Bringin' on the Heartbreak

 

There’s a scene near the end of Wes Anderson’s 2001 movie The Royal Tenenbaums where Ben Stiller’s character, Chas Tenenbaum, emotionally breaks and says “I’ve had a rough year, dad.”  It’s almost too much for me to watch, and one of several moments during this quirky movie that never fail to get me emotional.  It has always resonated with me in a way that I haven’t fully understood.

 

This past summer, I had two medical procedures to insert five stents in around my heart to clear some blockages.  After awakening in the post op recovery room after the first procedure, my senses were flooded with a surprisingly loud presence of the Def Leppard song “Bringin’ on the Heartbreak.”  In that moment, I could not remember the band's name, so like the nerd I am, I began calling out to the entire Recovery unit - anyone.  I’m certain everyone there was born long after the song’s release, so they weren’t privy to its ubiquitous radio presence during the early 80s. They may not have been old enough to be privy to the idea of radio ubiquity.  My guess is that they were playing some kind of streaming service’s “Heart” playlist algorithm – you know, for fun.

As I stirred back to consciousness from the procedure, my squirming brought a nurse over to tell me not to move my legs, because of the incision in my right inner thigh.  She tied some bedding around my leg as a reminder to keep them still.  She moved to the left bedside and introduced herself as Nicole.  I asked her again, if she knew who did the song that was playing, just as Whitesnake’s “Here I Go Again” came on.  There goes my “Heart” songs theory.    I guess someone in the room was feeling their 80s hair rock.  Like a drifter they were born to wear cologne.  I chuckled and Nicole asked me what was so funny.  I thought to myself, that it would be fitting that the final flashes of my life would be the music that I couldn’t stop mocking as a teenager.  I twitched my leg and Nicole asked me to relax.  Then she put my left hand into a tight clasp between both her hands.  I could barely make out her smiling eyes floating above a surgical mask. At that point, I knew I was okay and drifted back to sleep.

During my life, I have tried to not be noticed.  I think I’m pretty good at it (see Nowhere Man).  I rarely offer up participation in groups, but if I do, I often try to be first in order to lessen the pressure and be the first to be forgotten.  I try to be as small as I can be despite my size, and I always try to leave space between me and the general public.  I try to blend in as much as possible.  I used to wear concert tees all the time, which would occasionally elicit notice out in public, so I stopped that.  It's not difficult to be forgettable.  I’ve always been generic, because I am.  History and the size of the population tells me so.  There are billions of souls with hopes, ideas, fears, problems, tastes, skills, etc. – all more profound than what I can muster.  It’s an overwhelming realization.  Who am I to believe that anything about me is worthy of notice? 

I get that I have posted these occasional poor health missives for potential public consumption over several years, which is antithetical to my stated efforts to not call attention to myself.  I do not do it for notice, or for sympathy.  I do it to sort out my own feelings.  I write these things to settle my thoughts.  The act of writing helps to calm my anxieties.  Plus, I feel safe in my little anonymous corner of the internet and the mostly abandoned realm of blogs.  If there is a public side, I’d hope to maybe spark conversation about health experiences and health care and just life in general. 

 

Because of the stents being placed near my heart, I was prescribed 36 sessions of Cardiac Rehab, which is comprised of two hour long sessions a week at a gym within a hospital that is supervised by several on staff exercise physiologists.  They keep an eye on us via heart monitors, routine blood pressure checks, and observation.  I love it.  It makes me feel like I’m taking an active role in improving my health and life, which, like the writing helps give me purpose.  I enjoy casually learning about my fellow patients and learning about their health experiences and how they wound up at Cardiac Rehab, and I enjoy the check-ins by the staff who are all very kind and motivating. 

Recently, I was scheduled for an Endoscopic Ultrasound to get a closer look via biopsy at some “concerning” cyst growth in my pancreas.  The procedure is pretty simple, and I’ve been through it before (see Here’s Where theStory Ends).  I know that VHL cysts in the pancreas are benign, but I’m okay with them looking closer to be safe.  A few days before the procedure, while at Cardiac Rehab, Hannah, the best of the exercise physiologists approached me while I was flailing around on a recumbent bike.  She was there to ask me about my daily exercise routine, to take my BP, and to answer any questions I might have.  I reported to her that I was about to go in for this minor procedure, because I had previously been informed that I should alert the staff of any new medical news.  Hannah asked me how I was doing, and how I felt about it.  I think I grumbled something about “futility” and “being tired,” and Hannah retorted with encouraging specific evidence about my progress since beginning the classes, and dammit, I broke!  An instant flood of emotions rushed up into my nose.  It was as if she pushed a button that unlocked a lot of unresolved pain.  Sure, we both knew that this procedure was not serious, but for me, it felt like a breaking point after a lifetime of struggle.  Is this what it means when people say they “feel seen?”  Was this me allowing myself to be “seen,” or was I simply caught in a flash of light before scurrying into the shadows like a cockroach?  

