Coping with Winter's Onset

Thanksgiving came, and with it, winter. Night falls hard, the darkness at 5 making it feel like ten o'clock at night. The wind bites, stabbing through the buttons of my coat. Even when the clouds clear, the sunlight feels feeble, cut at an angle. 

I feel the transitions in the seasons more than most people. My clothing, diet, and even music choices change radically this time of year. The outdoors goes from something to be enjoyed to something to be endured. I embrace the holiday season as a fun distraction, but that makes the first two and a half months of the year even more bleak. Knowing I will soon have to live through them is already weighing on me.

I have well-worn coping mechanisms, but a little perspective is helping me face this winter. It hit me today that we are almost four years away from the anniversary of the first COVID-19 cases in Wuhan. I suddenly remembered the awfulness of the winters of 2020-2021 and 2021-2022. The deaths, the disruptions, illnesses and uncertainty are something I never want to revisit. Last winter I was still waiting for the axe to drop. This winter, for the first time in years, I can just have the good ole winter ache without a big blast of fear. Maybe things will go south and we will have another outbreak, but I am at enough peace right now to not get antsy about it.

As those of us in the northern latitudes face winter I'd like to share some of my traditional coping mechanisms.

Root Vegetables

To get through winter you've got to stay healthy, and as quality fresh fruits and vegetables get scarcer with the change in temperature, root vegetables are there for you. Throw those parsnips in your stews, boil and mash up a rutabaga with some carrots and your stomach will since a happy song. 

Canadian Folk Music

I listen to inordinate amounts of Gordon Lightfoot, early Leonard Cohen, and Ian & Sylvia in winter. Who knows better how to weather the cold than Canadians? The music soothes me to boot. No song embodies winter to me more than Gord's "The Way I Feel," either the acoustic or electric version. 

Bourbon

When you've got to shovel your walk there's no better prep or reward than a shot of bourbon. The whiskey keeps you warm, and that complex bourbon flavor has the depth to match the emotions of the winter months. Putting it in a hot toddy? Even better. 

Cardigans

Feeling chilly when you want to be cozy? Put on a cardigan and all your problems are solved, baby!

Getting Through the Winter Doldrums

It's late January, the grimmest part of the year, a stretch that will last about a month. It's cold and dark. The weather tends to make commutes hellish. The holidays are over and the decorations stripped. Lunar new year came early this year and is now over and marred by tragedy. There's little to do and the only real "event" is the consumer orgy of the Super Bowl, which mostly just makes me feel ill. 

It's Sunday night now, which means facing another work week after a weekend spent in the fog of this winter malaise. The end of the last year brought reflect, as the end of the year always does, and that reflection in middle age typically leads one to contemplate how dreams hoped for in youth are just never going to come true. 

If I had been wiser in my youth, I'd have gone to law school instead of grad school and now I'd be making enough money to go on a vacation somewhere warm and sunny to get away from all of this. I foolishly chose to pursue knowledge rather than lucre in a society that worships the latter and despises the former. Sometimes I can be comforted in the knowledge that my work actually has meaning but this time of year the old narratives don't work their magic like they usually do. 

I am willing to bet a lot of you are feeling the same way right now. So how do we get through this? Sometimes the only way out is through.

I lean into despair with my trusty friends music, books, and movies. Here's some recs if you are looking for them. 

Jackson Frank's "Blues Run the Game" just totally embodies that feeling that winter is never going to end and life is pretty hopeless. He also talks about sending out for whiskey and gin, which are my preferred tipples this time of year. 

Robert Altman's anti-Western McCabe & Mrs Miller is suitably bleak and gloomy. The dark rainy Pacific Northwest setting perfectly frames a story where love and passion are ultimately futile. Sometimes the bastards win and the hero doesn't ride into the sunset. 

Sad folk music is my preferred soundtrack this time of year, and no one did it better than Nick Drake. All three of his albums are superlative, but Pink Moon gets busted out on many a winter night in my house. It's eerie and dark but weirdly comforting, too. 

Sometimes a little anger helps, too. January in an odd-numbered year means a brand new Congress and brand new state legislatures. It does not exactly help my mood to read about Republicans trying to hold the country hostage with the debt ceiling or finding new and unique ways to persecute trans people and target my fellow educators. It's even worse when the people who ought to be fighting back are AWOL. That's when I put on Neil Young's "Ambulance Blues." "You're all just pissing in the wind."      

In terms of books, last year at this time I decided to reread le Carre's "Karla Trilogy." I won't do the same thing this year, but I might just give Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy another spin. Gloomy 70s London combined with Cold War intrigue is perfect for this time of year. It's also the kind of story where the "good guys" have to make moral compromises in order to win, compromises that undermine their "good guy status."

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These are the winter days of out discontent. I'm too pessimistic to think they can be avoided, but I at least I hope we can get through them with some splendid wallowing. 

New Order, "Ceremony" (Track of the Week)

No music suits the dark cold post-holiday winter doldrums better than early New Order. Before their music got more of a cold, sparkly sheen in the mid-80s it was the aural equivalent of an electric blanket or space heater. It makes me want to curl up next to the speaker the way I used to do by the heat vent in my childhood bedroom. While crouching there in that little pocket of warmth the cold hand of winter could be kept at bay as long as I didn't move a single muscle.

I am leaning extra hard into that music this year. I find myself mentally curled up, my trust in others beyond my immediate circle questioned. I hate winter but this one is the worst yet. The vaccines are coming and the end is in sight but the current wave is fearsome. 

In this environment I find "Ceremony" especially comforting. Tonight before bed one of my daughters and I took turns sharing songs with each other. (She loves k pop.) I chose "Ceremony" after she played BTS's COVID comfort song, "Life Goes On." I couldn't put my finger on why, and it came to me while I told her why I like the song.

