Behold, the Power of Cheese

This past school year, as our daughter conducted her ongoing first-grade-inspired seminars, I was most distressed by her lecture on The Food Pyramid. I liked it better when we only had to keep track of The Four Basic Food Groups: Pasta, Cheese, Meat, and Potato Chips. These are the staples around which my Cuisine is based... well, I don't generally cook with potato chips, but I do have seven different kinds of cheese in my fridge right now.

Of course, my daughter isn't the only one who relishes illuminating my ignorance. Maybe 18 months ago, I bought something at Best Buy (I should never be allowed in Best Buy unsupervised. Even though I'm far from an impulse buyer, nearly every trip in there plants a seed for a future purchase). They had a deal: join Reward Zone and get a short-term subscription to a magazine. Since I already get most English-language publications, I decided I'd give Entertainment Weekly a try.

Don't get me wrong, I'm no stranger to the Free Introductory Offer. I figured I'd let it go a couple months, then cancel; unfortunately, I didn't fully account for my voracious thirst for printed material. At this point, in addition to the daily newspaper, I have no fewer than six weekly subscriptions... including, of course, EW. I say "weekly", but somehow several of them tend to print a lot of "double issues" and then take a week off.

EW provides coverage of all forms of entertainment media -- TV, movies, music, books, even video games -- and while I enjoy keeping up-to-date on all those topics, I sometimes feel their primary purpose is to reinforce something I've known for a lot of years: I ain't hip.

The articles and especially the reviews usually tout the band that's stretching its genre, the movie that is an intricately crafted work of art, the novel that is unflinching in its portrayal of blah blah blah... even the TV shows are most often the ones more noted for Critical Acclaim than for, you know, viewers.

It seems like human nature, or maybe just the nature of criticism (or a bid for job security), but it's frustrating that seemingly the only Worthwhile Art is obscure and challenging and difficult -- almost as if something that's actually enjoyable is somehow less worthy.

As for myself, I find that in almost all matters of taste, and not just the literal one, that I have a deep-seated appreciation for cheese.

I've read and enjoyed Shakespeare and I'm familiar with at least the most obvious literary classics, but I'd probably say my favorite author is Robert B. Parker. At least statistically: he's written 68 books and I know I've read well over 50 of them. Is he a master literary stylist, constantly breaking new ground? 68 books in 36 years -- you do the math.

Wikipedia helpfully links my favorite musical artists to the Star-based Music Critics, so I'm painfully aware that they range from tolerated (Billy Joel) to widely panned (Styx) to downright laughingstocks (Barry Manilow)... but if the iPod dials up "Until the Night", or "Come Sail Away", or "Can't Smile Without You" and no one's around, I'll be singing along at the top of my lungs (my daughter caught me singing AND doing air guitar to "Rockin' the Paradise" the other day, which was... awkward). Incidentally, "Can't Smile" is the single best karaoke song in recorded history -- sure, "everybody hates Barry", but I've never failed to get an ovation with that one.

While I don't see much more than a half-dozen movies a year, even in the DVD/PPV age, I like movies that make me laugh.. although I'm not opposed to a drama, or even a tearjerker if it doesn't totally insult my intelligence. I guess you'd say I'm more "Stripes", or "Rocky", or "The Incredibles" than "Leaving Las Vegas" or "Trainspotting". I'd rather watch "Sixteen Candles" once than a whole pile of auteurs producing finely-observed Works of Art about despair and depravity.

In television, I think the critics look for "raw" and "gritty", or maybe "quirky/offbeat". Now I believe I rank pretty high up on the Quirkymeter, but if you've read anything I've written about my favorite shows, you'll note they are for the most part pretty general-appeal. Exceptions that prove the rule: the critics and I agree wholeheartedly on Hill Street Blues and Sports Night.

I've gone to two art galleries dedicated to a single artist, both of those for Norman Rockwell -- also the only artist featured on the walls of my home. He ranks roughly as high on the coolness scale (not to be confused with the Quirkymeter) as myself, but -- not meaning to flatter myself -- I think of his art in the same kind of terms as my blog: take a moment that's familiar and see it in a slightly different way, or perhaps take another moment that's personal and try to find the universal in it.

And of course, coming full circle to the literal cheese theme, I've made no secret of my preference for simple foods cooked well: steak, BBQ ribs, fried chicken, lasagna, pizza. And although I'll always watch Top Chef and Next Food Network Star with interest, I'll never understand or appreciate the culinary approach that produces a slice of this and a dollop of that, and something smeared around the edge of the plate. Suffice it to say that if there's anything on the menu you can't pronounce or define (or tablecloths on the table, for that matter), you won't run into me there.

I suppose that in some respects this makes me appear Ignorant and Proud of It. Don't want none of that Art 'round here! But if there's a grand moral to the story, it might be that I don't want my dining, or any entertainment, to be like taking vitamins. I'd rather have a big ol' tasty hunk of cheese.

Just Forward My Mail to 1981

If it were up to me, we wouldn't need much more than one TV channel. But after a period of time (that is, a span of time about as large as the average punctuation mark) my wife can't take any more baseball -- and this is only on once a week. So we end up over at HGTV a fair amount of the time. Often, they are talking about real estate values... and of course, when you turn off the TV and pick up the newspaper, the big story is the economy and people just trying to make ends meet. Well, I've found a place to live where the cost of living is a lot lower...

