5 questions about the third line of James Taylor “Fire and Rain,” which will likely plague me until the end of days.

The first lines from James Taylor’s song Fire and Rain confuse me.

Just yesterday morning, they let me know you were gone.
Suzanne, the plans they made put an end to you.
I walked out this morning and I wrote down this song,
I just can't remember who to send it to.

Put aside the first two lines, which are confusing in their own right, and the fourth line, which is also slightly baffling. I’m interested in the third line, where Taylor says that he wrote the song ‘this morning.” It raises a number of interesting questions.

This may get a little complicated. See if you can follow:

1. Did Taylor actually write that line on the day that he wrote the song? Did he really walk out on the morning in question and write this song?

2. If he wrote it on the morning in question, did he then insert the line, which is the third in the song, into the song after writing the rest of the song? Or did he write the third line as the third line, indicating in the past tense that he had written a song this morning even though he was only three lines into the song at that point?

3. Is the line unauthentic? Did Taylor actually write this song at some other time rather than on the specific morning mentioned in the song? Is the mention of writing the song just part of the fantasy of the song, written only for the purposes of the narrative?

4. If the third line is inauthentic, why say it at all? Does this falsified timeline within the song really add anything to the song?

Here’s the most confusing of the questions:

5. If the line isn’t meant to be authentic, are we to then believe that James Taylor is singing these words, or is the songwriter referenced in the song someone other than James Taylor? Is Taylor writing and singing about a different singer-songwriter who has supposedly written the song, and if so, while performing the song, are we supposed to understand that Taylor is merely playing the role of that singer-songwriter, even though he also a singer-songwriter?

Did you follow?

More importantly, are you as disturbed about these questions as me?

You’re allowed to sound this bad when you’re this cute.

Just when you think that the boy is being dragged around by the girl, he asks the question that breaks my heart.

My 1992-1994 culture gap: Two years without television, movies, or music

If you haven’t heard, Twin Peaks is returning to television. For me, it will be my first chance to watch the show. Though I was alive and well when the show first aired, I didn’t watch it because it fell between the years of 1992-1994.

My lost years. My cultural blind spot.

I’ve had many tough times in my life, but the period from 1992 through 1994 were probably my toughest. I was homeless for a period of about four months. This was followed by 18 months spent living in the home of Jehovah Witnesses, working two full time jobs – 18 hours a day, six days a week – in order to pay for my legal defense in a trial for a crime I did not commit. I was also the victim of an armed robbery during this time, which resulted years of post traumatic stress disorder. 

As a result, for more two years, I watched no television, saw almost no movies, and listened to very little new music.

For at least two years, I was completely detached from popular culture.

The television, film, and music that I missed during that time was vast, but certain things are more prominent than others. Some cultural touchstones and ubiquitous references pop up more than others.

Things that I missed during that time are and have almost no knowledge of as a result of this culture gap include:

• Twin Peaks
• Northern Exposure (which I thought was the subtitle to Twin Peaks)
• Wings
• Saved by the Bell
• The Fresh Prince of Bel Air
• The State
• Boy Meets World (though I doubt I would’ve watched this show anyway)
• Whoomp! (There It Is) and Whoot There It Is (and the fact that both songs were released and played on the radio at the same time)
• Reality Bites
• Glengarry Glen Ross

Some things, like NYPD Blue and The X Files debuted in these years but lasted long enough for me to catch up years later in syndication.

And I eventually watched many of the popular films released in those years and listened to the most popular songs, but when you don’t catch these things in their moment of greatest cultural relevance, they often fall a little flat.

High school students wrote and produced raps based upon one of my books

Students at Gavit High School in Hammond, Indiana read Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend in English class, and a group of them wrote and produced raps about the book.

I’ve never been a huge fan of of rap, but these two songs are definitely an exception:

http://www.smule.com/p/282065249_78027425

http://www.smule.com/p/282065249_78028372

Our unusually dark and strange family lullaby

About two years ago, I sat down with my infant son to rock him to sleep. Regina Spektor’s song On the Radio was running through my head, so I decided to sing it to him. He smiled and slowly fell asleep.

That same night, my three year-old daughter asked me to sing to her before bed. With On the Radio still in my head, I sang it to her as well.

Two years later, this song has become my children’s lullaby. It is the most requested song at bedtime, and my song specifically requests it by name. Both of my children know all the words, and my son will often sing it with me.

It occurs to me that this is not your usual lullaby. While the song has a slow, steady beat, the lyrics are oftentimes odd and nonsensical and cover topics that you wouldn’t expect to find in a lullaby, including:

• Driving a hearse into a crowd of people
• Laughing until you’re dead
• Locating worms to increase the rate of decay
• Being stung by a million bees
• Diseased loved ones
• A Guns N’ Roses song
• Growing old
• The end of love
• Breathing your last breath

I anticipate many questions when our children get older.

