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Such Sweet, Sometimes Sickening, Summer Songs.

As of today, we’re forty-two percent into our summer. And in my opinion, until August 3 when we step onto the sun splashed summit, plant a couple of prayer flags and begin the darkening descent toward autumn, it's an opportune time to soak it all in. 

It's the sights, it's the smells—nothing permeates our senses like summer:

Jumping through the sprinkler and skidding along the soaked brown grass. 

Blowing the wrapper off a popsicle, your anxious tongue gluing itself to the icy crust.

The aromas of coconut sun screen and salty air filling the car as you troll for a parking spot at the beach.

But more than anything else, it’s the music. Nothing yanks me by the scruff and hurls me into the Dr. Emmett’s DeLorean faster than an old summer tune. 

The other day I popped on the old classic rock station while piloting our gangrenous Kia through West Seattle’s narrow thoroughfares. The song playing was “Beautiful Girls” by Van Halen, and for the next three minutes, only muscle memory and an urgent bladder navigated the car homeward, since my mind had taken a sharp left at 1978.

I found myself on the shores of Lake Tapps, a man-made reservoir in the shadow of Mount Rainier, fed by its silty glacier water. Go ahead and hold up your thumb and forefinger. Yep, I'd say it was about that cold. 

On one of my many lazy days spent there during that summer of Van Halen, my friend Corey and I found ourselves living an actual beer commercial. As we floated on inner tubes out in the middle of the lake, two girls slowly approached, paddling a raft. Gesturing to a cooler, on of them asked if we wanted to share a twelve-pack of Rainier and drift around a little. 

Why, yes. As a matter of fact, we would. 

Corey always had a way about him. How can I put it? Let’s just say the pizza guy tended to show up on the porch even when Corey didn’t order anything.

Even though summer pop songs elicit powerful nostalgia, not all of these emotions are positive. One night during 1976 while playing Kick the Can with the neighbor kids, I felt the urge to relieve myself. Knowing that my parents wouldn't let me go back out if I went in the house, I opted to use an alternate organic source. 

Okay, I peed into a shrub. The song I remember pulsing through my head, just before a kid named Howard shoved me into my own filth midstream, was “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart,” by Elton John and Kiki Dee.

I retreated to my house, ashamed and itchy, forever tying the essence of juniper berries and urine to two smartly dressed Brits.

“Shout,” a 1985 summer release by Tears for Fears, also dredges up some early-Twenties angst. I know I’ve droned on a lot about my ex-girlfriend, but dating her during college was like registering for  an extra twelve-credit class in “I-can’t-believe-how-much-I-hate-you-but-sure-I’ll-be-right-over-with-some-wine-and-cheese-nips-ociology.

If you remember the Tears for Fears video, the guy is standing on the edge of a cliff, singing and looking pissed. Okay, that was exactly how I felt, except I don't remember singing or having the other three guys in the band lip syncing at my ten-o’clock. 

Speaking of old MTV videos, they always seemed to have a hard time figuring out what to do with the drummer. The three other guys could stand out in the field with their acoustic guitars, but the drummer had to either bob his head and look cool or play a saw or something. Poor guy.

Anyway, that’s enough of my long-winded stories. Here are a few other summer pop tunes that have throttled a pressure point or two in my central nervous system since I started listening to the radio around 1973.  Is there some cheesiness? Absolutely, but we can’t always control when songs and events become permanently intertwined, right? The list goes until 1992, when CDs and digital music usurped a lot of my FM radio listening:

1973—“Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”—Elton John

1974—“Seasons in the Sun”—Terry Jacks

1975—“Fame”—David Bowie

1976—“Afternoon Delight”—Starland Vocal Band

1977—“Telephone Line”—Electric Light Orchestra

1978—“Just What I Needed”—The Cars

1979—“My Sharona”—The Knack

1980—“Sailing”—Christopher Cross

1981—“Tom Sawyer”—Rush

1982—“Stone in Love”—Journey

1983—“Safety Dance”—Men Without Hats

1984—“Sister Christian”—Night Ranger

1985—“Don’t You (Forget About Me)”—Simple Minds

1986—“Your Wildest Dreams”—Moody Blues

1987—“Alone”—Heart

1988—“Sweet Child o’ Mine”—Guns-n-Roses

1989—“Angel Eyes”—Jeff Healy

1990—“Janie’s Got a Gun”—Aerosmith

1991—“More Than Words”—Extreme

1992—“Hunger Strike”—Temple of the Dog

I’d love to hear your choices and maybe a few words to describe the back story.

Crap. Does This Mean I'm an Old Man?

Today, I'm asking for your assistance.

You, the loyal reader, the benevolent soul who has kindly carved out a smidge of his or her busy docket to read my anemic diatribes.

You, the compassionate peruser, who has chosen to ingest my drivel while sitting on the porcelain perch after finally growing weary of studying the contents of every Tylenol PM and Kleenex box within reach.

Yeah, you.

I need you to help me decide whether my recent behavior is the direct result of aging, or merely a by product of a changing familial dynamic.

For as long I can remember, I've been  driving my thirteen-year-old daughter to school every Friday morning, stopping on the way to hook her up with a breakfast of questionable integrity. While, for many school years, her meal of choice was an Assiago cheese bagel and chocolate milk, she's now elevated her tastes to more processed fare. 

That's why we now stop at 7-Eleven instead of Safeway.

This morning, I looked over at her as she eased herself into the Hyundai. Carefully avoiding any oil puddles or gum wads on the convenience store's well-trodden asphalt, she gingerly clutched her meal of choice—a protein bar with a side of hot chocolate with a side of mini marshmallows.

Engulfed within the car's dull interior, she sparkled. Her hair fell in loose ringlets over a white sweater, a sky blue tank top peaking out to closely match her glittery blue TOMS flats and compliment her indigo skinny jeans. As I merged the dirty sedan onto West Seattle's main drag, she looked over at me, betraying lines of sparkly something-or-other across her eyelids. 

She was freaking impeccable.

She sipped her cocoa. "I forgot to brush my teeth today."

"How can you forget to brush your teeth? That's a basic morning thing," I said.

"Okay, just kidding. I decided not to brush my teeth."

"Gross. Why?"

"Because my toothpaste has a slight orange taste and I didn't want it to interfere with the hot chocolate or the mint of the protein bar."

"Interfere?" I asked. "Doesn't the flavor wear off after a few minutes? Now your going to school with a nasty mouth."

"I don't care."

I believed her.

"Aren't you worried that someone will notice?"

"No."

Again, I believed her.

"Okay, I'm just curious, though," I said. "How can you spend forty-five minutes and be so meticulous with your outfit and hair and everything, but not practice basic hygiene?"

"Brushing teeth isn't basic hygiene, Dad."

She argues with everything my wife and I say. Seriously, everything. My newly–minted teenage daughter has even debated the year my wife was born—with my wife. 

We finally just decided to nod our heads, say "Hmmm" and allow her egregious misstatements to evaporate into the ozone like a rusty can of old Aquanet. Not worth it.

And that leads to the question about my own behavior. With all the pregnant silences that have resulted from my kid's cockamamie outbursts, I've been trying to fill in the gaps. The problem is, I sound like a crusty old man. I'll bring up the weather, or the traffic, or how those cherry tomatoes we ate last night were closer to plums than cherries and I think I slept weird on my neck because its really stiff.

Not only have I been boring my family silly with idle idioms and mundane musings, I've been boring myself. Is this as good as it's going to get? Should I just resign myself, when in the presence of my family, to discuss nothing more interesting than the kid I saw littering at the bus stop or how or how expensive Scott's Turf Builder is?

Maybe it's time to buy a Corvette…

Some Call It Grumpy. I Call It Righteous.

5:30 AM.

