Life in Song: Man on the Moon

Life in Song is a series which will likely never finish. It is not, as originally conceived, a span of my hundred favorite songs; rather, each post covers one song randomly selected from a list of those which immediately evoke a memory or other emotional response. Entries will likely be uncomfortably candid and melancholic, as they attempt to recount a song's personal significance and also its context in my psychotically detailed fantasy life.


Song: R.E.M. - Man on the Moon

Thoughts: It's not a song that immediately gets me excited to write an entry, but neither is it so dull that I immediately regretted attempting one tonight. I love its melody and hook and can still get really into it occasionally. Michael Stipe's adenoidal voice has always sounded very expressive to me.

Defining Era: 2000.

Vital Lyric: "Andy, are you goofing on Elvis? (Hey baby.) Are we losing touch?"

First Exposure: I first came across Andy Kaufman at a pretty young age, maybe eleven or thirteen, when two specials about him were in rotation on Comedy Central. I was taken with the idea of eccentric, provocatively inscrutable comedy. I took the idea that I was his reincarnation. I don't know if I heard the song before the film of the same name came out. Being also a massive, unabashed (if fading) fan of Jim Carrey as a child, it was a dream project. After reading about it in TV Guide, I told my father about it, who told me about the song. As the movie was 1999, "Man on the Moon" is likely among the first crop of songs I had on Napster.

Prominent Memory: Seeing Man on the Moon with my father in the Forest Hills theater. I'm not sure why we saw it there. It was where we also saw Beyond the Mat, so maybe it didn't come to our regular spots, although that seems unlikely. We walked along that street afterward, not the main strip but the one to the side, past the theater. I don't remember how I began the sentence but I was probably responding to the mediocre review it received in the newspaper we had at the diner earlier that day, which said that the film was simply Jim Carrey being Andy Kaufman through different scenes, never really displaying any insight. I told my father how truly touched I was (I may have said it was hard not to cry) at the final scene when "they blare 'Man on the Moon.'" I may have also said "when they show 'Dedicated to Andy Kaufman,'" but I can't find footage of the closing credits to confirm that that's actually true.

Alternate Memories: In boarding school, Bobby comparing himself to Andy Kaufman. It was the last time I said in earnest that I was Kaufman reincarnated. We were standing outside of the computer building. One of us on the steps. I meant it as a big, defiant punctuation mark on the conversation. It certainly was. I don't know which of us was less respectable, him trying to justify his malcontent abnormality with the Kaufman allusion or me contending that I had a spiritual kinship with him.

It was me, actually. I was less respectable.

Bobby isn't on Facebook, I've just found. It's difficult to imagine someone that idiosyncratic, possibly more so than anyone I've known, not eventually achieving fame or an early death. His alias is apt, I'd almost be disappointed to have located him.

Fantasy: Interestingly, this song was most relevant to me in the Cliché Teenager days that predate H Street. Which means that I was picturing a different club when I fantasized about us coming on stage after being informed of Andy Kaufman's re-timed death and performing this in his honor, as it wasn't at the standard summer camp stage. Or perhaps it was, and it's morphed, as I got into R.E.M. in full with the formation of H Street. Either way, this is a mainstay, even with Artist on Artist. It needs recontextualizing.

Out of Ten: 7.2

Audiosurf Score: 295,862 (Global: 4, Nearby: 2)

Some Levity: Possibly just after coming home from seeing the movie or earlier than that, looking up the song's lyrics and finding an interpretation. It explained a lot of the lines but did say that the song itself was calling the moon landing a hoax. I doubt now that R.E.M. actually believes so, but I told my father about seeing that, proudly.

This isn't that funny, especially because on the same night I found some Andy Kaufman message board with a lot of people being very hostile to Bob Zmuda and other names. One of my earliest exposures to vindictive cursing. I'm not sure what they were arguing about.

