Idiom Savant

You Can't Go Home Again, and Vice Versa

I have not been keeping up with They Might Be Giants, so I was a little surprised to learn that they had written a song inspired by my hometown.  Particularly because my hometown never really inspired that much in me.

The conceit of "Venue Songs" is that a mysterious deranged millionaire (played by John Hodgman, pictured above, whose CV reads like a postmillenial hipster's nocturnal emission -- McSweeney's, This American Life, the Daily Show, those "Mac/PC personified" ads I've never seen -- and who speaks in the ne plus ultra of NPR Voices, and who I'm only saying such pissy things about because I secretly want to be him, even though I just learned he existed, like, yesterday) has challenged TMBG to write one new song a day while on tour, to "celebrate the unique character of each venue in which they perform." The venue they played in Asheville was The Orange Peel. (Click on "Asheville" for the song and video. Wistful!)

The Orange Peel is one of about a dozen places in Asheville today where you can go hear interesting music -- places that did not exist while I was growing up there. (Well, the Orange Peel existed, booking acts like the Commodores and the Bar-Kays [post plane crash/"Soulfinger" era] until they closed in the late '70s; the building went through various owners until somebody reopened it as a nightclub a few years ago.) Cool bands did not come to Asheville. There was no place to go and not much to do downtown. At least, that's how it seemed to me.

Starting in the mid-'80s (coincidentally, when I left home), Asheville seemed to transform into a haven for "hip and creative young people." Or was it always like that, and I just wasn't aware of it? Was the transformation as dramatic as it seemed to me? Probably not; the changes were exaggerated as I started visiting less frequently. Someone who comes home to find a new restaurant, say, has a different perspective than a person who, day after day, has watched the restaurant being built from the first brick.

When I tell people where I'm from, they'll usually say something like, "Oh, I love Asheville!" or "That must have been great!" And, in hindsight, it was a pretty good place to grow up -- safe, surrounded by clean air and natural beauty. Of course, I didn't appreciate my hometown when I was a kid. Who does? What's special about it? You don't find that out until you start going other places.

So I don't know how to respond to those people. Yes, Asheville seems like a great town, but I really don't know that much about it anymore. It's not the same town I grew up in. It's changed. Or I have. Maybe both. Probably both.

Still, I'll always be proud to come from the same hometown as Shirley Hemphill. They'll never take that away from me.

Clothes, Minded

Even though you could count on one hand the number of times we've actually been in the same room, Erin is a very good friend of mine.  At least, I claim her as such.  She's also an ace writer and a diabolical genius who controls a multimedia empire from her underground lair in the Midwest.  And you might say that Erin is responsible for this blog's existence in the first place, by way of strongly encouraging me to write stuff online -- not to mention leading by her (stellar) example.

I wish I could participate more in her blog, A Dress A Day.  But I know about as much about the design and making of dresses as I do about, say, metallurgy or singularity theory (not much, if anything).  I still like to visit the blog anyway, just to groove on Erin's prose stylings.  (I like to refer to her as "Miss Teen Wordpower," but I don't know if she likes to be referred to as such.  If not, she has been far too gracious to tell me so.)

I mean, I like looking at pretty things, including pretty dresses, as much as any reasonable person, and I try to appreciate artistry and craftspersonship in all its forms, but I just don't have the vocabulary to talk design.  I guess my cluelessness about the joys and heartbreaks of women's fashion may be a symptom of male privilege (see Mars's blog for a discussion of female privileges) -- I can get away with not paying very much attention to my appearance and still be accepted (mostly) as a functioning member of society.  For instance, I don't often have to think about not being able to find my size (even though not everybody has XXL shirts), which is a headache for a lot of women I know.

Now, thanks to Erin, you can rage against the machine (if by "machine" you mean "stores that don't carry sizes that represent the sizes of actual human women").  You can download her "size cards" and print them out on business card stock (available most places computer paper is sold).  Grassroots activism!  No size left behind!  Kick out the jams, motherfuckers!

Plus, the cards use Copperplate, one of my favorite fonts.  I'm always happy to see Copperplate.  Not like that fuckin' Comic Sans.  Makes me mad just thinking about Comic Sans.  Don't get me started.