I don't really know what it's supposed to be about, it's more of a mood for me. And when I listen to it I can't help thinking about Ian Curtis and how the members of Joy Division found a way to keep going after his suicide. (All I told my daughter was that he died suddenly.) To me this song has always been about finding hope after sorrow. It's an emotional mixture I've experienced a lot recently. 

It's one of those songs that my body has to respond to. When I hear it I bang my fingers against the table in its space between the lines rhythm and nod my head along. The unspoken message courses through my body: "this too shall pass."

The (Fourth) Winter Of Our Discontent

January and February are the nadir of the calendar year. It is dark and cold and punctuated only by the revolting holiday of vulgar American consumerism that is the Super Bowl. I am likely to fall into a depressive spiral this time of year, made worse in recent years by political events.

After coming back rested from his golf holiday, Trump likes to start the new year with his most blatant actions. In 2017 it was his post-inauguration onslaught, including the ban on travelers from majority Muslim nations. Last year it was a government shutdown over the wall. This year it is the double whammy of escalating the conflict in Iran and trying to sabotage the impeachment process.

In this fourth discontented winter of the Trump administration, which I pray will be the last, I feel like the nation is being confronted with its complete and utter loss of coherence. It is obvious for anyone to see that Trump has committed crimes. His refusal to cooperate with Congressional investigations is a crime on its face, of course. We also have clear proof that he tried to force the Ukranian government to investigate his domestic political rival, and in doing so unlawfully withheld aid to Ukraine apportioned by Congress. None of this even touches on his brazen use of his office to bring money to his properties, the many credible allegations of sexual misconduct women have leveled against him, and his campaign's links to Russian intelligence.

Despite the obvious and unambiguously clear evidence that Trump has abused his power like no president before him, we are all assuming that the Senate will not convict him. In fact, the Senate might not even allow a real trial to even take place. We are not surprised because we all know, deep down, that our institutions have completely failed. The Republican Senators don't care a whit for the law or Constitution, only for raw power. Anyone who denies this is a fool.

I don't believe we have given needed thought to the implications of this. For an openly criminal president to escape scot free with the aid of his party effectively means that we don't really have a democracy in this country. That cabal's use of gerrymandering and voter supression to win elections when they are in the minority has made this clear, but acquital will make it visible to even the most complacent person.

So what happens then? I get the feeling that the reality of the current situation will just be met with denial. I already know Republicans who never liked Trump but voted for him who have put their heads in the sand and have refused to acknowledge reality. Plenty of Democrats who want to think we can simply go back to the way things used to be, or "work with Republicans" are also willfully blind.

Like authoritarians who have toppled countless other democracies, America's conservative leaders assume that their opposition is too weak, divided and uncommited to stop them. Right now, in this fourth winter of discontent, I have to agree with them. Back in 2016 I worried that we would not learn from our mistakes, and I was right. Twitter is burning up with stupid petty arguments between partisans of different Democratic candidates while the world burns. Instead of taking to the streets we've got our heads shoved up our own asses. When the Senate refuses to convict Trump, I doubt there will be much public reaction. I think deep down most of us already know that the die was cast in November of 2016. I am going to spending this winter of discontent trying to figure out how the hell to move forward from this situation, or just giving into it myself. Maybe I'm the foolish one for believing that this country has a future.

American Solstice?

I have grown to appreciate winter solstice, the darkest day of the year. I like to use it as a day of reflection. This year it coincides with my last day of teaching before break, as well as a clusterfuck of epic proportions in Trump World.

The Justice Department is being led by a literal con artist who is signaling that he wants to shut down the Mueller investigation. Trump is shutting down the government to get money for slatted wall. Mattis resigned in protest after Trump decided at abandon long-supported military commitments. The stock markets are tanking. All of the other petty scandals and corruptions keep churning beneath it all.

Of all things yesterday seemed perhaps to be a breaking point for a lot of Very Serious People on the Republican side. They had expected Trump to be kept in check by the likes of Mattis, and now he has Hulked out and broken loose. Some folks in the media seem to think that this is some kind of turning point.

I am not holding my breath.

We have been down this road before. There was a similar reaction to the Access Hollywood tape. When Trump so flagrantly and publicly kowtowed to Vladimir Putin in public this summer we heard similar rumblings. In the end the Republicans maintained their end of their blood pact with Trump. He gets to be president and loot the country for his benefit while they get tax breaks and conservative judges. Expect that deal to carry on to the bitter end.

I know plenty of conservatives. Not one who voted for Trump has renounced him. They will all vote for him again. I certainly know a couple of Never Trumpers, but they never went for the devil's bargain to begin with. I would say that they would vote for the lowest piece of garbage embodying the worst attributes of this country rather than a Democrat, but guess what, they already have! They are not going to change their mind, they can only be outnumbered and overruled. They know that, which is why they are manipulating the system, from gerrymandering to hamstringing Democratic governors in lam duck sessions. This impulse will only get more pronounced.

Solstice gives hope in that for the next 365 days there will be more light than on this dark day. The media narrative is trying to say that America is hitting its solstice low point under Trump, but I think we have further to go. It will be dark day after darker day ahead. I'm not hopeless and I am committed to the fight, but I still don't see signs that we are headed in any way toward the light just yet. I hope this next year proves me wrong.

A Few Thoughts On The Most Depressing Day Of The Year

It may not be official, but I am now calling the last Monday in January "The Most Depressing Day Of The Year." Well, at least in the northern hemisphere.

On this day I am feeling very tired and sick at heart. Some of this is personal, some of it is political, and some of it is the intersection of the personal and political, like my shitty New Jersey Transit commute. Sometimes when I get down I try to cheer myself up by watching old music videos and favorite sit-coms from my youth. Other days I steer into the depression and let it ride, and today is one of those days.

As I sat in my grimy New Jersey Transit train today I was reading a book about the memory of the World War I in Great Britain. The author talked about how some of the battlefield monuments eschewed Christian imagery, mirroring how the war had shattered the faith of so many of its participants. While some may have sought a comforting narrative of redemption and heaven's reward, others could never believe in a God that would allow such senseless slaughter to occur.