Life in Song: The Everglow

Life in Song is a series which will likely never finish. It is not, as originally conceived, a span of my hundred favorite songs; rather, each post covers one song randomly selected from a list of those which immediately evoke a memory or other emotional response. Entries will likely be uncomfortably candid and melancholic, as they attempt to recount a song's personal significance and also its context in my psychotically detailed fantasy life.


Song: Mae - The Everglow

Thoughts: This song, and the whole album, is deeply collegiate, so it's coincidental that it came up today, as I've been recuperating from a strong dream of college this morning, featuring Billy and, more distressingly, Sally. The Everglow predates my love for her, as I was still transfixed by my high school idols (more on that with future Mae songs). The dream involved me forgetting lines and screwing up in a musical theater performance. Billy comforted without dulling the truth, and Victoria (and, curiously, Andrea [Mary's friend]) entered my room while I was alone, still the laughingstock of campus. Both were naked. It was both a consolation and a taunt. "Can I take a picture?" I asked. They refused. Victoria's breasts looked worse than I believe they would in reality.


Defining Era: 2005, spring.


Vital Lyric: "I think that we've got what it takes to get this heart to start beating again."


First Exposure: The title track to Mae's second album, which I discovered when Jay is Games covered the Flash game made to promote it. I'd heard earlier Mae songs, probably what prompted me to investigate, and was instantly taken with the album.


Prominent Memory: Jay is Games was a constant in the latter half of my freshman year, not merely as a tool of procrastination or unoccupied satiation but eventually a companion during generally bleak emotional periods. I've never been able to reunite with it since. It's difficult to pinpoint which Everglow songs were which nights, as the album was a caparison for a couple of weeks, but the title track vaguely covers all.


Alternate Memories: I remember walking down my home street, the path from the bus, on my way home. This memory could easily be fabricated. It would have had to occur in the early winter of 2006, during that year's museum internship. I was thinking about its place in the Night at H Street set, see below.


Fantasy: "The Everglow" isn't firmly within our song roster anymore, but for a moment it seemed crucial. A Night at H Street (or One Night in H Street) is the six or more hour special aired on a premium cable channel that launches Artist on Artist into mainstream consciousness. Our set becomes legendary. The encore is usually a combination of "The Buzz Kill," "The World You Love" (perhaps in the first set), and "Searching for a Former Clarity." For at least one day, I considered "The Everglow" for the big, blow-away number immediately preceding or following "Searching." This is now likely the position of "The World You Love," as I could never tease enough meaning into "Everglow"'s lyrics to give the big chorus as much impact.


Out of Ten: 5.4


Audiosurf Score: 116,956 (Nearby: 2, Global: 2)


Some Levity: Spring of 2005, then. Let's see. I can summon one which I need to save for another song. Instead, I'll retrieve one of my more cherished memories, a talk I gave in that semester's computer science class for which I was completely unprepared. I relied on humor and, maybe, charm instead and for once it worked. I impressed and was commended, was almost picaresque. I can remember one joke, a complaint about Frogger (having no actual computing insight, I talked about games on the Mac II) which I excused with the thought that, as it was made in the eighties, people weren't as highly evolved back then. Derivative, and I thought so at the time, but it went over.

Give anything to get that morning back.

Life in Song: We Like Sportz

Life in Song is a series which will likely never finish. It is not, as originally conceived, a span of my hundred favorite songs; rather, each post covers one song randomly selected from a list of those which immediately evoke a memory or other emotional response. Entries will likely be uncomfortably candid and melancholic, as they attempt to recount a song's personal significance and also its context in my psychotically detailed fantasy life.


Song: The Lonely Island - We Like Sportz

Thoughts: I certainly was not expecting this to come up. The sort of song that I would have skipped over were I trying to begin the Life in Song series, "We Like Sportz" is a comedy track propelled into personal meaning by a slew of excellent lines, a great video and fondness for its deadpan witticism shared by friends. I'd forgotten I'd put it on the list of eligible titles, but who am I to argue with the exhausted self that composed that list?


Defining Era: 2009, summer.


