while watching those same values quickly co-opted by business and pop culture all for the sake of selling Coke (the Real Thing). And possibly some coke as well.

To tell the truth, I was tired of Don's story at this point in the series. The way he tried to escape his existence through the fantasy of sexual pleasure--at first that seemed daring, dangerous, and provocative. But by the series' end, it just became predictable, boring, and even unseemly to me. I loathed the affair with Sylvia, played by Linda Cardellini, who became something of a guilty, weepy-eyed Ida Blankenship in my mind (Ida Blankenship, the "Queen of Perversions," as Roger Sterling described her). That icky relationship went on way too long and seemed to tread much of the same ground as his other affairs did. I quickly became tired of Megan Calvet, too, Don's second wife, who stayed on the scene from seasons 4 until 7, ferchrissakes, and took lots of attention away from other characters, especially Don's far more interesting first wife, Betty.

After a while, Don's sexploits seemed like something out of smutty James Bond movie--but with less diversity of partners (lots of white women, mostly brunettes, representing his mother or stepmother, no doubt). His conquests became more like compulsions--in today's parlance, Don would no doubt have a sex addiction. Rewatching the latter seasons of the series, I kept thinking of the movie Shame, being just as detached from and creeped out by Don's plight as much as I was from Michael Fassbender's character's story in the movie.

I think that's entirely the point, by the way. I just don't necessarily want to watch that on a weekly basis.

That may be down to my prudishness or my becoming bored quickly by ritual and routine in all areas of my life. However, I think I took issue with Don's issues because, perhaps, it took away from my own childhood, childlike fantasies of the '60s and '70s.

My sadness at the end of the series was as much about saying goodbye to the characters, including Don, as it was about saying goodbye, once again, to what has passed and slipped through my fingers.

How much rehashing does this require? I felt it more acutely earlier in the week, wanting to have a good cry whenever I thought about the finale or remembered songs from the era, "Do You Know the Way to San Jose?" being just one of many that returned to me for a fleeting moment a simple and safe American childhood, sitting in the front bench seat of a huge Mercury or Ford, wedged comfortably between my Mom and my Dad, listening to the hits of the era on AM radio.

It's a very nostalgia trip, yes, and one not necessarily in tune with the reality of the time, which was conflicted and convulsed by issues of equality--racism, sexism, political assassinations, the Vietnam War, countercultural protests, terrorism, and so much more. While occasionally my life was touched by those issues--the Vietnam War and the fight for racial equality in particular--my life was quite idyllic in many ways. We were working class with limited exposure and opportunity, but like the Dons, Peggys, and Joans of the world, we survived and persevered.

Nonetheless, could that sadness be due to something else, something more than just mere nostalgia for times past? That was a thought that skated across my mind over last weekend, my reaction to the finale reminding me of when All My Children ended. Or as Cairo put it to me gently during a recent phone conversation, "Do you think you feel sad because you feel like you're closing one chapter of your life?"

Yes, exactly.

As always with me, there's more to the story. But given that it's Memorial Weekend in the U.S., for now, let's just conclude with a hearty "God bless America" and track the scent of this tale another day.

Back to our regularly scheduled shallowness already in progress

Despite a week of protests against racism conducted by local government agents and congressional revelations about torture conducted by federal government agents (what, no state government agents? slackers . . .), my early '90s nostalgia continues. This time in the mix, Tejano music star Selena and my favorite Spanish-language song by her, "Amor prohibido" ("Forbidden Love").

When I moved to San Antonio in August 1995, Selena had already been dead a few months, murdered by the former president of her fan club, a woman whose name I will not mention here. (She is simply not worthy of the publicity that she seems to crave, even 20 years later.) Yet in spite of having been murdered five months earlier, feelings still ran high and strong in South Texas.

