Hair

“Ma'am, I think you dropped something.”

The voice of one of my high school enemies punched through the air that was thick with laughter. I had just sat down in my sophomore year math class, my first class of the day. I had walked into the school a few minutes prior sporting a new haircut. At the time I felt really good about it; a rare thing I could feel even a little good about during a time of my life filled with relentless body- and self- hatred.

People were laughing. Loudly. At me. The class of 25 students, led by this bully, picked on me that day. Everyone was looking at me, everyone was judging me, and all I wanted to do was be small and shrink down to a size smaller than my textbook.

All it took were those words, that moment of intentional misgendering and being told at such a fragile time in my life, “You look like a woman”, to push me down a path where I never wanted that level of hurt to happen again. It built itself on a foundation of no self-confidence, naturally, but in that moment a completely hurt part of myself decided I never wanted anyone to judge me based on my haircut. I didn't want to be seen. I wanted to blend in, and I wanted to hide.

After that class I flew to the bathroom, embarrassed for anyone to see my now-clearly-hideous hair, and made a beeline for the sink. I grabbed as much water as I could and doused my head with it. I used my fingers to pull all of my hair back, all of it, in a somewhat-slicked back style that had no style at all. The rest of the day was hard.

The next day I got a giant can of styling mousse and gel and slicked my hair back. My hair was crispy on top. But, it was unquestionably masculine. I kept that hairstyle for a number of years. It was not me, no, but it was a helmet: something to protect me, something to keep me safe in a place where I did not feel safe in the least.

...

As seen on phonezilla.net (the forerunner of this site), around 1997. Sideburns were a thing.

For many years before that time in high school, I had a head full of light brown hair, parted on one side. There was a way I wanted the part to ride up from my forehead just so that it required a bit of work each morning. I dealt with a cowlick. The goal was for my hair to look effortless and bring me very little attention.

As I'm wont to do, however, I would make small changes and see if anyone noticed. One morning before school I parted my hair on the opposite side as usual; it took getting used to, but did work. Over time I moved the part to the middle, and kept everything a little shorter. When I got to college I opted for a Clooney-influenced Caesar cut, the last haircut before the style I've had now for many years. I felt slightly better experimenting with my hair and changing my appearance – but not too much.

...

On my 28th birthday.

I've had a complicated relationship with my hair. I've placed a lot of importance on it, probably more importance than others have, because it became a signifier of identity for me relatively early in my life. With my current cut I decided to opt-out of hair altogether. The pain I had received, the misgendering, the strange looks and stares... all of that was too much for me.

My buzzcut was a spontaneous decision. While I long talked about shaving my head when I went bald, that moment at the barber shop many years ago was one of clarity. Can I just not deal with this anymore? Why not just shave your head now? Just go for it. My Clooney cut was no more. I had no hair on my head and a goatee on my face. And outside of growing a full beard, I've kept that same cut for around 15 years.

...

I cut my own hair nowadays, just because I can. But I won't lie to you: there's a regret within a part of me that shows up every time I get out the clippers. It's a regret that I can not grow my hair out long easily (I've got some impressive balding happening, and a receding hairline). It's a regret that I can't dye my hair. It's a regret that there is still an identity and statement that goes with even my current haircut, and that I have very little control over it.

---

Epilogue

I rarely do epilogues on blog posts.

Around September of 2016, not long after the date of this post, I started to grow out my hair. It became quite awkward at times, and I largely reverted to the cut I'd had all those years ago with... naturally... a lot less hair and a lovely bald spot in the back.

But I stuck with it. I got haircuts again, which was a weird experience. ("How do you want it cut?" "I... don't know?") After going to a random place or two I found a stylist who was perfect for me and I truly felt amazing after getting my first cut from her back in May. Given my experience and feelings around hair this was a revelation. I felt unstoppable and really, really good about myself.

That's valuable. Genuinely, truly valuable.

IA Summit 2016: Handshakes to Hugs

Note: this article reflected my feelings on IA Summit at the time of attendance. As of 2018, I've learned of serious safety violations at the conference over many years. Please consider that when reading this, as my experience may not be typical. Until further notice, you should not attend the IA Conference (which is what IA Summit is now known as) or support the IA Foundation. – Ed.