For some reason, at the very moment I was reading that passage, a memory popped into my head. I remembered a road trip I took to from Omaha to Chicago during my senior year of high school. We left on a golden Saturday morning, and after my friend got into the car, I read aloud Carl Sandburg's poem "Chicago" to inaugurate our journey.

That memory suddenly made me extremely sad. The kind of person who did dorky, romantic, spontaneous things like that is dead. Life has made me harder, more cynical, and far less trusting. It's not a matter of wanting to restore that person, there really is no way to go back.

Then I remembered that there are places when the spirit of that person lives on, even though he is dead. In the classroom I am willing to put myself out there and be vulnerable and dorky, but not outside of the walls of that classroom when I am out of my house. I also remembered my children brought that out of me too. When my daughters got home today, about ten minutes after I arrived, I swept them up and smiled. I talked with them about their day and had one of my daughters read a book to me. She also insisted on talking in a robot voice. I played along, she laughed. On days like this such silly games are therapy.

Wintertime Baseball Musings

This winter I thought I had managed to avoid my usual off-season baseball withdrawal. I have been watching more basketball and hockey again, and am remembering why I enjoy those sports. The NFL playoffs have also been more compelling that usual this year.

And yet...

It hit me this week as hard as it always does in January. Why isn't there any baseball to watch? And so, yet again, I try to dig up some old baseball artifacts and start thinking about the larger metaphors of baseball. For example, the way the New York Mets have conducted themselves this off season is a like a middle-aged person whose life has gone into a holding pattern. The Mets didn't make any major moves, didn't shake things up, and are certainly not going to be challenging for the World Series. They made enough small moves, like claiming Adrian Gonzalez off of the scrap pile, to keep anyone from accusing them to have given up. And so the Mets, who so recently looked ready to be a contender for many years, will once again settle for mediocrity. As I have entered middle age, I know this temptation all too well.

So this middle-aged mediocrity will distract himself from contemplating his loss of passion by digging up some artifacts.

Hard to believe it's been almost thirty years since Fleer and Billy Ripkin accidentally took part in a baseball card with an obscenity. Ripkin had written "Fuck Face" on his bat, and didn't realize he had grabbed that particular bat for the photo shoot. Sadly, I was only able to find the censored version of the card. I think about this card today, and how once our society took obscenity more seriously. Now a human obscenity is our president and 1989 feels like a million years ago.

Buck O'Neil, player and manager for the Kansas City Monarchs and later path-breaking major league baseball scout, ought to be in the Hall of Fame. If not for his managerial and scouting career, at least for his abilities as an ambassador of baseball. He is the star of Ken Burns' series, and I love this scene, where the old scout talks about how only a few very special players could make such a fearsome sound with the crack of their bat. Here he is talking of Bo Jackson, one of my childhood baseball heroes.

When Chris Chambliss hit his walk-off homer in the 1976, it finally put the Yankees back in the World Series after a very un-Yankee drought. The fans rushing the field, not allowing him to hit home plate, is such a great scene from the scary, anarchic chaos that was New York City in the 1970s.

Chicago folkie Steve Goodman wrote the Cubs anthem "Go Cubs Go," but he also write "A Dying Cub Fan's Last Request." It's sad that he died at the young age of 36, but perhaps more profoundly sad that he died without ever seeing them in the World Series, like a lot of other Cubs fans. Fandom is a kind of faith, and like a lot of faiths, it can be cruel in how it refuses to answer prayers.

One thing that sets baseball apart from other sports is the role of the manager. (Notice, they are not called coaches, that title is for lower members on the manager's staff.) Unlike in other sports, the manager wears the uniform of the team. Baseball also allows a level of argument between the manager and officials that you don't just see in other sports. Some managers, like Earl Weaver, were masters of the art.

A Winter Dream Of The Jersey Shore

We are now in what is indisputably the worst time of the year. The holidays are over, it is ass-cold, and the days are still short. When it gets cold, New Jersey Transit trains start breaking down. Two days this week I have had to stand the whole way to New York because of shortened trains and having to take on passengers from other broken trains. Stepping into that hell after waiting on a freezing platform is a wretched way to start the day. Today it was packed to the gills on a broken down old train short two cars on my way back home from the city. That's a rotten way to end a day. (Also was pleasant to brown bag a beer standing up. It's been that kind of week.)

Some winter days, to dispel the tired and angry thoughts in my head, I dream a dream of the boardwalk on the Jersey Shore in the summer time. I sit (or stand) on the train, imagining I can smell the salt air, that I can feel that combination of warm sun and cool breeze, and hear the gulls calling out. 

In fact, that's what I am doing tonight, in the midst of my fatigue and seasonal depression. Last night I was feeling so angry about so many things that I worried that I was in danger of just not giving a damn anymore as a defense mechanism. Today that level of anger went off the charts. I found out that one of my sister's former students, who came here from El Salvador as a toddler, is now in danger of deportation. I read the president's "shithole countries" comment. I was once again overwhelmed with nausea thinking about all the people I know who voted for this.

To keep my thoughts from killing my will to resist, I dream again of the Jersey Shore to soothe and distract me. Here's some Shore artifacts that can help you do the same.

Here's a video of Bruce Springsteen performing "4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)" from about ten years ago. To me it is the greatest poem ever written to the Shore, the place where the Boss first launched his career. The accordion makes it, played by Danny Federici, the E Street Band's organist. This was actually his last performance, and evidently the song he chose to go out on. Listen, and you will understand why. The longing is almost unbearable, much like my current longing for spring.

I am a fan of Shore towns that are hip (like Asbury Park) or quiet and quaint (like Ocean Grove and Cape May.) However, when I want to have the true Shore Experience of deep fried oreos and t-shirts with vulgar slogans, I go to Wildwood. I also love the town for its beautifully tacky mid-century commercial architecture.