While Selena was born in Lake Jackson, Texas (in Brazoria County over toward Houston), and grew up in Corpus Christi, San Antonians knew her and loved her well. San Antonio was, after all, sometimes referred to Mexico's northernmost city, at least in Texas, where more than 60 percent of the population is of Latino origin, chiefly Mexican American. It is a Mexican American population with a long history in the region, back to the early 1700s at least, when Spain began to colonize South Texas. Even after being declared independent from Mexico in 1836 and later becoming part of the U.S., Mexican influence remained strong and constant with successive waves of immigration throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, which resulted in the development of a homegrown, native-born Tex-Mex (or better, Tejano) culture. Tejano music is a fine example of that.

When I lived there from 1995 to 2004, I loved this aspect of San Antonio, more than all the Alamo and Republic of Texas meshugas--so white, so American in perspective. Fiesta San Antonio, cascarones, that Mexico seafood place on the Southside where I had to order in Spanish, aguas frescas, corn in a cup (hard to find in SA but usually brought out during festivals), code-switching, a passionate local literature scene, las Posadas, tamales at Christmastime, the close proximity of both the Texas Hill Country and Mexico, the slower pace, and a montón of other things--I miss them all. I spent a good nine years of my life there, and as winter in Pittsburgh stalks me once again, I often wonder why I left.

Oh, but I do remember why. I had my reasons, many of which seemed very good then and even now make a lot sense. I hated the Texas heat, all seven months of it, even if it was mostly a dry heat. The slower pace belied a lack of dynamism as well, a go-along-to-get-along attitude that chafed me professionally and intellectually. The strong sense of familia, which could be welcoming and comforting even to an outsider like me, also meant that a lot of gay people lived their lives in the closet.

A snide aside: Nevertheless, by the number of times I've been hit on by married white gay men in other parts of the country, I do wonder if a lot of gay folk have a "familia" issue to deal with. At least Latino gay men in San Antonio seemed happier and better able to live life on the hyphen.

Seriously, though, if I could have found a decent job in a decent library at a decent university in Houston, or maybe even Dallas (but steady on, let's not go to extremes), I think I would have stayed in Texas--or just would have cut to the chase and moved to Mexico, which I love deeply for some of the same reasons, as well as several hundred additional ones. But things turned out differently for me, and the crazy charm of Texas in the '80s and '90s seems to have resulted in just pure "t" crazy in the '00s and '10s. So let's keep the regrets to a minimum and move on.

Back to Selena: She was everywhere in 1995, before and after death. I remember seeing tributes to her in office cubicles in the city's personnel department; constant gossip and worry about her relationships with her father, her club president, and her husband; this huge (and somewhat unflattering) portrait unveiled and displayed at the public library; and her songs in heavy rotation on the airwaves. Yes, we were still listening to the radio back then.

In fact, if I recall correctly, at the time I drove across the Texas border on IH-10 near Beaumont, I picked up a station on the car radio playing either "Amor prohibido" or "Como la flor"--I can't remember which now. It may have been a tribute to Selena's sad, untimely death at 23, but for me, at the ripe old age of 33, it felt like a new beginning.

Sometimes I wish I had just stopped the car in Houston--far more dynamic, far more cultural and cutting-edge. Hot, sweaty, full of "oil field trash" and godawful traffic, and marred by a tragic lack of zoning and urban planning but also blessed with fantastic museums (the Houston Museum of Fine Arts and the Menil Collection being noteworthy on an international level), opera, ballet, the Galleria, huge Asian supermarkets, and the intersection of Montrose and Westheimer, epicenter for Houston's gay community. I think I would have been happier, more satisfied, and would probably never have left Texas.

And in so doing, I wouldn't have met Cairo; wouldn't have edited a journal; wouldn't have gone to Montreal to study French and learned about an entirely different culture; wouldn't have become president of a regional library organization; wouldn't have made some wonderful friends in Gettysburg; wouldn't have reconnected with friends in Washington; wouldn't have traveled to Scotland, France, Germany, and England (twice); and wouldn't have done a whole host of other stuff either.

I might not have ended up in another Pittsburgh winter either with a hectic job that feigns at being a career "opportunity." I might have more than just a couple of half-hearted friendships. I might not have gained eight pounds in the last year. But it's give and take most days. Win some, lose some, or come to a draw. But most of all, keep moving.

