Lush – “For Love”

When: October 2009
Where: SF State
Who: Nobody
Weather: Cold, rainy

I took a stroll around the grounds.

Next: Back to the greater world

The Charlatans – “Flower”

When: June 2009
Where: North Hudson Avenue, Pasadena
Who: Nobody
Weather: Mild, overcast

I’d come back to Pasadena for the summer in the hope of fulfilling my childhood wishes. When I got back though, all I found were a scattering of old friends, my parents marriage finally ending, and an assortment of classic TV shows I’d never seen before. I listened to this as I took a Netflix disc to our local post office, which would later close.

The west was dying. Every day were reports of new ghost towns in the interior, miles of brand new subdivisions abandoned. And even stalwart old Pasadena was feeling the pinch as more and more storefronts became empty. I felt like a kid again. I was on the frontier, the edge of the universe, and there was no way out.

Yet.

Next: The worst year of my life hits its deepest trough as I slip into a very un-summery delirium.

The Stone Roses – “Fool’s Gold”

When: 9 May 2009
Where: Capitol Corridor between San Francisco and Sacramento
Who: Nobody
Weather: Warm, sunny
Book: When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris

Going back and forth between the Californias got me enough miles on Amtrak for a free round trip, and I needed a vacation. I was incredibly wound-up as finals neared, and I decided to cash in my miles: I was going to Sacramento. It was the easiest city to get to from the Bay Area anyway.

Sacramento proved to be refreshingly warm, and mellow as well. Eating a restaurant burger and garlic fries from Fats in Old Town while sitting on the riverbank? Yes please! I wanted to make a Monty Park video of my trip, and I was listening to this song as the city skyline appeared beyond the rice paddies of the delta. “I need to use this song,” I thought to myself, and I threw it in.

My native accent gets a lot stronger when I’m not home.

Next: Bew-bew-bew!

The La’s – “Way Out”

When: Late April 2009
Where: Walking northbound on Junipero Serra Boulevard
Who: Nobody
Weather: Mild

There’s not much to say about this: It was during my Britpop phase and I was getting some shampoo, so I’d like to talk about Flower Girl.

Flower Girl was so called because she always had a flower in her hair. She was a foreign policy major from a rich family down the peninsula, but I knew her from a political science class I loved, and an art theory class that I hated more than any class I ever took. It lasted three hours, all incredibly boring for an art class. She was a big believer in art affecting social change. I was not, and I am not. And my vocal opposition in class took Flower Girl’s attention.

The breaking point came during finals. She invited me to breakfast at her place, but when I got there, she was still asleep and had to cancel. After my incident in the dorm hallway, I had my very last test in Poli Sci. My dorm was already cleared out and I was to be home by the afternoon, and we talked after the test. I had planned to go in for the kiss, but wasn’t so sure now that it came down to it. She texted me afterwards. “If I didn’t have a boyfriend,” she said, “I would have gone out with you.”

But she did go out with me, and would continue to go out with me whenever she damn well pleased. But that was later. For now it was April, and I was just getting some shampoo.

Next: What happens when you hear a song, you don’t know the name of the band, the song, or the lyrics. And you don’t even know you already have it?

The Beta Band – “Dry the Rain”

When: February 2009
Where: Taza, SF State University
Who: Kellen Sarver
Weather: Cold, Intermittently Cloudy

I was 19, and running behind schedule. Nineteen is such a faceless age, there’s nothing you’re supposed to do when you’re that age that you aren’t already doing. So I watched High Fidelity, a terrific movie that contains a scene that might be familiar to you dedicated readers:

And I enjoyed it so much that I decided to buy some of the music from the movie, so I listened to this song after trading a Kooks CD.

At SF State, we all share the same wireless internet, so if we were to make our iTunes libraries public, everyone could listen to them. I was one of many who did (and it would pay off later), but I spent a lot of time listening to the library of a girl named Kellen Sarver. I noticed she had some Kooks material I didn’t, and as I’d recently become able to listen to them again, I contacted her. We traded, I forgot exactly what I gave her, but she was satisfied. The stuff she gave me was disappointing.

Next: Love in the Nineties was paranoid. Love in the Noughties wasn’t all there.

Travis – “Selfish Jean”

When: after sunset, 24 May 2007
Where: Westbound on East Orange Grove Boulevard
Who: My mom
Weather: Warm, clear

By the end of the school year, I’d come to realize I was on a roll. I had accomplished everything I wanted to do; I’d published some films (well, a vlog, but you have to start somewhere) and established a stage persona. I’d chosen a college, passed my SAT’s with flying colors, I’d been in a goddamn tornado, and I had a schedule. Now I was coming into school an hour early. Maybe I’d go out for breakfast, maybe I’d just like the peace and quiet of an empty bus and library. I could have gone either way.

