A Top Ten Memoir: 2009 - "Some sugar to make the pill go down..."
It was a year of more firsts and even more revisits to the past. The latter included of two separate but equally fun New York trips which I documented as part of my new “PalCinema Productions” line. During the latter trip we met several stars including Jeff Daniels, Marcia Gay Harden, and James Gandolfini. Check this one out:
I also had some welcome re-connections with old friends such as Liz from high school, Bernie, Gale, and Neal from my days as a UIC undergraduate, and going back even further to my childhood friends Paula and Lois from Oak Park Avenue.
Much of this resulted from the launch of Facebook the previous year. I was resistant to the social media platform at first but when I began getting friend requests from so many people from my past, I began to embrace it. There was a lot of catching up to do but it was so great to have these people back in my life, if from a distance.
My Top Ten of 2009:
1. Riding the Crest-a-ha
2. Zero-Yeah Yeah Yeahs
3. To Lose My Life-White Lies
4. Hey Soul Sister-Train
5. I Gotta Feeling-Black Eyed Peas
6. S.O.S. (Let the Music Play)-Jordin Sparks
7. Just Dance-Lady Gaga vs. Eurythmics Mix (DJ D-Rizzo)
8. When the Dust Settles-AM
9. I Used to Dance with My Daddy-Datarock
10. Disco Heaven-Lady Gaga
Older songs were being incorporated into new artists’ music such as Lady Gaga and Jordin Sparks. The first time I heard Gaga’s now forgotten track Disco Heaven, it felt like a return to the disco and gay club period in my life where drag queens would regularly grace the dancefloors. I thought Gaga was someone in drag! Then she released her first big song, Just Dance, off what would become her monster hit album The Fame, and she rose to superstardom. At first, I wasn’t fond of the song as Gaga’s breaking down of the word “dance” into two syllables reminded me of my friend Lee’s Mississippi drawl. (He always referred to me as “Da-an.”) However, I found a unique mix of the song with Eurythmics’ 1980s classic Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) and it worked for me big time.
So much retro sounding fun! Likewise, American Idol winner Jordin Sparks incorporated the chorus of Shannon’s 1980s hit Let the Music Play into her very poppy song S.O.S. which I always thought should have been a monster hit itself. But then, what did I know, I loved it because it incorporated an old dance song, thus providing even more nostalgic and energetic fun!
Related to this was the rollicking and highly energetic tune from a Norwegian band, Datarock. These guys would become one of my favorites over the next several years. Influenced by the music of the Talking Heads and Devo, Datarock featured new wave/punk sounds with quirky lyrics in I Used to Dance with My Daddy:
“It's a thing that you sing when you don't want to ring
One of the people that you see downtown
Who's the real clown?
You want to go to the show, although it's a slow-mo...
I used to dance with my daddy, yeah?!”
Older bands such as A-ha and Train had new music out in 2009. The latter’s Hey Soul Sister was a very positive and catchy, up-tempo love song that harkened back a bit to Drops of Jupiter with its focus on “soul” and “blowing your mind.” However, it was 80s band A-ha that really affected me with their retro sounding Riding the Crest. I had thought the group was long gone and broken up when they released their new album that year. Marlee’s cousin Adam mentioned they had new music and I jumped on it immediately. While much of pop music was now focusing on hip hop, the best pop to me still sounded like what I clung to from my young adult life, particularly music from the 80s. Their big 80s hit Take on Me never made my Top Ten but Riding the Crest was particularly special to me. What put this one over the top was listening to it during the highlight of the year: a trip to Italy and a cruise through the Mediterranean.
The first portion was traveling into rural Italy with Marco, Elise, and their three sons. Marco’s father was from a small town called Guarcino where very few people spoke English and the big event was hanging outside the local bar. Just like in 2001 when Frank, mom, and I visited our relatives in Poland, Marco’s family put together a big spread of delicious food one afternoon after which we needed a serious siesta!
We then headed for the port about an hour from Rome and boarded our ship to the Mediterranean. We planned this one with a few of the guys we had met during our Caribbean cruise the previous December. It was planned for and booked through a travel company called Pied Piper which specialized in gathering gay groups for a variety of cruises around the world. Unlike some of the more famous all-gay cruises that were regularly advertised, this one mixed us with heterosexuals but included a number of sightseeing excursions with our own group. During this particular trip, we visited the Amalfi Coast, Turkey, Greece and its islands. It was incredibly beautiful and life-altering. I had always dreamed of seeing the ancient ruins of Greece and finally had my opportunity. As the ship sailed between ports, I’d regularly workout in the ship’s gym. It was always so much fun to pop in my earphones and bop with the waves to highly energetic music such as A-ha’s Riding the Crest. Lyrically the song also connected with me:
“You search your mind
That's what it's there for
Check all the whys
And all the wherefores
In your mind
You're tall and brave
Riding the crest
Of a high and beautiful wave”
And
“There comes a time
You don't even know what's missing
Some sugar to make the pill go down
You need a line
A push in the right direction
The sugar that makes the pill go down”
Cruises like these where we experienced new parts of the world and met great new friends, were just the sugar I needed to feel like I was riding an incredible wave. I was reaching farther than I had ever imagined before and songs like this one joined me on the journey.