So perhaps this post isn't as shallow, frivolous, and nostalgic as I might pretend. Maybe in the last 20 years, years that have passed by faster than a Rip Van Winkle REM stage dream, I have learned and grown and laughed and loved and striven and succeeded more than I realize. Life feels slow in the here and now, like cold molasses most days, but oh, it does go by and it goes by fast. And whenever I can stop for a moment, catch my breath, and look where I've traveled from and not focus so much on where I'm running to, I realize that I love my life, more and more, truly, madly, and deeply.

I only wish Selena had had the same opportunities. Talented, personable, and by all accounts a lovely, kind person, she deserved better. We all do.

I wasn't kidding

Another early '90s tune, a barely remembered classic (at least to my ear)--Kym Sims, "Too Blind to See It," which tiptoed into the US Top 40 way back in in 1992 but which stomped its foot on position 5 in the UK charts.

Funny that. I was once again more tuned into what was going on in music in Britain way back when (rave, Kylie Minogue, The Shamen, Q magazine), even when it was essentially American music playing on BBC Radio One. Wrong country, wrong time.

I made my first trip to the UK in 1993, when I probably should have gone in 1983 or before, being more new wave than rave. Nevertheless, it was fun being there in the summer of '93, INXS playing a concert in some pub, videos for The Shamen on giant screens on Oxford or some other high street, the secret wish that I'd see Kylie in some random shop. The best I managed was Eric Bogosian, Annie Lenox (sort of--she regularly had lunch in Crouch End, where I was staying), and some unknown Brit actor that I recognized from American TV, forgotten to me now.

I just wish I could have stayed longer. But, really, balding at the ripe old age of 32 and decidedly not stylish like perhaps I was for one brief, well-put-together moment in the '80s, I already felt out of shape and out of place in any sort of under-25, G.A.Y.-oriented environment. Alas and alack. The amount of time I have spent in my life worrying that I was too old, too ugly, or too unhip. What a waste.

Anyway, Kym Sims. This is a great song and an alright video, so evocative of the era, musically, stylistically, and crazy camera-anglely. What is up with those rapid close-ups and reverse-outs? And that dancing--much faster than the song itself, very out of sync. Silly.

And pre-Worldwide Web as well. Imagine having to get all your music news from magazines and BBC broadcasts, letters from friends, and the occasional foray overseas. Yes. Really. That's the way it worked.

To be honest, I miss it. Oh, I love the Web and I make use of it thousands of times per day--and looky, even to write this blog that I'm never sure anyone's actually reading. I met my current boyfriend thanks to the Web, keep up with friends and make new ones through it, do my serious and fun research thanks to it, shop, read, work, stay up-to-date on current events and cultural happenings, goof around, play games, and generally eat, sleep, and breathe it. It makes me more sedentary perhaps, but it also helps me to "travel" through my conversations with others. And it makes me much less lonely than I might have been during my extended sentence in the hell that is Pittsburgh.

But, still, nostalgia. A couple of weeks back I went to a bookstore--yes, a bookstore!--a new one opened by a friend of mine here in town. How fun and exciting it was just to browse in a bookstore again and buy whatever struck my fancy.

Sure, we can do that in a way through hyperlinking and web-surfing, but . . . it just seems different now, more passive, less interactive, than going to a physical store and searching through the shelves, stacks, and bins.

Maybe it's a Pittsburgh thing or a small city thing, living in a place that doesn't have enough people and disposable income to support more retail. We still have a couple of contemporary music stores and some fantastic vinyl shops. We seem to be seeing a resurgence of bookstores, with two now open in Squirrel Hill after a few years of bookstore death. There are some other types of shops as well--cards, gifts, housewares, design, etc. They are few and far between, though, not nearly prevalent or promoted enough.

But do I go to them? No, not really. Rarely, in fact.

Some of it is due to money--trying to be wise with it for a change and not spend it on more stuff that I don't need or will have to pack and move at some point. Some of it is due to focusing on my true interests--music and media, mostly, when it used to be more about music, books, clothes, and food.

But, all in all, I'm just not that interested, and I'd really rather . . . live, work, and shop online.

