Nevermind the Past

Now that it’s 20 years after the fact, I have a scathing confession: When Nirvana’s Nevermind was unleashed on the world in 1991, I couldn’t have cared less.

This is a statement that will draw disgusted looks from my eventual children, the kind of scowls I directed at my father when he told me he never listened to Jimi Hendrix or Led Zeppelin in his late teens and early twenties. This is a statement that, when simply blurted out amongst grunge enthusiasts or anyone that rolled through their own puberty in the early 1990s, may seem sacrilegious. The record’s release and accompanying buzz surrounding Nirvana was a major, culture-shifting event. The album’s searing guitar riffs provided a soundtrack for teenagers to part their greasy hair down the middle, wear long-sleeved t-shirts under short-sleeved tees, and, in many cases, hate their parents. It was a big, freaking, sweaty deal—and I didn’t care that much about it.

Do I have a defense for this past transgression? Excuses? Sure, just like my father probably has excuses for not finding Hendrix enlightening or Zeppelin hypnotic. When I go over explanations in my head, they all make a certain amount of sense. But, regardless of their validity, when I listen to the remastered Nevermind (released yesterday) scorch forth today, I’m still embarrassed.

I didn’t take to Nirvana—or to their breakout release—as quickly as I should’ve for a multitude of reasons. This isn’t to say I wasn’t aware of them. As a 13-year-old boy at St. Mary of the Lake elementary school, the only things I cared about were basketball, the Buffalo Bills, girls, and MTV—probably in that order. In the fall of 1991, MTV started playing Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” video about as regularly as they broadcast Teen Mom marathons today. It was seemingly on every hour and, since I spent endless hours watching the station’s after-school programming, I saw Kurt Cobain’s flopping blonde hair and green-striped t-shirt inside a televised gymnasium on a daily basis. I watched a young Dave Grohl violently attack his drum kit; Krist Novoselic drunkenly sway back and forth with his bass. Anarchist cheerleaders thumped and gyrated around them, while an audience of greasy teens waited in front of them as contents of a veritable powder keg of rebellious angst.

The scene was the most accessible representation of pure evil I’d ever seen and, as a brown-eyed Catholic school kid who was then-dazzled by Queen’s re-released “Bohemian Rhapsody”, I wasn’t ready for it. I wasn’t ready to abandon basketball camps for all-ages shows, and I wasn’t ready embrace the anger that comes with being a frustrated, suburban teenager. Unfortunately, when those days arrived, I adopted an anti-Nirvana stance to accompany my rebellion.

By 1993, I had spent two years knee-deep in classic rock patronage, surrounding myself with Hendrix, Led Zeppelin and Beatles cassette tapes. I stopped listening to Monday Night Football on the radio as I fell asleep and, instead, listened to Axis: Bold As Love and Led Zeppelin III as I laid in bed and stared at my bedroom ceiling. I borrowed every one of my father’s Beatles records, and tried to educate uninformed friends of mine why the gibberish-laden and nonsensical “I Am The Walrus” was such a great song.

From this musical entry, I leap-frogged Nirvana and, instead, inhaled their grunge contemporaries and overlooked forefathers of the newly-coined alternative rock scene. After wearing out Pearl Jam’s Ten and Vs., I found albums by Dinosaur Jr., The Pixies, Ned’s Automic Dustbin, and Sonic Youth. After listening to this quartet of underappreciated bands, I started to rail against Nirvana for getting so much credit for popularizing a style of music already mastered by others. I was an argumentative teenager eager to take an unconventional stance, so I decided to degrade Nirvana to anyone who would listen. As I saw it, it was as if they were anointed as innovators because MTV and an entire generation needed their defining act; their Rolling Stones or Beatles or Led Zeppelin. But Nirvana wasn’t the Stones or Zeppelin. And, they certainly weren’t the Beatles.

But, on the days following April 5^th, 1994, media outlets made sure Kurt Cobain became Generation X’s answer to John Lennon. After the frontman was found dead inside his Seattle-area home from a self-inflicted shotgun blast to the head, hoards of fans and television hosts compared the impact of Cobain’s death to that of Lennon’s. This made me hate Nirvana even more, and augmented my already fervent belief that their historical relevance was media-driven. Compare a guy who selfishly blew his head off to a guy who, after transforming pop culture, rock music, and his own life over a 20-year period, was senselessly gunned down on his way home from work by a deranged lunatic? Such comparison should’ve been viewed as patently ridiculous, but it was genuinely adopted and regurgitated by magazines like Rolling Stone and People.

I was two years old when Lennon died in 1980. Even today, his death still makes me sad. I was inside my grandparents’ apartment in Greensboro, North Carolina when Cobain was announced dead. I barely flinched when I heard the news.

So what changed my stance? Compassion, maturity and eventual connection. Months after Cobain’s death, the band released their MTV Unplugged album, which provided an opportunity for people like myself to digest Nirvana’s material much differently. Cobain’s somber vocals and delicate strumming on the record serves as the band’s unintentional requiem. It was an emotional performance released so soon after the band’s leader perished, and I connected with material delivered by a guy I'd never connected with before. (If you’re not moved by Cobain’s rendition of “Where Did You Sleep Last Night?” you’re most likely dead inside.)

As I grew older in the years that followed the Unplugged album, I went back to Bleach, Nevermind and In Utero. (I now own all of these albums.) Now past the pubescent pressures of conforming to cultural trends—and away from the omnipresent media reminder of what’s supposedly relevant—I’ve been able to appreciate pieces of each work for their lyrics, instrumentation, or raw, unhinged tenacity. Gone is my ardent stance against the band’s anointed relevance (although I still believe Ned’s Automic Dustbin is unforgivably overlooked), and gone is my lack of acceptance of the band’s material as epic.