I've noticed something during my IA Summit visits. There's a moment, usually 3/4 through the first day, when I find myself in my hotel room staring out the window, wondering, “Is it not going to feel special this year?”

I had that moment my first day there, this year. But by Sunday, that was a distant memory. The doubts were cast aside. And I felt a heady mix of excitement, joy, inspiration, motivation, and love.

This is my 4th IAS in a row. I'm not an old timer, but this year I was asked to host a First Timers' Dinner with the great Stacy Surla. It was a fantastic experience, because I reflected on how much I enjoyed my First Timers' Dinner with Karen McGrane in 2013. As all of us dined together, first as strangers, I looked around the table at all of these ridiculously smart and enthusiastic people forging new friendships, and felt grateful.

Leading up to and during the Opening Reception, I met a lot of new people – in fact, the first person who said hello to me was Brandy Fortune, and she offered to share some guacamole (!) I also met Jesse James Garrett (and talk identity and labels with him and Alberta Soranzo, one of the co-chairs) – something I missed out on last year.

As always, the keynotes and talks were motivating. Lisa Welchman shared her personal stories of how small design decisions can impact us as humans. Cory Doctorow took that same theme into the privacy and security space, discussing how big personal data isn't necessarily ours. Leonie Watson used a creative movie quote slide deck (!) to decimate arguments against accessibility and inclusion. And, Jesse James Garrett gave 7 talks in his closing plenary – a clarion call for IAs to shape the world we live and work in.

The theme, “A Broader Panorama”, was reflected in many of the talks. Inclusion, diversity, accessibility, equality, fairness – these may not sound like IA-related concerns but they truly are. Christina Wodtke touched on this in her personal and powerful 5 Minute Madness wrap up, saying that IA “is not neutral”, a nice bookend to all of the keynotes.

During this conference, I had the good fortune of sharing meals with many of my friends – old and new. We had wide ranging discussions about the things we learned, to day-to-day work and lives, to careers. This, to me, is one of the most powerful things about the Summit. Kyle Soucy said it wonderfully during her 5 Minute Madness talk: “This is the conference where a handshake turns into a hug.”

On 5 Minute Madness

This was the first year I was able to stay all day on Sunday, and that meant 5 Minute Madness. I had heard about it after my first IAS in 2013, and only understood it to be a free-for-all that was packed with emotion. And oh my, is it. I knew I had to do it.

Hastily-written notes. I had a plan. I threw it out. Didn't get to the go forth part.

At the end of the conference anyone can line up, take the stage, and speak. That's it. No set topics.

I made it into the line fairly early, and could feel my heart pounding in my chest. I stood and watched my friends take their turns before me and say incredibly powerful things. I had written notes, but, decided instead against using them. I got on stage and said what was in my heart. Much of it is a blur now, but I remember feeling that I was this close to completely losing it the entire time. My voice was shaky, my eyes watery. As I spoke I looked around the room, hundreds of people, and saw many faces I knew and many I did not know. I said that not only did everyone here see me professionally, they saw me personally as well. They saw me, and it was all honest and true.

I left the stage, feeling completely emotionally drained, and listened in on others until I needed to leave for the airport. I walked out of the conference room, alone. I ran into a friend on the way down the escalator to the restroom where I felt completely overwhelmed with emotion and had a big ol' breakdown. The love, the joy, the community – and it was over, for now. My friends, my IA Summit family, another place I can call home... was gone for another year.

The Closing

The hashtag activity for #ias16 is all but gone. I'm following a lot of new people on Twitter. I have “The Time of My Life”, the song I did at karaoke with Misty Weaver, stuck in my head a lot. I feel empowered and motivated to do better work. I am taking action. I am working hard to bring it. I miss my friends. But they've also inspired me to be better, to do better.

And next year, we'll do it all again in Vancouver.

This is the best conference. These are the best people.

The Rules of Wearing Clothing

1. Wear whatever you want.

That's it.