Ever since that moment, I’ve been a ball of conflicting emotions with bouts of excited optimism mixed with total unflinching despair.  The optimism?  Maybe I’m beginning to realize that being seen is not so bad.  That it’s okay to ask for and accept help, and to trust, and to admit that I’ve had a rough stretch..  The despair?  I wonder if I’ve waited too long to learn this lesson.  My efforts to be alone have been pretty damn successful, so now I feel like I’m left with no shoulder to lean into and say “I’ve had a rough year.”

Don't Give Up

As a kid, curvy roadways used to make me violently ill.  There’s something about the constant turning, causing the stomach to shift from side to side.  It seems like every time my family took out on a winding road trip, it would be either burning hot outside, or damp outside, so the car interior was always warm and muggy, so the nausea of the rocking back and forth - sliding a little along the vinyl back seat – unsecured by a seat belt, came along with uncomfortable sweats.  Recently, I drove through Newberg, a small town about 25 miles southwest of Portland.  I will always associate Newberg with car sickness.  When my family moved from Portland to the Oregon coast, we passed through and I asked if we could stop, because I thought that I was going to throw up.  The deep breathing my mom suggested was not working.  We stopped off at a donut shop.  It was a rainy and humid mid-morning.  A common rainy Oregon day: wet and gloomy and strangely warm and humid.  The kind where you need a jacket to keep your clothes dry, but you don’t really want to wear more layers.  The four of us sat inside the donut shop with a few plain round cake treats in the center of the table.  My dad seemed to have a thing about ordering the plainest donuts in the world.  If I think back on it, his decision was likely partially based on the fact that they were the cheapest option, but it’s just as likely that his decision was to not offend anyone’s tastes, which always had the opposite effect.  My brother and I each had a half pint carton of milk and my parents had styrofoam cups of coffee.  My stomach was mildly better, but my head was still spinning and I felt like I was burning from the inside, which I remember because my dad was getting impatient and wanted to get back on the road.  I chewed the same bite of that donut for what seemed like hours, until it became a viscous goo that wadded up in the crevices of my gums with no intention of going anywhere near my throat.  I felt like I would feel years later when I experienced my first tragic hangover and every one after that.  I stared at the milk.  I hate milk.  I always hated milk.  I was always being given milk and I could not figure out why.  My mom had opened it for me, so I was afraid I would get lectured about waste, but luckily my bother chugged it down with his strangely amplified swallowing noises.  Glug Glug Glug.  Welcome to Newberg.

Why was I passing through Newberg?  I’m not really sure.  I have made reasons that take me to or through Yamhill County four weekends in a row.  This most recent trip, I took a route I haven’t used in years, after having driven back and forth through there countless times as part of that two hour trek from Lincoln City to Portland and back.  Not far from where I remember that now long gone donut shop, I turned right onto a highway I don’t think I’ve ever noticed before.  It was a narrow two lane road that immediately began drifting back and forth needlessly.  Though I no longer seem to get car sick, I still don’t appreciate these types of roads.  I don’t have a particular affinity for driving, beyond the convenience it provides, so it all feels like too much work.  Yet, here I’ve been spending parts of my weekends driving through the countryside.  I suppose it’s a way to get out of the house responsibly during the Covid lockdown.  It’s also been a place I’ve imagined as an escape over the last several years.  I explained this a couple of years ago in the post Jennifer She Said.  The rustic Yamhill County has become a wine connoisseur hotspot since those days of plain donuts and car sickness, yet it has retained its quiet rural time capsule aesthetic.  It is still sprinkled with tiny towns with broken streets often slowed down by commuting tractors creeping past small local markets, dive bars, tiny schoolhouses, and now the occasional fancy tasting room for a nearby vineyard.  The escape daydreams started popping into my head with the image of living alone in some small house, working evenings at a small local pizza shop pouring pitchers of beer for parents after a local high school game, sharing odd philosophical notions or inventing on gossip to the locals.  I’d imagine I’d spend my days writing – believing that I actually had the talent and the will, and possibly hosting a local radio trade show, trying to sell or trade off Orville’s rusty back hoe or Thelma’s old claw foot bathtub that’s been sitting out back for the past 20 years and maybe spinning Shoegaze records for the farmers to enjoy.  Of course, these ideas hinge on some alternate reality where towns of less than a thousand people would have a radio station, the pizza place was still in business, and that I could survive on minimal wages, no healthcare coverage, or a nearby massive medical staff of specialists to manage my wonderful genetic syndrome.  The alternate vision?  That one involves going out to some random field at the edge of a forest to die in that peaceful setting.  I suppose it could be considered alarming that I keep finding myself returning there every week, but I have no plan.  No plan at all.