And watch early '90s videos, remembering when, twenty years ago, and who I was then and reconciling it with who and where I am now.

God help me, I've rediscovered the early '90s

I really don't know what triggered it--maybe a message from a friend reminding that it was 20 years ago when Kylie Minogue released "Put Yourself in My Place" or the Nirvana/Kurt Cobain tributes of late--but I have suddenly remembered the '90s.

Not all of the '90s, mind you, but just certain moments, mostly related through pop music.

It was 23 years ago that I left Washington for greener pastures. It was 21 years ago that went to grad school to be a librarian. It was 19 years ago that I accepted my first library job and moved to Texas.
I was aged 30 to 33 during that era. I went to my first (and only) rave. I hung out with kids younger than me in grad school. I was one of the younger people in management when I made it up the ranks of my career ladder. And yet I felt old then, or at least older than the people I would have considered my contemporaries--new library school grads, new librarians, many of my friends.

Imagine me now: Twenty years later, I feel positively ancient.

It is what it is, and I think I'm coping with getting older these days, much better than I did when I turned 50 a couple of years back.

Nevertheless, I'm feeling a little nostalgic for early '90s music and style (I would have totally worn D:Ream's windowpane check suit, although 10 years earlier), trying to remember myself then before things got busy, I moved around a lot, and 20 years slipped by in a blink.

Perhaps, too, it's a way to come to grips with the middling present. In some ways, relationship-wise, I'm happier and more satisfied than I've ever been. In others--the lack of friends nearby, the sense that the culture has changed too much and has passed me by, and work, above all else, work--I am not so happy.

So a return to 1990-1995 is in order. It's a way to help me remember who I was then, compare it to who I am now, and try to remember what I wanted out of my life.

Before another 20 years passes me by. Before it's too late to do anything about it.

Talkin' Mac

After a week of politically inspired gnashing of teeth and work-inspired bitterness, perhaps it's time for something musical. My go-to happy place seems to be consistently the sounds of the 1970s. Horrible fashion, dodgy color schemes, no Internet, and stuck in a small town in the back of beyond, yet I feel warm and cozy toward that era.

Pre-adulthood, pre-serious relationships, pre-money woes, pre-responsibilities. About the only things I had to worry over were getting to school on time, finishing my homework, and not looking like a fool every minute of every day in front of my classmates. Part of the foolishness was no doubt conveyed through my taste in then what was considered "not cool" (and probably gay) musical choices, such as ABBA, soul, and disco.

The best years of my life, maybe, at least if nostalgia is our benchmark. I wouldn't want to relive them, though. They were not in any sense my "glory days" in junior high and high school. Years of angst spent not knowing who I was or being able to own up to who I found attractive are not experiences I would want to relive, thanks all the same.

Instead, what I'd like to do is sink back into the "mise en scène" of the '70s, if you will--just luxuriate in the culture, the milieu, the zeitgeist. That's often what I feel nostalgic toward--not the trappings of crap style or tacky furnishings but what we were listening to at the time, what we were talking about, and what I was feeling at the time. So it's more of a me-me-me zeitgeist, but, hey, that's what you pay me for.

So this weekend's "8-track flashback" looks wistfully upon the music of Fleetwood Mac. I am by no means a "classic rock" fan and, similar to how I feel about most country music, would just as soon see it banished from the light, their aficionados forced underground, having to swap shittily recorded mixtapes of every entitled white guy and boringly middle class singer-songwriter-screamer signed to a big deal on Sunset Boulevard.

I'll see you in hell, '70s and '80s hair bands. You're in my sights, pretentious prog rockers. I'll have your heads on a platter with a sprig of parsley on the side, dear d-jays at every Middle America radio station. May the world find you stuck in a Reagan-era shame cycle, forced to just say no to anything new or fun or colorful, while your life spirit trickles down your spine and pools at your feet, in your new home: the sub-basement of a foreclosed Moral Majority McMansion, Any Suburb, USA. With liberty and Tom "Top Gun" Cruise and Melanie "Working Girl" Griffith movies for all.

In other words, welcome to the new 2014, same as the old 2004, 1994, and 1984.

