A little sadness...
Capella reminded me yesterday that "I never post." I mean, obviously I POST, but I don't post with the regularity of some of the people out there whose blogs I read. I think part of my slacking came from this feeling of failure that followed the buildup of the whole "I gotta blog about our India trip" thing, and then my subsequent inability to follow through - some of you may have noticed that I never got past Pune. (Let's just say the rest was pretty fun - saw an elephant, ate dinner three times a day, drove in cars piloted by crazy people, survived to tell about it!)
Having a blog creates some pressure, and not because anyone really cares if I post my thoughts-of-the-day or not - I'm not worried about letting anyone down, here. It's that I obviously want an audience, and want people to come back and read my drivel and all that. So if I don't post that often, only the six of you diehards will come back to check on me here. Anyway, I guess there's not much more to say about this concept, I only wish that there had been blogging when I graduated from college and was much more likely to post something magically engaging every dayish.*
So: My sadness today comes from the recent news that Brad Delp is dead.
(I'll pause while you google him.)
As I was saying, Delp (former lead singer of Boston) died on the 9th, but TJ just sent me the Times article about it today. I can't say that I am horribly sad, because you may remember that I told you I'd never go to a 21st-century Boston show at the Tweeter Center anyway. My sadness isn't because Delp is dead and the world will never hear him sing again; it's actually more because he always looked like such a nice man, especially in his recent photos as a middle-aged regular guy. **
Take a look at this picture, you'll see what I mean - he's the guy on the left. Actually, they all look like kind of nice guys, but one could believe that Tom Scholz is probably smug behind that grin (top) and that the bass player (right), who I think is Fran Sheehan, could be one of those dickish characters like the bass player (Billy Crudup as "Russell") in "Almost Famous." Sib Hashian, the fro guy, is clearly everything at once: drummer, crazy man, afro picker, lover, fighter, chest-hair-cultivator, sensitive new age guru, etc.
Here's another one for you, this one is my favorite photo in all of place-name-rock history:
Some of you guys know how much listening to Boston's debut album gets me all worked up - you may have heard my melodramatic story about running the "Bay to Breakers" in San Francisco - getting weary near the end, coming over the rise to the sounds of More than a Feeling playing on some loudspeaker, getting the strength to carry on to the end.
Or maybe you know about the one and only painting I ever "painted," which was a nice large canvas gessoed all white with the words "I understand about indecision" lettered across the bottom (does Dan still own that? probably not, but it was funny to us at the time...).
One winter Dan and I drove from Tahoe down the eastern side of the Sierras. We played that album repeatedly in the car, and at some point Let Me Take You Home Tonight came on for the fortieth time. We happened to realize we were lost right around then, so we pulled up next to a bar, the only thing around on the one-lane road we had gotten on. As I left the car to go in and ask for directions, I hesitated for a moment because I really like that song and I was probably still singing along. Entering the bar (probably through swinging saloon doors, it was that cinematic), I heard my song ending on the jukebox. They were playing the same song. On the jukebox in the bar. Maybe you had to be there, but it was something else...
I know some people cannot really appreciate this, but listening to that album generally gives me superhuman strength to do the dumb things I gotta do. One night in the Hazel House, Christine and I were stripping wallpaper and since we were flagging, we put on the Debut Album. I think we finished scraping at 4 am that night, wondering if we needed to apologize to Ellen next door for all the singing and carrying on...
UPDATE: I forgot one story. At least one. One year when my sister was in, say, 8th grade, she wanted to go to a Depeche Mode show - as I recall it was in Long Beach or something. My mom figured that if we had to drive her down there, we might as well go to the show, too (my mom claimed she was curious because my sister was so obsessed with DM). "We" turned out to be me, my mom, and for some reason my cousin Cherie. Of course ADub split off ASAP and went down with Zach to try to get close to the front. The other three of us sat way up high, and I started feeling a little sorry for myself - how did I get in this arena sitting next to my mom at a Depeche Mode concert? How has this come to pass? When can we get out of here? I mean, I even liked DM, but somehow couldn't deal with the situation as a whole.
After some extended period of time, my sister came back and agreed to leave, and as we shuttled my teeny tiny mom through the crazy throngs, I wondered if we were ever going to get out of the parking lot alive. Then, all of a sudden, a convertible went by playing Peace of Mind as loud as could be, and the dawn came up in my brain and I hoisted my mom over my head and carried her to safety! True story.
* Maybe there was blogging but I wasn't paying attention? It was probably like online dating, in that it hadn't gone mainstream yet so only freaky people did it. As opposed to now, of course. Heh heh.
** Note, under "risk factors," he was a vegetarian.
Having a blog creates some pressure, and not because anyone really cares if I post my thoughts-of-the-day or not - I'm not worried about letting anyone down, here. It's that I obviously want an audience, and want people to come back and read my drivel and all that. So if I don't post that often, only the six of you diehards will come back to check on me here. Anyway, I guess there's not much more to say about this concept, I only wish that there had been blogging when I graduated from college and was much more likely to post something magically engaging every dayish.*
So: My sadness today comes from the recent news that Brad Delp is dead.
(I'll pause while you google him.)