The day before, I was at the work office when a full on panic attack struck me.  I suddenly could not catch my breath, I became light-headed, and an overwhelming feeling of alarm surged through me like a lightning strike.  I do not blame my job directly, though I’m pretty sure it was triggered by a flash flood of the usual insane vague emails I so often receive, full of demands that I rarely have not been provided the proper tools to address.  These messages tapped into the incredible weight of anxiety that is already in place and has become intolerable.  A lot of us are dealing with anxiety, uncertainty, and isolation during these past few months of pandemic lockdown, and I have not been immune.  I honestly thought when this all began to disrupt our lives, that I would manage fairly well, since I have spent most of my life in a kind of self-imposed lockdown.  I could not have been more incorrect.  I have been battling depression for the past several years, made more acute after my 2015 Halloween hemorrhagic stroke, and these past few months have absolutely exacerbated all of my greatest fears.  I have been mostly cut off from my small group of loved ones who I rely on for support and therefore am spending way too much time dwelling on the emptiness that I feel.  Consciously and logically, I know that I can make decisions to choose to see the positive, but my brain will not allow these things.  Instead, I am left terrified, hopeless, and listless – powerless to affect change.  When any additional challenge passes my way, like the work emails, the bottom drops out and I feel like I’m free falling.  The only option that is to surrender and allow the inevitable crash to happen.  

About six miles in to my journey along this recently discovered highway I turned onto, I had my window down, and I was trying to feel relaxed by the breeze whipping into my face.  The music of Russian trio акульи слёзы (Shark’s Tears:  https://sharkstears.bandcamp.com/music ) was loudly enveloping me like a mournful blanket of melancholy.  As I approached an actual fork in the road, I veered to the right and up a slope into a forested stretch – away from the open fields of the previous couple of miles.  It was there, along the roadside, at the end of a tiny gravel driveway, I spotted a plain white campaign style yard sign with block letters reading “Don’t Give Up.”  I began gasping for breath again.  Would I begin to hyperventilate like I had the day before?  I could feel blood rush into my sinuses pressing in like a punch to the nose.  The sign brought to mind memories of the Frankie Goes to Hollywood “Frankie Says” slogans that they so brilliantly used to promote their music back when I was first beginning to spend all of my money on records.  I’m not sure if this flashback was the cause of the sudden emotional reaction, or because the sign was so unexpected, like a cosmic message placed there along my unplanned path to put my mind at ease.  I began to think about the Peter Gabriel / Kate Bush "Don't Give Up" duet.  It was a song that I adored when So was first released.  It tugged at the heartstrings and shone like a beacon of hope.  As close as I possibly could, I identified as a young teen with the Peter Gabriel character of the song, and longed for the soothing, comforting voice of the Kate Bush character to guide me back from the proverbial ledge.  The older and more jaded I became, the less effective the song.  It was too contrived, almost to the point of pure cheese - but that bass-line is impeccable.  Sort of like Depeche Mode’s “Blasphemous Rumours,” which is so heavy handed that when the life support machine sound effects come in like Darth Vader having an asthmatic attack, I can’t help but laugh, despite concurring with the song’s message that there is no such thing as fair and that there is no spiritual grand plan.  There is no plan at all. 

Soon I was back onto a bigger and straighter highway heading back to where I live.  Knowing that I was going back, pushed my thoughts far from the hopeful encouragement of the "Don't Give Up" sign, or is it an unrealistic command?  The realization that nothing is changing for the better only began to fuel my urgent desperation for escape and the inability to know how.  I began to feel completely exhausted.  The lids of my eyes began to linger against each other when I blinked.  The image of driving off the road into the strange swampy field adjacent to the road passed through my thoughts, but instead I pulled onto the shoulder, got out and leaned against the car, and was again overcome by uncontrolled panic.  Erratic breathing, nausea and pressure built up from within so quickly that I thought I might burst.  This was a new kind of car sickness.  I stayed there for a long time, as I began to calm down.  I fought off the urge to lie down on the blacktop next to the fog line and drift off to sleep.  Instead I checked my phone.  No messages.  