---

Several years ago I started to take an interest in fashion, style, and clothing. (I won't lie to you: this is coincidental with my body size changing, and having more options available to me because of it – coupled with my masculine presentation. This is not something that I agree with; it is a systemic problem I'd like to explore another time.) But as I started to get my bearings on what I liked, I found that I couldn't quite trust my own taste and sense of what worked and didn't work for me.

Initially one of my good friends helped me with my wardrobe. She encouraged me to try new things. I trusted her, as she always had a great style about her and still does. She was a style mentor, really. I can't say I did any grand experiments then, but definitely veered towards updating my look without changing it dramatically.

There was one thing I tried shortly afterwards: I picked out and tried on a couple of articles of clothing that I would never, ever wear “ordinarily.” It was like opposite day. For me that meant grey skinny jeans and a big, chunky sweater. I didn't think much of the sweater, but, I was surprised at the skinny jeans and how good they actually looked. This surprised me; I wasn't “supposed” to wear skinny jeans because I was too big for them. While I didn't buy the jeans that day – I wasn't confident enough yet – that moment stuck with me, and started to help me question my assumptions a bit more. 

Over time I found a more comfortable place in my wardrobe, a safe place. I was aided by many sites on the web. Several of them offered up “rules” for what men should wear; I found them immensely helpful. But there was an undercurrent that surfaced on several of those sites: there was a certain bro-y angle, and a sameness. Some sites joked about the “uniform” of a blue or white OCBD (Oxford cloth button down) shirt, slim khakis, and Clarks Desert Boots.

Another thing that popped up on said sites was to put down others' sartorial choices from time to time. Worse, I saw myself picking up that attitude. If I saw someone wearing square-toed shoes, for example, I'd be more inclined to think and maybe even say something to a friend about it. Part of the problem here was that I used to wear said square-toed shoes, and once I learned that they were not “okay”, well, I wanted to distance myself from that as much as possible. 

The rules, the pointing and laughing at people not following the rules, plus the “here's what you must have in your closet” stuff was ultimately stifling for me. Judging other people's choices? Nah, that's not really me, really. The rules? They weren't expressing who I was, and, I'm privileged enough to be in a position where my clothes can do that.

Late last year, I found an interview with Father John Misty. I don't agree with him on everything, but he did say some smart things about fashion and clothing.

What he can’t stand are “basic-ass dude” clothes. “Like, everyone kind of looks like a graphic designer. I just hate that look.” It’s a trend, he says, that mirrors what’s happening in music. “It’s predicated on not fucking up, as opposed to the emphasis really being on expression. There’s a lot of prescriptive fashion — ‘Oh, you need the perfect white shirt, and you need the perfect khaki’ — and it’s just so boring.”

This nailed it for me. It encapsulated so many of the shortcomings I saw in men's clothes. I looked around, as I had before, and I saw fewer and fewer clothes I truly liked and enjoyed wearing. My closet felt like it came with a web approval, and was fine, but the whole thing was fairly conservative and not really reflective of me.

This year, I've worked to consciously change that. I'm almost certainly wearing things now that are against some rules, or some other shit. I have a lot of bright colors in my wardrobe (could be seen as “too feminine” or “too juvenile” or both). I got real and jettisoned all of the blazers that I was never really going to wear (blazers just didn't take for me – a classic “I should wear them!” moment). I am shifting away from button downs a bit. It's a weird and delightful place to be, because it's experimental and because I'm finding more and more stuff that suits me, now.

It's possible that I needed to go through a phase where I followed the rules of menswear without deviation in order to get where I am now. It might also just be me in my late 30s saying, “Fuck it, I'm just going to wear this.” But in either case, I have walked away from these rules questioning how much good they actually do.

...

Naturally there are exceptions. When I'm doing a client pitch, I will don something I affectionately call “businessperson cosplay” – because how often do I wear suits and ties, or blazers, just because? I can roll with that. And, if you're starting your very first capital-P Professional Job and have no idea where to start, and need a jacket or a certain skirt length or a blazer or all three, sure. Having a starting point makes total sense.

But rules are meant to be broken.