Questions like, “What the hell were you thinking?” and “Of all the songs you could’ve chosen, why one about decay and death and worms?”

My answer will be simple:

“You liked it.”

John Lennon’s “Imagine” is not a good song. I think you’ll agree.

I don’t like the song “Imagine.”

I know. For many of you, this is blasphemy. For years, I loved the song. Sang it whenever it came on.

Then I was driving in the car last week when “Imagine” came on Pandora. As I sang along, I thought about the lyrics in a way I never have before.

I thought critically.

When it was finished, I kind of hated the song, and justifiably so.

I think you’ll agree, unless you’re one of those annoying, “Yeah, I know the song ‘Gold Digger’ is demeaning to women, but I like the beat, so I want it played at my wedding anyway” people.  

The lyrics, with my commentary:
________________________

Imagine there is no heaven
It's easy if you try (a fairly presumptuous statement at best)
No hell below us
Above us only sky (again, he’s assuming a lot)

Imagine all the people
Living for today (a nice thought until it’s tomorrow and everyone is hungry and cold)

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do (borderline rude for those who find this hard)
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too

Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one (the fact that others suffer from similar delusions is not a valid argument)
I hope someday you will join us
And the world will be as one (does this whole stanza strike anyone else as drifting into Jim Jones territory?)

Imagine no possessions (communist)
I wonder if you can (now you wonder? after telling me how easy it is to imagine no heaven, no hell, no countries, and no religion, you wonder about my ability to imagine this?) 
No need for greed or hunger (there has never been a need for hunger)
A brotherhood of man

Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

You, you may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you will join us
And the world will live as one

Did you know that Fastball’s “The Way” is a song about an elderly couple that was found dead at the bottom of a cliff?

When it comes to music, I have always been a lyric person. I pay attention to the words. I pay close attention to the words.

I don’t understand brides who ask me to play Gold Digger at a wedding because “it has a good beat.”

There are a billion songs in the world. We can’t find a different song with a good beat.

Same goes for Garth Brook’s The Dance. Lovely song, but it’s a breakup song. Do we need to play it at a wedding?

Some of my favorite songs are those that tell stories and take the listener on a journey. The Gambler by Kenny Rogers. Jack and Diane by John Cougar Mellencamp. Baseball in my Blood by Erik Balkey. Lots of songs by Springsteen, Bon Jovi, Bowling for Soup, Meatloaf, Joe Strummer, and many more. 

Some of these songs contain stories that are quite complex and include actual character development over the course of the song.

Since I’m someone who pays attention to lyrics, I was shocked to discover that the 1998 hit song The Way by Fastball tells a story that I never realized until now.

Fastball’s lead singer Tony Scalzo says that he wrote The Way in 1997 after reading an article in The Austin American-Statesman about Lela and Raymond Howard, an elderly couple who disappeared after leaving their Salado, Texas home to attend an event fifteen miles away in Temple. The couple was eventually found 13 days later when hikers discovered the crumpled remains of their vehicle at the bottom of a cliff off the side of the highway. Lela and Raymond had died from injuries sustained in the crash.

By the time the bodies of the couple were found, Scalzo had already written the song, and Fastball was rehearsing it.

A year after the Howards died, the song became the first hit single off of Fastball’s "All The Pain Money Can Buy."

I was aware that the song told the story of a couple who took a road trip and never returned, but I had no idea that the couple was elderly and ended up dead. Scalzo’s interpretation romanticizes the disappearance, which is understandable considering that he wrote the song before the bodies of the couple were found at the bottom of a cliff.

Still, when I listen to the song now, every word seems slightly darker and more ominous. What I once thought of as a song about the desire for freedom and the call of the road is now something slightly more sinister and sad.

I think I like it better now that I know the story behind the song. It has more weight now. More gravitas.

Possible lessons to be learned from Weezer’s unexpected path to success

Weezer's first album, The Blue Album, was a multi-platinum success.

I liked it very much.

The record industry expected that their second album, Pinkerton, would perform similarly, but when it was released, Pinkerton received mixed reviews from critics and was voted the third worst album of the year by Rolling Stone readers.

Despite the poor reviews, the album sold steadily over the years, thanks mostly to word-of-mouth on the Internet.

In 2002, six years after the original release, Pinkerton was voted the 16th greatest album of all time by Rolling Stone readers. The magazine later gave Pinkerton another review and awarded it five stars.

Possible lessons to be learned from this:

1. Great art will ultimately be recognized as great over time, so do not despair if your creation has not received the attention that it deserves. See Herman Melville and Edgar Allen Poe as perfect examples of this.

a. A corollary to the first possible lesson: If your art is going to ultimately be recognized as great, it’s best when it happens while you are still alive, unlike Melville and Poe.