Philly teen idol rocker Bobby Rydell was one of the many musical artists who played the Wildwood region of the Shore, and this song, "Wildwood Days," is a fun ode to the town.

The King of Marvin Gardens is one of my favorite obscure 1970s movies. It shows Atlantic City, the land of Monopoly, in all its brokedown glory before the casinos came. It also explores the Shore as a site of the death of the American dream.

1980's Atlantic City looked at that town after the casinos came. It is a great portrait of America as it entered the Reagan years, with its casinoization of the American economy. Desperate dreamers always seem to find a way to the Shore, one thing that makes it irresistible to me.

Asbury Park has a beautiful carousel house, but the carousel itself got sold off to someone in South Carolina when the town hit hard times. Not sure what exactly the metaphor is, but it perfectly matches the faded glory that is Asbury Park.

Here's another Springsteen song, "Tunnel of Love," which uses a cheap boardwalk ride as a metaphor for a troubled relationship. His music on the album of the same way was an interesting left turn from the arena sound he had embraced in the mid-80s. It is more personal and introspective, like the Shore-based music of his first two albums. There are also some great shots in the video of the Shore in 80s, when it was rougher than it is now. The song has a kind of melancholy edge to it, which makes it the right place to end.

Baseball Stuff To Beat The Winter Blues

Pitchers and catchers have reported, the spring training fields of Arizona and Florida are once again bustling with the anticipation of a new season, and my copy of the new Baseball Prospectus has arrived in the mail. Last Saturday I was sick as a dog, but the sun was out and the thermometer hit 70 degrees. I got some needed fresh air sitting in a lawn chair out back, listening the Mets' spring training game on the radio. It was a taste of summer, and it felt wonderfully sublime. Since then the temperature has dropped. Today it was down in the teens, freezing cold under a hard, clear sky, the sunshine taunting me with its inability to give warmth. Summer feels far away, but I also know that baseball starts in earnest in four weeks. Here's some fun stuff to tie over my fellow seamheads.

Sid Bream chugging home to win the 92 NLCS 

The great Sully Baseball podcast has a new feature series on the teams from all the franchises that should have won the World Series. He was talking about the early 1990s Braves, and reminded me of this moment. It's one of the most amazing baseball moments I ever saw live on TV. The rather lumbering Bream chugs around third base, running with ridiculously swinging arms, like a cartoon character version of an old timey sprinter. Yet somehow he beats the throw of the mighty Barry Bonds off of a rather shallow single from Francisco Cabrera to beat the Pirates and put the Braves in the Series. The play at the plate is one of the most exciting things in sports, and a good riposte to those who think baseball is boring.

1986 Mets Song

After the Chicago Bears' "Superbowl Shuffle" in 1985 every sports team needed to make their own music video. Instead of the players doing a terrible rap, they hired a bunch of butt rockers to yarl out phrases like "We've got the team work/ to make the dream work." Oh yeah, there's Joe Piscopo, too. It's all a huge potpourri of 80s pop cultural garbage. So of course I love it. And hey, things turned out pretty well for the '86 Mets.

1970 Phillies Yearbook Cover

I love old baseball yearbooks, and have come dangerously close to spending too much money to acquire some of them. I love this one for the juxtaposition of what was supposed to be the ultra-modern Veterans Stadium with the ol' knothole. I always love stuff that touts something as the future (in this case, multipurpose stadiums) that now looks like a hopeless relic of the past. It's a reminder not to be seduced by novelty in our own time.

1960 Topps Wally Moon

Thanks to my friend Brian, I own this beautiful card. Proof that manscaping wasn't a thing back in 1960.

Dick Allen, 1972

Great baseball photo, or greatest baseball photo? Dick belongs in the damn Hall of Fame.

Billy Martin Throwing Dirt 

Another thing I love about baseball is manager ejections. Few other sports have arguments between officials and coaches as often and colorfully as in baseball. Today's managers are pretty tame compared to the likes of Dick Williams, Earl Weaver, and yes, Billy Martin. Martin was by all accounts a terrible human being, but he was perhaps the last great practitioner of baseball as warfare, a style shared by such disparate players as Ty Cobb, Don Drysdale, and Jackie Robinson. I remember seeing this as a kid and being amused that Martin was unable to kick dirt on the umpire because it was too wet, so he just bends down and picks up a handful and throws it on him. I also have fond memories of seeing Cookie Rojas get ejected by three umps at one.

Yo La Tengo, "From A Motel 6"

February is the worst month of the year. Winter refuses to go away. With Super Bowl over and March Madness and the baseball season yet to start, sports options are really lame on nights when I have nothing better to do than watch television. Hollywood dumps its shitty movies in the theater. Awards shows and their fatuous celebrity worship are everywhere.

Every year at this time I never fail to get into the dumps. In these times I have lean especially hard on music for help. Back in grad school I even made a mix tape (one of my last) called "Late Winter Blues" that I kept in my car tape deck through the whole month of February. One of those songs, one that I always return to, is Yo La Tengo's "From A Motel 6." While this came out during their 1990s heyday, I did not discover them until I met my friend Kevin back in the year 2000, when we learned we were both way into indie rock. The Painful album was one of the first CDs anyone ever burned for me. The year we spent rooming together was a musical education, one I am still grateful for.

I like Yo La Tengo's 90s period in winter because of the droning, Velvet Underground-derived guitar. It's the sound of hard, cold winter sunlight reflecting off a snowbank whizzing by my window while I drive on slushy streets. I have no idea what the song's about, I just know that the title is a reference to Bob Dylan's "From A Buick 6," which also has a strong riff behind it. When I listen to this, like a lot of 90s indie guitar rock, I let my mind wander in the swirls of the feedback-drenched guitars, losing myself for a few minutes. It's a welcome deliverance from February.