Why has this time now been so difficult to deal with?  I have been through a lot of challenging times, I have always found a way to battle through.  When my life has been in the balance with a myriad of emergency health struggles, I have been a fighter.  I have refused to give in.  I have never worked harder, than I do when I have had to recover from devastating surgeries and debilitating medications.  During my three years of dialysis, I was defiant and challenged myself to continue to live life as if I was healthy and wasn’t spending 4-5 hours every other day being tortured.  I was not going to give up.  Perhaps, during those times, the struggle was tangible.  I had something in front of me to deal with directly.  I had timelines and goals.  Relearning what once were simple tasks, allowed me to take heart in seeing progress.  I feel none of that promise anymore and I do not know what to do.  This is like trying to fight my own shadow.  How do people turn this around?  It does not seem possible?

I want to thank the few folks out there who know that I am in a dark place and have reached out to offer support (I hope you know who you are).  It means more to me than I can ever express.  I also want to apologize for being a burden.  I would not have made it this far without you.  I do not wish to push my problems onto anyone and would rather be a positive part of your lives.  I’m just unsure of how to get there.  

Broken Heart Surgery

Pete Fij / Terry Bickers

Broken Heart Surgery

(Broadcast)

I’ve been sitting in front of my laptop for what seems like forever, trying to come up with something clever to say about Broken Heart Surgery - this collaboration between Pete Fijalkowski (formerly of Adorable and Polak) and Terry Bickers (of the House of Love and formerly of Levitation), which has been on repeat the entire time.  Luckily, it finally just dawned on me that I am incapable of cleverness, so I should just get on with it.

These two guys are behind some of the most exciting, influential and amazing music I have ever encountered.  I get misty eyed when I think of the first time I heard the House of Love’s stunning “Christine,” or the thrilling drive of Adorable’s “Sunshine Smile,” but those songs were a long time ago and I hate to say it, but sometimes “super groups” or collaborations between musical heroes are often lackluster or disappointing.  Wisely, Fij and Bickers have slowly and quietly unveiled their shared musical vision.  It now seems like ages ago that the embittered ballad “I Don’t Give a Shit about You” reared its sardonic head teasing us with its tasteful simplicity.  And it’s this simplicity that makes this album so damn perfect.  Instead of each of them trying to somehow recapture their youthful exuberant work and potentially creating a mess, they instead have created a singularly focused album, where every damn song is about breaking up and dealing with the notion that if you’ve just broken up with someone, then that means that up to that point, well, you’ve failed in that department every step of the way for a lifetime.  In other words, the entire collection deals with that fine line of self doubt, disgust, anger, sadness and hurt of a freshly collapsed love affair all wrapped within a wry sense of humor.

The opening “Out of Time” sets the mood for the entire album.  A softly strummed acoustic guitar guides the way as Pete Fij states reasons why this latest relationship has failed entirely in terms of technology vs. romanticism, while Bickers’ stellar guitar melody elevates the song to a higher level.  Similarly, “Downsizing” places this failed relationship into business terms, which then sends our broken hearted narrator into seeking love rehab at “Betty Ford.”  Elsewhere, in “Breaking Up” he laments how she gets all the good stuff from their split (“she got the car keys & I got run over”), while “Loved & Lost” is two minutes of quiet clichés (“It’s better to have loved and lost…”) that abruptly ends with a threat to those who perpetrated such notions.  It’s this sense combination of humor and sadness that keeps this album from falling into a complete abyss, as well as the restrained, but subtlety fleshed out melodies of each song.

Naturally, I gravitate to the real heartbreaking moments of fragility of the collection.  “Parallel Girl” evokes heaviness with a tasty John Barry guitar line and a descending atmosphere, while Fij sings of the one that got away and imagining a parallel world where things actually turn out right.  Meanwhile, “Sound of Love” begins with a sense of hope (“the licking of her lips / just before the kiss”); before we soon learn that the sound of love is really the lingering memories of the good moments and the sounds of his former partner leaving.  Then there’s the painful realization in “Gravity” that we rarely can have what we most want. 

Broken Heart Surgery is, simply put, pretty damn perfect.  I recommend you find out for yourself.