As I was saying, Delp (former lead singer of Boston) died on the 9th, but TJ just sent me the Times article about it today. I can't say that I am horribly sad, because you may remember that I told you I'd never go to a 21st-century Boston show at the Tweeter Center anyway. My sadness isn't because Delp is dead and the world will never hear him sing again; it's actually more because he always looked like such a nice man, especially in his recent photos as a middle-aged regular guy. **
Take a look at this picture, you'll see what I mean - he's the guy on the left. Actually, they all look like kind of nice guys, but one could believe that Tom Scholz is probably smug behind that grin (top) and that the bass player (right), who I think is Fran Sheehan, could be one of those dickish characters like the bass player (Billy Crudup as "Russell") in "Almost Famous." Sib Hashian, the fro guy, is clearly everything at once: drummer, crazy man, afro picker, lover, fighter, chest-hair-cultivator, sensitive new age guru, etc.
Here's another one for you, this one is my favorite photo in all of place-name-rock history:
Some of you guys know how much listening to Boston's debut album gets me all worked up - you may have heard my melodramatic story about running the "Bay to Breakers" in San Francisco - getting weary near the end, coming over the rise to the sounds of More than a Feeling playing on some loudspeaker, getting the strength to carry on to the end.
Or maybe you know about the one and only painting I ever "painted," which was a nice large canvas gessoed all white with the words "I understand about indecision" lettered across the bottom (does Dan still own that? probably not, but it was funny to us at the time...).
One winter Dan and I drove from Tahoe down the eastern side of the Sierras. We played that album repeatedly in the car, and at some point Let Me Take You Home Tonight came on for the fortieth time. We happened to realize we were lost right around then, so we pulled up next to a bar, the only thing around on the one-lane road we had gotten on. As I left the car to go in and ask for directions, I hesitated for a moment because I really like that song and I was probably still singing along. Entering the bar (probably through swinging saloon doors, it was that cinematic), I heard my song ending on the jukebox. They were playing the same song. On the jukebox in the bar. Maybe you had to be there, but it was something else...
I know some people cannot really appreciate this, but listening to that album generally gives me superhuman strength to do the dumb things I gotta do. One night in the Hazel House, Christine and I were stripping wallpaper and since we were flagging, we put on the Debut Album. I think we finished scraping at 4 am that night, wondering if we needed to apologize to Ellen next door for all the singing and carrying on...
UPDATE: I forgot one story. At least one. One year when my sister was in, say, 8th grade, she wanted to go to a Depeche Mode show - as I recall it was in Long Beach or something. My mom figured that if we had to drive her down there, we might as well go to the show, too (my mom claimed she was curious because my sister was so obsessed with DM). "We" turned out to be me, my mom, and for some reason my cousin Cherie. Of course ADub split off ASAP and went down with Zach to try to get close to the front. The other three of us sat way up high, and I started feeling a little sorry for myself - how did I get in this arena sitting next to my mom at a Depeche Mode concert? How has this come to pass? When can we get out of here? I mean, I even liked DM, but somehow couldn't deal with the situation as a whole.
After some extended period of time, my sister came back and agreed to leave, and as we shuttled my teeny tiny mom through the crazy throngs, I wondered if we were ever going to get out of the parking lot alive. Then, all of a sudden, a convertible went by playing Peace of Mind as loud as could be, and the dawn came up in my brain and I hoisted my mom over my head and carried her to safety! True story.
* Maybe there was blogging but I wasn't paying attention? It was probably like online dating, in that it hadn't gone mainstream yet so only freaky people did it. As opposed to now, of course. Heh heh.
** Note, under "risk factors," he was a vegetarian.
posted by Dubin at 8:18 PM
5 Comments:
ok, you've convinced me to dig out jon's old boston tapes. all i know about them is "more than a feeling," and that delp's fiancee found him dead. so sad.
i like your new main pic.
*karen (one of those freaky people who met her husband online. but we weren't searching for each other. it was aol days- 1995!)
ps/ is it weird that my word verification is "xzibit"?
pps/ your story about going into the bar where they're playing the same song reminded me of "when harry met sally." remember when we were obsessed? we taped it on audio from the tv!
Sorry you're sad, hon.
I bet that music does give you superhuman strength. Think of it - all those musicians put all that energy into making that music. Energy is conserved, as you know from science, so it has to go somewhere. It goes to you, when you need it.
That's why some music gives you the energy to dance all night and never feel it. Conservation of energy.
Wait, this can't be right. Conservation of energy? Ok, so what if I play the same album five times, and each time I get the same boost of energy. Then I play it five hundred more times and each time I get the same energy? And then, like, I could copy the CDs for other people and give them energy? Etc.?
This is kind of blasphemy, like when some astronomers decided the expansion of the universe was accelerating and couldn't figure out how or why and so they made up ambiguous names for phenomena they couldn't explain, like "dark energy." We can call this lack of conservation of energy, this perpetual motion dance machine that you're describing, something like "rockocalyptic space" and then go to conferences and defend our theory while we get temporarily lambasted until we turn out to be right about it and everyone has to kiss our butts. I hope they will appreciate us before we're dead...
I like that even Boston calls him "The nicest, kindest, most caring, down to earth rock star the world has ever known."
I also like that apparently dyslexia is also a "risk factor."
Just remember to be very very careful what kind of music you play until little Genghis Khan is hatched. Also, lay off the hashish.
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