Fairport Convention, "Sir Patrick Spens" (BBC sessions version)

We are now into my least favorite part of the calendar year. The holidays are over, and now there are no happy distractions from the oppression of winter's cold and dark. I almost always fall into a mental depression and get physically ill this time of year. I got spoiled by my three winters living in Texas, and have had a hard time with them in Jersey. While the weather is not as extreme as it is in my Nebraska homeland, the effect it has on my commute can be soul-destroying. There's nothing like spending an hour in Penn Station crushed cheek to cheek with other irate commuters waiting for a train that will be even more crowded. Snow also means shoveling, now that I'm a home owner, and there's nothing like ending a hard day of working and commuting with having to shovel my much too long driveway.

I try to warm myself however I can, from hot chocolate to dark beer to bourbon to lamb stew (made a big pot last week) to the right music. I lived two very very long winters in Michigan, which happened to coincide with my exploration into folk music. (This was assisted by the amazing music collection at the Grand Rapids Public Library.) I find it well-suited to the winter months, especially English folk music. 

Fairport Convention are one of my favorites, due to the combination of Sandy Denny's gorgeous voice, Richard Thompson's impeccable guitar playing, and Dave Mattacks' impressionistic drumming. I tend to like their originals best, but there's a special spot in my heart for "Sir Patrick Spens," an old Scottish folk song about a doomed ship. It's the tale of the Scottish king asking Sir Patrick Spens to sail a ship for him, even though Sir Patrick doesn't think he's up for the task. The ship sinks, and Sir Patrick assumes he's been manipulated by an "enemy" to going to his death. I love the way that Mattacks' drums roll like the waves of the sea on this song. It's also good to hear that all the way back in medieval times capricious bosses were setting their subordinates up for failure.

I like the BBC sessions version of this song from the Live At The BBC album best, since it has a rawness to it that I think all good folk music should have.

Track of the Week: REM "Carnival of Sorts (Box Cars)"

We've now entered a strange and liminal part of the year that I usually just refer to as "late winter," but whose effects are more profound than that mundane moniker suggests.  There are signs of spring, but it's not here yet.  Winter has just about worn me down by now.  Growing up it was always rotten because I was usually depriving myself of something I liked because of Lent. For a sports-obsessed kid it was the pits because football was over, baseball hadn't started, and in basketball March Madness and the NBA playoffs hadn't arrived yet.  I also tend to get sick this time of year, and this year was no exception.  Just as I recovered from a wretched bout with the flu, my wife contracted it, and has been laid up for three days.

The air is filled with a mysterious ennui, but also a faint whiff of the green blast of spring life just over the horizon.  That mood has always been the perfect one for listening to REM's early music, which has a similar air of mystery and anticipation about it.  I find this to be the case especially with Chronic Town, their debut EP, released in 1982.  Fitting the title, "Carnival of Sorts (Box Cars)" starts with the sound of a faded carousel calliope, before the punky guitar and driving drums come in.  The chorus has one of Peter Buck's best descending, jangly guitar figures, a real beauty.  Like most early REM songs, the lyrics are intentionally vague and sung in a way as to be incomprehensible.  That, of course, only adds to the mystery, one just as ineffable as the strange stirrings in my soul on a late February day when the chill wind carries just a hint of verdant warmth.

80s Pop Cheese For The Winter Blues

We had freakish weather here in the Garden State this holiday season. It felt more like Easter than Christmas, or like Christmas in Houston.  Now a full on winter cold snap has hit, and I am reminded that the older I get, the less I can tolerate winter.  The lack of sunlight is the worst thing, but add the cold and it's unbearable.  There's nothing quite like standing on the train platform in the pre-dawn darkness shivering while hoping that the winter conditions haven't caused any train delays that morning.

In times like these I turn to cheesy music to help get me through, and no decade has stinkier musical cheese than the 80s.  I do not believe in guilty pleasures, we like what we like.  And while I can talk your ear off about a lot of great underground contemporary music, right now in my time of need I want the musical Doritos and aural RC Cola of my youth.  Here's the 80s pop I'm stuffing my ears with right now:

Level 42 "Something About You"

I don't know what it is, but this song just SOUNDS exactly like the 80s.  While there is some decently funky bass lurking here beneath the mannered English singing and smooth harmonies, it's still a shiny, glittery piece of 80s pop cubic zirconia.  I think I still hear this song in waiting rooms from time to time, the perfect forum for smooth 80s pop music.

Bobby Brown "My Prerogative"

I'm not ashamed to admit that this song taught me the meaning of the word "prerogative."  It's got maybe the biggest, dumbest, catchiest rhythm groove of any song to ever hit the top 40 this side of "Louie, Louie" to boot. Bonus points for the prominent keytar in the video.

Laura Branigan "Self Control"

There's a certain kind of darky, synthy 80s pop music that I just can't get enough of.  Chuck Eddy referred to the genre as "flashdance" in one of his books, the music of late nights on rain-slicked streets.  That world is directly evoked in this video, and Laura Branigan's voice sounds weary of desire in a world made of steel, made of stone.  (Sorry, couldn't resist the reference.)  As a kid I loved the effects laden guitar that hits hard after the "Oh Oh Oh" bridge.  This song seemed to be about an adult world that I could barely even comprehend.

Hall and Oates "Out Of Touch"

Hall and Oates made some pretty awesome jams in their early days, and recently they have undergone a bit of a renaissance, and deservedly so.  But man, they started letting their sound get wrapped up in the Big 80s sound circa 1984, draining much of their soul roots in the process.  (The video even uses a giant drum set to drive the big-ness of it all home.)  On this song they really do master that sound, in all of its overproduced, synthetic glory.

Journey "Who's Crying Now"

People like to remember Journey for their romantic power ballads, whether it's the sappy "Open Arms" or the epic "Don't Stop Believing."  They often forget about this song, where I imagine a sleepless Steve Perry at 3AM sitting on his dark stoop smoking a cig and contemplating the dark side of love.  It's so wonderfully moody.

Talk Talk "It's My Life"

The arc of New Wave is long, but it bends towards Talk Talk.