Wooh. So much for steering clear of bitterness and politics. Let's move on, shall we?

* * *

And let's move on to Fleetwood Mac, circa 1975, with "Say You Love Me."



"Say You Love Me" was probably the first Mac song I appreciated at the ripe old age of what? 13? 14? For me, it was probably less about the lyrics (and for me it almost always is less about the lyrics) and more about the sound--the voice, the melody, and, yes, even the banjos. How can you not love the harmonies and happiness of this tune? I liked "Over My Head" and "Rhiannon" as well, but this is such a sprightly, poppy little thing, so evocative of that London-meets-Los Angeles folk/rock/pop/country sound that Mac had in the mid-1970s. I want to go back in time and hear it play on the radio of my parents' AMC Hornet once again. Those were the days, my friend, we thought that American Motors would never get bought out by Renault, of all enterprises, just a few years later.

* * *



When thinking about Stevie Nicks' role in the Mac, it's hard to pick a favorite from among songs. There is "Rhiannon," "Dreams," "Gypsy," and "Sara" to choose from. Along with "Landslide," "Gold Dust Woman," "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around," or "Edge of Seventeen." The wealth is overwhelming, practically poignant.

"Sara" was on the turntable a lot during college, as was the quirky "Tusk." "Rhiannon" came out when I was still trying to figure out Stevie Nicks and whether I liked her voice or not. But "Dreams" edges out the others. It reminds me of a good era in my little hometown. I think my brother Frank owned the album (or maybe it was my brother Charlie or my sister Barbara?). It spun on the turntable a lot at our house in the spring of 1977.

At least I hope we had the album and not the 8-track tape . . . fade, beep, reprise.

* * *

Fast forward to 1979 and "Tusk."


A really bold, odd choice for a single, but a brilliant one at that. More like a soundscape, the soundtrack to some frenetic, tension-filled scene on celluloid--a chase scene or a bank heist gone wrong--than a 3-minute-and-30-second pop song. And god bless 'em for that.

I could take or leave some of the songs on which Lindsey Buckingham was featured prominently. To this day, I can't hear "Don't Stop" without thinking of how it's been abused by certain politicians wanting to appeal to (read: fleece) progressives and baby-boomers (an act that really doesn't require co-opting good music), but Lindsey really added a lot to the group. Who could imagine a group performing something as lush and radio-friendly as "Over My Head" in 1975 creating something as experimental and sonic as "Tusk" in 1979? With a marching band no less.

Plus you gotta love Stevie Nicks' expert twirling of a baton in the official video. I'm sure that's a moment when the British members of the group started to rethink the whole Southern California experiment. "My god. We're in the middle of a baseball field. There's a university marching band playing. And our little 'Welsh witch' is twirling an effin' baton! How did we get so lost?"

Faust was wrong. There are plenty of things to regret.

* * *

Lindsey has always bugged me for some reason. Perhaps in part because he was and remains a very handsome, self-assured (possibly too much so) man. He was gorgeous as a '70s hippie and luscious as an '80s hipster--and, in my warped mind, he always seemed completely aware of this, which is a major turnoff for me. Not that Mr. B. would be perturbed by this confession, of course. Not that this confession is based on anything other than gut and a few TV appearances.

But ol' Bucky was a terrific musician, writer, and singer. Just maybe not a great performer.



This is an incredibly overwrought performance by both Lindsey and Stevie. But "The Chain" is a brilliant song, so all is forgiven, Lindsey. Just don't do it again, please. Again, for Chris, John, and Mick, another bell must have rung, another penny must have dropped.

* * *

I could never stand most of the Mac's '80s videos--I remember describing them in an essay I crafted for my non-fiction writing class in college as "a fine example of the symbolic wallow that is MTV" or some such.



This is the only one that I can just barely tolerate, "Little Lies" from 1987 or so. It gives me just enough mental respite and perverse fascination that I hesitate before I kick in the screen of my 30-year-old cathode ray-tubed console TV set.

