Zip It.

As I stepped on the train this morning, I caught out of the corner of my eye a 60-something-year-old guy with his fly down. It’s not a vision I sought out, of course; it just kind of happened. So the whole time I’m on the train, I’m thinking of how I can tell him. Do I try to whisper it to him, most likely freaking him out as I lean in? Do I write it down and hand the note to him? Will he angrily question why my gaze fell upon his crotch? In any case, I instead come up with imagined variables. Maybe he’s deaf. Or just reeeeeally hard of hearing. The T is incredibly loud after all, so then I’d have to yell it, thereby nullifying any kind of secrecy or discretion. Maybe with the note, he wouldn’t be able to read it because he’d need his reading glasses that he didn’t have on his person. Perhaps his zipper is broken, he can't pull it up, and thanks for making him even more self conscious, jackass. So what’d I do? I let him get off the train, completely unaware of the security breach at Los Pantalones.

I am forever seeing people with some kind of wardrobe issue, and it’s all I can do to not tell them. It could be anything from a string just lying randomly on the back of someone’s coat, a pantleg that’s half in, half out of their sock, a missed belt loop, store tag still affixed to the garment, a skirt tucked into pantyhose (how can you not feel that?), detritus in hair, collar that isn’t covering the neck tie in the back, untied shoe, etc. Hell, maybe even an errant booger. C'mon, we're all adults here. It happens to everyone.

In all those cases, I never say anything because I don’t want to make the person uncomfortable. Having a complete stranger do the verbal equivalent of a grandmother spitting on a tissue and wiping your face would most likely not be met with favor. But for the record, if you see me with any of the things I listed above, I want to know. You have my permission. Especially the booger thing.

Dude...we're gettin' the band back together!

Every now and then an opportunity comes along that doesn’t require much thought regarding whether or not to seize it. I got a call yesterday from a friend of mine from when I lived in Plattsburgh NY. He is one half of a set of twins a year younger than I. I was 13 when I left there, so I obviously didn’t get to witness or take part in their adolescence and young adulthood. Their history from then until now has always been a mystery. I knew they were into music, because they both had guitars. I never heard them play a note, but it was obvious these guys were into music in a profound way. They always seemed ahead of the curve somehow, and I credit them with turning me onto music that I would have probably otherwise overlooked. Around that time, radio was sodden with the likes of Huey Lewis, Corey Hart, Cindy Lauper, Hall & Oates, Lionel Richie, et al. At the time, that was okay because when you’re twelve, you can listen to that kind of stuff and not get too much flak for it; your peers were listening to it as well.

Then came the day when they let me borrow a videotape that, without the risk of exaggeration, changed my life.

I don’t know from where they recorded it, but it was a compilation of videos by what was soon to be referred to as hair bands. The first video was Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It” (with the first ten seconds cut off), and from then until the end of the tape, I was completely riveted. “Hair bands”, as I’ve covered in other posts, have become a tragically comical chapter in the history of music. I will wholeheartedly admit that there were as many bad ones as good; bad in that the technical prowess was there, but it was buried in painfully trite lyrics and an image that was pure caricature. The good ones, who have actual craft to their songs, unfortunately get lumped in with the bad and get written off as greasy kid stuff.

After watching that tape, there was no turning back for me; no more B100 with its pre-recorded DJ spinning “Wake Me Up Before You Go Go” at precisely 6:15 every morning; no more listening to WIRY AM radio, hoping to make an on-air request for Air Supply, sent out to your sweetheart. Nope, I was officially reprogrammed musically. All I cared about were Mötley Crüe, RATT, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, and Twisted Sister. Laughable to most now, sure, but…what were YOU doing when you were twelve?

I digress.

Right after my “rebirth”, I found out we were moving from Plattsburgh. My communication with the twins ceased for good. However, due to the internet making the world smaller and smaller, they found me a couple years ago. Communication with them has been sporadic, as they live on the left coast and I on the right. I’ve gotten a tiny glimpse of that they were up to after I moved, but there are still tremendous gaps. All I know is that they were in a band together for awhile with a modicum of success.

The call I got yesterday was to tell me that their band is reforming for a two-show stint in Plattsburgh late July, and would I be interested in playing bass. I pretty much had my mind made up before I even hung up, but didn’t give an answer until I gave it even more thought. My answer was yes. I’ll keep you all posted when I find out the details.