now playing: firefall, “so long”
the first thing i did this morning when i got settled in at work was to set up a newwinamp playlist…i went through my abridged mp3 collection on my jukebox computer at work and found roughly a hundred songs that fit todays’ criteria, which is nothing newer than 1979…no exceptions. and i made a conscious decision to leave out the eagles, fleetwood mac, and any other bands that are too synonymous with that time for me. it’s all one hit wonders and artists who never made the kind of impact on the charts at any other time that they did during the end of the seventies. we’ve got jim photoglo in there…firefall, obviously…little river band, ambrosia, and so on and so forth…now, i did let bob seger squeak through, but that was about it. no superstars – just the “bubbling under the hot 100” kinds of acts that i used to hear on the radio all the time when i was just beginning to explore the complexities of life as a teenager.
(maybe it goes without saying, but there are no songs on this list from the saturday night fever soundtrack, either…damn, i hated that stuff when i was a kid…)
that’s where i’m gonna live today, then, in my head – 1978 or so. when my problems were a lot more insignificant than they are now…when i was learning my way around our new junior high school and starting to discover girls and rock and roll at the same time – and found that rock and roll was much more alluring and a lot easier to understand than the opposite sex…before i had any idea what being a grownup entailed, and before i had any idea just how insignificant the problems i had then would be when compared to some of the issues we face as adults.
they had just built the junior high school the year before i went there, and at the time it was a pretty modern building – now, it’s pure camp..but back then, it was pretty awesome. the cafeteria-slash-auditorium was in the center of the thing, and all the classrooms were “pods” that shot off the center of the thing…they were all circles that surrounded the one big circle – made it pretty easy to navigate, once you knew which classes were in which “pods”. with the exception of a couple of fights i got into, i had a pretty normal existence at school, i think…good friends, the occasional crush that never really blossomed into anything – tammy daniels, who lived across a field from my house and rode my bus to school – she was really cute, but she was another one for whom terminal mutual shyness was a problem. kelly finch, whom i’ve talked about here before…but i digress.
where real life is concerned, though, i have a ton of phone calls to make in conjunction with an affair on sunday – i have to try to arrange transportation for a PA system and backline for a show, i have to make sure that all my help is onboard, and i have to coordinate my directions with my friend jon and call around to borrow a couple of things that i don’t have for this deal.
i should be excited about this, and honestly – if i hadn’t made a commitment to my friends that i’d do this, i probably wouldn’t go at all.
after this is over and i’m able to discuss it openly, you’ll think i’m fuckin’ insane for having made that statement.
christ, i’m not even feeling any kind of anticipation about the joe walsh meet and greet tonight. i should be stoked…he’s one of the reasons i decided to learn to play guitar. he makes it look like so much fun…and he always manages to play the perfect part for whatever he’s playing, and he never overplays – and that’s an important ethic to me.
i should be a lot more excited about getting to meet him than i feel at the moment…but i don’t seem to find much joy in anything these past few days. the weight of everything that’s going on around me right now is getting to be a bit much.
but…when this is over, i’m sure i’ll sing a slightly different tune.
...from the rear view mirror 