Random Erik

Who do I sue?

My personality has never been described as happy-go-lucky. I’ve never been a little ray of sunshine. Since I was a kid, I’ve dealt with dark moods and anxieties. They go way back. But they didn’t really come into full bloom until I entered junior high school (it’s called middle school now, for you kiddies). Martin Luther King Jr. Junior High School. That extra “junior” always makes me think of Robin Williams’ joke about Sammy Davis Jr. having a son called Sammy David Jr. Jr., but I digress.

The school was the type of building that the Soviets blighted their cities with: a blocky utilitarian construction made of light brown brick. And it was windowless. Windowless! Who do I sue?

What were they thinking? They were thinking “windows can be looked out of, and that is distracting, so we will raise a nation of Einsteins by teaching them in windowless warehouses.” They were asking “did Einstein go to a school without windows? Can someone look that up?”. And they were thinking “we can save a boatload on glass.”

Or, more likely, they weren’t thinking at all.

My elementary school was an ugly, squat building, but the classrooms had windows. Windows that could be opened. My high school was ugly and had the privilege of being run-down, but it too had windows of the opening variety. The junior high school had some very small, thin windows around the lobby doors. And, in one of the stairwells, it had a window covering made of opaque yellow plexiglass. In the winter, it was possible to leave for school before it was truly light and head home as twilight came on. And without any time during the day to get outside. No recess. Physical Education held in the gym. No daylight time. And, need I add, that sickly yellowish flourescent lighting in every classroom and hallway.

So you probably won’t be surprised to hear that my dislike of school grew to a loathing of school. Before, I’d just been a bit bored. Now, my mood plummeted like one of those raggedy medicine balls we were pummeled with in gym class. My attention in class was often very low, my clock-watching became chronic, and I think it was only low academic standards that kept my grades in the good category. I would fidget my way through most classes, sit with absolute incomprehension in geometry class, and wish with all of my heart that some classrooms would simply vanish from the face of the planet (a big shout-out to the foreign language labs and a bigger shout out to my stunningly dull French teacher).

When I look back at my years in school, I mostly remember not particularly enjoying it. But when I think back to the three years in that windowless monstrosity, I have a much more visceral reaction. My stomach cramps, my head starts to ache and a feeling of more-than-vague unease overtakes me. Even the good parts are overshadowed with memories of the nicotine-yellow lighting that never quite shoved the darkness away.

Here I am more than a quarter of a century later: a successful guy with a beautiful wife and a wonderful dog; a guy who gets to draw and create stuff that he enjoys; and a guy whose loft has an incredible view of the incomparable Austin, Texas. And the shadow of that windowless building still hangs over all that. Even I think that sounds a bit silly when I say it, but then I get that feeling that accompanies the memories and it doesn’t feel silly at all.

No one put the name Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) to depression caused by lack of natural light until 1984. But the correlation between poor lighting conditions and emotional problems has been around for a while: the 6th century scholar Jordanes described how the Scandinavians were a pretty morose bunch from living so far above the equator. I suppose the P.G. County school board was simply too stupid and budget-driven to pay attention. Thanks, guys.

So why am I writing this? I’m wondering if anyone else went through similar educational (or even work) experiences and has noticed similar things. I’m hoping that talking about it will aid, however slightly, the abolition of these schools (seriously, I hope they bulldoze all these buildings and salt the earth around them, especially considering that hideous Junior High of mine continues its infernal operations).

And I’m an American. I’m hoping someone will tell me who I can sue.

Maggie’s away, and I’m cleaning up. Actual Spring cleaning. Maybe it’s a race-memory sort of thing, but I just have the urge to organize, clean up and clean out. And while going through my hard drive as part of the process (thorough, huh?), I came across this.

It’s something I wrote back in 2000, just after Maggie and I moved back into the States. It made me feel a bit strange… I’ve somehow bogged down and lost that feeling of freedom. It’s mental, no situational. So, Spring cleaning now includes my attitude and personal schedule. We didn’t make Australia. That has to happen soon, I’m making that promise now.

On the good side, I look so heavy in this. Both of us are in much better shape now.

While I finish a new blog, here’s what is possibly my very first.

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You know the scene: He holds the camera at arm’s length and pulls her head close to his. “It’ll never work,” she says, but he just grins and pushes the button. The only way to know if it worked is to wait and see.

We’re on the beach, relaxing in the all-inclusive splendor of the Iberostar Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. When we decided to take a year out for travel, this place wasn’t on the itinerary, but it just sounded so nice and we were so desperate for the beach. Frankly, the itinerary had consisted of some driving around the States and a year-end cap-off trip to Australia. Everything else was, is, up for discussion. Wake up in the morning, point the car in whatever direction looks best, and drive. That was the plan. It’ll never work, I thought secretly. But so far, so good and as for the rest of the year, I’ll just have to wait and see.

