Y2K

Anyone who was born before Y2K cannot be unmoved by the announcement that Sony has ceased production of the beloved Walkman (Begging the question: they were still making them? I admit rocking mine into the late ’90s past the point where I was getting ridiculed by senior citizens on airplanes; teenagers just looked at me like I had been transported from a time machine, or in character for a movie about the bad old days). Let me stand up and be counted: if I wasn’t the last American to get an iPod, I was definitely closer to the end than front of that long line. I love my iPod; in fact I’m listening to it right now (so there).

So I’m not preparing to deliver an impassioned screed about how much better everything used to be. I endorse old school on many levels, but I’m on record (recently) advocating the inevitable –and often welcome– advancements technology are providing us in terms of the toys we love and the content they provide. Here is an excerpt from a recent, two-part piece taking Steven Wilson (a musician and thinker I greatly admire) to task for what I consider to be his intractable, more than slightly myopic stance on progress:

We can—and should—linger long on the myriad advantages and benefits CE has brought us over this past decade. E-mail and e-books alone have already saved entire forests, not to mention being environmentally-friendly upgrades over costly and inconvenient manufacturing and transportation processes. Remember when portable music meant a portable cassette or CD player that ran on short-lasting and expensive batteries? Now we have tiny, rechargeable devices where we can stores thousands of songs that are available wherever we roam. There are literally dozens of other examples, and not many of us would savor reverting back to the way it used to be.

Still, the Sony Walkman, that clunky, battery-ingesting, cassette-devouring monstrosity; we hardly knew ye!

I mean, can I get a witness?

A confession or, rather, a declaration: God I miss mixed tapes.

(Which begs the question: Is it mixed tape, mix tape or mixtape? I say all of the above, and shall use them interchangeably.)

I know this is an old school skill that everyone boasts about; people have even written books about it: some of the stories are successful, some are very good novels that were inevitably made into very mediocre movies.

You can, of course, approximate the experience via iPod and playlists. Anyone can do that. And that’s the problem: anyone can do it. It’s too easy. It might even be easier to create superior product, because when the entire world is your library (also called iTunes), there are no limitations a quick download can’t conquer. But a mixed tape, aside from being an art unto itself (which songs would, assembled in the appropriate order, come as close as humanly possible to 45 minutes per side, often requiring a calculator and album credits to ensure individual song lengths), demanded effort and considerable deliberation, all based on songs already available to the mix-maker. Thus, it was truly a reflection of one’s personality; these were songs the individual had cared about enough to own the album (or, ahem, the CD) in the first place.

By the way, this is a tote bag!

For a mix of one specific band, it was a wonderfully excruciating exercise in mixology; the methodology was distinctly Darwinian: only the strongest would survive. Therefore, if you were making a 90-minute mix for, say, Led Zeppelin or The Doors, you had to necessarily eschew some of the longer (and better) tracks to ensure maximum bang for the proverbial buck. Not much point in taking up half of one precious side to ensure that “When The Music’s Over” and “The End” made the cut; or, while it’s hard to argue that “In My Time of Dying” and “Tea For One” don’t belong on any Zep mix, you could fit in “I Can’t Quit You Baby”, “That’s The Way”, “Down By The Seaside” and “For Your Life” in the same space. Of course, mixes for the ’70s prog supergroups were difficult, (think Genesis or King Crimson), to impossible, (think Yes or Pink Floyd.) Sometimes, you simply had to get creative: for a semi-encompassing summation of Rush’s oeuvre (understanding that at minimum two tapes were necessary: one for their first decade and one for their second), you had to cut and paste the old fashioned way. Can’t fit 2112 on, but it has to be included, so perhaps you just put in “Discovery” or “Oracle: The Dream”, or (like I did) just do a several minute pastiche of all the guitar solos from the entire opus. With Pink Floyd, you had to have the epic side-long suites represented in some fashion, so you just took the magisterial opening section from “Atom Heart Mother” or perhaps Part One of “Dogs” (or perhaps Part Two) and, obviously, you had to use your best judgment regarding “Shine On You Crazy Diamond.” It goes without saying that the type of band mix differed depending on the target audience: if it was for personal use, anything was allowed. For friends, particularly ones uninitiated with the artist in question, it was incumbent upon the mix-maker to ensure all the essential tracks (i.e., the ones that did or would show up on a greatest hits album) were chosen (whereas those invariably didn’t make it onto the personal mixes, for a variety of functional and aesthetic reasons). Mix, play repeat: Practice made perfect.

The primary M.O. for mix tapes, of course, was for the intrigue they added to relationships. A mixed tape was de rigueur for establishing, assessing and understanding the various levels of any serious romance. The first mix was as important, in its way, as the first kiss: too early and you could blow it; too late and you may have missed an opportunity to send the right signal at the right time. This ground has been covered ad nauseam and everyone who ever gave or received a mixed tape will recall the rules of engagement. If you remember mixed tapes you received without the slightest pang of remorse, enthrallment or unforced sentimentality, either the relationship or the tape sucked. Probably both. (My condolences.) I know I ended up missing some of the mix tape miracles I gave away more than I missed the women I made them for (which is not necessarily a commentary on the enthralling women who tolerated me for any amount of time so much as an unapologetic appraisal of the one thing I always got right –the music).