So if you want to wear square-toed shoes, or denim with denim, or shirt and tie without a jacket, or whatever is deemed uncool this season... go for it. You don't need my permission but, I promise you, I will not judge you.

The Year That Was

The first two drafts of this post were obliterated by Safari. It's quietly informing me of this fact with a thin strip above where I'm writing. Its words are bleak and cold, as one would expect from a modern Apple product: “A problem occurred with this webpage so it was reloaded.”

The problem. The problem is that I meticulously itemized a lot of things about this year to share with you. I extolled the awesomeness that was my life in 2015 (and totally glossed over some of the more difficult stuff). I counted how many times I said “Good morning” on Twitter this year (349 times thus far). I noted where I spoke, that I moved, and that I did all of these great things. And I was going to share that with you.

Instead, we're here in this very different moment (well, you know, you're in a different one... but, temporal mechanics are what they are) and instead I want to make my message a little simpler. Easier.

This year was very hard. This year was also loaded with rewards. I had moments of much anger, grief, and loss. I danced spontaneously. I loved and was loved. I was admired by some and forgotten by others. I mentored people. I led people. I let other people lead. I faced some of my deepest fears and cried a lot. I worked on my shit. I let people down. I let myself down. I put myself on a pedestal. I looked cute sometimes. I bought many things, many of which have little to no value. I sold a lot of things. I gave a lot of things away. I clutched to old beliefs and questioned others. I successfully avoided Folgers. I drank with friends and co-workers. I shared joys and sorrows. I was excited. I was horrified. I protested. I boosted. I celebrated. I spoke and listened to many, many people. I worked on my identity. I was more me than ever, and I still felt like I had a long ways to go.

And I hope it was enough for this year. I hope it helped.

I hope to do better next year.

500.0

This morning, in the cool, foggy London-like air in Chicago, I hit a total of 500 miles run. (I had publicly shared the 300 miles run mark back in July of 2013.) When I hit 300 I reflected on the fact that I never thought I would enjoy running, but I came around and gave my mind and body the respect they deserved for this. I also said more than a few things about numbers.

There's a part of me that is disappointed that 500 didn't happen sooner, to be honest with you. There is a part of me that really wanted to be farther along by now according to some invisible measurement that I totally made up. That part doesn't see this as enough.

However, there are plenty other parts of me, and frankly those closest to my true self, that are very proud of this. (I mean, I'm writing a blog post about it.) Over the past 200 miles, the thing I struggled with was this: at what point do I no longer call myself a runner because I haven't run “enough”?

Last July, I had my biggest running month ever and I capped it with my fastest 5k ever – all done outside. But after that, I mostly stopped running until this year. I talked about being a runner. I ran a couple times a month, maybe. Yet there was that very real struggle inside of me, and I wrote a bit about it. I was not wanting to be seen as a phony baloney, or someone who used to do something and no longer did, but still wanted all of the fringe benefits of it. But this is something that, for now, is a part of who I am. It has been this way for about five years now.

This month's runs have been landing more in that fun space I wanted to explore. A few days ago, my bus to work zoomed by a large park in my neighborhood. I found myself thinking, “It'd be a lot of fun to run over there.” So that's where I've been running. And I've been paying attention to my breathing, my endurance, my pace. Noticing that my pace is back around 9 minutes per mile, nearly at my peak. Noticing that my endurance is coming back. Noticing that the so-called runner's high afterwards feels really, really good.

So when I finished my regular run this morning and saw the overall counter at 499.3, I had a brief choice to make. Do I call it a day? I was kinda tired, and very sweaty, and just stopping sounded good. Or, I could knock off another .7 miles and get to a nice, fat round number – I knew I had it in me. I chose the latter. I did my best today.

I guess that makes me a runner after all.

Here's to the next 500 miles.

Body Struggles

I went to a Catholic school growing up and, unlike our counterparts in public schools at the time, we had uniforms. Ugly uniforms. Boys had to wear gold – not yellow, gold – polo shirts and blue slacks. Thankfully once I got to 6th grade, the school uniform had shifted to a more reasonable but stain-prone white button-down shirt.