(petefijterrbickers.blogspot.com)

Pete Fij / Terry Bickers "Betty Ford"

 

Trouble

Hospitality

Trouble

(Merge)

Later tonight (February 9^th, 2014, as I write this), Brooklyn band Hospitality will be performing a show at Portland’s Doug Fir Lounge.  I plan on attending, since I somehow made an excuse not to go after their prior trip through town (in support of their wonderful 2012 self-titled debut - #24 pick seen here).  And again, I find myself in a dilemma.  The show is a Sunday night.  We’ve had a shower of ice layer over the streets after a few days of unusual amounts of snow, I’m old, I work early tomorrow morning, and I’m not sure I will be able to convince anyone to join me.  Should I go?  I’m listening to their new second album right now and the internal battle between my love of music and desire to support the bands I love versus the cheap old curmudgeon shut in that I’ve become rages on.  What to do?

There is a dilemma spread across Trouble as well.  Of course, the crossroads explored in vocalist/guitarist Amber Papini’s lyrics are a lot more in depth and more important than my trivial one.  Papini seems to be stuck in a purgatory between the desire for a relationship and a desire to be alone.  This is something I think all of us can identify with at some point in our lives.  Do we want to deal with the weirdness, frustration, compromise and potential heartbreak of dating or do we want to be lonely?  Neither one sounds particularly appealing, does it?  Maybe this is the jaded view and we should always dream of that perfect match that only a rare few of us seem to find in life, but such are the emotional ups and downs of love and life.

Let’s begin with the lonely side of the equation.  The smooth Luna sounding first single, “Going Out” (the video fittingly stars Luna’s Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips), finds our protagonist dressing up for a night on the town (“ruffled dresses and parasols / rhinestone rings and high-heeled soles / wrapped in cloth from your head to toe”), but the frosty night only turns out to be an evening stroll alone (“you’re looking at yourself a lot / standing in the glass with costume on / posed for no one but you were caught”).  The stuttering “I Miss Your Bones” finds her alone either from separation or from being let go, while the epic and mysterious sounding “Last Words” finds her stranded on an island wanting companionship desperately enough to “evacuate to salty arms of a soldier or a snake.”  On the closing spare acoustic “Call Me After,” Papini finds herself outstaying her welcome due to a rainstorm and the resulting humiliation of this realization: “Will you want me after? / will you want to walk me home in the dark? / is it the weather that just keeps me?”

Yet, on the other side of the coin, the album opens up with Papini’s faux British accent cursing a cheating lover in “Nightingale” (“If you sleep here you’ll see sirens and vamps”) over the top of spectacularly splashing cymbals in the rousing denial chorus: “What girl?”  In the brief “Inaugaration” finds Papini sitting alone watching TV and giving a subtle kiss off to her missing partner (“Why you call and say / you’ll call me back / I’ll disconnect the line”), while the first album Psychedelic Furs sounding “Rockets and Jets” is a case of a lovely sunny afternoon out watching planes when things go south (“I left the knife on the rafter / I’ll have your heart after / I know this won’t last too long / I’ll have the day a long long time”).  Meanwhile, the frank “It’s Not Serious” is all about being the on the other side and disinterested – “I’ll figure out / I don’t want this / and so it’s not serious”).  Clearly, there are no easy answers.  We are all heroes and villains in the world of love – depending on whose side you’re on, but finding a balance between independence and companionship is not easy to achieve.

Musically, this sophomore album is a big departure from the to-the-point baroque pop of their debut.  As hinted at in the post album double-A sided 7,” “The Drift” b/w “Monkey,” the band have decided to stretch things out and linger over notes and passages in a more spacious way.  Much like the early 80s post-punk influenced cover art (reminds me of early OMD); the music sounds like it could’ve been recorded from that period.  There is a darkness and mystery behind many of these songs and the keyboard layers and moments of programmed beats and stark piano hammers enhance the indecisiveness and hollow feelings of the words, while the space allows for bolder crescendos and longer passages of near silence.

It is fun to hear a band growing and trying new things and so successfully.  This album is an enjoyable listen from start to finish from the get go, but it reveals more and more with repetition.  Now, should I go to the show tonight?  I really should.  They’ve travelled a meandering 3,000 plus miles to arrive here across a nation decimated by bone chilling cold and treacherous roads.  It seems as though I could chance a 15 minute drive to see them perform.  But I do have to be up early tomorrow….  

