Songs That Are Like Old Friends, pt. 2

Song No. 2: On Reflection

The step from song no. 1 to no. 2 is a giant one … in several senses!

My family lived for two years in Europe where, courtesy of the Armed Forces Radio Network, I became acquainted between the ages of 10 and 12 with old-time-radio shows (from Jack Benny, Henry Morgan, and Stan Freburg to “It Pays to Be Ignorant” and “The Magnificent Montague”), as well as some of the history of Sixties rock-and-roll. John Gillaland’s “The Pop Chronicles” and other compendia aired on AFN Frankfurt.

My attention to popular music was pretty spotty, because I didn’t have access to a record player. Mostly I listened to AM hits (I remember hearing a lot of “Saturday Morning Confusion,” Simon & Garfunkel’s “Cecilia,” and “Don’t Pull Your Love” by Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds, which made me wonder whether that was three or four guys every time the DJ announced the band) and taped old radio shows onto an Uher reel-to-reel. We did have a cheap cassette player; on the recommendation of a record department clerk, Dad bought a cassette of Led Zeppelin II at the U.S. Army Post Exchange in Hanau, Germany, but he didn’t like it much. I got into it, though.

"Being Connected" Means Disconnecting from Your Self

The extent to which so many people shut down their senses against things that are going on around them is astonishing. I’ve observed repeated evidence of this in recent days.

I ride the Portland Streetcar pretty much every day: sometimes for short hops as a patron, and other times for several hours as an employee. Recorded announcements over the p.a. system let riders know on a regular basis what kind of car they’re on: whether it’s heading to northwest Portland, the South Waterfront, or across the river to the east side.

Yet people don’t hear them. They constantly ask me and one another which train they’re on. “This is the Northwest 22nd and Northrup stop,” the calm female announcer’s voice stated as I stood up to get off for a work shift at another job last week. Right away, directly behind me, I heard someone ask, “Is this 23rd?”

Last Wednesday, March 11, my wife Carole was aboard a streetcar that was already passing a parked vehicle when the woman inside opened her door into the train, which naturally bashed and bent it. She screamed. Carole said everyone on board who heard her thought the train had struck someone. Why hadn’t this idiot looked out the window or in her rearview mirror before reaching for her door handle? (And could her insurance company deny coverage on the basis of stupidity?)

Songs That Are Like Old Friends

I try to avoid participating in Facebook memes and games. I know they’re primarily promotional, and designed to drive up site traffic as well as to divine each user’s tastes and interests so that bots can market stuff to them more accurately. I’ve never played Farmville or Candy Crush or Bubble Witch or Jackpot Party Casino Slots. Fortunately, nobody hit me up for the ice bucket challenge last year so I’d have to publicly demur, not least because I don’t have a smartphone to be able to shoot a photo or video and post it. But last week a friend tagged me for a five-day song challenge:

"Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to post five cool songs in as many days. Each day, I'm tagging three friends, in the hopes they'll do the same. Expanding horizons, facilitating the tapping of toes, providing distractions from the looming void, etc."

I liked being tapped, especially alongside two other Facebook friends of mine named David. I don’t see them or my Facebook challenger in person very often, though I’ve worked with each in staged readings or on video jobs in the past. And I really liked reminiscing about the music that has enriched my life in the past -- thinking about which five songs might be most interesting to choose; not necessarily my absolute favorites, not necessarily the coolest, but a little off the beaten path as well as personally illuminating with regard to my musical journey through life.