As Erin carefully points out, this is not just a big-size vs. small-size problem: "The last thing I want this to be," she says, "... is a sneering war between the larger and the smaller. ... [I]t can be just as hard for people on the 0-2 end of the spectrum to find clothes, plus there's not as much sympathy."  Also, you've got your differential between the waist and hips -- not to mention the chest.  (Again, all things I don't typically have to worry about.  Although I do try frequently to not mention the chest, just so I don't get slapped so often.)

I should wrap this up with a snappy tagline about how Independence Day is coming up, and how you can declare your independence from the tyranny of... something, but I'm having trouble sloganeering.  Erin, if you need help with The Manifesto, I'd be happy to work on it a little longer.

Oh, and... sorry about the patriarchy, ladies.  Our bad.

Livin' Just Enough for Sesame Street

This is probably the most amazing thing you will see today.  Tomorrow, too.

Stevie Wonder, servin' up a tasty slice of the hot soul funk to the kids on Sesame Street.  This was 1973, apparently.  I was 4 or 5, and if I saw it, it probably meant nothing to me.  I was not ready for Stevie then.

You know who was ready for Stevie then? Check out the kid on the stairs, in the red shirt, with the Joey Ramone haircut.  Dude is stone gettin' down.  Kids in the city are always ahead of us provincial types.

A commenter on the YouTube page says that's a young Ray Parker, Jr. on guitar (pre-Raydio and "Ghostbusters").  The guy playing lead, wearing an onion bulb on his head, not the Richard Brautigan-looking white guy playing rhythm. Ray did do session work with Stevie, so it's possible.

Putting aside the novelty of it being on "Sesame Street," that's just an astounding performance of that song.  With July 4th around the corner, I'm starting to think about the reasons I'm glad to be an American, and this is one of them -- this country produced Stevie Wonder.

Bonus!

Stevie wraps things up with the "Sesame Song."

I'm just... wow.  Goddamn.  That is hot, right there.

Update: This just keeps getting better.  On bass is Anthony Jackson, who I'd admittedly never heard of before but is apparently legendary.  The reason why this is awesome is that he's also the guy who played bass on the O'Jays' "For the Love of Money," with that amazing echo-laden intro, which you've heard if you've watched "The Apprentice."

White Lines (Don't Do Me)

Time for a Blogthings sampler! First up... 

Your Personality Is Like Cocaine

You're dynamic, brilliant, and alluring to those who don't know you. Hyper and full of energy, you're usually the last one to leave a party. Sometimes your sharp mind gets the better of you... you're a bit paranoid!

What Drug Is Your Personality Like?

Yup, they've got me pegged, except for the part where this is complete bullshit. "Hyper and full of energy?" Mais non. I think the drug that my personality is like is still being brainstormed in an underground CIA lab.

Next up, a little numerology:

Your Birthdate: October 31

You're a pretty traditional person. If it's lasted, it's probably good. You seek stability - both in your career and your romantic relationship. In return, you're very loyal and predictable. Which is usually a good thing. Without a partner, you feel lost. Being with someone is very important to you. Your strength: Your dependability Your weakness: You hate being alone Your power color: Midnight blue Your power symbol: Shell Your power month: April

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

April was my power month? Uh-oh. I should have done more, like, power stuff. Like, with shells and all. Midnight blue is a pretty boss color, though. I don't care who you are.

And now... hope you saved room for pie!

You Are Mud Pie

You're the perfect combo of flavor and depth Those who like you give into their impulses

What Kind of Pie Are You?

Well, I think most people who know me would say I'm actually pecan pie.

Man.  Now I'm all hungry.  Hungry... for cocaine!!
 

Say It at a Reasonable Volume -- I'm Introverted and I'm Proud

Perhaps you were not aware that there is an incipient Introvert Rights movement.

Before you ask, I have no idea what my Myers-Briggs type is. I've taken the official MBTI a couple of times, and I've taken various online tests based on the same approach to typology. Every time I take the test, I turn up at a different place on each type spectrum (e.g., one time I'll be "thinking," the next I'll be "feeling") -- except for one, the Introversion-Extroversion spectrum. I can be borderline S/N, T/F or J/P, but I'm never anything but introverted, by a staggering degree.

