R.E.M. and the New World

Tags

1980s, 1985, alternative rock, athens, atlanta, fiction, georgia, high school, music, north carolina, r.e.m., rock, Stephen Roth, u2

Looking back on it, Crawford Connelly was kind of a prick, but he did Grady one enormous favor: he introduced him to music.

“You’re from Georgia, right?” Crawford asked on their first ride to school together.

“Yeah,” Grady said, even though he hadn’t lived there in six years.

“You like R.E.M.?”

“Sure, man.” Grady wasn’t certain he had heard correctly, but he thought Crawford must have meant R.E.O. Speedwagon, which Grady did, in fact, like. He’d been listening to the Wheels Are Turnin’ album for most of the summer.

Crawford pulled an unlabeled, dark grey cassette from the car’s console and popped it into the player. From the custom-installed Bose speakers came a jingly-jangly guitar riff that sounded nothing like anything produced by R.E.O. Speedwagon.

Crawford lit a cigarette while waiting to turn onto Battlefield Road, which would take them to Church of Christ Presbyterian School, where Grady’s mom had recently enrolled him in the hopes of securing a quality, private school education.

“I dunno, man. I still like Murmur the best,” Crawford said between songs. “What’s your favorite?”

“Huh?”

“What’s your favorite R.E.M. album?”

“Oh,” Grady said, staring at his book bag. “Probably Murmur, I guess.”

“Yeah,” Crawford said, taking a drag from his Camel. “It’s pretty awesome.”

It did not take long for Crawford Connelly to deduce that his passenger knew nothing about the emerging band scene coming out of Athens, Georgia, nor much else about music beyond whatever shit was on Casey Kasem’s Top 40 Countdown. Crawford probably knew this from the moment Grady stepped into his car. The kid was wide-eyed, ruffled and hopelessly unstylish in his dress and speech. The recent switch from glasses to contact lenses had only slightly improved his appearance. Grady looked like what he was: a skinny, nerdy, terrified high school freshman, product of a single mom who lacked either the time or awareness to inform him that wearing a blue and white collared shirt with hexagonal patterns to the first day of class was decidedly uncool in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1985. Or any place in any year, for that matter.

Crawford took Grady under his wing, at least during the 15 minutes of drive time each morning from their neighborhood to the school parking lot. Once they were in the lot, Grady was on his own. Crawford would light up another cancer stick with one of his letter-jacketed buddies, and Grady would skulk into the classroom building. But the morning drives in Crawford’s Chevy Caprice were Alternative Rock 101: starting with the R.E.M. albums of the day—Murmur, Reckoning, Fables of the Reconstruction (which Crawford thought was their weakest effort) and the debut EP Chronic Town. Pretty soon, they moved on to the B-52s and more obscure bands like Drivin’ & Cryin’, Guadalcanal Diary, Jason & the Nashville Scorchers and White Animals. By the time R.E.M. came out with its next release, Life’s Rich Pageant, Grady was primed and ready. Exercising his newly acquired learner’s permit, he drove to the Record Bar and bought the tape the first chance he got, and spent much of the following weekend holed up in his room, trying to jot down and decipher the mysterious lyrics (“Fall on Me,” as far as he could tell, had something to do with the environment).

A few weeks later, when his mother forbade him from driving down to Atlanta with his new friends and watching R.E.M. play the Fox Theater as part of its Work tour, he again retreated to his room, grabbed the first thing he could get his hands on (a Trivial Pursuit box) and hurled it against the wall. The surprisingly large sheetrock dent it left was a stark reminder throughout his teenaged years that, despite getting good grades and mostly staying out of trouble, he was still a prisoner in his own home. “Welcome to the Occupation,” indeed.

Junior year came around, and this time Grady would not be denied. He would travel to the Omni in Atlanta to see U2 on its Joshua Tree tour. He would never forget that show, the very first concert he ever attended: the opening organ strains of “Where the Streets Have No Name” filling the arena, then a spotlight shining on The Edge as he took the stage, then a familiar voice that was both current and already iconic at the same time, “I want to run, I want to hide…” Grady looked next to him at Emily Duncan, a sophomore whose parents had, inexplicably, allowed her to travel ten hours, round-trip, in a Honda Civic crammed full of beer and teenagers. They were in the Omni’s upper deck, but Emily’s face glowed as if Bono were a few feet away, singing just to her. Grady badly wanted to kiss Emily Duncan, and he would attempt that maneuver a few hours later in the parking lot of a Denny’s. It was too late at that point. The magic of the show had faded for her, and she just wanted to get back home to her boyfriend.