With Nevermind in particular, the album should be understood as nothing less than a rock standard. Its contents set a decade in motion by infusing punk rock presentation with layered texture and raw emotion. The jarring “Teen Spirit” is followed by the gnarling, yet innocent head-bob beat of “In Bloom”; the dark “Come As You Are” slows things down before “Breed” steps on the gas again; “Lithium” and “Polly” stands you still before “Territorial Pissings” sends you flying head-first through a plate-glass window. “Lounge Act”, “Stay Away” and “On A Plain” extend this destructive pace until “Something In The Way” brings you to a somber halt. It’s an album, not a collection of iTunes tracks. It’s a mood established by a band who helped establish the ethos of an entire decade.

I accept this now. Do I have the luxury of reminiscing about my own youth altered by this album? No. But, I understand why this album was so transformative for many who came of age amidst my youth. I now officially care about Nevermind, albeit 20 years after its release.

Better late than never.

Authors note: This entry was completed while listening to Nirvana's Nevermind . . . over and over and over again.

An Introduction to Contradiction

I hate blogs.

Why? Well, I’ve never understood their functionality. At their inception, they provided outlets for individuals who are not trained writers to masquerade as actual writers. People whose opinions were previously shackled to a barstool or supermarket aisle were now out there for all to see, scatting across computer keypads and zinging previously untouchable entities.

Have an opinion about the Democrats, Charlie Sheen or the New York Yankees? Blog about it. Do you like peanut butter, kittens or kayaking? Delicious; get your words out there, dammit. Let your voice be heard through terrible spelling, syntax and story progression. Who cares if you end every sentence with an exclamation point? You’ve got gripes that need to be broadcast on the worldwide Web, baby!

But, things have changed a bit since the first blogger huddled in his basement, flanked by a bottle of Mr. Pibb and a tub of cheese balls. Blogging has become a viable form of reporting and publishing. Experienced reporters, authors and poets now forward their work through blogs. They broadcast factual information or edited storylines for discriminating eyes, and this professional progression has given the often vain exhale of blogging a vein of legitimacy.

With this entry, I hope to join this aforementioned march of authenticity. I’m ready to write detailed, informed pieces about things I’m qualified to report on like music, sports or fiction. If not, I may just post a bunch of nonsensical, rolling stories about the city of Buffalo and Notre Dame football, or one 275-page argument against the historical distortion of the once-great career of Phil Collins. Either way, I’m an out-of-work writer with nowhere to go. I need this blog, and it will now exist as my home.

If you’re concerned about my credibility, be not afraid. Though I may miss a typo or sentence fragment from time to time, I have a BA in Journalism and an MFA in Creative Writing; I’ve been employed as an editor, newspaper reporter, proposal writer or copywriter for the greater part of nine years; I’ve published one rambling, fictional glorification of Buffalo (Running with Buffalo), and have another novel on the way. As I sit here and type this humble introduction, I am dressed in swarthy, worn-out clothing purchased with writer money. I’ve lived this life for a while, so please trust that I’ll post writing that doesn’t absolutely waste your time. (Note: The word “absolutely” should be understood as subjective.)

Over the coming years, I’ll have some stories to tell. I’ve recently returned to the beloved home (Buffalo, NY) I left 11 years ago, so this should provide fodder for a variety of entries. I also returned amidst one of our fine country’s worst economic downturns—without a job. This should also provide some material, albeit much more vulgar in nature. Mixed in with these tales will be reports on the eventual publication of my second novel, entitled When the Lights Go Out, as well as a controlled diatribe on music, travel, sports, and general barstool concerns.

With each submission into the crowded blogosphere, I hope to inform while giving you, the reader, a voice to relate to. If I can do that, maybe I can entertain individuals like you—and change the pessimistic perceptions of people like me.

Stay tuned for the results. Until then, thank you for stopping by the Farrell Street blog.

Author’s note: This entry was completed while listening to the Rolling Stones' "Torn and Frayed" and Bob Dylan’s “Abandoned Love”:

Won’t you descend from the throne from where you sit

Let me feel your love one more time

Before I abandon it

Life, Love & Music Through "High Fidelity" (Take 2)

(*Author's note: This was previously posted, but since I was just talking about this piece recently, I'm re-posting it.)

I’ve always connected with music and film better than I have with literature. It’s a bond I formed as early as I can remember anything. (As I type this sentence, I can recall, in detail, sitting at Rich Stadium in Buffalo, waiting for Michael Jackson to take the stage. I was five years old.) I don’t remember any particular feeling infiltrating my body when I read Johnny Tremain or On The Beach, but I do remember the enthusiasm accompanying the first CDs I purchased: The Beatles’ Revolver and Smashing Pumpkins Siamese Dream—picked up simultaneously at Media Play in 1993. I also have no recollection of a single sentence in The Picture of Dorian Gray, but can recite full scenes of dialogue from countless John Hughes or Jim Sheridan films. Most of my fondest memories have been either scored with a specific soundtrack, or have gained their prominence because their moves and moments have been akin to some of my favorite movie scenes. Consider the following:

Example #1: Early in high school, my friends and I used to smuggle canned beer and Camel Lights into this dingy pool hall south of downtown Buffalo. Every time we were there, Pink Floyd’s “Money” blared from jukebox speakers at least one time. To this day, I can never hear that song without thinking of chain smoking or sipping on warm cans of Red Dog.

Example #2: When I was in the 10th grade, I hit a key 18-foot jump shot from the left wing in a local basketball battle against rival Orchard Park, which gave me a starring role in my own personal version of Hoosiers. As I type these words, I can still mentally take myself to the spot on the hardwood, hear the delirious roar of the crowd around me.