2. The public is a fickle mass of mindless ninnies who can love something one day and despise it the next, so artists should not invest too much time or energy in public opinion. 

3. Critics are a fickle mass of mindless ninnies whose expert opinions are easily swayed by the public, so artists should not invest too much time or energy in their opinions.

4. It’s best to produce an artistic flop in the age of the Internet, when small tribes of like-minded people can more easily gather and exchange and spread information. The Internet is the place where art can be given a second chance.

Is Jimmy Fallon the coolest man on Earth?

I’ve never wanted to be anyone but me.  Ever.

Jimmy Fallon may be the one exception.

Watch The Rolling Stones write “Sympathy for the Devil”

I have always wanted to sit quietly beside a writer and watch him or her work for a few days. I’m fascinated by a writer’s process, and I often wonder if writers are applying their craft in the same way I do.

Actually, I’ve wanted to do the same thing for editors.

Are they applying their red pen with the sinister grins and diabolical laughter that I envision?

Probably.

This video doesn’t show the kind of writing that I had in mind, but it might be better. A documentarian filmed The Rolling Stones as they were writing “Sympathy for the Devil” and captured their process in full.

I’ve watched it twice already. Completely fascinating. 

Naissance de "Sympathy for the devil " (one+one... by cinocheproduction

The Michael Jackson video game was a thing.

Sometimes you come across facts that you need to say aloud to as many people as possible because you just can’t believe that they are true.

Like this:

In 1988 and 1989, video game manufacturers released video games for the arcade, the computer and Sega’s video game platform based upon Michael Jackson’s film, Moonwalker, in which Michael Jackson must rescue kidnapped children from the evil Mr. Big while incorporating synthesized versions of his greatest hits and many of his classic dance moves.

I played a lot of video games in the 1980s and 1990s, both in arcades and at home.

Moonwalker was never one of them.

What kind of jerk complains about a little music at dinnertime?

AC Peterson’s, a family restaurant in West Hartford, Connecticut, invites performers from the adjacent theater to sing show tunes on Monday evenings to their diners. Three or four young talented men and women walk around the restaurant with a microphone, singing songs from shows like West Side Story, Annie and The Sounds of Music, collecting tips in a large jar as they do so.

I’ve always found the whole thing a little annoying. With the music playing and the performers singing, it makes conversation difficult.

Then this happened, and I realized what a complete and total jerk I was being.

A career spent in quiet desperation

During my 17 years as a wedding DJ, I have played Billy Joel's ‘Piano Man’ at 9:00 on a Saturday whenever possible.

Only once did someone notice.

The 1970s will never be fully understood.

More evidence that the 1970s were the strangest time in America:

In 1970, Sesame Street’s Ernie’s signature song “Rubber Duckie” reached No. 16 on the Billboard Hot 100.

It’s absolutely inexplicable.

Watch this instead. Please. You’ll be so happy that you did.

I took a lot of flack (and quite a bit of praise) for my position on the attention given to the royal baby.

My position is essentially this:

Shut up. It’s a freakin’ prince in a twenty-first century monarchy that shouldn’t exist. Thanks to this child’s genetic background and his ancestors’ ability to maintain power through military force, he has been born into greater unearned privilege than anyone could possibly imagine. Look away, damn it. Give your attention over to something more meaningful. Something earned.

It’s not exactly a nuanced position.

It also opens me up to attack in terms of some of my own interests and hobbies. I readily accept those criticisms, acknowledge the potential ludicrousness of some of my interests, and most important, have not responded to these attacks as if someone has eaten my firstborn child while giving me wedgie, as many have responded to me.

There are differences between supporting the National Football League and supporting the British royal family, and I don’t believe they are entirely comparable, but I won’t get into that now. 

But for those of you who have argued that the birth of the prince has been a means of escaping some of the more unfortunate news of the day and has afforded you the opportunity to revel in something slightly more joyous (the most common refrain to my position), I offer you this:  

While I’m sure the future king is cute as a button, here are some equally adorable children who are doing amazing things with a bit less privilege than the future king will enjoy.

This is something truly worth your attention: 

Butterfly Kisses is not cheesy, damn it.

Butterfly Kisses, a song by Bob Carlisle, was released in 1997, the same year I became a wedding DJ.  I’ve been playing that song for fathers and daughters ever since, and I have always thought the song was incredibly cheesy.

Last night I watched a bride dance with her father to the song. He had chosen the song and had kept his choice a secret until I announced it.

As I stood on the edge of the dance floor, clipboard in hand, waiting to introduce the groom and his mother onto the dance floor, I started listening to the song, paying attention to the lyrics and thinking about my own daughter, Clara.

It was the combination of dust and pollen that generated the tears in my eyes last night, but as I wiped them away, I realized how stupid and wrong I have been for the last sixteen years.