And during my time growing up, my body changed quite a bit. I gained a lot of weight after the first grade, went on a terrible diet before sixth grade, and gained it all back in seventh grade. The emotional and spiritual cost of these changes, the diet in particular, are tremendous and are things I still live with to this day.

As a consequence, I've struggled with and spent much energy on my physical appearance over the past couple decades of my life. I have always been hyper-aware of the way I look and I have always been concerned with being judged by my body. It is a default that I carry with me.

One example I think about is that ugly uniform. I think back to the way that uniform felt on me. It felt tight and restrictive, especially once I gained weight. The pants were tight in the waist, and a belt was even tighter, many days to the point of pain. My pants sizes moved squarely into "husky" territory, and sometimes, those pants had to be special ordered. All the while I got this image of my body in my head, and thought for certain that clothing had to fit a certain way. It had to be a little painful and not very forgiving.

Similarly, a couple of years ago I tried on a rather dapper shirt at a store. It looked great when I was standing up in the dressing room. It was a little... shall we say... fitted. But I was driven by the size of the shirt. It was a small. See, so wearing it would mean... I was small. I'd not been small before. That was exciting to parts of me! So I bought it. I wore it to work the next day and remember that I was in pain – in actual pain – from having a too-tight shirt. I remember getting back in the car for the drive home, unbuttoning the shirt, and just being able to fucking breathe. That incident caused me to really reflect on how I treat my body. And I returned the shirt. And I apologized to myself, and worked with myself, for I had really set myself up to fail.

These aren't isolated feelings. My mind can easily spin up several incidents regarding my body and the way others hurt me because of it. All of these experiences set me up to be in a place where I was disconnected from my body, at war with it many times, because I didn't feel comfortable in it. It is only within the past several years that I have started to slowly, slowly unpack these feelings and address them as I see fit.

Still, these experiences drift into my mind now and then. They show up when I try on pants that are just a smidge too small, or shoes that almost fit. They gently, subtly reinforce this notion that my body is wrong in some way. At the same time I've made wonderful efforts towards acceptance, self-love, and self-care, there is still a part of me inside that agrees.

Denver, the second time around

When I was very young, the idea of moving to Denver was planted in my noggin and stuck with me for a long, long time. Denver was the place I would live, I decided. I wasn't sure why; I hadn't been there, I hadn't known anyone from there. But I think the idea of living in a different place (but not too different) was appealing to young me.

In 2003, my wife and I moved to Denver. This was it. This was where I was going to be, and where I was going to live. But between my job (which was OK) and her job (which was pretty awful), I got myself stuck in a rut. Instead of looking around for possibilities and growth, I closed myself off and wanted to get back to Chicago as soon as possible. It happened. We were there for just a year.

But over the past few years, there's been enough change in my life to warrant a reexamination of it. And as I mentioned in my post, The Last Everything, there were a lot of factors that went into deciding to move to Denver this time. I said:

The only time I've lived outside of Chicago was, in fact, in Denver over 10 years ago. It was a very different time, and I was a very different person.

I can't ignore where I am in my life now when examining this. 12 years ago, I was young and green. I hadn't traveled all that much and thought cities (at least in the US) were all the same. I was expecting a Chicago-like experience in Denver. And when that failed to materialize, I became small and hardened. I didn't try to plant roots. I didn't try to make too many new friends. I simply shut myself off, and pined for the familiar things back in Chicago.

It was a change and I handled it poorly.

This time around, things are altogether different. I have a wife and a son. I have a larger family support group in Colorado. I am walking in with an open mind. I have a new job with smart people. I can feel the potential and the opportunity growing. It will not be easy. Parts of me will want it to be easy. But it will be different and, this time, I will make it better.

The little kid who wanted to live in Denver is delighted.

The Last Everything

Last year, Chicago had a brutal winter. It was cold, snowy, and totally miserable. As a result of that winter I noticed more and more people saying, “This is it. I'm leaving because of this.” And I understand it! I've lived in this city for 36 of my 37 years, and I understand completely.

Then I realized that this upcoming winter is going to be my last winter in Chicago for the foreseeable future. My family and I are moving to Denver in the spring.