Sade "Smooth Operator"

It's like Roger Moore-era James Bond and Sonny Crockett combined in song form.  Also includes sultry sax, which was never better than it was in the 80s.

Mick Jagger "Just Another Night"

Okay, this one I don't actually like, I just think it's fun to gawk at just how awful and ridiculous Mick Jagger was in the 80s.  It is funny to think that at this point he thought he could ditch the Stones and strike out on his own, when without Keef his music is flimsy at best.  And don't even get me started about the ballet shoes.

Track of the Week: The War on Drugs "Under the Pressure"

Lost in the Dream by The War On Drugs was by far my favorite album of last year.  It has an amazing atmosphere that I am always glad to find myself (excuse the expression) lost in.  The production is reminiscent of the 1980s with the worst excesses toned down: airy synthesizers, reverby guitar, echoey piano, and metronomic drums.  Singer and composer Andrew Granduciel's has a bit of raspy Bob Dylan in its grain, making "Under the Pressure" sound like a lost outtake from Oh Mercy.

"Under the Pressure" kicks off the album and sets the mood.  Although this is hardly a barn burner, the tempo is fast and insistent, and Granduciel lets out a few "whoos."  I find myself listening to it a lot in the morning, riding the train into New York City with the sun barely peaking over the horizon of the New Jersey swamps.  It's such a beautiful song, a kind of morning prayer as I head off to work at the start of another day.

TS Eliot was wrong.  April is by no means the cruelest month, February's got it beat by a country mile.  Winter has been here for months, and now it is getting colder than ever at a time when my body is crying out for spring.  Music is one my healthier means of surviving it, and when I listen to The War On Drugs, I feel a kind of spiritual warmth.  Rarely have I found music this theraputic for this trying time of the year.

Pop Culture Ephemera To Beat Holiday Dread And The Winter Blues

This time of year fills me with conflicting emotions.  I'm actually a big fan of the holidays, and am lucky not to suffer from the holiday-induced depression that plenty of people suffer from for a variety of reasons (crummy family, bad holiday memories, sadness over those who've died who can't be there with you.)  However, I have a big tendency to over-think things, and while I am looking forward to Christmas and New Year's, I'm already dreading what comes after.  January, February, and March are the garbage months on the calendar: cold weather, lack of sunlight, no seasonal food (or beer), and no holidays to brighten things up.  Over the years these times have also been layered over with bad memories.  Lent begins in February, which as a child meant sacrifice and self-induced guilt.  The American Historical Association has its annual conference the weekend after New Year's, a place where I went for five years straight to either interview for a job or talk to university presses to get a book published to get me a better job, or both.  The next months would then be full of anxiety attacks and painful rejection.

It's going to take some Groot levels of strength to get through the year's garbage time.  I've assembled a list of stuff (mostly video clips) to cling on to.

Battle of the Network Stars: Gabe Kaplan Bests Robert Conrad



It starts with Telly Savalas in a tracksuit and shades smoking a cig, and just keeps getting better.  ("I'm from New York, I want the bread, baby.")  Robert Conrad is taking this way too seriously, and it makes my heart happy to see his macho bullshit not work.  Gabe "Mr. Kotter" Kaplan's victory in this competition (and getting a kiss from Linda "Wonder Woman" Carter) is a victory for nerds everywhere.

Stryper Promo Picture

How could you make hair metal even more ridiculous?  Throw in some old time religion and a yellownblack spandex getup.  *Shudder*

Ben Stiller Show U2 Rockumentary



Ben Stiller has become a a big time movie star, but I still fondly remember his old sketch show back in the 1990s, which also featured Andy Dick, Janine Garafolo and Bob "better call Saul" Odenkirk.  Stiller's Bono impersonation still kills me, as does the image of him playing a bar mitzvah while sharing a manager with the Partridge Family.

Ronald Reagan Gives The Gift Of Lung Cancer

This just doesn't need a comment.

Mets Banner Day, 1984



When I try hard to get my mind away from the wretchedness of winter I think about the ballpark.  I imagine myself on a mild early June afternoon drinking a tasty, crisp beer while sitting on the third base side, lost in a baseball game.  The Mets, me newly adopted local team, have a great tradition of fan banners, and "Banner Day" when fans get to parade their creations on the field.  This little video from 1984 shows young people pre-internet with the time on their hands needed to make an amusing creation on a bed-sheet so that they can step out onto the glorious hallowed green of Shea Stadium.  This video also makes me happy, since it helps me recall the ordinary, mundane fashions of the 80s.  (It wasn't all shoulder pads and Don Johnson suits, you know.)

The Cover of Mac Davis' It's Hard to Be Humble Album

Ah, the 70s, when a perm and bare hairy chest were the height of masculine allure.

William Shatner Sings "Rocket Man"




If I am in the lowest of moods, when nothing in the world can cheer me up, I turn to this.  This performance is truly amazing, in that Shatner somehow manages to transcend irony completely.  If only all tacky awards ceremonies had a moment like this to show what rubbish the rest of the proceedings are by comparison.

Track of the Week: New Order "Everything's Gone Green"

Winter has hit hard these last few days.  The drafts are seeping into the house and walking the dog in the morning has lost its charm.  The awful weather has coincided with the rotten news from Missouri and a growing sense of despair I have been feeling about the future.  The combination of lack of sunlight and lack of justice has been a killer one.

Changes in the seasons tend to have a profound impact on me, and over the years I've developed an informal soundtrack of music that acts like a warm blanket when I'm not feeling all that great.  Over the years I've found that very early New Order, circa 1981-1982, really suits the onset of winter.  It has a kind of cold, distant feel to it and sense of mourning after the death of Ian Curtis, who had lead the band's earlier incarnation, Joy Division.