I awakened feeling slightly indignant about the premature jolt into consciousness, yet somewhere deep within my aging sack of meat, grateful for another day spent above earth's mossy peat pile.

And while a lot of us roll out of the sack with our senses muted and dormant, still numb from the Sandman's double-wrapped sleep condom, I swung my toasty toes onto the cold hardwoods, again feeling instantly vulnerable to the slightest sensory assault.

Which is why my gym and me may not be such a compatible match.

I slammed the locker and glanced at myself in the mirror before heading to the aerobic area. Not good. During the night, my hair had wadded into swirly little islands, as if the remaining strands had gathered to seek comfort among the others who'd been left behind during these follicular End Times.

Doing my best to even out my unsightly pate, I shuffled into the cardio room, a cramped bandbox which formerly served as a church basement. Ample headroom surely existed when the structure was originally built for hosting five-foot people who sat on folding chairs and ate macaroni salad, but the strapping athletes who currently inhabited the space commanded a significantly higher ceiling to accommodate their frothy exhalations of carbon dioxide.

Since only two exercisers are required to thicken the air and cloud the windows, the three treadmill runners and one rower gave the room the bouquet of a dorm room the morning after Taco Bell Garlic Gordita Value Meal Night.

Seriously, when I walked into that sweaty cave at the Y this morning, I swear the pH balance matched the atmosphere of Uranus and one of the joggers was actually a streptococcus bacterium that had grown legs.

Overcome with the moist essence of human exertion, I strode over to a window to release some of the greenhouse gasses into the Seattle ozone before commencing my workout. I cracked the window, felt the relief of a cool draft against my cheek, and retreated to an unoccupied elliptical trainer.

"Excuse me!"

I turned. Scowling down at me from his Stairmaster stood a man roughly my age. "Would you mind closing that? It's very chilly in here."

Holy shit, I thought. Since when was eighty degrees and one hundred percent humidity considered chilly? What is this guy, my grandma? "Um, can I leave it open just a little? See how the windows are fogged up?"

"I suppose," he crabbily barked. He may or may not have realized he was scratching his crotch as he said this.

I returned to the window and decreased its opening from two inches to one. Our eyes met once more, and although he still appeared unsatisfied, I ignored it. Whatever, I surmised. Apparently, this dude hasn't had his Cap'n Crunch, Now With Xanax Berries yet. Crabby old bastard.

Mounting the elliptical, I breathed deeply and set the machine for thirty minutes. I balanced myself and cleared my head. Then I realized what had just happened:

The encounter which had just transpired was not just with a grumpy old man. It was an exchange between two grumpy old men.

Sweet Jehovah, when did this happen? As a younger guy, I'd always told myself that as I aged, my burgeoning wisdom would cultivate tolerance and understanding; I'd grow in my zen-like patience and acceptance of others. My flexibility would carve out a dwelling as deep as the wrinkly lines on my sagging bottom.

Um yeah, obviously not.

Last week, a woman sat in front of me on the bus, digging at something so deeply on the back of her scalp, I thought that any minute her middle finger might emerge from her eye socket. I watched her with laser focus, burning slowly with a blue ire.  Her behavior consumed me whole. Finally, I snapped out of my trance long enough to tell myself, Dude, just ignore it. You won't acquire HIV from some lady scratching her head. Just read your damn book.

I couldn't let it go. I maniacally fantasized of things I wanted to say, like, "You know what? Whatever it is you're trying to accomplish with your fingernail obviously isn't working. But it's your lucky day, because Safeway is having a sale on cheese graters so take my club card, stop spreading your toxic dander to everyone here and get the hell off this freaking motor coach!" The crowd would erupt as I lobbed my parting shot, "Come back when you're ready to never come back, Typhoid Mary!"

Didn't say any of it, though. At least there's still a little filter there.

It just seems like I used to be so much more patient with things like kids and restaurants and other drivers. And I suppose acknowledging it is the first step toward recovery, right?

Now please stop sniffing and blow your nose, already.