Along the way, we’ve both fallen in love: With the open road, with a little place called Austin Texas where we plan to settle at the end of this, and with each other all over again. After a year of work and health problems and making time to see each other and never managing to quite get enough togetherness, we look back and are amazed that we let things that didn‚Äôt matter get in the way of being us. Sure, there’s such a thing as too much togetherness, but I doubt if the average two-career couple ever gets close to reaching that state. So far, as I said, so good.

As I write this, we’ve just hit the half-way mark in our year of travel. Of course, there’s no definite deadline to finish, but I’m a sucker for artificial boundaries, and so I’ll say we’re half-way. Within the next week, we’ll pack up the VW Bug again and head West. Maybe we’ll end up buying a house in Austin, maybe we’ll just pitch a tent near some beautiful scenery and disappear for a time. We both plan to put our own updates on this site to let people know how things are working out and where we might happen to be, both geographically and mentally. And we don’t fool ourselves: We know this site is mostly for our own enjoyment and not for others. You’ve got your own lives to be excited about. Still, we hope you enjoy it and find it useful for tracking this wayward pair.

For now, I’ll leave us on that beach, arm extended, relaxed, happy and flushed with still-young love. My arm is out, my finger is on the button. Will it work? The only way to know is to wait and see.

When I first heard Thunder Road, I liked it a lot, but I didn’t feel I’d hit a crucial place in my musical life. The ignorance of youth. I was a young teen listening to the Eagles, Jimmy Buffett and Peter, Paul and Mary (that last one a throwback to albums my parents had played since I was an infant). Musically speaking, it wasn’t anything particularly interesting or deep.

Maybe I heard it when my brother played the album, or maybe it was on the radio. But I’m sure it caught my attention: A solo harmonica followed by bell clear piano. And then that sad sandpaper voice came in:

The screen door slams
Mary’s dress waves
Like a vision she dances across the porch
As the radio plays

I’d heard Bruce Springsteen before this, I’m sure, but it obviously hadn’t meant much to a boy who’d been listening to the musical equivalent of junk food. Those lines, though, sung slowly and sadly, struck a chord. Mostly, I thought it was pretty, and when the song built to a sudden release of energy with the cry of “roll down the window and let the wind blow back your hair,” I could feel the excitement and heartfelt joy of the moment.

But it was repeated exposure that built the song to its place in my life. And it was my growing older, understanding better the emotions and longings behind those lyrics. Song lyrics may not be poetry, but I think Springsteen came as close as any songwriter with this ode to youthful love and yearning for freedom.

And those opening lines affected my early dating experiences. Pulling up in the car, watching a girl come out onto to her porch to meet me, I looked for the feeling evoked by those lyrics. It always led to disappointment: that magical feeling from the song didn’t overwhelm me when these girls appeared. So often they were in jeans. Where were the soft, summery dresses that would catch the breezes and flutter around their legs?

It was the lines that followed directly after that hit me directly:

Roy Orbison’s singing for the lonely
Hey that’s me and I want you only
Don’t turn me home again
I just can’t face myself alone again

I was a lonely teenager, as so many of us were. And to be honest, this part of the song spoke, and speaks, more truly to me than any other part. There weren’t that many times that I watched a girl cross the porch to my car. There were lots when I was on my own and not enjoying the company.

The song also captures that feeling of freedom that a car gives you, especially when you’re young and naive. The ability to “trade in these wings on some wheels.” The loss of innocence is part of gaining freedom, a truth that goes back to Adam and Eve. On the drive to work, I often felt that urge to turn onto I-95 instead, to simply hit the highway without much thought about my destination. A dutiful kid to the end, it remained a fantasy. On the same album, the title song Born to Run addresses these feelings as well, but in my opinion it does so without the same deep understanding of the joys and pitfalls such a run for freedom creates. Even now, I can conjure up a clear image, driving to an evening shift at the pharmacy, the twilight just fading to night and my car crossing the bridge over that huge interstate highway. I was on the razor thin line between responsibility and freedom, and I now regret not making a run for it at least once.