Putting it out there

We're a two-location family household. We have some family members in this area, and some in the Denver area, with assorted folks in other states that are relatively easy to visit. We've managed it pretty well, but a few changes over the past few months led my wife and I to make this decision.

In essence, we put the notion that we wanted to move out there. Now, I've put things out there in the past and many of them haven't gone anywhere. But this one did. Shortly after this decision, I opened myself up to looking for jobs that would be comfortable with this type of move – that is, starting in Chicago and later moving to Denver. Friends provided referrals and ideas, and I got in touch with several people in Denver.

But one day a couple of months ago, I went to the park with my son. I ran into a friend from college, and she started telling me about her awesome job at this great company. She casually mentioned they were hiring but I figured, “Well, that's not for me since we're not staying here.” And yet, I checked out their site and found an open position in Denver that would be a great fit. Within a few weeks, I had a job offer practically as I had imagined. Amazing.

So that's the part two of the new job announcement that was on Twitter: yes, I'm joining the good people at Rightpoint. In the spring, I'll be located in the Denver office full-time.

Lasts and firsts

Last week, I left my job at Centralis. At one point one of my former coworkers kept saying, partially in jest, “This is the last time you'll...” Like when I got a bottle of water out of the fridge. “The last time you'll get a bottle of water from the fridge!” Soon, there were no more lasts.

While we'll be back to Chicago regularly, we've started working on a list (surprise!) of the things we need to do in the city before we leave for good. Some of them may very well be the last whatevers. I'm also excited for the first whatevers in Denver.

The only time I've lived outside of Chicago was, in fact, in Denver over 10 years ago. It was a very different time, and I was a very different person. Yes, leaving Chicago will be hard. Chicago will always be home. I'll always hear the “DING-DONG! DOORS CLOSING!" of the El. I'll always be most comfortable with the grid layout for streets. I'll always see that skyline and feel it in my heart.

But I am making room for a new home in myself, too.

Reconnecting with the Self

It was quiet in my car, except for the occasional whoosh of a passing car and the distant hum of a leaf blower. I was sitting, eyes closed, breathing in the driver's seat. And then, the silence was broken:

“Ommmm. Ommmm. Ommmm. Shanti, shanti, shanti.”

I surprised myself by saying that out loud. I opened my eyes and the world was still there. I was still there. I looked down at my phone and saw that I had another minute and a half left on the timer.

I promised myself five minutes. I gave myself three-and-a-half.

My mind has been fully in the driver's seat for the past month or so. I've been working hard on a lot of projects and efforts, and as I'm wont to do, I've detached myself from self-care. 

But in those moments in my car, I focused on just connecting with myself and letting my monkey mind go. Certainly, snippets of songs were flowing through my head. Things to do. But then I found a connection with myself. And it was hard to reconnect with that part, because it felt... kind of new again. My “should” parts showed up. “You should do this more often. You haven't been doing enough. You haven't been enough.” Then another part piled on, and saw this as a Huge Setback: one where I reverted to being more connected with my brain and my analytical mind than my body and my emotions – really, my self.

I saw that as a problem, and parts of me wanted to solve it immediately.

Not everything is a problem waiting to be solved. pic.twitter.com/r20bGxVseq

— Paul McAleer (@paulmcaleer) August 30, 2014

But.

What if, instead, I just... let the moment be, and give these feelings space to exist, and be, without judgment? The part of me that wants to fix things, that wants me to be a certain way, has a lot of power in me and it's been that way for a very long time. It floods my mind with “should” thinking. I should be doing this, I should be doing that. So what if I say, “No, it's cool, I've got this?”

Moving to a place without that judgment requires understanding, patience, and compassion.

I certainly understand why that part of me wants these activities and thoughts and words to be just so – it's because of a fear of being perceived as “weird.” Patience? I'm good at it with others, less so with myself. That comes from my long-seeded desire to please others, to get others' approval.