Forward progress, particularly in technological terms, is seldom an unfortunate scenario. Letters are almost instinct now that we have e-mail, canned vegetables have mercifully been supplanted by aisles of organic goodness, clunky video cassettes have been replaced by online pirating, I mean DVDs. Even big, energy inefficient monstrosities (cars, as well as TVs) that once signalled American predominance are quickly becoming cuckoos of the 21st Century. These are all welcome and overdue advancements.

And yet…

Not to get all Ray Davies or anything, but the old ways ain’t ever coming back. So it’s seems respectful and perhaps more than a little necessary to let out a little howl for the way we used to roll. What we’re left with now when it comes to mixmanship is, by default, an exercise in onanism: we make playlists for ourselves. The sound quality and song selection are unquestionably superior, but the impetus for creativity and the urgency of the interaction is lacking. A playlist listened to with headphones on the morning commute can never compare with the indelible memories an effective mixed tape could inspire. It was always a fundamentally human exchange: it was an unspoken act of love. Giving was often as good as receiving. There was a specific message that only a mixed tape was capable of conveying, and once we lost that, we all lost a small but irretrievable portion of our souls.

nyc

Before moving forward after looking backward (getting on with 2010 after remembering and assessing the last decade, one movie, album and sporting event at a time) New Year’s Eve is that vertiginous event where you are recalling –or trying to forget– the past while anticipating –or dreading– the future, but at the same time living utterly in the moment.

This year is slightly different, because we are not only reflecting on the last twelve months, but the last ten years. I’ll join the cliched chorus and marvel at how fast it goes. Ten years, already? Exactly a decade ago I was up in the Big Apple, determined to see in the new millennium even if meant going down with the ship. Remember how terrified people were about Y2K? The clocks would stop, the computers would crash, Reality TV would disappear, et cetera. Of course, we made it through in one piece. If Reality TV is the price we had to pay for surviving the infamous fin de siecle, then so be it.

Through a combination of dumb luck and the audacity to hope (abetted by a full night of celebratory end-of-the-world cocktails) my friends and I stumbled right out into the middle of Times Square — which had been on total lockdown for more than two days (we ran into people who’d stood in place for 36 hours or more, pissing into cups and freezing to death in slow motion under their multiple layers): the folks who wanted to witness history in real time were packed in barricaded city blocks, behind ropes and more cops than there are donuts (or cops) at a Krispy Kreme convention. Long story short: a few of us were simply trying to get back home to watch the New Year (or obliteration of the planet) happen on TV, like any reasonable American would do. As it turned out, we ended up watching the ball drop less than five hundred feet in front of us. Once in a lifetime, one in a million. We not only lived, but lived to tell about it. And, despite the awkward oversight that enabled us to slip not-so-innocently under a chained line to mingle with the crowd, the security was stellar that whole weekend. Cops were everywhere and they had things under control. But it was more than that: once the clock turned to 2000 the craziest (and coolest) city in the world was partying like it was…well, 1999. And there was nothing but love and happiness amidst that spectacle. People were happy, perhaps exhilirated to still be alive. Hugs and high-fives abounded, and I did not see a single act of violence or ill-will as midnight lurched toward the hangover of the century. Good times, to be certain.

serf

And I remember thinking: what a great time to be alive. What a positive omen for a new century. Of course, things didn’t quite pan out as predicted that evening. In the same city, less than two years later, everything changed forever. (In cities all over the country, less than one year later, the worst president in the history of America weaseled in on a technicality, ensuring that the idiotic and apathetic would ruin it for the rest of us, as usual.) It seemed like the rest of the decade was one calamity or crisis after another, testing even our capacity to absorb the inexplicable. And we still managed to make it, scarred and scared, to another decade. Another chance to make good on the work that needs to be done. For all of our sakes, let’s hope we do better this time around.

I went into 2009 prepared to deal with the inevitable passing of my best furry friend, and could not have imagined it would end up happening many months sooner than expected. That hurt. It still stings, every single day, but as anyone who has experienced any kind of loss knows, the harder it is, the better it was. It’s never enough to compensate for the pain by acknowledging the profundity of the love, but it helps. That was the big event for me this past year and it feels right to remember that, now, while celebrating that he was with me for just about a decade. Bittersweet, to be certain, but as Big Head Todd would say, more sweet than bitter.

And, as always, it’s a hell of a lot easier to keep these things in perspective by considering the (increasing) number of our brothers and sisters who are struggling just to be, here and overseas. And for entirely too many people (inside our borders but especially beyond) every year is only about one thing, survival. Here’s hoping better times (financially, spiritually) are on the horizon for all, but mostly for those that need it the most. Don’t be cynical: find a charity you can feel good about supporting, endorse the efforts of our great artists, tell your parents you love them, appreciate –and savor– the friends who always have your back. Be good to strangers and be better to yourself: you deserve it.

Friends, family, health, music, movies, books, good food and drink, and happy memories yet to be made. Those are some of my favorite things, and I am blessed to have enjoyed all in abundance throughout the 2000′s. Here’s toasting much more of same, for as long as all of us are able to keep the party going.

Sony Walkman R.I.P. or, My Mix-Tape Confession

New Year’s Eve: The Vertiginous Event