My point in detailing this historical connection is that, before picking up Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity for the first time in 2000, I’d never inhaled a book like I inhaled, say, The Clash’s The Clash; I never had encountered a literary protagonist I related with the same way I related with John Cusack’s Lloyd Dobler in Say Anything. In Hornby’s story, I found conversations I’ve had, odd philosophical musings I’ve been tortured or entertained by. In Hornby’s Rob, I saw a character who broke people down by their pop culture tastes, a practice I’ve (rightly or wrongly) engaged in since high school. Put both of those aforementioned points together and you have a relationship between me and this work. It’s a relationship between reader and novel to designate a social classification of me, something Hornby’s Rob does with other individuals throughout High Fidelity. He uses pop culture tastes to identify people, as well as himself and his own feelings. In his actions and in this novel’s narrative, I see much of myself, as I will detail in the following pages. If life is to be understood as an art form, I’d like to compare some of the thoughts and events formed throughout my own existence to the pop culture-infused trials and trivializations of Rob.

Near the beginning of this novel (page 25), Rob introduces a theory I’ve considered so many times in so many instances, spinning any number of songs by U2, Buffalo Tom, Bob Dylan, The Guess Who, Dinosaur Jr., Bruce Springsteen, The Rolling Stones, Van Morrison, etc. “People worry about kids playing with guns, and teenagers watching violent videos; we are scared that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands—literally thousands—of songs about broken hearts and rejection and misery and loss. The unhappiest people I know, romantically speaking, are the ones who like pop music the most; and I don’t know whether pop music has caused this unhappiness, but I do know that they’ve been listening to sad songs longer than they’ve been living the unhappy lives” (25).

This is obviously a “what came first, the chicken or the egg” argument, but it’s one many people, romanced by the storylines of films and lyrics of songs, have probably had with themselves. I’m no different. In late grammar school and early high school, I looked for girls who invoked an Andrew McCarthy-in-Pretty-In-Pink-like gaze out of me; I wanted to feel the same kind of yearn for a girl Bruce Springsteen oozed in “I’m On Fire.” Unrealistic at 14 and 15 years old? Absolutely, but it didn’t stop me from becoming a mix tape-making machine, crafting balanced playlists and borrowing the thoughts of rock legends to express my innermost feelings for girl A, B or C. The problem with relying on the interpreted lyrics and arrangements of drunken frontmen and drug-addled guitarists was that, ultimately, they never came back properly reciprocated. The Edge’s swirling guitar solo in “All I Want Is You” provides (for some) a chance for that movie-like embrace with a lover, when the world stands still as two individuals chosen by pure fate touch lips and fade off into ecstasy. But, this isn’t reality; not mine, anyway. One of my most detrimental feelings of rejection, still burned into the depths of my memory, came with that song as a soundtrack. A beautiful cross-town cheerleader who I’d tenaciously pursued with every romantic trick in the book turned me down cold at a local garage party as Bono wailed from a small picnic radio. Though I still love that song, it always evokes that pain of adolescent rejection, tormenting me more than an unsecured revolver or violent film ever could.

Later on in this novel, Rob notes his aforementioned habit of classifying people by their pop culture tastes, something he discusses routinely with his lone employees at Championship Vinyl, musical introvert Dick and the bombastic and extroverted Barry. “A while back, when Dick and Barry and I agreed that what really matters is what you like, not what you are like, Barry proposed the idea of a questionnaire for prospective partners, a two- or three-page multiple-choice document that covered all the music/film/TV/book bases. It was intended a) to dispense with awkward conversation, and b) to prevent a chap from leaping into bed with someone who might, at a later date, have every Julio Iglesias record ever made” (117).

In this, he is indicating the ability to make final judgments about an individual by simply being informed of their pop culture tastes. Is this fair? Probably not, but I’ve done this with women my entire life. In high school, college, and even today, I’m frightened by any female who indulges in Depeche Mode, The Smiths, Tori Amos, or the almighty solo antics of Morrissey. This particular fandom has always indicated a certain darkness in a woman I didn’t want to encounter in a relationship, as well as a love of being bathed in depression and emotional longing. Also, and most importantly, it would indicate the given female had a propensity to be incredibly unstable. So, with this in mind, I’ve always checked girls’ record collections as soon as possible once a few dates were in the books. If they owned anything by these artists, I scrammed. If they didn’t, I continued along—until they expressed their love for Amos’s Under the Pink.

Then, there were the romantic connections formed through a specific artist, songs that single-handedly brought me together with a girl. Of course, Rob notes this as well. “See, records have helped me fall in love, no question. I hear something new, with a chord change that melts my guts, and before I know it I’m looking for someone, and before I know it I’ve found her. I fell in love with Rosie the simultaneous orgasm woman after I’d fallen in love with a Cowboy Junkies song: I played it and played it and played it, and it made me dreamy, and I needed someone to dream about, and I found her, and . . . well, there was trouble” (170).

I entered into my enduring fascination with Otis Redding in ‘97, right around the time I was headlong into the most serious relationship of my life (up to that point) with my college girlfriend. For over three years, Otis provided the soundtrack to many cold southern New York nights, his impassioned wails and moans warming a barricaded couple in their college dorm rooms. “These Arms of Mine” and “Pain In My Heart” were two songs capable of making a man cry—both from happiness and absolute sadness. When I started to absorb Redding’s lyrics and the enviable passion which poured from every smoky vocal, I wanted someone to share him with. Luckily, I had this girl, and the bond was formed. Unfortunately, when we broke up years later, she took Otis with her. I couldn’t listen to him without thinking of her, thinking about how it was her eyes I looked into when Redding’s passion pulsated through stereo speakers. Thankfully, after a significant time of mourning and ill-fated attempts to replace him with Wilson Pickett or Sam Cooke, I went back to Otis about six years ago. Though a relationship forged through his music had to end, I couldn’t let the man’s entire catalogue escape me as well.

