I was up late last night.<\/p>\n
I set aside the entire day to catch up.\u00c2\u00a0 I had a stack of magazines and newspapers.\u00c2\u00a0 And as I was making headway, I got a phone call from my mother, she wanted to tell me what the doctor said.<\/p>\n
My mother doesn’t believe in illness, she believes sheer determination can defeat any malady.\u00c2\u00a0 But when she lost her balance and her hands started to feel like sandpaper she finally picked up the phone and made an appointment with a neurologist.\u00c2\u00a0 Two.\u00c2\u00a0 And they both said the same thing.\u00c2\u00a0 She needed an operation.\u00c2\u00a0 Which she’d vowed to never have, she’s eighty three years old, been there, done that.<\/p>\n
But yesterday’s doctor got in her face.\u00c2\u00a0 If she doesn’t submit to the knife she’ll fall and break her hip and end up in a nursing home and then a wheelchair and then she won’t even be able to push the buttons on the wheelchair because her hands won’t work.\u00c2\u00a0 He made her laugh, he convinced her, but she’s still scared.\u00c2\u00a0 Who wouldn’t be?<\/p>\n
And when I hung up the light had changed, the sun had set, the mood was different.<\/p>\n
Eventually I answered a slew of e-mail, did my back exercises, and got hooked on TV.\u00c2\u00a0 Although I’ve got a brand new set and pay for all the channels I haven’t turned it on in months.\u00c2\u00a0 I ended up catching Kim Kardashian on "The Tonight Show".\u00c2\u00a0 I remarked to myself what a dunce she was, but then I remembered the nitwits on the show when I used to watch way back when, when Johnny used to banter with them.<\/p>\n
She was on because she was selling something.\u00c2\u00a0 Is there anybody in America who’s not selling something?\u00c2\u00a0 I expect to run into the homeless guy outside Baja Fresh and have him hawking knockoff watches.\u00c2\u00a0 Expect that school teacher to be working on a set of videos that will inspire nursery schoolers.\u00c2\u00a0 Everyone wants to be a rapper?\u00c2\u00a0 No, everybody wants to be an entrepreneur, the new Steve Jobs.\u00c2\u00a0 I mean if you don’t believe in yourself, you’re a loser…<\/p>\n
And when I was done strengthening my back, I checked to see what was on the DVR.\u00c2\u00a0 And found an episode of "Survivor".\u00c2\u00a0 I loved it once, but that was before the contestants became students of the game.\u00c2\u00a0 If only they went to college, studied something worthwhile.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, higher education doesn’t teach you how to be famous.<\/p>\n
And after watching some YouTube videos about next year’s skis, I finally got in my car for the long trek over the hill to the Valley.<\/p>\n
This is the life I used to live.\u00c2\u00a0 Long after midnight.\u00c2\u00a0 When the strivers were all tucked in and I had the landscape to myself.<\/p>\n
And when I turned off the 405 on to Mulholland, I heard a song…<\/p>\n
I’d been pushing the buttons.\u00c2\u00a0 From country to soft rock to comedy.\u00c2\u00a0 But I settled on this gem on the sixties channel.\u00c2\u00a0 And as I wound down Longbow, I had an urge to talk to you, about the mood in the Beau Brummels’ "Laugh Laugh".<\/p>\n
My favorite was always "Just A Little".\u00c2\u00a0 But listening to "Laugh Laugh" creeped me out and inspired me at the same time.\u00c2\u00a0 Brought me right back to the sixties.\u00c2\u00a0 When I was addicted to the radio and was isolated.\u00c2\u00a0 They speak about the days before automobiles, before television, you’ve got no idea what it was like before the Internet.\u00c2\u00a0 You couldn’t find like-minded people, you were beholden to your family, the people in your school, you created a better, fantasy world in your brain and the soundtrack was music.\u00c2\u00a0 I remember riding in the backseat of the station wagon, looking out the window, letting my mind drift as the landscape whirred by.<\/p>\n
And this exact same landscape was unfolding in my brain last night.\u00c2\u00a0 Western Massachusetts on a rainy afternoon.\u00c2\u00a0 You remember family trips, don’t you?\u00c2\u00a0 I got the mood of "Laugh Laugh" forty years ago, but I just hadn’t lived long enough to articulate it.\u00c2\u00a0 The feeling of being so…lonely.<\/p>\n
Oh, I knew what loneliness was, but then I thought the antidote was being popular.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what I prayed for, in front of the bathroom mirror, to be popular.<\/p>\n
Then you graduate from school, you’re set free, and it’s worse.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ve got endless opportunity but even more failure, it’s so much more difficult than they told you, than you expected.\u00c2\u00a0 People pair up to avoid the pitfalls, others are overwhelmed by the strain and take their lives, and the rest of us keep on keepin’ on.\u00c2\u00a0 Through friends, relationships, everything changes, or as Paul Simon sang, everything put together sooner or later falls apart.<\/p>\n
And the only constant is the records.\u00c2\u00a0 The ones they still spin on the radio.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, some of them made us dance, others caused us to sing along, but then there were others that got under our skin, that seemed to understand us.\u00c2\u00a0 We shared our life with these records.\u00c2\u00a0 They were there through our triumphs and our losses.\u00c2\u00a0 And no matter how far we stray, they’re always willing to take us back. Because they know life is hard.\u00c2\u00a0 Both meaningless and meaningful.\u00c2\u00a0 A conundrum.<\/p>\n
Or, to paraphrase Bob Dylan, if you want to know which way the wind blows, put on an old 45. Crystallized therein are our "Catcher In The Rye", our "Casablanca".\u00c2\u00a0 An entire generation was on either one side of the fence or the other, making music or listening.\u00c2\u00a0 Or both.<\/p>\n
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