There would be many more shows, including R.E.M.’s Green Tour in 1989, which wasn’t as life-altering as Grady had expected. The band had already made it big at that point. They were no longer a secret discovery shared by him and the self-possessed, nicotine-breathing soccer star who carpooled him to school every day. That was okay. R.E.M. had been the first, the one that opened his eyes to a new world where music could be cutting, raw and angry, or even moody, sly and cerebral. It could be many things, and it could be about so much more than just liking some girl.

Good Songs for When You Feel Bad

Tags

1970s, adult contemporary, bread, depression, easy listening, glen campbell, harry chapin, humor, jackson browne, jimmy webb, music, my life, radio, Stephen Roth

I am not fishing for sympathy here, but the last few weeks have been pretty hard on me. My father passed away in early October after a long battle with cancer. Then, two weeks ago, I learned that I would lose my job at the end of the year. I know that most people endure the loss of a parent or a job, so there is nothing special about my predicament. Still, 2013 has been a shitty year and, when things get shitty, I often find myself turning to an unlikely source for commiseration: easy-listening rock from the 1970s.

I’m not proud of this fact. Normally, I hold my nose when one of those syrupy, emotion-filled ballads from the Me Decade finds its way on my radio. I quickly switch the dial to something a little less sentimental, like Soundgarden or Guns & Roses, or maybe Sublime, even though I’m pretty much sick of all three of them. I will do anything to ward off the spot-on harmonies, woodwind accompaniments and minor key progressions of adult contemporary pop.

It was the worst of times, but the Best of Bread.

But, when I find myself in times of trouble, I actually seek out this kind of music. A few years ago, when I was struggling through an especially tough time, I started listening to songs on YouTube by the early 1970s hit machine, Bread. I then took the next step, actually purchasing Bread’s Anthology on CD. Once my depression passed, the Bread disc was safely tucked away in my office closet, stacked somewhere between Bad Company and the Beatles. But last week, I pulled it out, popped it into my car’s CD player, and drove down the highway listening to the heart-wrenching strains of “If,” the majestic autumn colors whizzing past me like golden-hued clouds floating through a Zoloft-induced haze.

Again, I am not proud of this. But maybe it’s proof that there is a place in the world for slickly produced, emotionally manipulative and shamelessly unsubtle songs. Maybe it’s nice to know that, somewhere out there, there once was a millionaire pop star who felt just as miserable then as you do now.

In celebration of this service provided by the music industry, I have come up with my unofficial Top Five Songs to Be Depressed To. Maybe you’ll find something in here that can help you through your own bad times.

Not a member of the Jackson Five.

5.) Jackson Browne, “Here Come Those Tears Again.” Browne was a big piano-playing troubadour during the Sensitive Seventies, but his vocals were about as versatile and interesting as Velveeta cheese. In this song, he gets some much-needed help from back-up singers Bonnie Raitt and Rosemary Butler, whose searing harmonies pack all the emotional punch of the jilted lover Jackson Browne is trying to portray. A good song for the post-break-up blues.

4.) Bread, “Diary.” I found her diary underneath a tree/And started reading about me, sings frontman David Gates. Which begs the question, what kind of person leaves her diary lying around under some tree? Only a woman who intends for it to be found and read by David Gates, apparently. The song’s protagonist quickly learns that the lover his wife is fawning over in her journal isn’t him. Somehow, he finds the inner strength to wish his lady and her new flame well, which must make him some kind of a saint. Either, that, or he’s sleeping around with someone else, too. It was the Free Love Age, after all.

3.) Glen Campbell, “The Wichita Lineman.” Jimmy Webb wrote some amazing songs in the late 1960s and ’70s, and “Wichita Lineman” is one of his best. It’s also very depressing and patently uncool, the kind of song you turn the volume down on when pulling next to another car at an intersection. The Wichita lineman in this song likes to listen in on the phone conversations of his main crush. Nowadays, he could just stalk her on Facebook, but back then you had to climb up a telephone pole on some freezing Kansas blacktop to get your creep on. A haunting, lonely song with some strange effects that, I guess, are supposed to sound like live telephone wires.

Harry Chapin made a career out of depressing people.

2.) Harry Chapin, “W.O.L.D.” I could have put “Cat’s in the Cradle” on this list, but that would be too obvious. And, to be honest, it is only the most famous of a whole career of hard-luck songs Chapin recorded before his untimely death in 1981. “W.O.L.D.” tells the story of a morning radio DJ who is past his prime, and may even be a metaphor for rock music itself. Anyway, this DJ is calling his ex-wife and asking her to take him back, even though he’s overweight and got a spot on the top of my head, just beggin’ for a new toupee. Naturally, the ex wants nothing to do with him, so the DJ goes back on the air, pretending to be a happy guy. Fake it until you make it, I guess.