In these last three examples from High Fidelity, Hornby’s Rob notes one’s connection to others or alienation from those parties through love of pop culture. Sometimes, as in the first excerpt, songs or films and their messages can emotionally hobble you, inspire you with a message before eventually deflating you when the interpretation of that message is not shared by a love interest. Other times, as in the second, similar enthusiasm toward a given piece of work can unite or restrain two people—who may be otherwise compatible. Finally, the third example shows how art can ignite simultaneous love affairs: one with the one present when this art is discovered, and the other with the artist. Later in High Fidelity, Rob talks about the affect music can have on an individual’s own choices outside of companionship, on decisions inspired by lyrics of what to do with oneself in a life full of uncontrollable variables. “In Bruce Springsteen songs, you can either stay and rot, or you can escape and burn. That’s OK; he’s a songwriter, after all, and he needs simple choices like that in his songs. But nobody ever writes about how it is possible to escape and rot—how escapes can go off at half-cock, how you can leave the suburbs for the city but end up living a limp suburban life anyway. That’s what happened to me; that’s what happens to most people” (136).

Nothing has inspired me to write more than the simple feeling a good song can ignite, the chill that rifles down my spine during a line or guitar lick. Lyrics scribbled by Lennon or Dylan, Strummer or Springsteen have always bounced through my head since I first played a record on a turntable in elementary school. I remember having a friend over to listen to The Beatles’ nonsense that was “I Am The Walrus”, just begging the kid to listen to how rhythmic Lennon’s absurdity was, how phrases that had no rational reason to paired together connected so seamlessly to form a spooky and uplifting stomp of a song. One day, I wanted to evoke that sort of enthusiasm through my own writing, and I assumed it would be as easy as grabbing paper and a pencil, jotting down what I knew. But, to put one good piece together, to truly connect, it’s not as easy as pressing “play” on a Discman. When you start writing, inspired by a song or a line or a short story, you can’t wait to get to the New York ending, the feeling that rips through your body when you know you’ve penned something worth reading. The problem is that, like Rob notes, it’s not that simple. Most wide-eyed idealists who perform music or write novels or escape the suburbs for the freewheeling cities to find some advertised freedom inevitably end up crushed. When I started to write my first novel, Running with Buffalo, I was excited and, ironically, inspired to begin by Springsteen’s “Night” off Born to Run. After some 25 edits and over 100 rejection letters from publishers and agents, I was exhausted, depleted.

When I self-published the book, promoted its existence, and got it into retail outlets last year, I was too worn down to have my “my book’s in a bookstore” moment; I knew there was more writing to do, more ideas to expand upon, more training to seek. These craft details and engulfing frustrations are not included in the idealistic songs that inspire attitudes or the dialogue that has connected countless romantic couples. That’s why stories aren’t like life. Stories can be constructed within a scripted realm that recognizes simplicity as attainable.

Life, and finding even a modicum of professional success within it, is anything but simple—or scripted.

The Romance of Freelance

The job of freelance writer sounds pretty sexy, right? The vocational title alone generates an aura of apparent mystery and nonconformity, and it’s also an occupation that generates commotion amongst people who have never freelanced anything.

If you spout the line “I’m a freelance writer” within mixed company, you’ll easily pique interest. To your admission, you’ll hear things like “that sounds cool” or “that’s interesting” or “you must be exhausted from getting laid so much.” And why are these reactions usually so common? Well, two reasons:

1. Because the word “free” seems to genuinely excite people; and
2. Because these people have no clue what a freelance writer actually does.

Novels and television shows and films involving Andrew McCarthy have convinced an entire non-writing population that all writers do is chain smoke, drink exotic liquors, wear wool sports coats, and publish details of their most intimate experiences. The aforementioned mediums have left out the less interesting and, coincidentally, most important aspects of an unstable profession. Boring annoyances like solicitation hours, unreturned phone calls, job availability, editors, research, deadlines, and lack of a living wage are usually swept aside in pursuit of a more satiable narrative. After all, if McCarthy is spending all his time writing query letters, how’s he supposed to bed Ally Sheedy and get plowed at St. Elmo’s Fire before reading his fascinating thoughts published in The Washington Post?

Well, due to this fictional representation of freelancing, people have been misled. As I’ve completed a variety of freelance assignments for businesses, magazines, newspapers, and Web sites over the past ten years, I’ve had to deal with their misconceptions. Even my father still thinks I yearn to be drunk and tapping typewriter keys in an isolated log cabin—just because I’m a writer. (A few years ago, he even bought me a wool sports coat with patches on the elbows.) Actual freelance assignments carry any combination of frustrations involving editors or phantom pay that can’t be solved by the bourbon benders or perpetual isolation that seem to personify the working writer. But, amidst these days of annoyance or minutes spent known derisively as “that writer guy” to some magazine editor who owes you fifty dollars for a thousand-word baseball story, there is gratification found in each assignment. And, if that gratification comes with compensation, even better.

Unfortunately, most of my earliest published work was void of pay and accompanied by aggravation. In high school, I published a review in my school newspaper about The Beatles’ Anthology I, but that beauty was hacked in favor of a story about a bigger band: Hootie & The Blowfish. After college, I wrote a piece about San Francisco’s Pac Bell Park for Barstool Sports, a Boston street rag that features a new busty co-ed on its front page every month. Unfortunately, that story was also altered. The paper’s editors cut my story’s main transition paragraph to make room for a Mohegan Sun Casino ad, thus making the piece completely incoherent. Then again, those editors probably figured dudes flipping through a subway newspaper full of half-naked Boston bartenders don’t care about how California garlic fries are made.

Thankfully, I do remember my first freelance check, handed over by Five Star Magazine for an article about the Boston Red Sox. After I exited Fleet Bank in downtown Boston on a gray October afternoon in 2003, I wondered what to do with the fifty bucks I earned for my work. Then, I spotted the Kinsale Pub across the street. After I walked in, I settled on a stool, grabbed a celebratory Guinness and inhaled a long slug. When I set the glass down, though, I don’t remember feeling very sexy. I didn’t feel mysterious or rebellious, and I didn’t find any women waiting to reward my new-found status of published and paid. But, I did feel an intense sensation of satisfaction, a feeling brought on more by the professional breakthrough than the meager payout.