The Atlantic article linked above -- which I highly recommend, and which I can't believe took me this long to find -- argues that there is a cultural bias against introverts. Introverts can understand extroverts; in most cases, we have no choice, since extroversion is held up to us as the ideal which we introverts are failing miserably to achieve. I've often said (quietly, mostly to myself) that the problem is that most people see introversion as a deficiency -- as a lack of extroversion.  But it's not.  It's an entirely different scheme of brain-wiring.  It's about how we take in the world and recharge our batteries.  Extroverts do it through interaction; introverts do it through introspection.  (Which would make a lousy bumper sticker for the Introvert Rights movement.)

Which doesn't mean we're antisocial or misanthropic (although sometimes we are) or that we don't enjoy other people's company.  We just get exhausted by socialization. In a later interview, Rauch quotes a line from Waiting for Godot: "Don't talk to me. Don't speak to me. Stay with me."

(At least, he claims it's from Waiting for Godot; however, I just looked up the text of the play online and couldn't find that line.  Further research is required. Update: It's there, sort of, in the second act -- the actual line is, "Don't touch me! Don't question me! Don't speak to me! Stay with me!" Estragon says it. Thank you, alert commenter Rupert.)

Rauch goes on to say, "To me those words sum up the introvert impulse. We love people -- we're not misanthropic for the most part. We just can't socialize with them all the time. We want to hold their hand or hug them or just sit quietly and read a book with them."

Fifteen years ago, my big sister got married in the South in the middle of the summer.  I spent the entire day in a black wool tuxedo, but that didn't tire me out nearly as much as having to play the part of Brother to the Bride.  It was made clear to me that there were certain Expectations -- unlike the way I behaved most of the time, I had to be social and chatty and engaged and happy and help make sure the guests were having a good time.  I don't think I had ever been more tired in my life than I was after that.  After the reception, some of the other groomsmen and bridesmaids and whatnot were planning to hit a local bar for more merriment.  I was exhausted, and begged off.  One of the groom's friends looked at me scornfully and said, "How old are you again?"  Asshole.  I had pretty much hated that guy anyway since the first time I met him (my big brother, a near clone of me psychologically, felt the same way, and of course we expressed it not by getting in the asshole's face about it but by making incredibly funny and vicious jokes at his expense, quietly, to each other).

The asshole just didn't get it.  His entire life, he had been rewarded for being a gregarious jerk, so the non-gregarious must be weak and worthy of scorn.  (This guy was a Texan, which didn't help matters.)

My introversion probably isn't a surprise to most of you reading this who know me (most of whom are probably introverts, or lean toward introversion, yourselves).  Although I think I can do pretty well in social situations -- I can fake it if I need to.  One thing I've noticed is that I'd rather hang out in groups of three or more; when I'm not technically responsible for half of the conversation, I can hang back and add color commentary when necessary.  ("Triangulation," I call this.)  Which is probably not fair to the people who are doing all the heavy lifting in the conversation.  But I like observing and listening.

Anyway. The Atlantic article has a lot of other great stuff I could talk about, but you should really just go read it yourself.

I Am Not Bemused... Or Am I?

It occurred to me that, unlike many of my friends, I don't do much blogging about my day-to-day life.  Mostly, it's because I'm pretty lazy, and I don't do very much.  Seriously.  My days just tend to not get filled up with activities.  I'm pretty okay with that, however.  I don't want to write too much about work, and I don't really intend to get into specifics about my dating life (if only to preserve for myself the illusion that I actually have a dating life). 

I dunno.  I am supposed to be a writer, or something; maybe if I did more actual stuff, I'd have more to write about.  Maybe I should go to sea.  Worked for Melville.  Anyway.

Yesterday, however, was a pretty action-packed day, by my standards, anyway.  Mostly because I had just gotten paid, and I had a backlog of stuff to do that required money.  The majority of it centered around getting Beige Thunder (note: that's not my actual car, but it's pretty similar) street-legal, with updated tags.