The fact that the ship also had a disco with a DJ that took requests made the experience all the more enjoyable. Black Eyed Peas’ I Gotta Feeling was the monster hit of 2009. Even though I had long abandoned pop radio for my music pleasures, this one was everywhere, including on the ship. What a thrill it was to pound on the dancefloor to “I gotta feeling, that tonight’s gonna be a good night!” Each night the ship was full of fun and adventure and this song only added to that feeling of joy.
I was also feeling pretty pumped about my professional and personal film-related endeavors. Teaching was going great and I became inspired by some of my students to get out a camera and start shooting something. For years, I had developed a green thumb for gardening in my yard, so, with the help of our dog Dillon (well, he didn’t really help but he was featured), I began shooting a number of garden videos. These videos were primarily for me but I began to have more fun not only with the camera and editing but with coupling scenes with music. Every week I’d launch a new episode on Facebook. Most of the attention they got was from my friends, but I thoroughly enjoyed putting this series together. Here’s an episode from April 18, 2009:
Frank and I joined my sister Judy, her son Eric and her husband Alan, Mom, my brother Jeff and his wife Shelley, and our cousin Kathy for a week on the Oregon Coast. The trip came days after our big Italy/Mediterranean cruise. While I was feeling tired, unconnected, and highly irritable during the first day of the trip, we eventually got into a good groove and had a great time. I recently discovered this footage from the trip. It’s pretty raw and features a lot of talking over each other and attempting to photograph/film each other. In particular, the exchanges between Mom and Alan are priceless and hilarious.
The Filmmakers’ Club at Moraine Valley was going really strong. We continued having film festivals featuring the best productions made by the students. They, in turn, honored me by naming the award we’d give out to the winners of the fest as the “Pal Award.” That Spring, I had a small garden party at home to thank them for all of their hard work. These were some of the best students I ever had the pleasure of working with, most of whom I’d go on to do other film projects with in the coming years.
Over at my other institution, DePaul, I knew a couple of colleagues who were screenwriters. This gave me the push to start writing my own screenplays. The first I did was feature-length and focused on a couple (not unlike Frank and I) who found themselves with numerous gay couples as friends. The Couples We Dated suggested that meeting these new couples was tantamount to dating new people, as we primped and made ourselves look best for each big night out with other guys. I would eventually enter the script into a local contest for the Best Gay Screenplay but it didn’t get any attention. Still, it was my first foray into a serious possible film project that I penned myself.
As a tool to help reflect back on people I had felt rejected by in the past Yeah Yeah Yeahs had a song called Zero which gave me an outlet for some of the anger and hurt I had felt:
“Shake it like a ladder to the sun
Makes me feel like a madman on the run
Now you're never, never far gone
So get your leather leather
Leather on on on on
Your zero
What's your name?
No one's gonna ask you
Better find out where they want you to go”
I had made it pretty far in my life. Where were those people now? What would they think of me now? AM released another album that year containing the song When the Dust Settles which related a bit to this sentiment:
“Tell me something you haven't heard from all the rest
But I will wait here for you now
And when the dust settles you'll find me here somehow
I'll be someone you never forget
You can't see me now
But I will wait here for you now”
I also enjoyed many concerts in 2009 including old favorites Blondie, Pat Benatar, Billy Joel, and Elton John. My friend Pat continued to share my love for The Killers so we attended their big Chicago show. Marlee, who I had also re-established a friendship with in the previous year, went with me to see Franz Ferdinand one night and we attended a concert at Double Door to see Friendly Fires and White Lies. I was most familiar with the former but it was White Lies that really attracted both of our attention. To Lose My Life was an interesting neo-new wave song which, from my perspective, explored a fragile same-sex relationship:
“He said to lose my life or lose my love
That's the nightmare I've been running from
So let me hold you in my arms a while
I was always careless as a child”
And
“I said I've got no time, I have to go
And I was more right than I will ever know
He said my heart is faded, well mine's regret
And left him crying next to the chapel steps”
It’s rocking beat and irresistible chorus really got me. Like all of my Top Ten songs that year, it was “some sugar to make the pill go down.” The pill of life, that is (or anti-depressants which were also an important part of my life by 2009.)
That year’s Top Ten party was our biggest ever. Ten of us rented a house in Galena, Illinois, down the street from where Bernie and Mary Carol were now living and, with the two of them, we ended up with a weekend long party counting down our favorite songs of the year. Interestingly, it was another White Lies song, Death, which ended up making multiple people’s lists that year. 2009 was hardly “deathly” for me though.
Links
Spotify (Does not include the “Just Dance” remix!)
Other favorites from 2009:
Relator - Pete Yorn & Scarlett Johansson, Amarillion - Datarock, Celebration - Madonna, I’m Throwing My Arms Around Paris - Morrissey, Ain’t No Sunshine - Kris Allen, Can’t Stop Feeling - Franz Ferdinand, Million Dollar Bill - Whitney Houston, Fangela - Here We Go Magic, East Raw Meat=Blood Drool - Editors, I Don’t Even Know What That Is - 1990s, Heads Will Roll - Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Lovegame - Lady Gaga, You and Me - Dave Matthews Band, Islands - The xx
What are some of your favorites from 2009?
This memoir of 2009 is both warm and nostalgic, with music woven beautifully into your experiences. The blend of past friendships, exciting travels, and personal milestones is presented in a way that makes readers feel as if they’re right there with you.
Love the video from the coast