It turns out that Butterfly Kisses is not a cheesy song at all. Not in the slightest. 

Resolution update: May 2013

In an effort to hold myself accountable, I post the progress of my yearly goals at the end of each month on this blog. The following are the results through May. 1. Don’t die.

I remain perfect on my most important goal.

2. Lose ten pounds.

I gained a pound. Three pounds down. Seven pounds to go. This is a clear refection of my lack of focus on this goal. Seriously. Ten pounds should be simple.

3. Do at least 100 push-ups and 100 sit-ups five days a day.  Also complete at least two two-minute planks five days per week.

Done.

4. Launch at least one podcast.

The hardware is ready. We designated a location in the house and set up the mixer and the microphones. I am working on understanding the software now. Basically, I understand how to record a podcast and can use the recording software fairly well. I am unsure what to do after I have the recording. How do I get my podcast onto the Internet? Into iTunes? Anywhere else it needs to go? Also, I may need a website to host and promote the podcasts, though this blog may serve this function. Still, a page will need to be created. A logo created. Other details I’m not even aware of yet, I’m sure.

5. Practice the flute for at least an hour a week.

The broken flute remains in the back of my car.

6. Complete my fifth novel before the Ides of March.

Done!

7. Complete my sixth novel.

Work had begun on the sixth novel.

8. Sell one children’s book to a publisher.

Work has begun on all three manuscripts. I’ve decided to revise them all and then choose the one that I think is best to send to my agent.

9. Complete a book proposal for my memoir.

Work on the memoir proposal has begun.

10. Complete at least twelve blog posts on my brother and sister blog.

Seven blog posts published during the month of May. More than halfway to the goal. Two more written by my sister awaiting publication. Kelli finds herself in a position to write consistently for the first time in her life. I’m trying to convince her to write a memoir. The last twenty years of her life have been extraordinarily difficult and would make a great story.

11. Become certified to teach high school English by completing two required classes.

I am now just one class and an inexplicable $50 away from achieving certification. That class will be taken in the summer.

12. Publish at least one Op-Ed in a newspaper.

I’ve have now published three pieces in the Huffington Post and one in Beyond the Margins. I am waiting response on an Op-Ed proposal from a major newspaper as well.

13. Attend at least eight Moth events with the intention of telling a story.

I attended one Moth event in May, bringing my total to seven. For the first time ever, I attended a StorySLAM in Boston at the Oberon Theater. I told a story about the day I lost a bike race to my friend and his new 10-speed bike. I finished in first place. It was my fourth StorySLAM victory.

14. Locate a playhouse to serve as the next venue for The Clowns.

The script, the score and the soundtrack remain in the hands of the necessary people. Talks continue on a new musical as well.

15. Give yoga an honest try.

Though I’m ready to try this whenever possible, the summer might be the most feasible time to attempt this goal.

My daughter, by the day, is taking yoga at her school. She demonstrated several poses to me the other day. This yoga stuff seems strange.

16. Meditate for at least five minutes every day.

I missed three days in May because my son is a pain-in-the-ass and wakes up before 7:00 AM.

17. De-clutter the garage.

Work continues. Nearing completion.

18. De-clutter the basement.

Work has begun. I installed the air conditioners this week, which eliminated three large objects from the basement. I also installed a rolling coat rack for the winter coats and have begun throwing away and donating baby paraphernalia that we will no longer need.

19. De-clutter the shed

Work has begun thanks to the work of a student. I will explain in a subsequent blog post.

20. Reduce the amount of soda I am drinking by 50%.

I failed to record my soda intake in April. I will begin tomorrow.

21. Try at least one new dish per month, even if it contains ingredients that I wouldn’t normally consider palatable.

I tried a new food in May but honestly can’t remember what it was. Also, I liked it.

22. Conduct the ninth No-Longer-Annual A-Mattzing Race in 2013.

No progress.

23. Post my progress in terms of these resolutions on this blog on the first day of every month.

Done.

Two favorite songs? Is that even possible?

A client for an upcoming wedding told me that his mother’s two favorite songs are The Isley Brother’s Twist and Shout and Bob Dylan’s Forever Young.

Two songs.

I can’t imagine what my children might say someday if asked by a DJ what their father’s two favorite songs are. I love so many songs by so many musicians.

Hundreds. Maybe thousands.

How could I ever narrow it down to two?

I think my answer might actually change on a minute-by-minute basis.

It’s ironic, damn it. Or close enough.

Anyone who criticizes Alanis Morissette’s song Ironic for its lack of irony is an intellectual douche bag. It’s a four minute pop song. It need not be held up to any literary standard.

Yes, “ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife” is not ironic by the truest definition of the word, but it seems pretty damn ironic to me.