Maybe this is the reason people romanticize the idea of freelancing. When you strip away the frustrations of free labor, incompetent editors, and Hootie-related humiliations, there is that floating, internal glow of accomplishment when you finally bust through. You pick up your employer’s publication, flip through its pages, and see your name in ink. You gaze at the flowing sentences that follow, then smile at the risky paragraph lead you slipped past editors. When you get to the end, you hold your work in front of your face, flash another grin, then tuck the pages into your canvas bag or coat pocket. Through my many freelance assignments, I’ve found the emotions attached to this experience to be the definition of satisfaction.

And, in one’s professional life, satisfaction is pretty sexy.

Farrell's 15 (or more) Albums

So Facebook has been urging peeple to make lists of their innermost feelings and thoughts for all to see. Not one of these prospective lists has appealed to me at all; I just haven't felt like showing people I haven't seen since Hanson was relevant that, at 30, I'm as insecure as a 12-year-old girl. (I like to restrict that information to useless blogs.)

Then, a friend gave me the following challenge: Think of 15 (or more) albums that had such a profound effect on me that they changed my life. He wanted me to "dig into my soul", find music that brought me to life when I heard it; music that royally affected me, kicked me in the balls or literally socked me in the gut. When I was done with the list, I was to send it around to people I know and inspire them to devise their own lists. This I could do.

Unfortunately, the "15" number wasn't going to work; there was no way I could limit it to just 15. Still, after abusing my brain for an entire night and early morning, I came up with the following list of recorded greatest, a bit of a walk down Memory Lane with Michael Farrell. Obviously, some albums had to be eliminated, like Huey Lewis & The News' Sport. I received this tape for Christmas when I was five, but these Italian girls down the street used it, broke it and spilled the tape's inards all over the sidewalk along Morgan Parkway, the first street I lived on. If I could've ever listened to the damn thing, had some life-altering experience in kindergarten while listening to "This Is It", it'd be on here, I assure you. Still, I have plenty of backup.

In no particular order, and with a little story or commentary attached to each, here we go:

1. Astral Weeks - Van Morrison
The most beautiful album I've ever heard, and will probably ever hear through the rest of my life. If listening to this during a nap, though, always skip over "Beside You". Van's wailing will wake you up every time.

2. Magical Mystery Tour- The Beatles
Was obsessed with this album as a kid, and not just because of its many clues into the infamous "Paul is Dead" hoax. Loved "I Am the Walrus", and, in an ideal world, would like to exit down the aisle of my wedding to "Flying". Probably not going to happen, though.

3a. Blood on the Tracks - Bob Dylan
Listened to this album over and over again while I wrote Running with Buffalo. Not recommended unless you like to bathe yourself in depression . . . or need to write a novel.

3b. Exile on Main St. - Rolling Stones
Was always firmly in The Beatles camp over the Stones. Then I heard this album, which I consider to be better than any Beatles album except maybe "Abbey Road". If someone held a gun to my head and demanded a verdict, I'd go with this one.

4. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot - Wilco
I remember picking up this album at Newbury Comics in Boston. I remember holding it, staring at it, buying it, then becoming obsessed with it. That might be the measure of a memorable album amongst the 800 or so you may (or may not) own. Do you remember the purchase and its immediate aftermath?

5a. In the Aeroplane Over the Sea - Neutral Milk Hotel
In my music department days at WSBU of St. Bonaventure, we had a huge box called "The Shit Bin". In it, we tossed every terrible album sent to us by crappy bands or labels. If there was an absolute opposite of an album tossed in that bin, it was this one. That's why I stole it from the station and it never saw the airwaves. It's still the most inventive album I've ever heard.

5b. Z - My Morning Jacket
If you were born before 1983, you've probably asked your parents once or twice if they used to listen to Led Zeppelin when they were younger. If you're a parent now or are going to be one, get ready: your children are going to ask you if you listened to My Morning Jacket. If you haven't yet, download the songs "Gideon" and "Lay Low" off this album. Now.

6. Whatever & Ever Amen - Ben Folds Five
Simply put, this is the soundtrack to my WSBU radio career. I wore this thing out from '96 to 2000. Also, still gorgeous arrangements from start to finish.

7a. The River - Bruce Springsteen & the E St. Band
So many amazing songs, and so many moods covered. There's a song to score nearly every human emotion somewhere on either Disc 1 or 2.

7b. The Joshua Tree - U2
When my sister bought this tape in '87, I was listening to Heavy D & The Boys. Soon after, I stole her copy and pretended it was mine. Thankfully, I now have my own copies on CD and LP.

7c. Ten - Pearl Jam
When I was 13, I woke up from a nap on my basement couch as Eddie Vedder sang "Alive" on MTV's "Unplugged". Right in the thick of puberty, it was one of the first times I remember being sincerely affected by a song.

7d. Shakespeare, My Butt - The Lowest of the Low
If you grew up in Buffalo, did you have your first beer between the years 1989 and 2002? If so, you've heard this album, and it was the soundtrack to countless hilarious underage weekend catastrophes. No album reminds me more of home than this one, and that includes anything by Molly Hatchett.

8. The Very Best of Otis Redding- Otis Redding
No artist has ever made me want to be in love more than Otis Redding. If you can listen to "Pain In My Heart" or "These Arms of Mine" without feeling similar, I pray for your blackened soul.

9a. London Calling - The Clash
The "Sgt. Pepper" of punk albums includes "Clampdown" and "Hateful", two songs I'd want to play in a musician fantasy camp. Also the album that showed punk bands how to evolve.

9b. Loco Live - The Ramones
If you own nothing from The Ramones, find this live from Spain effort. From "The Good, The Bad & The Ugly" intro and all the way to Joey asking a crowd of Spaniards "Has anybody seen the Stephen King movie Pet Cemetery? Well it's the name of our next tune!", just a time machine back to '92 to '95.