Compassion is the hardest. (I've certainly written about it before – here, and here – so this is not something unfamiliar to me.) In these moments, it's a lot easier to say something or type something than soak it in and believe it. Parts of me want those changes to happen instantly and get really impatient and restless when they don't. And in those moments, it's easier for me to come up with plans and schedules and tick things off of lists in lieu of just confronting those emotions, with compassion, and letting them know that everything is cool. So, I fall into schedules and plans and lists and what's ahead in my day.

But in those brief minutes I had with myself, that reconnection happened. Schedules faded away. Lists fell. Worrying about the future was absent. Thinking about the morning was gone. And I found the compassion to reach out to myself.

So when I heard that chant, when I said those words out loud, I was surprised – because I had found my self. And I had something to say.

Me & Music

This summer I chose to try out Beats Music and Spotify in lieu of rdio, my streaming service of choice. I'm brewing up a massive, 495-page comparison post that you all will love to pour over. But in the interim, I thought it was worth noting how I feel about music without taking up 494 of those pages.

The first song I truly remember loving in my life was "Copacabana" by Barry Manilow, because my mom was a huge Fanilow. (Yep.) Another song from the far reaches of my memory that I really loved was "Steppin' Out" by Joe Jackson, and of course, its video. For most of my childhood, my music consumption was a steady stream of the oldies station from my mom's car radio. 

Once 6th grade rolled around, though, I started to shift over to contemporary pop music - and, simultaneously, really fell in love with The Monkees. My mainstay was Chicago's B96, and I taped songs off of the radio incessantly. Sometimes, as was the case with "Ice Ice Baby", I recorded the song multiple times on multiple tapes from the radio. (That song landed hard.)

The Door Opens

I drifted and stayed in the whole contemporary pop and classic rock world until I found R.E.M. in 1991. "Man on the Moon" was the hook. It surely wasn't the first R.E.M. song I had ever heard, but it was the one I played over and over until I wore out the CD. It was the first music I chose to really love: I was deep into R.E.M., and rec.music.rem was my online home at the time.

The important thing about my exposure to R.E.M. was that it got me really interested in music in general: I started to explore other artists, aided by the booming alternative music scene at the time. I went to my first concert: James, at the Vic. I broke bread with Tim Booth, the band's singer (really!) 

At this time my high school pals and I started playing music together. I picked up a guitar and taught myself how to play. I borrowed books from the library and studied them, but mostly grabbed tabs off of USENET and Gopher (YES) and started to learn chord formations. I distinctly remember trying to play "So. Central Rain" and being overwhelmed instantly. "Oh, he changes chords that quickly?"

I kept practicing, though, and became competent with open chords. I started writing my own songs, but rarely played them for anyone else. I kept them in a big Word file called "Original Songs and Lyrics". I hope I still have that file on a floppy somewhere, but there's one song - "Mistaken" - that I wrote 22 years ago and have memorized.

It's also worth noting that Loadstar, the fabled disk magazine, exposed me to lots of new genres of music I would have never have heard otherwise - like ragtime. Totally got into Sousa for a long time.

Back to the Mc

Over time, though, I started to rediscover the songs I had enjoyed in my childhood, or those that had seeped into my head through repeated listenings. Some of them I loved, some I hated, but the mix of oldies and early MTV and other random sources ended up being more influential than I had thought. It forms a basis for the stuff I like now.

I really like catchy songs, but my tolerance for mainstream pop is limited; power pop is a favorite genre of mine. I don't believe in guilty pleasures - everyone likes what they like. I will defend most of The Monkees' music as solid, well-constructed pop songs. I'm excited to find new music, and since I primarily use streaming services that's mostly where I look for new music. I generally don't like country music (but can appreciate it) and electronica wears thin on me. I find that I really, really love 70s funk. I can listen to "One Night in Bangkok" and "Simple Song" anytime.

Today, I still play guitar with my son, and I sing pretty regularly too. I listen to music every day. And I admit, I'm still blown away by the fact that I can pretty much think of a song, type it into my phone, and listen to it on demand. That's amazing.

The people in the header image, by the way, are the great Sara Watkins, Luke Bulla, and Glen Phillips from their 2007 Various & Sundry tour. Front row seats. Fucking amazing.