A Top Ten Memoir: 2007 - "Put some new shoes on and suddenly everything is right..."
Let’s start with the list first this time! My Top Ten of 2007:
1. New Shoes – Paolo Nutini
2. Funnyman – K.T. Tunstall
3. An End Has a Start – Editors
4. You Know I’m No Good – Amy Winehouse
5. Wonderful World – James Morrison
6. Rehab – Amy Winehouse
7. Call the Police – James Morrison
8. So Lonely – AM
9. Turn on Me – The Shins
10. Strapped for Cash – Fountains of Wayne
I broke out of a few significant ruts in 2007. I began the year with a new role at College of Du Page: Curating its Global Flicks series of international films. The focus was to choose the films, find faculty members to speak about them, and then screen them over the course of the Winter months. The process curating this was fun, at first, as I got to dig into some really interesting films. The difficulty set in when working with the head of the international program at the college. She was a fierce, demanding, argumentative older woman who wore her workout clothes to the screenings. While I thought, the program went well, I had many run-ins with her in person and, perhaps most famously, on email where we essentially shouted at each other in ALL CAPS. She was, without a doubt, the worst person I ever worked for who I felt was unappreciative of all the work involved in coordinating a film series. As a result, that role only lasted one season. As Editors proclaimed in their highly energetic, neo-new wave track: “Even an End Has a Start.” In this case, it started and ended in just a few months. I wasn’t fired, I just was determined not to do it again!
I loved international cinema, but I didn’t love the person whom I had to report to. Singer James Morrison released a song that year, Call the Police, that related to some of my feelings about this experience:
“I'm awake, why wait?
I don't need someone to tell me who to be today.
I'm quite sure, unlike before,
Came off the road and I forgot what I was looking for.
All I see,
Is a less good version of a man I don't wanna be.
And:
“I can't do nothing, if I can't do something my way,
Well I must be crazy if I follow every word you say”
The one good thing it had brought though was my first ever radio gig reviewing international and independent films. The college’s WDCB, is a public jazz station. I began by reviewing the films to be screened at Global Flicks but then had a regular spot every week giving two minute reviews. This was a big thrill! While perhaps I wasn’t spinning my favorite records, I was going one step further: writing and giving film reviews which had been one of my goals since I started this whole career in film. The gig lasted for some seven years. Here’s my review of Ingmar Bergman’s classic Wild Strawberries:
As this was going on, the college had announced a full-time teaching position open in the Multimedia Arts program. My friend Ron had left the department to teach full-time at DePaul University in Chicago. Still, I was teaching plenty of courses for the department and felt my chances were pretty good. Frank’s former student Marco, who was also a friend, was on the committee as were other faculty members I knew well. The interview couldn’t have gone better…until I had to contend with the Associate Dean. I had interviewed with her a few years earlier for a full-time position teaching Humanities. I was at the top of the committee’s list but for some reason, she didn’t connect with me and I didn’t get the job. The same thing happened with the Multimedia Arts position. I was told I was everyone’s top choice but she decided to go with someone else. It was pretty upsetting, to say the least. It felt like my time had finally come to teach full-time in a program and at a college where I was clearly qualified. After all, it had been one of my other dreams for many years to teach film at a community college. (Frank taught at the college for many years and had a great experience and was making a lot of money after an early retirement, so why shouldn’t this work for me?!) Well, it wasn’t to be and I moved on from it. AM, a male artist I discovered that year had a song on his Troubled Times album called So Lonely that related:
“I'll tell you something
You're not gonna win this time because I'm through
You're good for nothing
You saw right through me…
I don't think you knew
Who the hell I was”
The other song I dedicated to this Associate Dean at the Top Ten party that year was The Shins’ Turn On Me:
“And the tears will never mend
'Cause you had it in for me so long ago
Boy, I still don't know
I don't know why and I don't care
Well, hardly anymore
If you'd only seen yourself hating me
Hating me
When I've been so much more than fair
But then you'd have to lay those feelings bare”
The song ends with the line:
“The worst part is over
Now get back on that horse and ride”
And ride I did! With Ron at DePaul, I inquired about the possibility of teaching film in its Digital Cinema program. DePaul was always one of those elusive institutions for me in the Chicago area. I never attended there and was never able to get a job at the University when I was working in the Student Development field. This time, I had a connection. I was asked to give a 20-minute teaching presentation. I chose to focus on Alfred Hitchcock. I had all that footage of me from the California trips we had taken a few years earlier. So, I incorporated it into my presentation entitled, “Hitchcock in Small Towns.” It was a hit! I was offered one course to start that Spring Quarter, teaching a very basic Foundations of Cinema course. In the Fall, though, I was given three courses, including Introduction to Screenwriting. Since DePaul was in the city, I’d spend some nights down at our condo and begin the many hours of grading. Because it was the first time I was teaching the course I didn’t set a page limit and ended up with some scripts that were around a hundred pages! It was a lot of work but I was on cloud nine! I loved every minute of it. While I was mostly teaching at DePaul’s Loop Campus I would walk downtown feeling like I had hit a milestone in my life. Here I was in the heart of Chicago, teaching my favorite subject at a respected university, living the dream. I gave up teaching at College of DuPage and focused all of my efforts on DePaul and Moraine.
