Out Of Touch

Here is a tremendous story from Malcolm Gladwell:

"I don't believe that the world was always better in the past. But I do believe that there are moments when the particular mix of available technologies don't actually combine to make your life better — and I think we're in one of those moments now. I can remember when I worked in the New York bureau of the Washington Post, and Jackie Onassis was near death and I was responsible for writing the story if she died. What I really wanted to do was go to dinner. So what did I do? I went to dinner, and she died —and the office had no way to reach me.


Can we pause, for a moment, and recognize how magical that fact was? I actually remember where I had dinner — The Odeon in Tribeca. There I was in the middle of one of the most important cities in the world, having steak frites at a well-known restaurant two blocks from my apartment, and to the editors of one of the most prestigious newspapers in the world I was effectively invisible. And when they finally tracked me down the next day, I simply apologized for being …out of touch. No one has said the phrase out of touch for at least a decade. There is an entire generation of young people out there who don't even know that those three words can be used in combination."

This is from an e-mail exchange between Gladwell and Bill Simmons, the rest of which you can read here.

Pop Culture

I recently saw a Dr. Pepper commercial that featured some singer doing his glamorous thing. It was clear that the assumption was the target audience would know who this star is and, knowing it, would be compelled to consume Dr. Pepper by the tanker truck load. Clearly, I am not in this demographic. Oh, I like Dr. Pepper just fine. But I don't have Clue One who the singer is.

And this made me think of my dad.

When I was but a child, Coca-Cola produced a commercial that really resonated with the young folks. So much so that many of you, based on this very general description, know precisely what commercial I'm talking about. In the ad, hundreds of young people of many nationalities and ethnic groups were standing in a field and singing about buying everyone in the whole world a Coke. I know I was eager to have a Coke bought for me. One time this ad was running when my dad was in the room and he made some remark about the song they were singing. I don't remember exactly what he said, but it was evident that he didn't know that it was a real song that had been adapted for Coke. My older sister and I were mortified that DAD DIDN'T KNOW IT WAS A REAL SONG! What was he doing with his time for heaven's sake? You know, besides working 40-60 hours a week, working on our car, working on the house, attending meetings at the office, and meetings at the church, mowing the grass, raking the leaves, shoveling the snow, and visiting his parents and his in-laws weekly and some other stuff.

Like my dad, I have come to learn that there is just no time for everything and one of the things I have largely let go of is awareness of current popular culture, i.e., the People magazine beat. I watch precisely one TV program, I listen to old music and most of the books I read are not current. I like stuff that stands the test of time.

Stuff like buying the world a Coke.

70's Saturday Today

On the way home from hunting and gathering, I had the radio tuned to a station that features music from the 70's on Saturday. Get this - they call it "70's Saturday." Pretty handy, I think.

At one point, the Boz Scaggs song 'Lido Shuffle' came on. I had not heard this song in a long, long time and it immediately took me back to a period in my life. On a similar note, I remember the MASH episode where Hawkeye suffers from an allergy and other symptoms and Sidney, the shrink, comes to help him. There's something in there about smells being a powerful memory trigger. Maybe. But songs can do it too.

So, 'Lido Shuffle' stirs up memories of listening to rock music way too loud at 'The Ranch, ' cruising around Missouri State, nee SMSU, showing the campus to a guy from out of town who, as a young father, was trying to persuade his toddling son not to admire Darth Vader so. I told him I liked Vader and he said, "Yeah, but you're not four."

So, what does 'Lido Shuffle' remind you of?

This is a live version and not the one of 30 years ago and Boz obviously can't hit the high notes anymore, but I find it compelling nonetheless.

Let's Put On A Show!

Julie Andrews, as Mary Poppins, once famously said that a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down. More precisely, she sang it. Along those same lines, I put on some music today while I was transforming dirty dishes into apparently clean dishes.

My music of choice today was Steve Tyrell's "A New Standard". It is a fine collection of old standards, songs that have stood the test of time and, while one may not know every word of every song, almost everybody recognizes something about them.

One of the songs on the album is "I'm In The Mood For Love" and it makes me smile when I hear it because the reason I know the song is not because I heard Frank or Bing or Dean do it. No, it was another well-known crooner who taught me this tune. Maybe he taught it to you, too.

Also on the disk is "I'm Through With Love" which I learned from the same source. I apologize in advance for poor video quality, but the fond memories will probably serve to compensate for it.