And yet, I take issue with the video, nonetheless. To me it looks as if the band just happened upon a Tweeds catalog photo shoot and decided to add the leftover clothes to their own wardrobes. Just prior to the Tweeds shoot, Duran Duran had been on set making their own video--so Stevie, Lindsey, and Christine borrowed some makeup and spackled it on hurriedly before anyone could stop them.

That or the entire video was filmed as a promo for Glamour Shots. Whatever, everyone loses.

Nonetheless, while "Everywhere" from the same album, Tango in the Night, is probably my favorite Mac song ever, "Little Lies" features a wonderful mixture of all three singers--McVie, Nicks, and Buckingham.

* * *

And, finally, this is what I mean about Fleetwood Mac's dreadful, artsy-fartsy videos--



Honestly, dude, Whiskey-Tango in the night-Foxtrot. Who thought this was a good idea? Who allowed this to happen?

Personally, I think it was Stevie and Lindsey. Christine, Mick, and John on their own would never have approved this storyboard. "Let's just do it, please, so that they'll both shut up, alright?" I can hear Christine saying, while Mick and John sob silently into their sleeves.

* * *

With that, we conclude today's psychic flashback. Surprising to some that I could enjoy Fleetwood Mac so much, but it's all true.

Just be grateful I owned up to it--and opted for this nostalgia trip rather than the other one in my head this week--mid-'70s British soul with the likes of Tina Charles, Jesse Green, and Biddu on heavy rotation.

But never say never . . .

Evenings in Moscow

Nostalgia time: This is the version of "Moscow Nights" or "Evenings in Moscow" (in Russian: "Подмосковные Вечера") by Soviet-era jazz great, George (aka Georgiy) Garanian and the Melodiya Ensemble. As noted in the description for the YouTube video, this version of "Moscow Nights" was played as a sort of interval signal or signature tune--a signal or piece of music that identifies a radio station and helps the listener fine tune the radio, especially a shortwave radio, to the broadcast--for the old Radio Moscow. According to the comments section for the video--for once, not as vile, racist, homophobic, xenophobic, and sexist as most of the comments sections on the 'Tube--this was a specially commissioned version of the Russian standard by the broadcaster.

The question for me is whether this version was ever available on vinyl, CD, or as a high-quality mp3. So far, no luck on this one. I can find other versions by Garanian and the Melodiya Ensemble, but I would love to find a copy of this one--the sleek, jazzy, summer-in-the-city version.

This version makes me nostalgic for a number of reasons. In the 1970s and even into the early 1980s, I used to listen to Radio Moscow on shortwave. I don't think it was for the programming, other than Moscow's take on the news, somewhat skewed reports on life in America, and the occasional cultural moment, like Soviet jazz recordings. But listen I did, just as I did to Radio RSA: The Voice of (Apartheid-Era) South Africa, the BBC, the Voice of America, Paris Calling Africa, Radio Australia, Deutsche Welle, Radio Prague, Berlin Radio International, and hundreds of other stations--sometimes for the news, the music, and the cultural programming, sometimes just for the exoticism of the broadcast location. Iceland! Cameroon! Radio Sutatenza in Colombia! ORTF in Papeete, Tahiti! And, yes, even the exoticism of Soviet-style communism intoned--politely, firmly, humorlessly--by quasi-American-sounding voices.

There is nostalgia, too, for my trip to the Soviet Union, one of the highlights of my life (so far). Washington, Helsinki, Leningrad, Tallinn, Moscow, Helsinki, Stockholm, New York, Washington, May into June 1985--a journey that still makes my heart hum, moan, and ache, with the sights, sounds, voices, aromas, and thoughts almost tangible 30 years later.

It was my first time overseas and led to some other overseas trips, such as Australia in 1987, because of friends I made in my travels. I got to use my very limited Russian (often badly). I made a fool out of myself on more than one occasion (I was all of 23 at the time; in theory, I'm allowed to be immature, even though I won't allow myself that excuse in my memories). I was tired by the end of it, sick of dealing with American jerks (and the occasional Russian one), a little homesick, a little hungover, and needing some downtime and solitude, being the introvert that I am. As a result, Helsinki and Stockholm are somewhat of a blur.