1.) Bread, “Guitar Man.” This song starts out innocently enough. There’s this great guitar player who draws big crowds and makes the girls swoon. Perfectly standard rock star stuff, really. But, this being Bread, you know things will take a bad turn by the third stanza. The Guitar Man gets old, people no longer flock to his shows, but he keeps on playing, because that is what defines his detached, lonely, wandering life. Fade away, are the last words you hear on the fade-out of this song, which further entrenches Bread as The Most Depressing Band Ever.

Nine Things You May or May Not Know About Me

Tags

Facebook, humor, my life, observations, satire, social media, Stephen Roth

Okay, my number is nine. So here goes…

9.) I once dressed up as Twinkie the Kid and wandered around downtown Chicago in an effort to promote the crème-filled snack cake’s 70th birthday party.

8.) At age 16, I landed my first job at Dairy Queen despite listing “Soda Jerk” as one of my preferred positions on the application.

Twinkie the Kid

7.) The best greeting card I ever planned at Hallmark featured a grinning donkey locked behind bars who says, “If loving you is a crime, then throw my happy ass in jail!”

6.) As a reporter in Florida, I was attacked by an umbrella-wielding escapee from a state hospital, interviewed a man who tried to sell both of his kidneys in a personal ad, and covered the capture of a 600-pound alligator wandering the streets of Ft. Myers. This all happened over the course of a week.

5.) It took me more than 10 years to write and find a publisher for my novel, A Plot for Pridemore, which will be released as a paperback and eBook next year!

4.) I quit my high school job at Blockbuster Video because my manager wanted me to work late instead of attending my own “surprise” birthday party. I understand that company has been going downhill ever since.

3.) My scariest reporting assignment was riding a C-47 transport plane with retired pilots who hadn’t flown that kind of aircraft since the Berlin Airlift.

2.) I once asked P.J. O’Rourke if he had any advice for an aspiring newspaper journalist, and he shrugged his shoulders and said, “Just try to get through it.”

1.) My best reporting assignment was covering an international business group called “Compass” in a nondescript bank building at 7:30 on a Tuesday morning in 1998. That’s where I met my future wife.

Here’s Boomer!

Tags

current events, dogs, gary matthews, government, here's boomer, humor, media, news, observations, pittsburgh, Stephen Roth, television

When I was a kid, there was a show on NBC called “Here’s Boomer,” about a likeable, shaggy dog who led this wandering, hobo life. It was an unremarkable series, a kind of knock-off on the more popular Benji films of the day. The show had become such an arcane piece of TV trivia, in fact, that I actually thought I might be the only person alive who even remembered or thought about “Here’s Boomer.”

Then I read this article a few days ago, about a Pittsburgh man who was so affected by the show, that he actually decided to become a shaggy dog himself and have his named legally changed to “Boomer.” My first impression upon reading this was, “Boy, the people of Pittsburgh have changed a lot from the tough, hardscrabble steelworkers of the industrial age.” My second thought was, “What a sad, lonely man.” My third thought was, “Well, why not become a dog, if that’s what he wants to do?”

Pittsburgh’s Gary Matthews

I guess you could say I’m a little conflicted about this story. Part of me thinks that, as long as you aren’t doing something that’s destructive, criminal or harmful to somebody else, you should be free to do it. By all accounts, Gary Matthews, or Boomer, just enjoys barking, eating from a bowl on the floor and occasionally sleeping in his dog house. What harm is there in that?

Another part of me, the “judgy” part, thinks perhaps Boomer should get some psychiatric help, and also worries if this story isn’t indicative of a larger trend. There is, after all, a sub-culture of people called Furries who like to wear animal suits and pretend that they are cute, cuddly creatures. Most Furries treat this as a hobby, but what if many of them, like Gary Matthews, decided to pursue their passion full-time? A lot of kids, like Gary and myself, loved “Here’s Boomer,” and the 1976 Disney movie, The Shaggy D.A. Could these media now be considered gateways to a mid-life crisis spent chasing garbage trucks, digging holes in the yard, and marking territory on various hydrants and mailboxes?

The original Boomer

Finally, how does local government respond to activities by men who decide they want to become dogs? Does a leash law go into effect? We can’t just have these Boomers running loose on the city streets, can we?