It was during my morning downtime that I discovered something amazing– the Cold War was back on. I’d heard rumors after the Polonium incident, but this was thrilling news. By now the Cold War was a nostalgic memory, more straightforward and understandable than what we were going through at the time. I got my analysis on the situation from The Daily Show, which I watched every morning with my friend Wyatt. This led me to Demetri Martin, which led me to this:

I watched it when I woke up, before dawn. I couldn’t get it out of my head, but I didn’t care. This was a different kind of song. Rather than a soaring quality, painful angst or a certain sleaze, it was fun. It was like a feather. It could have been at home in the early sixties, and there was nothing else like it out there. Today we call that pop revival, but it won’t show up again here for a long, long time.

When I got home, I downloaded it, before meeting some friends in Lamanda Park. As my mom picked me up, we passed the globular street lamps of the wide boulevard, the song enveloping the car, and thinking, “this would be a great season finale.” I was living my dream, however modest it was, and wasn’t going to stop any time soon. But before the real weirdness kicked in, I at least had that moment of accomplishment. I had become the man I wanted to be, the man for his time and place. For the first time, I was proud to be me.

Next: Soaring guitars have their downside.

Radiohead – “There, There”

When: 22 June 2003
Where: Soutbound on El Molino Avenue
Who: My parents
Weather: Hot, humid

This was a different kind of summer. This was a different kind of heat. You could feel it right on your skin like water. But summers were meant to be dry, what was happening?

An unusual humid interlude in a normal, dry summer, but if ever there was a song to match that feeling, it was this one. I was riding in my parents’ car and it came on. We wandered through trees. The light of the sky was white and glaring. It’s what I imagine Louisiana to be like.

Next: The lonesome crowded west.

Coldplay – “Yellow”

When: April 2001
Where: My mom’s car, rounding the corner from northbound on Lake Avenue to eastbound on Washington Boulevard
Who: My mother
Weather: Cloudy

We were on our way to the Lebanese Kitchen (go there if you can) on Washington and Hill when this song came on. It seemed simplistic in a good way that was rare at the time, but Coldplay has a bad tendency to blow it, which is why Nathan Rabin hates it so much.

Next: Aerosmith fails to appeal to a new generation.

Chumbawamba – “Tubthumping”

When: November 1997
Where: Pacific Theaters Hastings Ranch (closed)
Who: My mother
Weather: Unknown

In an unusual manifestation of brand loyalty, Disney had a monopoly on me. With the company’s recent purchase of ABC, it would pierce further by bringing me new episodes of Home Improvement. I was seeing one of their newer features when a trailer came on. I forget which movie it was for. I thought it was 101 Dalmatians, but that came out a year earlier. A little bit of research leads me to believe the film I was seeing was Flubber, and the trailer was for either Inspector Gadget, My Favorite Martian, or The Parent Trap. One remake, two adaptations of TV shows. Sound familiar?

Disney’s early-’90s work was so promising, and it shouldn’t have been a good sign that 8-year-old Sam Huddy, a 2nd grader with seemingly no taste or quality filter, looked down on what was to come, from the redundant California Adventure to endless direct-to-video sequels. That last part might as well be a dump on the American flag. And that, my friends, is why everybody hates Michael Eisner.

Next: El Niño hits, and things get retro.

Radiohead – “Karma Police”

When: September 1997
Where: Southbound on Pacific Avenue in my mom’s car
Who: My mother
Weather: Overcast

When I was in the second grade, the older girls liked to play witches and imprison me. That later became a thing of mine, but that’s for another website.

During this trouble, my mother took me on a friday night, without warning, to a synagogue. I had no idea what was going on, but despite the 2-hour runtime of a typical Erev Shabbat service, I was pleased enough. I was not so pleased when she began sending me to Sunday school at said synagogue, as once again I had no idea what was going on. My entire knowledge of judaism up to this point was derived from the 1989 season of IETV’s רחוב סומסום, an Israeli adaptation of Sesame Street.

Temple Sinai was not accessible to me as a religious institution. The Sunday school teachers assumed we already knew everything, but as my family seems to be the least religious Jews in all of America, I did not. Also, I was quiet around strangers, and everyone here was a stranger. It was enjoyable enough, but it never felt personal until I was a full-grown adult, and not because of anyone there. And if you’re reading this, it wasn’t you, it was me. Now where was I?

Following a perfectly normal experience in 1st grade, I became an unbearably smug 2nd grader. This may have had to do something with my awful teacher who hated boys, oblivious to this as I may have been. I only listened to classical music, and after some forgotten misbehaviour my mother refused to play the classical station, instead listening to KROQ, halfway through this song. I didn’t like it. I do now.

Next: Blondie searches for Fermat’s last theorem