First, a plug…

Rather than spend my time productively (like writing for this blog, earning a more robust living, or working to convince myself that my shirt collars are tightening because of laundry shrinkage rather than neck fat), I’ve done what any sensible human being with free time and a microphone is doing in the new millennium:  I’ve launched a podcast.

It’s called PAST TENS:  A TOP TEN TIME MACHINE. It’s a weekly humor and commentary show that focuses on music nostalgia. My co-host David Yas and I travel back in time, to a week sometime between 1964-2000, and revisit the top ten songs featured on that week’s Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.  We break down each individual song, sharing some fascinating facts and trivia on the way, and decide whether the song holds up well over time…or, as in many cases, doesn’t.  

I’ve always been addicted to pop music, and when I arrived in college I found a kindred spirit in Dave.  Now, almost 30 years later, we’ve developed a great outlet to wax poetic about one of our true passions, and foisted it upon the world for better or worse.  On PAST TENS, we’re opinionated, maybe a little crass at times, but listeners have told us that they love the nostalgic journey and the humor and energy that we bring to each week’s countdown.  You may not agree with everything we offer, but the trip always brings some nostalgia emotion back to the surface. Give it a listen, I promise that it’s worth a try. You can check out all of our episodes to date on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the Adori interactive app, or by liking our Facebook page for updates on new episodes.

But spending so much time running through old songs over the last few months has put me in a reflective mood.  So go through an exercise with me for a moment, and allow me to ask you a few introspective, perhaps intrusive questions:

  • What is your greatest interest or passion?  I don’t mean the people you’d thank in your Oscar speech (congratulations, by the way, on your richly deserved honor), but rather the hobby or subject that you love thinking about/talking about/reading about the most?
  • Can you remember the person most responsible for triggering that interest in you?

And, since I’ve been thinking about gratitude a bit lately:

  • Have you thanked that person for sparking one of your life’s passions?

I mean, how often do we get the chance to step back and thank someone, not for their general support or their specific “good Samaritan” assistance with a challenge, but for the simple, possibly unexpected act of introducing us to what becomes our most passionate interest?

Now, let me be clear, Uncle David is probably not what you’re picturing when you think of your own uncle.  When my sister and I were born (yes, I have a twin sister; fortunately for her, she looks almost nothing like me), my Uncle did not hand out cigars or swigs of Manischewitz to celebrate his sister’s growing family with everyone in the hospital waiting room. I don’t even think he could reach the reception counter.

That’s because Uncle David is only 8 years older than I am.

He is my true blood uncle, my mother’s brother, but there was an absolutely enormous age gap between he and his two older sisters.  I never formally confirmed this, but I assume that David’s conception was one hell of an “oops” moment for my grandparents. Side note: I think of having a newborn child at my age and literally shudder. On the list of things I’d like to do with my time these days, midnight diaper changing ranks somewhere between “barefoot snow hiking” and “getting hit in the groin repeatedly by a tennis ball machine”, so I’ve got to hand it to them for weathering what must have been quite the later-life storm (more like a blizzard of sleep deprivation and baby poo).

When my sister and I were born, David apparently cried.  He wasn’t sure he could handle the “stress” of uncle responsibilities when he was still riding a bike to school.  Lucky for me, he got over it.

Without question, it’s been uniquely amazing to have an Uncle so young.  He’s been like the older brother I never had, only significantly more benevolent.  Not living in the same house meant that we never felt any kind of sibling rivalry or inherent need to torture each other. We were close enough in age to share some of the same cultural sensibilities and interests.  He took me skiing, let me shoot his BB gun, beat me in Battleship, helped teach me the ways of the world, etc.. I looked up to him like an all-knowing god, a wise shaman but in jeans and a cool car.

And yes, he taught me about music.  And I remember the exact moment he put together his curriculum like it was yesterday.

One day, in my early teens, I was at David’s house and asked if I might be able to look at his impressive record collection.  I had been given a cheap stereo as a gift, one of those combination turntable/tape deck/radio contraptions that felt like a miracle machine to a young kid.  I had plowed through my father’s limited records (let’s just say The Association and Roberta Flack didn’t speak to me as a 11 or 12 year old) and wanted to broaden my horizons.

Within minutes, David brought me to his parents’ basement, where his records and stereo were waiting.  I can’t recall why his music was stored down there; perhaps his parents were so old that they couldn’t bear to listen to that “crazy rock and roll” upstairs.  Or maybe he was storing them there while he was in college. No matter, it was like I was allowed to enter the Library of Congress.

One by one, David starting pulling albums out.  With each one, he’d give a quick recitation on why it was important, almost all of which went over my culturally-immature mind (who still thought of the The Rainbow Connection by Kermit The Frog as music’s nadir).  He stacked them up, a tower of musical education-to-be, and said the magic words I was hoping to hear:

“Take these home with you.”

So I did.  And I played every single one of them, over and over and over again.  I stared at their bizarre album covers and studied their liner notes.  I wondered why Frank Zappa was so weird and why there was a donkey on the cover of a rock album.  I played Innervisions on headphones and nearly lost my mind.

And, in the end, my horizons expanded.  I started to LOVE rock and pop and R&B music, and knew that I had only begun to scratch the surface.  That felt good to me, even at such a young age, like opening a never-ending can of musical Yoo-Hoo. And man did I love Yoo-Hoo.

There were certainly other influences on my musical journey (I’ve bought three different copies of Dave Marsh’s The Heart Of Rock & Soul: The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made, and I still re-read and argue with it to this day), but there’s something about that initial spark that still sticks with me.

I can’t remember all of the albums he gave to me that day, but I do remember these:

  • Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out!  The Rolling Stones In Concert
  • George Thorogood and The Destroyers
  • Joe’s Garage, Act I, Frank Zappa
  • Head Hunters, Herbie Hancock
  • Greatest Hits, James Taylor
  • Brain Salad Surgery, Emerson Lake & Palmer
  • Tommy, The Who
  • Innervisions, Stevie Wonder
  • Songs In The Key Of Life, Stevie Wonder
  • Revolver, The Beatles
  • Led Zeppelin IV
  • So Far, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

Quite a list.  Doesn’t hit all of my musical notes (needed a little more classic soul in there for sure), and I have no idea what sparked my mid-80s rap music mojo.  But these albums represent a pretty great first syllabus.

So, thanks Uncle Dave.  Hopefully 40 years or so is still under the statute of limitations for gratitude.  Oh, and I’ll get those records back to you at some point.

Can I have another decade or so?