(facebook.com/hospitalitylives or mergerecords.com/hospitality)

Hospitality "Going Out"

 

Downtown

During the mid 80s, as a young teen, I used to daydream about what my life would be like as an adult out in the world on my own. Most of these visions seemed to involve me living in some sort of high-rise apartment in the middle of a downtown metropolis and my pad would be adorned with things like black leather furniture, bare brick walls, white carpeting and neon lights for art and the only available light source. I would be near all of the coolest night clubs and, of course, all the pretty ladies would love me. In my future world, pretty much everything would still be like it was in the mid-80s, because all of that shit was forever in my mind. The only difference is that reality would start to mirror more of the movie and music video landscape of the time. In other words, things would be stuck in a post-apocalyptic retro/future scenario – some sort of Streets of Fire world. In retrospect, I often wonder what was going on with that. Maybe it was the Reagan regime’s push for a return to simpler times (i.e. the 50s, where dissenting voices were more easily quashed), while at the same time smashing us under the thumb of fear and paranoia of constant nuclear threat (again, see the 50s). How this manifested itself in movies and music videos is beyond me, but it clearly did. Just watch a music video from the 80s and you’ll see lots of leather jackets, plain white t-shirts, Levi’s, motorcycles, old phones, and appliances shot in black and white, yet adorned with brightly colored highlights and other modern touches in a setting of an abandoned cityscape strewn with blowing debris. This is pretty much how I thought the near future would be and that I would somehow thrive in such an environment. As I reached adulthood, this vision faded into something closer to reality. Instead, I simply wanted to find a place of my own, no matter the squalor, as long as I could afford ramen, macaroni & cheese and the occasional new music purchase or show, I’d be pretty happy and very disgruntled in a punk rock sort of way. It was a more realistic version of life, but still framed within a vision where I would be cool. Isn’t that what most of us wanted as teenagers?


It was just after spring break in 1990 on a Sunday evening, the first truly warm evening of the year, when I first heard a song named “Downtown” on Q105’s New Music Hour. It was then, while lying down on my bed/couch thing in the decrepit dorm room of Clark Hall at Pacific University, my old daydreams of high-rise dominance came flooding back to me like a beacon of hope. At first, I thought this slick mildly bluesy city song over piano taps was a new The The song, which seems crazy to me now, since Matt Johnson would never release a new album within a year of the previous one, and since the style is pretty far afield from the madness of much of his work. Instead the song turned out to be a new Lloyd Cole song from his first solo album (someone just recently mistook The The’s “Uncertain Smile” as an old Lloyd Cole song, so I feel a bit vindicated). I first heard Lloyd Cole in 1987 with his song “My Bag,” which I remember touting a bit to my friends when I bought the 12” single, but I never went any further. This new song, however, had me very energized. The opening lines are so cool and so fitting of the world I thought I wanted to live in: “I want to take you down underside of the city / where the sun doesn’t shine and the moon isn’t pretty / and the slow train crawls in the nights and the days are as one as the smoke and the heat haze / yes, it’s neon here twenty four hours of the day / and you’re sure looking pretty when it’s hitting on your face.” It’s full of some dark underbelly dealings, but so damn slick, chic and smooth. It made me want to race down to Jay Jacobs at the barely breathing Galleria and buy that $99 black suit that they had in the display window for about five years straight, so I could wander around town with my tie partly undone, the suit a little wrinkled and smelling of day old cologne and booze. Unfortunately, I wasn’t as handsome as Cole, nor would I ever be, so I could never pull off the walk of triumph, but only the walk of shame. If none of this makes any sense, you’ve probably read too far.

It wasn’t until early in the summer break that I purchased the self-titled solo debut and like any 19 year old, I played “Downtown” over and over and pretty much ignored the rest of the album. Then I saw the video for “No Blue Skies” and that became my new anthem. This down tempo number with huge atmospheric keyboard washes over a steady beat, grinding bass and magical guitar fills sent me into a warm world of beautiful melancholy and reflection. With lines like “Looking for something when there’s nothing there to be found / make it easy on yourself / go out and find your body someone else / or tear the stars out of the sky” never had I enjoyed heartbreak so much. Little by little, the album grew on me. Along the lines of “No Blue Skies,” my other early favorites mined a similar slower and sadder vein. The album opens after all with “Don’t Look Back” and maybe loneliest lines on the album: “When you’re nothing to no one / and you’re less to your kin / and you’re looking for someone / who won’t cling to anything,” and finally concluding that “life seems never ending when you’re young.” The next one to beat me into submission is the aptly titled “Loveless.” This destitute song opens and closes with what sounds like an empty can (of beer maybe?) clanking on the ground as Cole takes us vividly down the road of a breaking relationship and the sheer pain of it all (“you lie and you cheat your own mind to believing / that you don’t need anything or anyone / so why do you say you love me when you don’t?”).