"Everything's Gone Green" is not one of the band's more famous singles, they still hadn't quite developed their sound just yet.  I still love it, not least for Peter Hook's typically hook-y, melodic bass and the way that it combines hard, metallic drum loops with floating guitar and synthesizer textures.  It's appropriate that the first words are "Help me, somebody help me."  The repeated line "It seems like I've been here before" is poignant in a song I listen to with each returning winter.  I don't know how many times during my two frigid winters in Michigan I sat listening to this song swathed in a heavy cardigan in my cold apartment with a cup of tea in my hand, looking out the window at the deep snow and wondering how the hell I was going to make it to springtime.

Songs For Winter

The winter here in New Jersey has been particularly awful.  Snow keeps accumulating and the temperatures are stubbornly frigid.  My complicated commute to work has become a daily ordeal of canceled trains, two mile walks in the snow, and general awfulness.  As it does in just about every facet of my life, music has helped me cope.  A good winter song provides a warming glow, like taking a nip of bourbon after shoveling the snow off the walk.  Here are some of my favorite songs for winter time, add your own in the comments if you'd like.

Rod Stewart, "Mandolin Wind"
I've said it before despite some protests, and I will keep saying it: Rod Stewart's body of work from 1968 to 1973, be it solo or with Jeff Beck or the Faces, is among the best created by anyone, ever.  (All in all, ten great albums are worth listening to in the space of five years.)  Yes, he has spent four decades squandering his talent, but the man could sing and when his voice was paired with the right material he really hit the jackpot.  This song references winter, but its steel guitar and mandolin (natch) create a languid, warm vibe.  Put this on while wearing a cardigan and drinking some hot coffee and you'll forget about the draft coming through your window for awhile.

Richard and Linda Thompson, "Withered and Died"
During my first winter in Michigan I became a huge fan of Richard and Linda Thompson's I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight.  I still listen to it often this time of year, but I have specific memories of this song, which get at the despair I felt that winter over a failed attempt on the academic job market while working on the contingent track.

Wilco, "War on War"
During the winter of 2003 I fell into an intense blue period, which coincided with my obsession with Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot album.  This song's grimly optimistic lines "You've got to lose/ you've got to learn how to die/ if you want to be alive" stuck with me in that dark time.  This song also has some of Jay Bennett's best synthesizer work.

Otis Redding, "Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa (Sad Song)"
No singer's voice warms my soul like Otis Redding's does, except maybe Sam Cooke (who I prefer to listen to in the summer.)  This is the best of his "sad Otis" songs, where he takes on the persona of a man wounded by love.  It's one I used to always put on the jukebox in the dead of winter in grad school while hoisting a pint at the local pub to escape the cold.

Velvet Underground, "All Tomorrow's Parties"
The droning sounds of the early Velvet Underground have always seemed suited for winter for me, their hazy guitars and viola hanging like my breath in the frigid air.  I get that feeling the most on this song, where the restrained guitar sounds like the faded winter sun, the portentous drums the chill in the air, and the repetitive piano line like the endlessly falling snow.

My Bloody Valentine, "Only Shallow"
Some winter days it is paradoxically bitter cold while the sun shines painfully bright in a cloudless sky, the light blasting off of the piles of snow, making my eyes ache.  On those days I crank this grungy classic, which sounds like how my eyes feel.

Yo La Tengo, "Sudden Organ"
Droning, feedbacky music makes my mind warm, and apart from the Velvet Underground, nobody does it better than Yo La Tengo.  I also love songs that get their names from musical aspects of the song, such as the dominating organ on this track.

Packing My Winter Survival Kit

It looks like winter has come early this year, if the recent cold temperatures here in New Jersey are any indication.  The older I get, the more I dislike winter.  I actually really loved it growing up, since it meant building snow forts, sledding, and staying indoors to play Connect Four and Battleship during recess.  Nowadays I have a little PTSD from my two winters in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where over 100 inches of snow fell both times and the sun came out maybe twice between Halloween and Easter.  After living in Michigan I spent three years in Texas, and really got used to not really having winter.  That experience has drastically reduced my tolerance for cold and lack of sunshine.

To survive winter with my mental state intact, I've started assembling a winter survival kit of things that will make the next few months bearable.  It follows, organized by category.

Food
Certain foods seem to be meant for winter, where they warm both the body and the soul.  Oatmeal and grits thus become especially important at breakfast, when my stomach requires something hot.  This time of year I make a lot of chili, which always seems to lift my spirits.  In recent years I have also delved into the world of root vegetables, whose hearty warmth spreads throughout my limbs whenever I eat them.  My favorite is carrot-rutabega mash, but I also like to make parsnips, turnips, and sweet potatoes.  Soups and stews beyond chili are necessary for survival, and this time of year my shadow haunts Vietnamese restaurants, where I can savor a big old steaming bowl of pho.  There's practically nothing better on a cold dark afternoon, except maybe lamb stew.

Beer
Speaking of lamb stew, dark beers are a winter favorite for me as well.  Something about stout and porter especially fit the cold short days and freezing long nights, but I'll grab a bottle of Bell's Brown Ale in a heartbeat.  Other favorites for this time of year are the Edmund Fitzgerald Porter by Great Lakes Brewing Company, Yeti Imperial Stout by Great Divide, Samuel Smith's oatmeal stout, and The Kaiser by Avery, which we used to call "the ole ass-kicker" when I lived in Michigan.

Whiskey
I don't really drink a lot of whiskey during most of the year, but I go through quite a bit in winter time.  Many a night in a frigid apartment has been soothed by the golden glow of Irish whiskey.  While Jameson and Tullamore Dew were my first whiskies, recently I have been delving into bourbon, and the right kind of bourbon can unlock the same glowing fire inside.  These days I have become a fan of Old Grand-Dad, which has a wintry flavor (can't quite explain it) that survives mixing and costs only twenty bucks a bottle.  It's what I call a switch-hitting bourbon, in that it's good for mixing but rough enough not to make mixing a travesty, and yet smooth and tasty enough to stand on its own.