When Springsteen performs this song live, he plays it slowly and sadly throughout. No sudden explosion of energy, just the same quiet tone. It adds a new layer. And though I thought that this was the choice of an older, wiser performer, watching the 1975 concert film that comes with the Born to Run box set revealed that he’s been doing that almost from the beginning. And there is a sadness as you get older, and the youthful energy and idealism fade. The consequences of your choices become clearer, sometimes with a tinge of regret attached. A few years later, the title track to Springsteen’s The River features an unnamed narrator and a girl named Mary. She may not be the girl who, dress waving, ran out to get in the car. I imagine, though, that she is. But the man is remembering picking up Mary and driving her down to the river for the evening. Now they’re married, the result of a young pregnancy, but he still has his memories:

But I remember us riding in my brother’s car
Her body tan and wet down at the reservoir
At night on them banks I’d lie awake
And pull her close just to feel each breath she’d take
Now those memories come back to haunt me
they haunt me like a curse
Is a dream a lie if it don’t come true
Or is it something worse

Hey, I’m almost 40, I’ve done very well for myself, I have a wonderful wife and the sweetest dog on the planet and I get to draw and teach kids how to do fun stuff. I have a Vespa to race around town and out to the lake. I’m as happy as I’ve ever been. But then Thunder Road comes on the radio or on my iPod, and I’m a lonely teenager once again, hopeful about the future, worried about my choices and just wishing for the freedom to hit the highway and roll down the windows. It’s a bittersweet moment every single time.

But oh, the bitter makes the sweet that much better, and I’m happy and singing along for those four minutes.

And now I have the memory of jumping in the VW Bug with Maggie in February of 2000 and outrunning a blizzard on I-95. Those closing lines of the song were in my head as we began our search for a place to settle and start a new life:

So Mary climb in
It’s a town full of losers
We’re pulling out of here to win

Does anyone else have this fantasy? The one where you’re back somewhere in your past, but you have your current brain? Anybody?

Because I have this fantasy fairly often, especially when I’m dwelling needlessly on something from my childhood or going through a bout of depression. “I should have done this, I should have said that, I should have reached out to one person and not allowed another person into my life.” That sort of thing. This goes beyond wishing you had known something that would have helped you: it’s a dream of reliving your life with full knowledge of what’s coming and with a lot of experience to help reshape that life.

Plus, wouldn’t it be cool to have the brain of an (almost) 40-year-old in an 8-year-old’s body? IQ is determined by dividing mental age by chronological age and mutliplying by 100. 100 is the average IQ, where your mental and chronological ages are equal. Now I pride myself on being a bit smart, so I like to think that my mental age is actually above my current chronological one. But even if you assume 40 as my mental age, Li’l Erik would be the proud owner of a 500 IQ. It wouldn’t take long for my parents and teachers to realize that, just maybe, I’m too advanced for the third grade. They’d stamp “prodigy” all over my permanent record using a specially made “prodigy” stamp. They’d probably send someone over to the stationery store at lunch break to pick it up. College graduate by 11? Masters degree by 13, maybe? Not a Ph.D., though, I never liked school that much and I’d be content to await the honorary degree earmarked for me. And I’m betting on a full scholarship, since I’d be a point of pride for the university lucky enough to score my attendance.

And the people. I may not remember everyone at first, but I’d quickly remember who the real snakes are. With the maturity, knowledge, and wit accumulated through the years, the bullies of my childhood wouldn’t find the easy target that I presented before. Nope, I’m betting that I’d be able to psychologically scar an 8-year-old bully if I put my mind to it. And there are a few names from my past that come to mind: I’d have no qualms about using my 500 IQ brain to find a special hell for those guys.

Do you get the feeling that I’ve put a lot of thought into this? Does anyone else have this fantasy? Hello?

Being who I am, though, I’ve also run into the dark side of this dream. That’s my way, looking for the possible negatives in any situation. The glass may be half full, but would I want to drink the contents?

Let’s start with the impact on my parents. I magically implant my older, smarter brain into my dimwitted and naive 8-year-old self. Overnight, I’m suddenly a mental grown-up (well, sort of). So my parents miss out on watching me grow gradually from childhood to a (they hope) mature, responsible, and delightful person. My parents like to think their children are capable of genius, but to be saddled little Mr. 500 IQ might be more than they wanted to deal with.

Then there’s my social life. Hanging with people my age wouldn’t be much fun for long. Not that I don’t enjoy being around kids, but being thrust back into their society isn’t exactly enticing. I think the conversation would dry up pretty fast. Meanwhile, hanging out with my mental peers wouldn’t be much better, since they’d probably have a hard time dealing with little me as an equal. Besides, who’d let me sit with them and discuss things over a glass of wine? Maybe I’d have to move to France for that. Where would I find suitable dating partners. At least until I hit 18, it would be hard to find a relationship that wouldn’t seem creepy (I won’t elaborate… you can work that out for yourself if you are so inclined).

But the biggest question of all, at least for me, is whether the results of this trip into the past would make my life better or worse when I finally caught up to 40 again. Would I have met the people who really matter to me, and would they have responded to me in the same way? Would I be richer or poorer? Happier or more depressed? More, or less, satisfied with my life overall? Suppose all I do is make things worse and begin a fantasy about never having had that other stupid fantasy in the first place. And the worm continues to eat it’s own tail. Our experiences make us who we are: would I like the person formed by such unusual experiences? Would I like him better?