The past.

Last fall, of course, I visited Homecoming at my alma mater; this spring and summer, under the influence of a group of my Facebook friends, I've been thinking and talking quite a bit about my days at Gaslight Village -- which culminated in my most recent post here. Then to complete the trifecta: this past weekend, I had the opportunity to attend my 30th high school reunion.

Now, even though I've proved I have a rose-colored rearview mirror, I remember plenty about high school that would not lead one to want to revisit it. So why is it that every time there's a reunion, I'm there when the doors open? I'm 4-for-4: 10, 20, 25, and 30.

Well, for one thing there's always the chance I'll get to see someone I've really missed. OK, that actually doesn't happen -- in reality, it seems I spend a lot of each reunion talking to all the people who never talked to me on the first go-round -- but still I live in hope.

That's one of the reasons I find reunions pretty interesting -- if only in the sociological sense. And it has gotten better over the years; I think at least at the 10-year reunion we were all a little preoccupied with how the others saw us, trying to impress each other with all we'd accomplished (which for me was a little dicey since I had only a part-time job, no kids, and was living in a one-bedroom apartment). Now we've all more or less come to terms with who we are and what we've done -- and even if we're not, we're far enough away from high school that none of these people are really our primary peer group any more. Or is that just me?

As for the actual event, it was enjoyable enough. We ate a lot; I did connect with 1 or 2 people I'd lost touch with; and I did get to do not one but two karaoke numbers. Surely any day with karaoke is not a total loss. And I was at least able to collect a few oddities to take home with me (and, you know, post on the World Wide Web).

• - One of my classmates asked me if I was “still really smart”. I suppose if I were really all that bright, I would have had a brilliant riposte to that, so maybe the question answers itself. Even I (not at all desperate for an infusion of self-esteem) would be hard pressed to answer that one, “Why, yes – yes, I am.” Instead, I opted for, “Actually, I’m much dumber than I was then; back then I knew everything,” which I thought struck the right reunion-oriented note of light-heartedness, crossed with wisdom born of the passage of years, seasoned with just a sprinkle of good-natured self-mockery. I do wonder in hindsight whether someone who would even ask such a question is capable of perceiving that level of nuance, of course…
• - Given that the ticket price included all-you-can-drink beer, it was perhaps inevitable that someone’s thirst would outstrip his capacity for self-restraint. The crowd as a whole was very well-mannered, but at least one guy had over-refreshed himself: in the midst of my karaoke number he decided to come up, wrap his arm around me and start to sing along. I’ve already noted my wife’s flair for persuasion; she came forward and very clearly pantomimed that she was supposed to be the one I was singing to, which distracted him enough that some others were able to peel him off. Given the effect that karaoke usually has on me, it’s perhaps predictable that my main concern was whether my performance would be spoiled.
• - Heading out to the parking lot at one point, I ran into one of my classmates who asked whether I was headed out to “smoke a bowl.” Pretty sure he was just ribbing me there… but there were those in attendance who confused a high school reunion with a re-creation – on a later trip to the parking lot, I did discover there was a group out there in the dark somewhere having a non-tobacco-related group smoke.

In similar fashion, I’m just as much of a stick-in-the-mud as I ever was, so we left pretty early. Later that evening, as I was absorbed in my usual never-ending rehash, my wife in the fashion of wives everywhere asked the question that cut to the heart of all the underlying issues: what is it that makes me so enraptured (I’m not sure if she used the word “obsessed”, but it was more or less implied) with all these journeys back into the past?

There might be a hundred answers or there might be no good answer at all. High school reunions for me can serve as a chance to do it all again – an opportunity to relive it and get it right this time, a chance to connect with people that I always felt somehow separated from. Not above or below, but rather just apart. But at this juncture so many years later, I have the feeling that we’re more alike than different.

I think my interest in all things Gaslight Village is probably partly an effort to recapture a simpler but also more exciting time. I could name a half-dozen incidents from those days that I recorded in my journal with a joking “Dear Diary” because they seemed So Very Momentous to me. Probably because it’s the first time for many different experiences, or perhaps just because when you're young, there’s not such a thicket of real life to lose them in. Either way, it's pretty awesome to recapture even a little of that excitement.

I’m not sure why the college homecoming trip was so important. I think it started as nostalgia for a wonderful period in my life, but eventually became a realization that it wasn’t really as wonderful as I like to remember… but that there's nothing wrong with that. I felt like I came out further ahead by working that out than just reliving misty watercolor memories.

And Facebook, which honestly is just another side of the same coin… while I have Facebook friends that I also see in person, it’s also a way for me to integrate all the parts of my life: the slightly odd kid from high school; the rushing-to-be/afraid-to-be grownup from the Gaslight Village days; the young married guy trying to figure out how to be a grownup; and yes, even the middle-aged guy with a wife & 2 kids, a good job and a lot of gray in his hair (but less actual hair).

I’m not always crazy about all the me’s I run into as I observe myself in all my time-travels. Still, just as I’m richer for all the experiences I’ve had and the people I’ve shared them with, I believe I get a benefit from keeping in close touch with all my prior selves… and perhaps even learning something about my present self into the bargain.