9c. Energy - Operation Ivy
Ordered from the Lookout Records catalogue for $10 in '93, and I still haven't found another like it. Over 25 songs, and every one will make you want to punch something--while smiling.

9d. Maniacal Laughter - The Bouncing Souls
No album reminds me more of drinking canned beer on the way to Showplace Theater in the mid- and late-90s than this. "Quick Check Girl" and "The Ballad of Johnny X" are like portals.

10. Axis: Bold as Love - The Jimi Hendrix Experience
Borrowed this tape from a friend in the 8th grade, and the rest is history. "Castles Made of Sand" is possibly the most underrated Hendrix song of all time.

11a. The Beatles (White Album) - The Beatles
Some of my most vivid music memories include raiding my father's record collection, which was full of Beatles LPs, as a kid. This was the one that ascended John Lennon to the top of my heroes list.

11b. Abbey Road - The Beatles
The most complete Beatles record, as well as their most bittersweet. Also, no album reminds me more of Allegany, New York's legendary Burton than this one. Damn you, Burton for getting an Internet juke.

12. Born to Run - Bruce Springsteen & the E St. Band
While listening to "Night", I grabbed note cards and scribbled down the first ideas for the manuscript that became Running with Buffalo, so there you go. Also, "Jungleland" saved Clarence from a terrible cocaine addiction, dammit.

13. The Last Waltz - The Band
If I died and had to come back as a drummer not named Phil Collins (legend), I'd return as Levon Helm, if just for the red beard and chance to play "Caravan" with Van Morrison.

14a. Weezer (Blue Album) - Weezer
Just the right album at the right time for me. Not only is it a tour de force, but every spin takes me back to Blind Melons, a Buffalo club I saw Weezer at in high school. The morning after said performance, I was grounded for stealing the bottle of Black Bush Irish whiskey I took to the show.

14b. Ill Communication - Beastie Boys
In high school, I watched my friend be proofed at Media Play to buy this Parental Advisory-stamped effort. Soon, we all had copies, and were whistling the intros for "Sure Shot" and "Flute Loop", as well as yelling, "If it's gonna be that kinda party, I'm gonna stick my d*ck in the mashed potatoes." Buu-hah!!

15a. In Concert - Jimmy Cliff
In the summer of '99, I interned for NBC and worked as a busboy/waiter at a vegan restaurant in the Alphabet City area of NYC. An Asian bartender who used to bum me Lucky Strikes played this album through the place while he worked. Every time I hear it, I think of that sweaty, poor and transformational summer.

15b. 40 Oz. to Freedom - Sublime
When I look back on the famous rocker deaths of the early and mid-90s--Cobain, Shannon Hoon, etc.--Brad Nowell always makes me the saddest, if only because of this album. His passion and soul is all over this, and I remember being struck by that when I first heard "Badfish", and the covers of "Scarlet Begonias" and "5446", sitting up in an SBU dorm room during Spring Weekend of '97. Beautiful stuff.

Honorable mentions:
Navy Blues - Sloan
The Clash - The Clash
We Were Born In A Flame - Sam Roberts
Led Zeppelin IV - Led Zeppelin
American Beauty - Grateful Dead
Actung, Baby - U2
Legends - Joe Cocker
It Still Moves - My Morning Jacket
Highway 61 Revisited - Bob Dylan
Let's Go - Rancid
If I Should Fall From Grace With God - The Pogues
Doolittle - The Pixies
Big Red Letter Day - Buffalo Tom

All right, blood has started to seep from my ears. Also, I'm sure this list will all be different tomorrow. Hope you enjoyed it, and Godspeed in making your own lists of stuff.

Life, Love & Music Through "High Fidelity"

I’ve always connected with music and film better than I have with literature. It’s a bond I formed as early as I can remember anything. (As I type this sentence, I can recall, in detail, sitting at Rich Stadium in Buffalo, waiting for Michael Jackson to take the stage. I was five years old.) I don’t remember any particular feeling infiltrating my body when I read Johnny Tremain or On The Beach, but I do remember the enthusiasm accompanying the first CDs I purchased: The Beatles’ Revolver and Smashing Pumpkins Siamese Dream—picked up simultaneously at Media Play in 1993. I also have no recollection of a single sentence in The Picture of Dorian Gray, but can recite full scenes of dialogue from countless John Hughes or Jim Sheridan films. Most of my fondest memories have been either scored with a specific soundtrack, or have gained their prominence because their moves and moments have been akin to some of my favorite movie scenes. Consider the following:

Example #1: Early in high school, my friends and I used to smuggle canned beer and Camel Lights into this dingy pool hall south of downtown Buffalo. Every time we were there, Pink Floyd’s “Money” blared from jukebox speakers at least one time. To this day, I can never hear that song without thinking of chain smoking or sipping on warm cans of Red Dog.

Example #2: When I was in the 10th grade, I hit a key 18-foot jump shot from the left wing in a local basketball battle against rival Orchard Park, which gave me a starring role in my own personal version of Hoosiers. As I type these words, I can still mentally take myself to the spot on the hardwood, hear the delirious roar of the crowd around me.

My point in detailing this historical connection is that, before picking up Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity for the first time in 2000, I’d never inhaled a book like I inhaled, say, The Clash’s The Clash; I never had encountered a literary protagonist I related with the same way I related with John Cusack’s Lloyd Dobler in Say Anything. In Hornby’s story, I found conversations I’ve had, odd philosophical musings I’ve been tortured or entertained by. In Hornby’s Rob, I saw a character who broke people down by their pop culture tastes, a practice I’ve (rightly or wrongly) engaged in since high school. Put both of those aforementioned points together and you have a relationship between me and this work. It’s a relationship between reader and novel to designate a social classification of me, something Hornby’s Rob does with other individuals throughout High Fidelity. He uses pop culture tastes to identify people, as well as himself and his own feelings. In his actions and in this novel’s narrative, I see much of myself, as I will detail in the following pages. If life is to be understood as an art form, I’d like to compare some of the thoughts and events formed throughout my own existence to the pop culture-infused trials and trivializations of Rob.