Of course I realize it’s just a fantasy. If I thought I could really do such a thing, my 8-year-old self would have a lunatic streak that he simply doesn’t need. I couldn’t do that to him. He has enough trouble. But sometimes it’s fun to think about it. And sometimes it’s not very much fun, but I do it anyway. And I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s thought about these things.

I’m not, am I?

“It was Christmas Eve, babe, in the drunk tank…”

That’s how the greatest Christmas song ever recorded by a rock group, pop group or country group begins. Don’t even think to argue. It’s a song that captures the melancholy, hope and passion that surrounds this holiday. The album, If I Should Fall From Grace with God, was the high-water mark for The Pogues, and the water was pretty high already. And in that shimmering, rollicking, rough and beautiful collection, you’ll find that heartbreaking classic, Fairytale of New York.

What makes the song especially wonderful is the presence of a non-Pogue: Kirsty MacColl. She became a sort of unofficial member, singing with them often, and what a match it was. Shane MacGowan’s slurry, drunken and charming growl mixed with MacColl’s clear, full voice; sandpaper and silk. The music was a force, Irish traditional played with abandon by people with punk sensibilities, as if the Sex Pistols had stolen the instruments from a bunch of guys in wooly sweaters.

MacColl brought her own magic. She was a popster, but one with such street cred that she got to hang out with the cool guys of 80s music: Billy Bragg, the Smiths, Bono. Her music instantly stood out. Pop melodies, sometimes with lush arrangements, but sung with brio and the sense of fun that you don’t hear from the manufactured pop girls of today.

People who think that the 80s were a musical wasteland were not paying attention. If you were ready to look beneath the vapid MTV crap, things were stronger than they’ve been in the past decade. I was fortunate to live within receiving distance of WHFS, back then a no-playlist station helmed by DJs who knew where the good stuff was hidden. I liked a lot of it, hated some of it, and twisted the volume dial way up on the car stereo for a very few. One was Billy Bragg’s A New England. Another was Kirsty MacColl’s cover of Billy Bragg’s A New England. And Kirsty’s barrelhouse rocker There’s a Guy Works Down the Chip Shop Swears He’s Elvis. Some of you are wondering what I’m talking about. But I’m hoping that some of you are smiling, remembering when you first heard these songs. If you haven’t, check them out (99 cents a song on iTunes, skip that Starbuck’s today and try the ones they have).

But back to the point. Kirsty MacColl seems to loom large this Christmas. At a play the other night, the singer who did numbers between the acts performed In These Shoes?, a minor hit for Kirsty a few years back and a song that’s also been performed by (shudder) Bette Midler. The next morning, I turned on the radio to hear the wonderful original version (No le gusta caminar. No puede montar a caballo. Como se puede bailar? Es un escandolo!). Of course, our local alternative station is playing Fairytale of New York.

And Maggie pointed out an article on the British newspaper The Mirror web site. The man who killed Kirsty MacColl still hasn’t been punished.

She was in Cozumel, on a dive with her sons. They were in the National Marine Park, which is limited to divers, swimmers and their support boats. When she surfaced, she was cut in half by a 31 foot powerboat. Witnesses say that the boat was travelling at around 18 to 20 knots, not the single knot that the boat’s occupants claimed. One knot: Almost certainly a lie considering the eyewitness accounts and the seriousness of the injuries. But the boat’s owner is a powerful man in Mexico, and despite more eyewitness accounts of his son being at the helm, a deckhand took the blame, was convicted of culpable homicide and escaped prison by paying the equivalent of $100.

Kirsty’s mother is still battling for real justice, though. The Pogues have re-released Fairytale to raise money for the Justice for Kirsty campaign. And this week, after 5 years, the boat’s owner and two of his relatives have been subpoenaed for perjury in the case. Somehow, I don’t feel hopeful that anything will come out of this.

She died on December 18th, 2001. Only a month before, Maggie had seen her live in London. It was a fantastic show with the old favorites and her new, Cuban-influenced, songs.

There have only been a few times I’ve cried when hearing about the death of someone I don’t actually know. Jim Henson. Dr. Seuss. And Kirsty MacColl.

So for me, Kirsty adds more emotion to this time of the year. That sense of joy when I hear the opening strains of that Pogues song. And that melancholy that seems to get a bit stronger every year at this time, as I think it does for most adults. But now I’ll focus on that wave of joy that comes over me when her part of the song starts:

“When you first took my hand on that cold Christmas Eve,
You promised me Broadway was waiting for me”

I really miss her.