First step: pay off outstanding Orange Co. vehicle tax, so they can remove the hold on me getting a new sticker.  At least, I thought that was where the hold was coming from; it turns out it may have been something else.  (Foreshadowing!)  Anyway, I pay that shit online, and then later I leave work early to get to the license plate place in University Mall before they close.

Once I get through the line (it wasn't too bad) and talk to the clerk, I realize I have two problems:

1: There's an emissions penalty on my record.  See, here's the thing.  I had a little problem last year when somebody broke one of my taillights, and it took me a while before I could get it fixed.  Unfortunately, that time was after my previous inspection sticker had expired.  And in this state, if you don't get your vehicle inspected in a timely fashion, they're going to want some money from you.  (Really, if nothing else, let this post be a cautionary tale.)  So, on top of the vehicle tax I paid earlier, I was going to be out a couple hundred more -- plus I think they snuck another penalty for something else in there while I wasn't looking.  Whatever; I was surely guilty of whatever it was.

2:  They only take cash and checks.  I have neither. 

I excuse myself politely, run to the ATM and run back.  Since I was dropping so much money already, I figure "what the heck" and ask them to throw in one of those fetching NC flag plates for the front of the car (to replace the ugly dealership tag I had been wanting to get rid of for a while).

So, that unfortunate episode is behind me; my car is fully legal for at least another few months.  I no longer have to feel nervous when a cop pulls up behind me at a light, unless I'm using the cigarette lighter to cook up some crystal meth.  Again.

"Wow, Jerry," you are probably saying at this point.  "That's quite an adventure!  You'd think it would be pretty dull reading, seeing as how it's basically just you dealing with the DMV, but you make it sing!  The words leap off the screen and nestle in my lap like fuzzy kitties!  Etc.!  Surely, there can't be any more to this tale -- for how many raw thrills can one human soul endure in one day?"

But there was more.  There was Laundry.

Actually, there's not much to say about laundry.  I did manage to move my nemesis down another notch on the High Scores screen on Trivia Whiz.  But, really, the best part was finding that there was a black ballpoint pen in one of the dryers I was using.

And it wasn't just tumbling around in there.  It was jammed into the drum, cap off, inky side out, so as to cause maximum mayhem.  That's what made me suspect that someone had done it intentionally, perhaps as part of a larger social statement on how none of us is truly clean, our souls are all tainted, etc.  To that person, I say: Well played, sir (or madam)!  You have certainly made me reassess the human race.  Well, not the entire human race; just the people who jam pens into dryers so they can mark up clothes with little black lines.  My conclusion is that those people are pretty much jerks.

Was this the dryer into which I had placed my whites?  Yes, this was the dryer into which I had placed my whites.

But: I took a walk later, and on the way home, as darkness settled about, I saw my first lightning bugs of the season.  So that made things a little better.

Not to change the subject (well, actually, to change the subject), I'm a little concerned about what's happening to the word "bemused."  For years, I assumed that to be "bemused" meant something like "to have feelings of wry or tolerant amusement."  I had a pretty big stake in that belief, seeing as how I am composed of approximately 90 percent wry amusement (with trace amounts of shame, regret, terror and cat-hair allergies).  When somebody told me that I "personify bemusement," I felt he had summed me up pretty well. 

So I was pretty dismayed to learn, a few years ago, that "bemused" meant nothing of the sort.  It actually means confused, distracted, absorbed.  Which makes sense, upon analysis -- if you're "musing" on something, you're absorbed by it, so you can become "bemused" much like a ship can be "becalmed."  Usage expert Bryan Garner is unambiguous on this: "bemused" is not "a fancy variant of 'amuse'."

I think the confusion stems from the fact that the "bemused" rhymes with "amused." It's like entrapment.

Anyway.  I have tried to come to terms with the loss of my preferred definition of "bemused."  I still don't know of any word that does mean what I thought "bemused" meant, however.  There's probably some obvious word that I'll kick myself when I hear, but "bemused" is off-limits for describing the wry amusement.