Vital Lyric: "I'm the other team captain and I choose you too."


First Exposure: It took a while for Incredibad to find me. I don't recall feeling particularly indignant about The Lonely Island's mainstream popularity but I had become less enthusiastic about them than I had been in one collegiate period. 2009 is an unfortunately hazy year, as my surroundings were more homogeneous than any other, making it difficult to place at what point the dam broke between it and me. (I wouldn't pursue The Lonely Island with as much vigor as I had in 2006 until last year when "Jack Sparrow" reignited it all over again.)


Prominent Memory: Yes, in keeping with the flavor of Life in Song, it is certainly possible for me to ground such a silly song into my standard melancholy carping. No one I know appreciates the song, quoting it still to this day, as well as the other Guy 1 and Guy 2 videos, as much as Kevin. His AIM icon was, perhaps still is, a picture of Jorma's face in the music video and, at my behest, he made me one of Akiva's. Thus, I remember the night in the closing winter of 2009, where we fought, possibly over Lady Gaga (and why I was at fault for not liking her), or possibly something later, quite disastrously; in a way we hadn't for some years but would many times since. So stunned and distraught that our friendship had gone agley, I changed my AIM icon to what it remained until, well, today, if I'm not mistaken.

It is incidents like that which will forever keep him and I from having the 2 Guyz friendship I wish that we could.


Alternate Memories: This one is simple. Skyping with the chums, discussing Lonely Island, meaning that Jeremy was present. Without needing the slightest substantive provocation, I began to blast the song loud enough for my cohorts to hear it. I didn't keep it on too long, not too long, but I remember feeling acutely into the melody of the song at that moment. It stands out.


Fantasy: Like most Lonely Island videos, this one has its place on Kids in the Hall, my fantasy sketch comedy show, taking the name of the actual sketch comedy show from which relatively little content has been mentally appropriated. As this song is one in a series, it would appear on the second or third season. I would need further consideration to determine which of the Guys I would replace.


Out of Ten: 5.9


Audiosurf Score: 59,412 (Nearby: 2, Global: 7)


Some Levity: Difficult. Alternate Memories is fairly positive, considering that the conversation was with (as of now) sustained chums rather than with lost ones. Guess I'll travel to that mostly excellent visit I had with Paul and Amy in the summer of that year, the former of which played me a few of the CD's tracks that I hadn't heard; the latter of which became abruptly far too drunk one night of my stay, a night in which we'd earlier watched Dragonball Evolution for some damn reason, and collapsed miserably in the bathroom. The next morning, the first thing she said was "Man, that movie was so bad it made me throw up."

Life in Song: Dressed to Kill

Life in Song is a series which will likely never finish. It is not, as originally conceived, a span of my hundred favorite songs; rather, each post covers one song randomly selected from a list of those which immediately evoke a memory or other emotional response. Entries will likely be uncomfortably candid and melancholic, as they attempt to recount a song's personal significance and also its context in my psychotically detailed fantasy life.


Song: New Found Glory - Dressed to Kill

Thoughts: Still catchy after all these years (this may be something I end up saying a lot). This was a good song to come up, although it will be difficult to determine what to write for this and what to write for its sister track.


Defining Era: 2001, season unknown.


Vital Lyric: "'Cheer up,' my friends all say. You're better alone anyway."


First Exposure: After their cover of "My Heart Will Go On" first led me to New Found Glory, it was "Better Off Dead" and "Dressed to Kill" that seemed to arise arbitrarily from Napster. This was the era where I, as a young and ignorant ephebe, saw my musical triumvirate transition from "Weird Al, showtunes, and Japanese techno," to "New Found Glory, Less Than Jake, and the Bloodhound Gang." Not necessarily a change for the better, but it did allow a few more options.