Yet I was homesick for Russia, for Europe, after I got home to Washington. I felt I should be elsewhere, anywhere but here, a feeling I still experience regularly, though less painfully nowadays. I don't think it's so much that I thought I should be European; it's more the case that I just was ready to travel, learn, experience the universe, and meet people who had a larger worldview and more knowledge about life, culture, history, and the now than I--a little hayseed/hipster wannabe from rural North Carolina--had at the time (or even today). But I only had so much money to do so, and no real guidance from family and friends on how to go about it.

Afternoons in Leningrad, circa May 1985

So in some ways that first trip abroad was wonderful, revelatory, sublime. But in other ways, it was painful, harsh, and frustrating--it just made me want more.

I still feel that way today, often frustrated by my limited vantage from Pittsburgh and the insularity around me. I'm impatient for change and hopeful that the next change, the next move, the next job, the next trip, will salve my restlessness just a bit.

But maybe that wouldn't be such a good thing. Perhaps it's better for me to stay restless and hungry for something more, something better. Frustrating, yes, but it is ultimately oddly enjoyable.

Well, maybe not enjoyable, nor satisfying. It's just who I am. And it's past time to accept that, be a little proud of it, and celebrate it now and into an uncertain, opportunity-filled future.

Memory bliss

While working out at the gym last night (butch, I know!), I was tuned into my TuneIn app, listening to La Máquina del Tiempo, an "oldies" internet radio station (featuring mostly Europop from the '80s and '90s, to be honest).

The "Time Machine" can be a mixed bag, to be honest. I've heard some great, fun pop from the '80s in particular (things that I remember from then or managed to miss the first time around). And then I've heard some clunkers--anything by Phil Collins or an odd Mike Oldfield remake of "Family Man" by Hall & Oates. Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot. Seriously. A veces, La Máquina del Tiempo está rota. Completamente rota.

And then at other times, the Time Machine is working brilliantly and something like "Set Adrift on Memory Bliss" by P.M. Dawn goes on rotation.

Wow. I'd forgotten how much I adore this song and the whole P.M. Dawn sensibility from the early-mid '90s. I always thought the was one of the better examples of music sampling from that era--and any other. "Set Adrift on Memory Bliss" takes a readily identifiable riff from "True" by Spandau Ballet (a great pop song in and of itself, even if a tad "New Romantic" in retrospect) and out of this, creates a stellar, unique pop experience in its own right. A classic begets a classic. Why this isn't near the top of the "World's 100 Best Pop Songs Ever" playlist is beyond me.

PM Dawn also had a wonderfully crazy and cool style or look or vibe: Kinda hippy, sorta New Age, very rave culture without the obvious drug use.

I have to admit that I haven't thought much about P.M. Dawn since the mid-'90s, although according to Wikipedia, they're still around, despite some challenges.

Thus, once again, I find myself part of the problem, rather than part of the solution. But maybe a few iTunes or Amazon MP3 purchases will help my karma.

Today's '80s Flashback: Out of Mind, Out of Sight

For some strange reason, I woke up with this earwig, "Out of Mind, Out of Sight" by Models, an Australian group from the '80s, stuck in my head quite insistently.

It's a song that pops to the surface of my memory every now and again. Funnily enough, I never owned the single or the album (neither of which are available in the U.S. version of iTunes at the moment) but always liked them. Very INXS in some ways, I guess. And real brass! When's the last time you heard that in a pop song? Other than a sample of real brass, I mean.

I don't know much about the group, but the song makes me nostalgic for, yes, the '80s, specifically '80s music. At least as far as pop radio is concerned, it was so much better then--and, yes, I'm sure I could quantify that statement with very little effort. You had to be there, and I was, but it all went by so quickly. In fact, I'd say in 1985, when this song was released, the golden era was severely tarnished by then.

The song also makes me nostalgic for another, older life--being in my mid-20s, living on my own in Washington, D.C., and trying to learn as much about life as I could in as short a time as possible. Traveling to Leningrad (yes, when it was still known as Leningrad, not Petersburg, Petrograd, or whatever it's being called this month), Moscow, Tallinn, Helsinki, Stockholm, New York (for the first time), and Melbourne, Sydney, Alice Springs, and Uluru (Ayers Rock), Australia, all within the space of . . . two years.

