One Simple Thing
Sometimes everything on your iPod sounds good.
We’re in Vail. Meeting my sister and her family for spring break. And it hasn’t stopped snowing since we got here. But what’s weird is…unlike in December and January, the snow is wet, and heavy. Still, the Back Bowls are open and untracked.
After setting up Felice with an instructor, to teach her some finesse in these conditions, I dropped into Sun Up Bowl and skied the Headwall. Actually, the trees next to the Headwall. I needed the definition. And when I emerged into the great wide open…I couldn’t see a fucking thing!
But there was a line at the Sun Up lift. Since it’s one of only two slow triples left. And I tripled up with this sixtysomething couple. Who said they come to Vail ten weeks a year, and they love the powder. So I asked them, did they mind if I came along?
No problem!
And at the top of Tea Cup Bowl, Bob took off into the wilderness. I mean there’s not a tree in sight, but it’s relatively flat and usually windblown, so I just followed along. Until we hit the steepest part of China Bowl. Bob announced THIS WAS THE PLACE!
I figured he was kidding. And when he got scared by the slide triggered by the avalanche guns, I figured we’d ski the trees below, by Emperor’s, which has got a pitch, but isn’t truly steep.
But no, Bob dropped in fifty feet down. And we’re skiing what is commonly called dust on crust. Yup, it had been hot only days before, and the snow had frozen, and now it had ten inches of fresh on top. This is break a leg conditions. But Bob is plowing down, so I follow along, figuring his wife Nancy will slow the pace down. But she never stops, she keeps on going, like the Energizer Bunny. Which turned out to be her nickname. Eventually I learned that Bob only worked out for forty minutes six or seven days a week, but Nancy did more than double than that.
So we go into Siberia. You can’t see a fucking thing, but nothing stops this couple. They’re talking about heli-skiing. And I’m thinking I’ve got to have fatter skis than this, to float through this crap. And on the lift up, Bob told me he was disappointed his son didn’t follow his heart and go into the music business, his true passion, instead of working in real estate. It was like the Twilight Zone, the complete OPPOSITE of my parents!
And we’re having a good time talking politics, Bob’s telling me about listening to Pink Floyd through his helmet headphones and how he had to go to Wal-Mart to buy the Eagles album. We discussed the title track.
Finally, when it came time to ski Rasputin’s, the steepest slope in Siberia, I bugged out. Run after run after run in the Bowls had worn me out. A slow twisting fall in these conditions would do me in.
So I dropped down the front to Blue Ox. Which I wasn’t quite ready for. In that my heart said yes, but my body said WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU KIDDING?
Then I met Felice at Mid-Vail. Where she was deep into conversation with two pediatricians. One was testifying about his Kindle. He canceled his subscription to the "New York Times", he reads it on his device now. And before he takes a flight, he downloads sample chapters of books, to see what he should buy, for $9.99.
And after scarfing down some sustenance and being wowed by Felice’s newly-acquired technique, we skied down through the fog to the condo. Where I went to pick up my hard snow skis from being tuned at Vail Sports and the manager comped me, since I’d purchased some Dynastars during Christmas. Sometimes things just go your way.
And then, firing up my iPod to listen to some music while I did my full-on back exercises, I heard Steely Dan’s "Brooklyn (Owes The Charmer Under Me)". My favorite cut from my favorite Steely Dan album, the very first. And I heard Jackson Browne’s live "Never Stop", and got new insight. Funny how you can listen to a song a hundred times and still learn something new. Then, lying on the floor, I heard the ethereal intro, of the Stabilizers’ "One Simple Thing".
As if this world had only begun…
Funny how you can have thousands of tracks on your iPod, but you know every one. INSTANTLY! With all the rest of the stuff crammed in there, with the constant input, how does the brain DO IT?
Funny how it took Brad Delp’s death for everyone to agree Boston was great. Certainly the very first album. I’m trying to get good enough to play "Foreplay/Long Time" on Rock Band. And when I listen to Hair Nation on Sirius, I’m stunned how even the minor acts had some good tracks. I heard this Junkyard cut the other day and I said to myself, damn, I like this!
The Stabilizers had a bit of action on "One Simple Thing", but they were the wrong band at the wrong time. When "The Joshua Tree" was all over MTV, the Stabilizers hearkened back to the seventies. They had no edge. They didn’t stand for anything. They just had one good cut. But that cut, I dropped the needle on it again and again.
I don’t know if the one simple thing is what makes the relationship complete or breaks it up. It seems the lyrics state the former, but I always thought it was the latter. That’s how relationships are. One simple thing left unsaid, one thought one person has, is what breaks the bond.
And this simple thing is not something the rest of the world cares about. It’s not going to be posted on TMZ. At heart, we’re all alone, it’s about the personal, not the ubiquitous hype. And when we listen to a great record, we delve deep into ourselves, our thoughts. A record can bond us with another, but usually no one else is necessary, just you and the tunes are enough, to feel comforted, to gain insight.
When "One Simple Thing" came over my iPod, I couldn’t move. I just lay on the floor, staring at the ceiling, my whole life playing out in the space between me and the roof. My mind was set free. By the music.