Or so I thought, until I looked it up in my M-W Collegiate (11th ed.) the other day:

be-muse vt 1: to make confused: PUZZLE, BEWILDER  2: to occupy the attention of: DISTRACT, ABSORB  3: to cause to have feelings of wry or tolerant amusement (italics added)

I'm, like, holy shit!  I'm pretty sure what's happening is that the notoriously descriptivist Webster's is just, once again, caving in to sloppy usage to change the definition of a word.  (I'm kind of torn on the whole descriptivism vs. proscriptivism debate, anyway, but I lean toward proscriptivism because I like the fact that words have specific meanings, and I don't want to reward the misuse of language, and mostly because a world in which definitions are constantly changing makes me feel small and afraid.)  The third definition of "bemuse" does not appear in the 9th edition of the same dictionary (don't know about the 10th) , and none of the other current dictionaries I consulted has that sense, either.  MWCD 11 is in the vanguard.

So, I should be pumped that I'm finally getting a word to describe 90 percent of my personality -- and, as a bonus, it's the word I wanted to use in the first place!  On the other hand, I don't like seeing the language being corrupted before my eyes.

I am confused and absorbed by this, but at the same time I'm wryly amused at myself for taking it this seriously.  Yes, I am bemused by this in all three senses of the word.

My Life Could Be Your Band

(or: Behind the Ill-Conceived and Badly-Played Music)

When I heard that Billy Preston died, it, of course, reminded me of myself. Specifically, it reminded me of the time that the father of a high-school friend said that my keyboard playing reminded him of Billy Preston. Time has only served to magnify the extent to which this comparison was not at all apt; perhaps the rest of the statement was "if Billy Preston were hit on the head with a mallet and tied in a large sack."

I was not a good keyboard player, is basically what I'm trying to tell you here. I have also been a not-good percussionist, a not-good vocalist and a not-good bass guitar player. Below, for the first time, a chronology of my career to date, tracing the roots of my lack of musical genius.

Pre-1976: Early Solo Work. Somewhere in the North Carolina mountains, there are some cassette tapes featuring a 6- or 7-year-old boy singing kids' songs (the titles of which are lost to history). Look to find these tapes no more, for they are almost certainly gone. As a third child, my childhood was under-documented; I think my parents had worn themselves out taking pictures of my older two siblings. I also grew up before the proliferation of home video recording and after the peak of 8-mm home movie filming. Add a mother given to frequent all-encompassing cleaning purges, and you'll find very little evidence that I was a child at all. Sometimes I wonder if I was, myself.

1976: The Third Grade Is Pretending To Be Chickens. It's hard to remember a time when this country wasn't gripped by Ray Stevens mania, but back in 1976 the fever was just reaching the hinterlands. You all, of course, know his revolutionary version of the big band classic "In the Mood," with the melody clucked by chickens. Our third grade teacher, being in tune with the national zeitgeist, saw an opportunity and had some of us lip-sync the number onstage at the school talent show. I don't remember wearing full chicken costumes, but I'm pretty sure there were construction-paper beaks, at least. I also don't remember if we won, although it hardly seems likely. And I'm not making this up; there were witnesses.

Summer, 1977: Early Middle-Period Solo Work. On the penultimate night at a week-long sleepaway camp for Episcopal kids, the talent show copied the format of "The Gong Show." (Was it 1977? Help me out, King Vitaman.) This was my number, in its entirety:

"It's so lonesome in the saddle
Since my horse died."

What could the judges do but award me first place? Naught. I think my prize was a free tiny steel can of Donald Duck orange juice. My horrible secret, however, was that I had ripped off an actual "Gong Show" act that my family had been laughing about for the past year or so. Good artists borrow; great artists steal outright.

1986: The Screaming Parentheses. This was the year I got compared to Billy Preston, God help us both. It was also a year in which keyboard synthesizers were becoming available to high schoolers with particularly indulgent parents. Mark -- one of the new-waviest kids with one of the floppiest haircuts -- had some keyboards, and Lee had a drum machine. I had nothing… nothing but moxie! (Note: I didn't actually have much moxie.) The great promise of electronic music was that any grouping of two or more pasty white boys could, one day, be the next Tubeway Army or Cabaret Voltaire. Unfortunately, our sleepy little mountain town was not ready for the next Cabaret Voltaire, or indeed even for the actual Cabaret Voltaire.