Near the beginning of this novel (page 25), Rob introduces a theory I’ve considered so many times in so many instances, spinning any number of songs by U2, Buffalo Tom, Bob Dylan, The Guess Who, Dinosaur Jr., Bruce Springsteen, The Rolling Stones, Van Morrison, etc. “People worry about kids playing with guns, and teenagers watching violent videos; we are scared that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands—literally thousands—of songs about broken hearts and rejection and misery and loss. The unhappiest people I know, romantically speaking, are the ones who like pop music the most; and I don’t know whether pop music has caused this unhappiness, but I do know that they’ve been listening to sad songs longer than they’ve been living the unhappy lives” (25).

This is obviously a “what came first, the chicken or the egg” argument, but it’s one many people, romanced by the storylines of films and lyrics of songs, have probably had with themselves. I’m no different. In late grammar school and early high school, I looked for girls who invoked an Andrew McCarthy-in-Pretty-In-Pink-like gaze out of me; I wanted to feel the same kind of yearn for a girl Bruce Springsteen oozed in “I’m On Fire.” Unrealistic at 14 and 15 years old? Absolutely, but it didn’t stop me from becoming a mix tape-making machine, crafting balanced playlists and borrowing the thoughts of rock legends to express my innermost feelings for girl A, B or C. The problem with relying on the interpreted lyrics and arrangements of drunken frontmen and drug-addled guitarists was that, ultimately, they never came back properly reciprocated. The Edge’s swirling guitar solo in “All I Want Is You” provides (for some) a chance for that movie-like embrace with a lover, when the world stands still as two individuals chosen by pure fate touch lips and fade off into ecstasy. But, this isn’t reality; not mine, anyway. One of my most detrimental feelings of rejection, still burned into the depths of my memory, came with that song as a soundtrack. A beautiful cross-town cheerleader who I’d tenaciously pursued with every romantic trick in the book turned me down cold at a local garage party as Bono wailed from a small picnic radio. Though I still love that song, it always evokes that pain of adolescent rejection, tormenting me more than an unsecured revolver or violent film ever could.

Later on in this novel, Rob notes his aforementioned habit of classifying people by their pop culture tastes, something he discusses routinely with his lone employees at Championship Vinyl, musical introvert Dick and the bombastic and extroverted Barry. “A while back, when Dick and Barry and I agreed that what really matters is what you like, not what you are like, Barry proposed the idea of a questionnaire for prospective partners, a two- or three-page multiple-choice document that covered all the music/film/TV/book bases. It was intended a) to dispense with awkward conversation, and b) to prevent a chap from leaping into bed with someone who might, at a later date, have every Julio Iglesias record ever made” (117).

In this, he is indicating the ability to make final judgments about an individual by simply being informed of their pop culture tastes. Is this fair? Probably not, but I’ve done this with women my entire life. In high school, college, and even today, I’m frightened by any female who indulges in Depeche Mode, The Smiths, Tori Amos, or the almighty solo antics of Morrissey. This particular fandom has always indicated a certain darkness in a woman I didn’t want to encounter in a relationship, as well as a love of being bathed in depression and emotional longing. Also, and most importantly, it would indicate the given female had a propensity to be incredibly unstable. So, with this in mind, I’ve always checked girls’ record collections as soon as possible once a few dates were in the books. If they owned anything by these artists, I scrammed. If they didn’t, I continued along—until they expressed their love for Amos’s Under the Pink.

Then, there were the romantic connections formed through a specific artist, songs that single-handedly brought me together with a girl. Of course, Rob notes this as well. “See, records have helped me fall in love, no question. I hear something new, with a chord change that melts my guts, and before I know it I’m looking for someone, and before I know it I’ve found her. I fell in love with Rosie the simultaneous orgasm woman after I’d fallen in love with a Cowboy Junkies song: I played it and played it and played it, and it made me dreamy, and I needed someone to dream about, and I found her, and . . . well, there was trouble” (170).

I entered into my enduring fascination with Otis Redding in ‘97, right around the time I was headlong into the most serious relationship of my life (up to that point) with my college girlfriend. For over three years, Otis provided the soundtrack to many cold southern New York nights, his impassioned wails and moans warming a barricaded couple in their college dorm rooms. “These Arms of Mine” and “Pain In My Heart” were two songs capable of making a man cry—both from happiness and absolute sadness. When I started to absorb Redding’s lyrics and the enviable passion which poured from every smoky vocal, I wanted someone to share him with. Luckily, I had this girl, and the bond was formed. Unfortunately, when we broke up years later, she took Otis with her. I couldn’t listen to him without thinking of her, thinking about how it was her eyes I looked into when Redding’s passion pulsated through stereo speakers. Thankfully, after a significant time of mourning and ill-fated attempts to replace him with Wilson Pickett or Sam Cooke, I went back to Otis about six years ago. Though a relationship forged through his music had to end, I couldn’t let the man’s entire catalogue escape me as well.

In these last three examples from High Fidelity, Hornby’s Rob notes one’s connection to others or alienation from those parties through love of pop culture. Sometimes, as in the first excerpt, songs or films and their messages can emotionally hobble you, inspire you with a message before eventually deflating you when the interpretation of that message is not shared by a love interest. Other times, as in the second, similar enthusiasm toward a given piece of work can unite or restrain two people—who may be otherwise compatible. Finally, the third example shows how art can ignite simultaneous love affairs: one with the one present when this art is discovered, and the other with the artist. Later in High Fidelity, Rob talks about the affect music can have on an individual’s own choices outside of companionship, on decisions inspired by lyrics of what to do with oneself in a life full of uncontrollable variables. “In Bruce Springsteen songs, you can either stay and rot, or you can escape and burn. That’s OK; he’s a songwriter, after all, and he needs simple choices like that in his songs. But nobody ever writes about how it is possible to escape and rot—how escapes can go off at half-cock, how you can leave the suburbs for the city but end up living a limp suburban life anyway. That’s what happened to me; that’s what happens to most people” (136).