Speaking of Hitchcock, I also got to attend a screening of two of his films, Rope and Strangers on a Train at the Music Box Theater in Chicago. The star of both films, Farley Granger, was present and shared his recollections from his time on the set with Hitchcock and the other actors. Afterwards, I was able to meet and talk to Granger who was signing his autobiography, Call Me Out in which he also detailed his own coming out process. It was quite a thrill. Frank was there to help record the event which I now consider to be a very rare and special experience.
I also began my own film podcast from home. “PalCinema” became the name of the show as well as my website. My goal was to conduct a review or two each week with a colleague or student and then do some sort of Top Five list. I had some regular co-hosts including my buddy Mike from Moraine as well as a few of my students. It was a lot of fun, particularly with Mike, who enjoyed the tinkling of a cocktail while we recorded. Frank was also a guest for several installments including this one where we counted down our Top Ten Favorite Films of 2007:
Building an audience was hard and even though I had spent many years marketing colleges to students, I wasn’t that wild about the advertising needed to make such a podcast known to the general public. I recorded many shows for a couple of years before dropping the podcast to focus on other endeavors.
Professionally, I was moving in directions I’d only dreamed of before. It was very exciting and gave me a lot of confidence. Of course, being prone to anxiety and bouts of depression didn’t stop me from having my low moments. Another James Morrison song, Wonderful World, reflected this:
“And I know that it's a wonderful world
But I can't feel it right now,
I thought I was doing well but I just want to cry now,
Well I know that it’s a wonderful world from the sky down to the sea,
But I can only see when you're here, here with me.”
It was hard for me to embrace all of the successes I was having. I felt down in moments like the Global Flicks experience and the loss of the full-time position quite deeply. Maybe I wasn’t good enough. Amy Winehouse sang on You Know That I’m No Good:
“I cheated myself,
Like I knew I would,
I told you I was trouble,
You know that I'm no good”
Of course, I’d take a lot of the negative thinking out on Frank who was forever carefree and unaffected by life’s regular stressors. K.T. Tunstall’s Funnyman had a few lyrics that I responded to:
“Funnyman, gotta plan for the something wonderful
Funnyman, listening to the world turning on itself
Tuning into a brand new universe
Funnyman, you'll never be anything else”
Was Frank the funnyman? Could he only laugh and not see the dark clouds I saw?
Was I the funnyman who couldn’t see the wonderful world around me and the brand, new universe I was responding to? I’m not sure, but somehow those words struck a chord with me. Therapy with Joanne was beginning to make a lot of this clearer though.
I managed to enjoy many great times with friends on trips to San Diego and New York.
It was really nice to catch up with my old college friend Ron after many years while in the former. Of course, New York trips were always highlights, especially that year as Ingrid, Mary, and I danced to the quirkiness of Amy Winehouse and her mega hit Rehab.
Even Lee, our drink-loving friend loved Winehouse and dressed up like her for a big Halloween party that year. And Fountains of Wayne always knew how to put together a peppy song about misery with its tune Strapped for Cash.
In the end, 2007 was about finding the right footing in all of these areas, waking up feeling anxious but finding a way to experience joy and new adventures with a very supportive group of friends and colleagues in my life.
Paolo Nutini’s New Shoes was MY song of the year:
“Woke up late one Thursday
And I'm seeing stars as I'm rubbing my eyes and I
Felt like there were two days missing
As I focused on the time
And I made my way to the kitchen
But I had to stop from the shock of what
I found a room full of all my friends all are dancing round and round
And I thought hello new shoes
Bye bye blues
Hey, I put some new shoes on
And suddenly everything is right
I said, hey I put some new shoes on
And everybody's smiling, it's so inviting”
Links to my Top Ten of 2007:
Other favorites from 2007:
Set Yourself on Fire - Charlotte Gainsbourg, Gone Away - AM, You Made Me Like It - 1990s, 5:55 - Charlotte Gainsbourg, Suddenly I See - KT Tunstall, Sea Legs - The Shins, The Heinrich Maneuver - Interpol, If You Want Me - Marketa Irglova & Glen Hansard, Love is a Losing Game - Amy Winehouse, You Can Close Your Eyes - Carly Simon (w/Sally & Ben), Little Monsters - Charlotte Gainsbourg, Birthday - Cruxshadows
What are some your favorites from ‘07? Any stories to go with them??
Amy Winehouse was one of a kind. Gone too soon, sadly!
Some cracking choices on here with two great Scottish artists to boot 😁