Anyway, it was out of this promise that The Screaming Parentheses were born. Well, at first we called ourselves "Horizontal Staircase," but this new name had a symbol -- (!). Mark wrote all our songs, seeing as he was the only one who actually knew how to play the keyboards at all. Our best song was called "Fallwell Should Be Shot," and that's the one we chose to take to the school's talent show that year. I don't think we were even remotely serious about our chances of winning -- we were provocateurs, man.

My main part in "Falwell" consisted of exactly two alternating notes (as well as screaming "Shot!" at appropriate times during the chorus). It was definitely a background part, but at the talent show we screwed up and set the levels on our Radio Shack mixer so that my keyboard was the loudest thing in the mix, drowning out even Mark's lead vocals. Fitting, since I was, of course, the least competent musician on stage. I also had the solo in the song, which was me basically hitting the two notes I had already been playing in a slightly different pattern, adding in other surrounding keys that I thought might sound good. I think I also did one of those things where I took my finger and ran it up the keyboard (kind of like in the intro to "Let's Go Crazy.") This may be what drew the Billy Preston comparison from Mark's father.

Our performance bewildered and angered the audience, which was pretty much exactly what we were hoping for. I don't need to tell you that we didn't win. I think the winner that year was some girl who sang "Memory" from Cats, because every talent show during those years was won by some girl who sang "Memory" from Cats. A couple of years later, somebody actually did shoot Jerry Falwell, but I don't think the Screaming Parentheses drove him to it.

A couple of years later, Lee, who also played drums, and Mark started playing with an older guy, a pretty talented guitarist who was, I think, the first documented punk at my high school. Their band, One-Legged Santa, worked up a repertoire of reverb-laden psychobilly songs that I didn't figure out until later were all Cramps covers -- or, more precisely, covers of Cramps covers of old crazy rockabilly songs. They were awesome.

1990: Biffen Gjaney. (Pronounced "Biff 'n' Janey." Long story.) A band started from some jam sessions that my senior-year college roommate, a bassist (now a physics professor), had with a guitarist (now a potter) and his friend, a singer (now a TV director). Eventually, a couple of violinists came on board, and I was allowed to tag along because I had recently bought some used bongos (pictured above; the stickers were all mine). Later, I brought along a snare drum I borrowed from Lee. I also wrote the lyrics for some songs, including "Another Song About Unrequited Love" and "I Like Dogs;" alas, I do not have copies of these lyrics, and I don't think they ever recorded those songs. Some of our other songs, like "Just Another Wednesday," "Get Back Home to You" and "Tracks," were quite catchy and good.

But the important thing to remember about my career as a percussionist is this: I was not good at keeping time, which was a drawback since that's kind of the percussionist's main responsibility. The guitarist was justifiably alarmed to find out that I was trying to follow along with him while he was trying to follow me. Thus we were chasing each other down the rabbit hole of gradually unraveling tempo.

Eventually the band decided that they wanted a fuller sound, and they generously asked me if I wanted to try to learn how to play a drum kit, probably hoping I'd say "no." It made sense for me to leave, since I also had the comedy troupe going on at the same time and I was also about to flunk a crucial lit class. So I left the band amicably, and then they started getting paying gigs.

One of the violinists became a professional musician; she now tours with nationally-known artists and has played on albums that many of you probably own.

1990: The Golden Archies. A "side project," with me, the bassist from Biffen Gjaney, and our friend, a singer/songwriter/guitarist. We performed once, at the campus radio station. My main artistic contribution was to suggest that we introduce "(I'm Not Your) Stepping Stone" by saying, "This is a song the Sex Pistols stole from the Monkees. We're gonna steal it back" (c.f. U2 introducing "Helter Skelter" in Rattle and Hum).