Nothing has inspired me to write more than the simple feeling a good song can ignite, the chill that rifles down my spine during a line or guitar lick. Lyrics scribbled by Lennon or Dylan, Strummer or Springsteen have always bounced through my head since I first played a record on a turntable in elementary school. I remember having a friend over to listen to The Beatles’ nonsense that was “I Am The Walrus”, just begging the kid to listen to how rhythmic Lennon’s absurdity was, how phrases that had no rational reason to paired together connected so seamlessly to form a spooky and uplifting stomp of a song. One day, I wanted to evoke that sort of enthusiasm through my own writing, and I assumed it would be as easy as grabbing paper and a pencil, jotting down what I knew. But, to put one good piece together, to truly connect, it’s not as easy as pressing “play” on a Discman. When you start writing, inspired by a song or a line or a short story, you can’t wait to get to the New York ending, the feeling that rips through your body when you know you’ve penned something worth reading. The problem is that, like Rob notes, it’s not that simple. Most wide-eyed idealists who perform music or write novels or escape the suburbs for the freewheeling cities to find some advertised freedom inevitably end up crushed. When I started to write my first novel, Running with Buffalo, I was excited and, ironically, inspired to begin by Springsteen’s “Night” off Born to Run. After some 25 edits and over 100 rejection letters from publishers and agents, I was exhausted, depleted. When I self-published the book, promoted its existence, and got it into retail outlets last year, I was too worn down to have my “my book’s in a bookstore” moment; I knew there was more writing to do, more ideas to expand upon, more training to seek. These craft details and engulfing frustrations are not included in the idealistic songs that inspire attitudes or the dialogue that has connected countless romantic couples. That’s why stories aren’t like life. Stories can be constructed within a scripted realm that recognizes simplicity as attainable.

Life, and finding even a modicum of professional success within it, is anything but simple—or scripted.

Summer's Done & I'm Thinking of Music

When you have a blog, you spend all kinds of fruitless time agonizing over what you should post and whether anyone will actually care about what you have to say.

Well, I now know this simple truth: Nobody gives a shit--ever.

This is fine, because it frees you from the shackles of popular opinion and/or interest. Since I know no one cares, I can post what I want, which is the following:

Below are all albums I deem essential to have in your home at all times. I'll break them into two categories: driving (albums for the car) or thinking (albums for relaxing or staring). I'll try to keep most before 1990, but there others past the grunge era I can't omit. You may like them, or you may hate them. Regardless, I mean well, so please consider my subjective genius. But, like I've typed above, you probably don't care. If you do, here we go:

Driving:

Exile On Main Street - The Rolling Stones
Sticky Fingers - The Rolling Stones
A Hard Day's Night - The Beatles
Odelay - Beck
We Were Born In A Flame - Sam Roberts
London Calling - The Clash
Are You Experienced? - Jimi Hendrix
Lifeline - Ben Harper
The Great Twenty-Eight - Chuck Berry
Ben Folds Five - Ben Folds Five
Big Red Letter Day - Buffalo Tom
Actung Baby - U2
This Year's Model - Elvis Costello
Pinkerton - Weezer
Emblems - Matt Pond PA
Attack & Release - The Black Keys
Rubber Factory - The Black Keys
It Still Moves - My Morning Jacket
Z - My Morning Jacket
Yeah, It's That Easy - G Love & Special Sauce
The Georgia Peach - Little Richard
Highway 61 Revisited - Bob Dylan
Demolition - Ryan Adams
Descended Like Vultures - Rogue Wave
Funeral - The Arcade Fire
Greatest Hits - The Guess Who
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot - Wilco
Mermaid Avenue, Vol. 1 - Billy Bragg & Wilco
Born To Run - Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band
Live at Folsom Prison - Johnny Cash
Aha Shake Heartbreak - Kings of Leon
One Chord To Another - Sloan

Thinking:

Astral Weeks - Van Morrison
St. Dominic's Preview - Van Morrison
New York Sessions '67 - Van Morrison
Imagine - John Lennon
In Concert - Jimmy Cliff
XO - Elliot Smith
Either/Or - Elliot Smith
Axis: Bold As Love - Jimi Hendrix
All Things Must Pass - George Harrison
The Very Best of Cat Stevens - Cat Stevens
Abbey Road - The Beatles
The Beatles (White Album) - The Beatles
The Joshua Tree - U2
Dreams To Remember: The Otis Redding Anthology - Otis Redding
Fisherman's Blues - The Waterboys
The Basement Tapes - Bob Dylan & The Band
Blood On The Tracks - Bob Dylan
The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan - Bob Dylan
The Last Waltz - The Band
White Ladder - David Gray
Lost Songs - David Gray
At Dawn - My Morning Jacket
Devils & Dust - Bruce Springsteen
Nebraska - Bruce Springsteen
The River - Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band
Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. - Bruce Springsteen
In The Aeroplane Over The Sea - Neutral Milk Hotel
A Ghost Is Born - Wilco
Sky Blue Sky - Wilco
Once (Soundtrack) - Glen Hansard
Illinoise - Sufjan Stevens
Trouble - Ray LaMontagne
Live at Luther College - Dave Matthews & Tim Reynolds

See what happens when you stop caring what people think? You type what you want. Then again, if I didn't care, why are the above recommendations? Apparently, boredom can induce contradiction.

The unfortunate truth about blogs: If you want anyone to read, you need to interest someone with something. Hopefully, I just did.