“It won’t come to that,” you might tell me. “This is an isolated incident,” you might add. But, in this age of social media and attention-seeking me-too-ism, is there really such a thing as an isolated incident? Gary Matthews may be the first American to attempt the transition from man to Man’s Best Friend, but will he be the last?

I think we better have some extra Pooper Scoopers on hand, just in case.

Art Meets Poetry

Tags

art, I need art and coffee, painter, poetry, prose, romare bearden, Stephen Roth

Man, you gotta see these cats blow,
Saturday night at this joint just
beyond the railroad tracks.
Nothing more than a shack, really.
But, man, does the place hop at one-thirty
in the morning with rye whiskey flowing
and these cats playing and everyone
dressed like they’re headed
for a Sunday morning tent revival.
And, bam! The women! Hitching up and grinding
against you to that big, fat, thumping beat,
that one guy playing his alto so sweet
the ladies almost collapse in your arms,
sweaty, dazed, their crimson lips slightly
parted and willing like bulbs awaiting the bee.

You coming with me?

—

Good gracious! God, alive! Have you heard
that serpentine sound that has wrapped its evil
coils around our youth, some barely old enough to drive?
And none old enough to ward off that seductive spell,
the primal drums, that howling screech from horns
no Gabriel would ever blow.
I would not believe it had I not been there myself
on Saturday night,
dressed in a sport coat so as not to raise alarm.
I would not believe it, but there it was: the drinking,
the swearing, the constant pounding of rapacious noise
making the youth of our town press against each other,
waist to waist, hip to hip, rubbing and churning
as if together they might resist the Tempter’s charms.

Good God, almighty. Let us pray.

—

I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s the jacket.
Maybe it’s the booze, or the way we jam together.
Maybe it’s how Sonny hits his high-hat or the way
I run my fingers over the keys and put this horn
to my lips, so natural like I was holding it
when I came screaming into this world.
Maybe it’s ’cause it’s so late,
but something gets ’em worked up.
Look at those girls, running hands over their hips
and battin’ their eyes at me when I know full well
they wouldn’t give me a second look on the bus
or at the department store on a Tuesday morning.
Look at that old buzzard in the plaid jacket,
looking at me like he’d just bit into a crabapple!
Look at all them rosy-cheeked college boys,
with their Southern Comfort,
noddin’ and grinnin’ at me like we was brothers.

Damn, these people are strange.

 

Inspired by I Need Art and Coffee, by Romare Bearden

 

How to Make Facebook Friends and Influence “Likes”

Tags

comments, Facebook, friends, likes, social media

Just cut and paste any of the follow expressions into the comments section of a Facebook friend’s post. Then sit back, relax, and watch the “likes,” friend invites and personal messages come pouring in (Editor’s note: the names and genders in the brackets may not be appropriate. Feel free to personalize when needed):

Happy birthday {Kelly}! Have a magical day!

You look amazing!

Awww, girl! I’m so sorry! Let’s talk soon.

So very cute! Your child is beautiful.

LMFAO! I just snorted something from my nose!

OMG! What is WRONG with her?!

I love that you are so passionate about politics. You are amazing.

Adorable!

Precious!

Too funny!

{She} is so cute! Look at that hair!

I can’t get over how cute {she} is!

So glad the {Yellow Jackets} won! You must be very excited.

What a cutie!

You are strong and beautiful and amazing. {Dwayne} doesn’t deserve you.

Winter Just Around the Corner

Tags

autumn, fall, seasons, Stephen Roth, winter

“See you in May!”

“I’m laying out my winter clothes and wishing I was gone,” is a lyric Paul Simon wrote for the Simon & Garfunkel song, The Boxer. I know what he means. This morning, I pulled out the big plastic bin of my own winter clothes and shuddered at the thought of four or five months of cold weather ahead.

It’s always a sad moment when I have to replace my spring and summer clothes with sweaters, flannels and long-sleeved shirts. If last winter (which ran from December into May in Kansas City) is any indication, it’s going to a very long while before I break out that yellow party shirt with all the boat drinks on it.

Oh, we also had the time change today, which led to our three-year-old waking us at 5:30 in the morning, just like old times. Outside, 30-mile-per-hour winds are blowing orange and yellow leaves into the yard, and the birds have abandoned our feeders for their winter time-shares. The Chiefs won again, but mustered only three field goals with an one-dimensional offense that has “first round playoff loss” written all over it.

It’s now 5:30 p.m. and almost completely dark. I’m exhausted. I think I’m going to go to bed.