Prominent Memory: This one is highly connected to its fantasy. In ninth grade I was still dream-pining for Shiva, whom this song transports me to quickly, and the first zygote of my imaginary band was taking shape. Thus, "Dressed to Kill" is one of its first songs, along with some others I'll write about and many that I won't. I contextualized this one a degree further than most others. This takes us all the way back to performing at my summer camp as the Cliché Teenagers. (To go further back than this, which I don't think I'll have to do for Life in Song, would be to reach the Naked Oompa-Loompas).


Alternate Memories: It was in boarding school that I got my first New Found Glory CD, New Found Glory (aha). I suppose I should first recount that initial work program in which I had the audacity to bring my portable CD player with me and listen, visually rocking out, to the disc while standing in formation to chuck chopped wood down the basement. Dolores noticed (everyone noticed, but I noticed her noticing), asked what I was listening and was not visually disgusted when I told her. Sink would condemn me for my taste in the band.


Fantasy: So, the lyrics do sort of lend themselves to fantasy. The singer references going on tour (no, he references being always on tour, which I've mentally changed for so long that I forget what it was originally), which I applied to myself as, I suppose, the Cliché Teenagers began their burgeoning success and I dealt with the ramifications of that in my rocky relationship with Shiva. The lyric "I'm always dressed to kill" is still pertinent, as Artist on Artist favors that kind of ironic cockalorum. That said, I doubt this is actually one of my songs in that universe; if so, it is a vestige.


"I can't dream anymore," the song repeats (I think I heard this once as "can't train anymore"), which I suppose struck me as too poorly poetic even then, so I conjured up Shiva being a sort of mentoring songwriter for me, at camp, who called the process of writing "dreaming." Dumb, but there's something that seems, to me, lovely and innocent about it, which was endemic of my fantasy loves at the time.


It's too bad that "Dressed to Kill" seems neolithic to me now, as lyrics such as "And I can't stop pretending that you're forever mine" could be plucked from any modern Artist on Artist number. Perhaps this was one of our songs in our early, faltering days at H Street.


Out of Ten: 6.1


Audiosurf Score: 163,694 (Nearby: 1, Global: 1)


Some Levity: Many memories arise from the self-titled album on which this song appeared, the brightest one forever being its indelible and inarguable sticker declaring the CD "catchy pop punk from the heart." More than a decennium stands between it and me but it remains unforgettable.

On Audiosurf, someone called Atma commented "I listened to this when I was still happy." I don't know if that counts.

Life in Song: Walter Reed

Life in Song is a series which will likely never finish. It is not, as originally conceived, a span of my hundred favorite songs; rather, each post covers one song randomly selected from a list of those which immediately evoke a memory or other emotional response. Entries will likely be uncomfortably candid and melancholic, as they attempt to recount a song's personal significance and also its context in my psychotically detailed fantasy life.

Song: Michael Penn - Walter Reed

Thoughts: This is the very first episode of Life in Song. I'd considered starting yesterday but chose not to for reasons of time. Additionally, just as finding the perfect song on my iPod with which to begin my walk in the morning is often a fifty-skip struggle, none of the songs that came up then were just right to be number one. Today, as though blessed, this song was the number drawn and I immediately knew it was the right place to begin.


Defining Era: 2007, winter.


Vital Lyric: "Tell me now what more do you need? Take me to Walter Reed tonight."


First Exposure: Home from college for the winter, I was able to catch up on the third season of House. This song plays at the end of "Fools for Love," which began the Michael Tritter arc. (It is also featured the medical mystery resolution of the two lovers actually being half-siblings, which struck me quite sadly that this was apparently devastating for them). Featuring a nice hook and somewhat ambiguous historical allusions, two things which will captivate me quite reliably, it transformed the otherwise dull scene of House's arrest into something that seemed fairly momentous.


Prominent Memory: I had had an online romance with Flower since the summer of 2006. She was at that point and possibly still the most attractive woman I'd conned into undressing for me, while lying about my weight and identity. That December, learning I'd returned to New York, she was insistent that we finally meet. I resisted at first. She wanted me to come on the thirtieth, claiming she was lonely, being sexually explicit, threatening that I would no longer see her on camera if I didn't. I caved, but it was too late by then. We agreed I'd come the next day, the thirty-first, the last day of the year. She was having a New Year's Eve party that night, but I could arrive, make love and leave before then.