Music
The right music is absolutely essential for making it through winter.  It has to speak to the season's difficulties, and the sad feelings that are more likely to wrap themselves around my mind.  I tend to listen to a lot of folk-inflected music, especially Leonard Cohen's first album, Tim Buckley, Fairport Convention, Richard and Linda Thompson, and Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan's first album, which is just about as perfect as winter music gets.  In addition to this stuff, I also go with The Smiths, Joy Division (super wintry), The Velvet Underground (whose drones are like a space heater for my soul), and early Miles Davis.  I have spent many evenings shivering under a blanket listening to 'Round Midnight, which is less an album than a kind of medicated musical balm.

Clothing
Keeping warm is the operating principle behind my winter survival kit, and clothing its most crucial component.  I tend to wear a lot of sweaters, the thicker the better.  A cable knit sweater my wife got my for my birthday has reminded me why I like that genre of sweater so much for the winter time.  Over the years I have also built up a large supply of cardigans, which are an easy thing to grab when you need a little warmth.  I also go with lots and lots of flannel, shirts in the day and pajamas at night.  At those times when it is necessary to venture outdoors, I always have on a hat (tweed usually) and scarf.  Until the last few years I was not a scarf-wearer, but my two winters in Michigan cured me of that shortcoming right quick.  Slippers always get lost, so I like to slip on a pair of wool socks, they certainly make walking on the cold tile in the kitchen and bathroom less trying.

Anything in your own winter survival kits that I'm missing here?

Why Late Winter is The Worst

The older I get, the more seasonal patterns become obvious to me.  With each year that goes by, the same familiar emotions repeat themselves during the same times of the year.  In my thirty-seven trips around the sun, I have now surmised that late winter is the absolute nadir of the calendar.  This year, as in all other late winters, I have fallen ill, and not just for a couple of days.  I have spent the last three weeks feeling like crap, but just well enough to have to go to work and endure the daily grind at diminished strength.  After months of cold without sunlight, I feel drained and depressed.  My patience is worn and my temper is short, even with the ones I love.

I define late winter as the time between Valentine's Day and the beginning of the NCAA basketball tournament.  (I find the latter to just as much a sign of the onset of spring as the equinox.)  Late winter never fails to be interminably wretched.  In late winter, sickness stalks the land, coughs are its soundtrack. It is also a time of year full of great psychological stress and emotional strain.  At this point, the body's ability to handle the cold and dark of winter begins to break.  Just when the sun starts getting up early again, daylight savings time comes back, and I lose an hour of sleep at a time when I need it most.

Even things that normally bring joy are absent or awful.  In terms of sports, football is over, baseball has yet to begin, and hockey and basketball are still far from the playoffs.  The holidays (Valentine's and St. Patrick's Day) are the absolute worst.  The former is a manufactured event meant to sell greeting cards via guilt and treacly sentiment, and the latter is a drunken, insulting parody of Irish culture.  Growing up a devout Catholic, this time of year always coincided with Lent, which meant that in addition to all the usual late winter crap, I was forced to deprive myself of something I liked in order to atone for my sins.

I propose that we make a new holiday out of an old one: the spring equinox.  Even if winter has not finally been banished, we should have great feasts and jubilations, to welcome the sun's presence.  We should get together with family and friends, and celebrate making it through such a treacherous, difficult time of the year.  We shall toast, enjoy each other's company, and look forward to the warm months ahead.  Who's with me?

The Consolation of Bars in Wintertime

Back when I lived by myself, before being married and also while I suffered being 1,500 miles from my beloved spouse during most of the first two years of our marriage, this time of year was made barely bearable by going to bars.  I am very susceptible to wintertime depression, made worse because I love being outside.  I still remember Sunday afternoons when I lived in Michigan when I insisted on taking long walks despite the icy winds and falling snow.  Some of those Sundays I trekked the fifteen blocks or so to my favorite bar.

Walking was wise, both because I usually left my local in a state where I had no business being behind the wheel, and because when the snow piled up, spaces in the parking lot became more scarce, and the entrances to said lot treacherous.  (It was on a major thoroughfare, so the plows constantly dumped huge walls of snow in the entrance.  This also meant the sidewalk in front was impassable, so I always walked to the bar via the back alley.)

To my mind, this place was the Platonic ideal of what a bar ought to be.  It was dark, with wood tables and booths but bereft of idiotic knick-knacks.  There was just enough space to fit a large number of people, but it was still cozy.  The jukebox was one of those olden CD boxes, and was well-stocked with good music, a balanced mix of hipsterish stuff (Elvis Costello, Radiohead) and old chestnuts (Rolling Stones, AC/DC.)  The beer selection was fantastic and reflected west Michigan's bounty of exceptional brews.  You could order up a damn fine olive burger and Philly steak sandwich, or just help yourself to some free popcorn, if so inclined.  Best of all, the staff were model bartenders and waitresses.  The main guy seemed able to hold about 20 orders in his head, and always knew what new beer on tap I'd like.

The place was perhaps too good.  My friends and I took happy hour there at least twice a week.  On Sundays, however, I usually went by myself, out of pure loneliness and the desire to spend time with other people.  There was also the $4.75 special on pitchers of Pabst and, amazingly, free pizza.  Yes, that's right, free pizza.  This confluence of factors, combined with Sunday football, hockey, and basketball games on the TV, drew in an audience of lonely, single, thirtyish dudes like myself.  I would order me up a whole pitcher of Pabst, and drink it down while cadging free slices between bullshitting about the Lions' playoff chances or the relative merits of Steely Dan.  Occasionally I would stare out the window at the funeral home across the street with two impossibly long Polish names, and think morbid thoughts.  (This was northeast Grand Rapids, after all.)

Nowadays I have the love of my life and two supercute babies at my side, and my Sunday afternoons are not the long stretches of dread and loneliness that they used to be.  That said, I pine to spend a day at my old local, with my old friends and the therapists behind the bar that helped me survive two unforgiving Michigan winters.