This album is not all darkness. The string and horn-laden “A Long Way Down” finds Cole warning of the dangers of narcissism and too high of a self-esteem (“walking that tall your head is going to trip your feet”). The song, at first, verges on camp, but instead turns out to be a catchy timeless tune. The more upbeat numbers are equally up to par. “What Do You Know About Love?,” “Sweetheart,” and “I Hate to See You Baby Doing that Stuff” are all hook-filled numbers that wind their way into ones music subconscious for endless replays. There are also the classic lust-filled numbers that should dot any classic rock-n-roll album and Cole finds a way to pull it off with intelligence in “Ice Cream Girl” (“I feel like a shady politician / trying to sell a broken down car / to a sleeping virgin princess / you know that’s not what you are / do I have to feel this small / before you’ll play ball?”) and the bouncy “Undressed,” which is pretty self-explanatory. The LP ends with the gritty “Mercy Killing,” which assumes that “there must be more to life than this / or we’d be mercy killing us.” It’s a sentiment that I’m sure many of us have felt a time or two.

The music and performances on this album are immaculate. The co-producer, Fred Maher, also fills in with his muscular and classic drumming style (also featured on Lou Reed’s excellent 1989 album New York), while the late Robert Quine, of the late-70s punk originals Richard Hell and the Voidoids plays his bluesy and crystalline leads throughout. Matthew Sweet also adds his rich, full-sounding bass, before borrowing most of this same line-up (including Cole) for his 1991 breakthrough pop rock classic album Girlfriend. The best part about this album is that it continues to grow better with age. It never made any of my best of the year album lists, but I could easily put it into my all-time top 10 or 20 favorite albums of all time. It comes highly recommended.

Now that I’m 40 and listening to this album as I type this, I may need to re-think my vision of the future.  A part of me still wants that high-rise apartment, but I still don’t think I can pull off the cool.

Lose Your Illusion

“Would you ever hurt me?” she asked me.

Her eyes burned into mine. They were serious and vulnerable like I had never seen them before. Moments before, she was laughing hysterically and uncontrollably, so much so that she blurted out her adorable snort; I froze from the sudden seriousness of her intent.

I did not know what to say. Obviously, I would never hurt her. I worshipped her. She was the highlight of my day. When I asked her out nearly a year prior, I did so hoping that it would be the moment that would lead to the pathway to my fulfilled future. That may be overstating it, but what did it matter? She turned me down.

Her question, though straightforward, felt like a complicated puzzle that most likely did not have a solution.

“No, I would never hurt you. Of course not; not intentionally. I really like you,” I stammered quietly, while staring into the beer glass on the table in front of me.

She was blocking her question to me from the couple sitting across the table from us in the booth by turning her shoulders toward me and speaking very quietly. We were sitting next to each other when that couple approached and asked if they could join us at the table. It was a busy Friday night on a nice summer evening at a bar downtown and we were there with a big group of people from work saying goodbye to a long time co-worker.

“Yes! Please!” she’d excitedly told the strangers. It turns out the couple were out celebrating a first wedding anniversary that upcoming weekend and wanted to get an early start. Our work group had taken over the group of tables in front of the bar and was getting louder and louder as the evening wore on. Inexplicably, she and I wound up sitting next to each other in a booth adjacent to our gang, but not directly involved. Originally I sat there, because I am good at sidelining myself and was not in a great mood. Somehow, this pretty young woman, who I had a massive crush on for nearly two years, joined me. There were so many times when I would try and place myself in her midst in an effort to worm my way into her heart. This time, I had purposely stepped aside, and now here she was. Occasionally, we would be visited by a carouser from our scene, but mostly we talked about what was happening around us and simply watched the activity from off to the side. When the couple asked if they could share our table, they made it clear from their words that they assumed that we were a couple. I got up and ordered another round of drinks for us and our guests from the barkeep and watched the two of them chat with her. I desperately wanted to know what they were talking about, but at the same time I really didn’t. I decided that she was probably informing them about my past overture toward her and maybe how she enjoyed toying with me by alternately giving me signs of hope and then stomping on that hope ever since I asked her out. That would explain the laughter they were all engaging in during my absence. When I returned to the table, she quickly stood up and allowed me back into my corner on the inside of the booth. Then she handed the man across the table her camera and asked him if he would take a picture. Lost in my thoughts, I did not realize that she wanted him to take a picture of the two of us. This event took awhile as he goofed around with the ‘cheese’-type photography gimmick like we were little children. This extended our posing time for what seemed like an eternity. She leaned in closer as the seconds drifted away. I could feel her velvety hair dangling against my arm and shoulder. My senses were overwhelmed by her enticing aroma. The smooth skin of her arm was placed on top of mine, so that our hands were touching. Chills were racing up and down my spine. Eventually the picture was snapped, but our pose lingered few a few moments more. It could’ve lasted forever as far as I was concerned. Then she jolted back upright and retrieved her camera. The woman across the table asked us for the same favor. She handed me the camera and I snapped a quick picture wordlessly and set it back onto the table. This is when she asked me her question. After my response, she sat quietly and mulled over my words, then, suddenly this beautiful girl stood up and excused herself.