She was staying alone in her father's apartment in the Battery Park Ritz-Carlton (half-hotel, half-apartment building). I spent the subway ride staring at my reflection in the opposite window, trying to convince myself that I wasn't too fat, that my hair wasn't too unkempt and haphazardly dyed, that my clothes weren't too poor. Thinking it totally sensible that she could grok me in person as she had over the Internet. Disembarking in a section of Manhattan to which I'd never before been, I considered trying to buy condoms at a Rite Aid, but was running late and lost.

"What a way to conclude 2006," I thought, wondering if everything could really work out.

I found the building hours after I should have. She was becoming frustrated waiting for me. The door man let me in. I still believe he thought I was a drug dealer, on account of my appearance and the brevity of my stay. I did not belong there. The apartment was the greatest I've ever entered, worth millions of dollars, window-walls overlooking the water south of Manhattan. This changed everything from that point of my life onward.

We sat. I felt the sexual tremors of imminence. She was not outwardly disgusted with me, but she didn't initiate anything either. Then, so quickly, the first of her friends arrived. I will never be convinced that she didn't have some silent way to signal them, once she saw me. They were courteous; they offered me marijuana, which I declined with the persistent lie that a friend and I had a contest to see who could stay sober longest. That sounded plausible to me, at the time. I left. I went home.

I listened to "Walter Reed," affixing my pain and turmoil to it. Days later I pressed her until she admitted that she found me unattractive. We never spoke much after that. Our differing interpretations of the events caused a rift between me and Kate. I skipped work (having just begun my internship two days prior), prompting my stepmother to grow enraged and complain that she needed space, and other things. I relayed her ranting to anyone I could reach on AIM, none of whom should have been told. It was a mistake. Later, in the gap of time before our first show, I sat on a bench with Leo and told him how much I love songs that allude to history, despite my lack of historical knowledge. It must have been apparent that I was bothered. He asked and I stayed coy. It was a good moment.

To grouse: I feel that this memory may set an inaccurate precedent for the Life in Song series. I believe very few will actually have such relatively meaningful stories. More will just be the soundtrack to my depression in various rooms.


Alternate Memories: "Walter Reed" came up twice more. Once, the drive home from college. ("All I want to die is hide, it's graduation day.") Of course, it wasn't meant to be the drive home, it was meant to be the drive to Philadelphia, but that's another story. I believe I chose it manually before shuffling the rest. "There's nothing here worth saving," the song said, reflecting on how fleeting I saw college by its end. Then, years later, I began the move to California with this song. I don't know if I chose it. I thought I would play music, but we switched to comedy and podcasts immediately afterward. My father asked about the aforementioned lyric. Of course it was intentional. The song was funereal then, as I looked back at my home for what has remained the final time.


Fantasy: While not a showstopper, "Walter Reed" is a reliable weapon in fantasy band Artist on Artist's arsenal. Its use of historical and military references make it characteristic of my more painful lyrics. Probably early-mid tenure at H Street, retired and used sparingly in later years.


Out of Ten: 8.3


Audiosurf Score: 58,553 (Nearby: 1, Global: 5)


Some Levity: I bet this space will be the hardest of any to fill. Let's see: "Walter Reed" led me to look up its namesake and his hospitals on Wikipedia. For some reason, he came up in conversation during my internship. I was able to note his influence in treating yellow fever, or something. Criminy, who brought up the person, seemed dubious - I think he had a different concept of Reed. That's not the levity. The levity is the time, at the same job, I sat on the couch as I did often and one of the other employees didn't realize that my arm was between his and the armrest, and failed to realize it for a long moment as it slowly downed on everyone that he had embraced me in this minor way. Barton commented something to the effect of: "When ten seconds lasts a lifetime."