Really, two years?! Is that even possible? That's amazing. Spring/summer 1985 to the USSR and Northern Europe. Fall 1987 to Australia. Come to think of it, I did indeed do so much in such a little amount of time, without even realizing it. Now I'm lucky if I get to Chicago or Canada every couple of years.

Here's some proof of two of my destinations--

Montag at the Hermitage, Leningrad, 1985

Montag at Uluru (Ayers Rock), 1987

So file Models' Out of Mind, Out of Sight under "One of those albums (yes, albums) I meant to buy but never got around to."

And file this time in my life under "Better than I remembered" and perhaps also "If only."

* * *

Whenever I'm feeling melancholic about the road(s) less traveled, there is always (thank heaven) my Mom to cheer me up. Today's memorable quote from Vivien Leigh:  "Whenever you're feeling bad about your life, just watch an episode of Hillbilly Handfishin' on Animal Planet, and I'll guarantee you'll feel better about how things turned out."

If you're unfamiliar with this latest example of non-elitist American excellence, I refer you to this Wikipedia article. However, apparently it fails to relate some of the nuances of the presentation--such as, the winner of said contest being referred to as the "Big Dog," donning a coonskin cap, and howling his or her success before a roaring campfire.

Now that you mention it, I do feel better.

A hurricane is coming tonight, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow . . .

Because I couldn't be any gayer, that's why.



Whether rightly or wrongly, this is the song that has been stuck in my head ever since the Weather Channel and all the news programs, national and local, began whipping up their 24-hour frenzy of chronicling of every bump, gust, drop, and whistle of Hurricane Irene's advance toward the North Carolina coast, New York, and beyond. A trek that has been days in the making and promises to be many more in the unmaking.

Because I grew up in the region where the storm has made landfall--only 15 minutes from Bogue Inlet Pier in light traffic (i.e., not summer)--I am particularly sensitive to hurricanes and the havoc they can wreak. Carol Douglas, notwithstanding.

However, I have to admit, nothing--except maybe a bowl of chicken pastry (not dumplings, you ignorant Yankee narrator!)--makes me feel more nostalgic for childhood than a hurricane. Despite all the dire warnings and potential for harm and damage, the oncoming storm engenders a certain amount of excitement and energy. As the sky grows more menacing and the winds more dramatic, everyone's pace quickens, your senses are heightened, and life seems more vivid. What happens next? How will this play out? What destruction will nature cause? Will things ever be the same again?

In the sleepy coastal North Carolina of my childhood, I was always grateful for the natural thrill brought on by the approach of a hurricane.

Then again, I never lived through a really bad one. From what I recall, way back when, in the late 1960s and 1970s, we merely had a series of indifferent hurricanes and weak-willed tropical storms, most of them just grazing the coast, dumping a lot of rain, and washing away the beach. Only later in the '80s and '90s, after I had moved away and my parents had relocated inland to the Triangle, did the storms get bad. I remember leaving home one afternoon, heading back on a plane to Texas, lucky enough to escape a particularly severe hurricane that even affected area 125 miles inland. While I was home and dry in San Antonio, my parents endured 100+ mile-per-hour sustained winds for several hours. With all the downed trees, they didn't have electricity again for more than a week. They couldn't even get out of their neighborhood, until neighbors with chainsaws started cutting through the debris to create a path to the main road.

So indulge my nostalgia at your peril. Obviously, I don't know what I'm talking about in terms of health and safety. But snowstorms, tornadoes, and flash-flooding have got nothing over the mood of excitement, danger, and fascination created by a good, old-fashioned hurricane.

Sadly, "hurricane mystique" doesn't get you much of a break on homeowner's insurance.

Sigh. Why did I have to go mention something "adult-oriented" like insurance? I know! Maybe for fun we could start talking about our retirement plans or lawn care treatments! Sometimes it's just better to stick with the hazy childhood memories. Pass the chicken pastry, please.