2005: The Bass. As a fan of James Jamerson and Donald "Duck" Dunn, I had often suspected that my instrument -- my "axe," if you will -- would end up being the bass. I'm pretty good at going "doot doot doot" along with the bass parts of most songs. In '05, my then-girlfriend, herself a guitarist (owner of a bitchin' Danelectro), loaned me her bass and a practice amp, along with a circa early-'60s Mel Bay book to get me started. (I still maintain that "my girlfriend loaned me her bass" is one of the coolest things a human being can say.) And I tried, honest. But learning a musical instrument is hard, and I am so very lazy. Eventually, we broke up and she took her bass back home, which was probably for the best. Between that and my performance as a percussionist, I think it will be a while before I can be safely entrusted with a groove, if ever.

2006: Guitar Hero. At a party with Stewpants, attempted to play this game. Being as how I do like the rock and roll, I figured this is one non-Tempest, non-trivia video game at which I could acquit myself fairly well. I was wrong. After trying to get through "More Than a Feeling," "Killer Queen" and "I Wanna Be Sedated," it was obvious that I should just go back to playing Jenga, another game I'm no good at.

2006 and Beyond: ? I keep promising VD that I'm going to adapt the lyrics to "Bela Lugosi's Dead" to be a Christmas carol ("Père Noël Est Mort"). Do I mean it, or will I continue to be the King of Empty Promises? Only time will tell.

Rest in peace, Billy.

Because Nobody Has Ever Reminisced About the '80s on the Internet Before

Gentle readers, I here present today's Friday Five, complete with colourful British spellings:

1) Favourite movie of the 1980s?

Definitely Brazil. Which reminds me that I haven't seen it in a while and need to do so soon.

2) Favourite musician/group of the 1980s?

I think this is probably going to have to be XTC. I was dimly aware of them from the "Senses Working Overtime" video, but I got hooked when I picked up "Go 2" on vinyl, used (from Record Survival on Merrimon Ave. in Asheville, the wellspring of a lot of my fledgling music snobbery). Around the same time, "Earn Enough for Us" came out and sealed the deal. I haven't dug their post-'80s work all that much; I was pretty disappointed by "Nonsvch" and my enthusiasm just sort of trailed off. Because I am a feckless man with no loyalty to anything.

Although I also have to mention Elvis Costello (first purchase: "Trust" on cassette, summer '85, during a field trip to Hanes Mall in Winston-Salem during Governor's School).

3) Favourite TV show of the 1980s?

"You Can't Do That On Television." By 1982 or so, I already had an image of myself as a Writer of Comedy (hasn't really worked out that way so far, except unintentionally) and was working toward building a reputation as Class Wit. So I was pretty much in front of the TV every time this show was on Nickelodeon, which was most of the time in the early '80s. I wanted to write for the show; I wanted to be on the show; I wanted to meet and woo Moose, who started me down the path of crushing on smart, funny women that would eventually lead to Misses Garofalo and Vowell. Besides the bewitching music of Rush and the antics of Bob and Doug McKenzie, this was my first exposure to the cultural offerings of our enchanting neighbor to the north. (Canada.)

4) Favourite invention of the 1980s?

Either the compact disc standard or the World Wide Web, which bookend the decade. I'm having a hard time thinking of other inventions of the '80s, besides perhaps Ecstasy or the junk bond.

5) World Event from the 1980s that stands out in your mind?

Many of them do (hostages in Iran, Reagan getting shot, the Berlin Wall), but the first thing I thought of was the Challenger disaster. I remember I was home that day (either because I was sick or it was a snow day) and flipping through the channels. I flipped past some footage of the space shuttle taking off, which I had seen like a hundred times before; the shuttle was old news by 1986, boring. Then the phone rang, and it was my dad asking me if I was watching TV. I went back to the set and saw the whole thing. Over and over and over. The very next day, my friends were already telling sick jokes about it ("Why do they drink Sprite at NASA?") I also remember being impressed by the eloquence of Reagan's "slipped the surly bonds of Earth" speech, until I found out much later that he was ripping off a poem. Later that year, I wrote a poem (free-verse, natch) for the high school literary magazine, likening the Challenger to Icarus. See, 'cause they both flew, and then fell down. It was pretty much exactly as appalling as it sounds, if not more so, as was most of my life during high school, come to think of it.