As she walked deliberately towards the restroom, we all watched her. My heart sank as she disappeared, because I assumed that she would return to the big group and leave me alone with these two. I turned my attention to my beer and drank a big swig, wondering how I messed this one up.

“You two make a cute couple,” the woman said to me. “How long have you been together?”

“I’ve known her now for almost two years, I think,” I replied, trying to keep beer from spraying out of my mouth from surprise. This was the first time in my life that I was associated as being a part of something ‘cute.’ I scratched the back of my neck uncomfortably, knowing that somehow this misleading answer would come back to kick me in the ass.

The bartender stopped by with a tray holding our four beverages and left with my empty pint. I immediately drank from the fresh beverage, ignoring the couple’s intent of sharing a toast. The beer was terrible. They should offer something other than their own brew at this place. The couple began talking amongst themselves, sensing my silence and intent on the beer in my hand.

The girl came back and stood at the end of the table. She picked up her new full drink and raised the glass to toast the anniversary of the pair with us. I held up my half empty drink and leaned my face into my other hand. I was drifting off; losing steam. I couldn’t stop thinking about her question. What was her motivation? Why would she think I would hurt her? What did she mean? It was mysterious. Did it mean she was finally showing some signs of maybe giving me a shot after all this time? Did it mean that she was wary of me, like I could be some sort of threat to her? I didn’t get it and wanted to explore it further, but I did not know how. This was a party and she was rejoining the group. I could feel energy tumble out of my body which slumped like a deflating balloon. My mind started to gather together pictures of moments that she and I had shared over our time together up to that point. The couple was carrying on a conversation, which may or may not have included me, because I was oblivious to them, though I may have been responding. I could not be sure. I was lost, thinking about all of those times that she and I had shared laughter by slinging verbal jabs back and forth about each other and our workmates; or the times when she was flustered and came to me in confidence; or those early mornings when she and I were the first ones in the office and the only two who would show up hung over. Though I was older than her, we were still the two youngest in the office. In some ways we had the most commonality amongst everyone we worked with. But she did turn me down. I took that to heart. She said she didn’t date co-workers; understandable. And that was the end of my one overture. After that event, she became distant; again, understandable. I treaded lightly for a long time and tried my best to be upbeat and leave the whole thing behind – at least that’s what I wanted her to believe. I didn’t want her to hate me or leave. I liked her too much and I liked having her around. This was the problem. The more she relaxed around me, the more I continued to fall for her. It was a trap that I could not get out of. Over time, the shared laughter and outrage at our surroundings gained a new momentum. Things were comfortable again between us - until this particular evening. What was happening?

Instead of lingering, I had told Jeff and Steph I would meet them after this thing, so I decided to bail. I said a goodbye and good luck to the couple, went to the restroom, paid my tab at the bar, sought out T and gave her a farewell hug and ran the gamut of fellow employees who shouted various things out as I made clear my intention of an early exit. The evening’s sunset was just beginning to paint the sky with a pink splash. I hurriedly stepped outside, still with scrambled thoughts and more questions with no answers. Normally, I would stay to the bitter end to find out if any of these signs meant anything for us, but nothing felt right.

I waited for the Max right outside the bar and enjoyed the warmth of the air on my air-condition-chilled arms.

“Wait up!” There she was. She was leaving with me. “I need to catch the Max too.”

“Where are you headed?” I asked her, genuinely curious if her answer would involve me in any way.

“Meeting up with some friends,” she said with a smile.

“Yeah, me too,” I mumbled as the train approached and I tossed a piece of gum into my sour mouth. The doors of the train flapped open and revealed a roar of recycled air and a loud intercom voice espousing the wonders of this downtown corner. People shuffled by us either leaving or boarding the train. I looked over at the trash cylinder on the sidewalk to toss the gum wrapper into as I stepped aboard the train behind her. The lid’s opening, which deflected my shot and knocked it to the ground, had squiggly handwriting on it that stated: Life is a hole. “I couldn’t agree more trash can,” I sighed under my breath.

“What?” she asked, looking at me from across the aisle.

“Nothing. I hope you have a good weekend.”