Category Archives: Life In These United States

Life In These United States, Stories

Office, 8:35am

My grandmother always had music on in her house, cascading out of a majestic wooden cabinet stereo that looked like a cathedral to little kid Me. Frank Sinatra, or his contemporaries. I picture that stereo and see its speakers rumbling with Tony Bennett’s “The Good Life.”

But more often than not, she had the radio tuned to a local radio station that broadcast something they called “Music from the Terrace.” (As a kid, I thought they were saying “Music from the Terrorists.”) The “terrace” was taken from the name of the street on which the studio was located (Radio Terrace), presumably because it sounded fancy. The “music” was an endless stream of easy listening instrumentals. Not muzak, exactly. Orchestral arrangements of old showtunes and movie themes. A million strings sawing away at “Days of Wine and Roses” in unison.

mantovaniThere were many perpetrators of this genre once upon a time, but the first and most successful was Mantovani, who sold roughly eight billion albums jam packed with this kind of thing beginning in the 1950s. At a time when most music was sold in 45 form, he was one of the first artists to recognize that there was dough to be made in albums, and the first to sell a million copies of a single LP. Like Liberace, another one-named dynamo of this time, he realized there was a market in selling oppressively mellow, treacly music to folks who just staggered out of World War II. Men and women who’d slogged their way through Normandy and Guadalcanal, who feared the bomb and Stalin and Mao, they craved escapism.

Unlike Liberace, Mantovani wielded an entire orchestra with which to lull a weary generation to sleep. His arrangements could barely be called that, as they consisted largely of an army of violins playing the tunes of songs grown ups of this era would have already heard innumerable times. And they couldn’t get enough of them. My grandmother had tons of these albums in her collection. Some of them were enormous, mighty sleeves bound up in leatherette with gilt lettering on the cover. Perhaps he invented the boxed set, too.

In 1959, Mantovani had six albums in the top 30 at the same time, a feat I doubt has been equaled by any other recording artist. In 1959, Miles Davis released Kind of Blue, Charles Mingus released Mingus Ah Um, Bill Evans released Portrait in Jazz, and Dave Brubeck released Time Out. Howlin’ Wolf put out his first LP. Elvis Presley was at the height of his powers, Johnny Cash was climbing toward his. Folk music was starting to break into the mainstream via folk-light acts like The Kingston Trio.

All of these events are more important, musically, then anything Mantovani did. But if you wanted to know who was selling albums in 1959, the answer was Mantovani. And it would be the answer, more or less, until The Beatles came along.

To the best of my knowledge, no one has advocated a Mantovani reappraising. There’s no Chuck Klosterman to sing his praises for once ruling the business side of music. Most of his biggest fans are no longer with us, and the ones who are left wield no power.

This is, I think, why I go overboard with my own enthusiasms, be they the 1999 Mets, or Jean Shepherd, or a Looney Tunes special no one ever watched but me. The things we love are fragile, and they won’t last for long after we leave. I can’t stop the march of time but maybe I can keep up with it for a few steps.

Love goes in cycles: First something is loved, then it is scorned for being out of date, and then it lives again as retro. And from there, it slowly fades out.

Think about how much you know about your own family. You probably know what your parents loved. You might know what your grandparents loved. But in all likelihood, you can reach no further than that. The things that were loved before then are gone forever. Entire worlds, dead. Those people lived and loved just as much as you have, and there isn’t the slightest hint of them left.

Something brought Music from the Terrace to mind this morning. I can’t say what, I just know that it reappeared to me. So this morning as I settled in at my desk, readying myself for a day of work, I looked for Mantovani on Spotify. I didn’t expect to find anything, but it turned out there were plenty of albums available to stream. Most had the appearance of cheap reissues, and many of them were labeled in Spanish for some reason. Still, they were there.

I clicked on one and…it was still as deadly boring as when it trailed out of my grandmother’s cathedral stereo years ago. I expected at least nostalgia and found only pillowy violins. I endured two songs before moving on.

And yet, I’m glad to find out Mantovani exists in this ultra-modern format. I’m comforted by the knowledge that a trace remains of someone’s love.

Life In These United States, Seasonal Fare

Top Fourth of July Injuries (Non-Fireworks Edition)

  • Griller’s elbow
  • Simultaneous cardiac arrest and diabetic shock from ingesting too much fried Kool-Aid
  • Allergic reaction to Blue Angels flyover
  • Vertebrae misaligned during annual game of backyard volleyball
  • Sudden rush of blood to the head while actually listening to lyrics to “Born in the USA” or “Fortunate Son” for the first time
  • Various lesions resulting from the discovery of long-lost box of jarts in basement
  • Citronella poisoning
  • Boredom-induced skull displacement from prolonged brass band medley exposure
  • Excess swelling of patriotic pride
  • Asphyxiation from being suffocated under weight of football-field-sized American flag
  • Pulled triceps muscle from patting self on back for saluting guy you saw in the street wearing army fatigues
  • Competitive eating induces virulent strain of super-gout
  • Heatstroke suffered while wearing Revolutionary War-era garb or space suit
  • Incorrect tiki torch placement provokes deadly curse from angered Polynesian storm-god
Boob Tubery, Life In These United States

Gary Coleman, Scandal Shrapnel, and The Vanilla Ice Syndrome

garycoleman.jpgWithin minutes after the news of Gary Coleman’s death broke, the Intertubes rattled with one unfunny joke after another. It made me briefly happy that I’ve never become famous. Otherwise, random strangers might think that me dying at a criminally young age from head trauma was hilarious.

Of course, Gary Coleman wasn’t a walking punchline simply because he was once famous. There’s a lot of ex-stars who fit this bill–MC Hammer springs to mind. But the cruel, twisted anti-fame Coleman suffered from was a special kind, the kind that can only be inflicted on that most reviled form of ex-fame: child stardom. Not even debutards like Nicole Richie or the Kardashians–who have contributed not one single positive thing to this earth–are mocked the way that former child stars are once they hit puberty.

Child stars are chewed up and spit out on both ends–by a fickle public, and by weird, sociopathic stage parents who drive them to succeed long before they can make decisions for themselves. Thanks to decades of unsavory examples, people expect the worst of former child stars, and even if they never go down the primrose path, they will be hounded by paparazzi and curiosity seekers who can’t believe that the Macauly Culkins of the world dared to grow up.

Coleman’s living purgatory was exacerbated by a congenital kidney ailment that stunted his growth. At least some child stars have a theoretical chance to move beyond their past. Gary Coleman was forced to look like like a child long after anyone had any use for his schtick.

He also had the misfortune of acting on a show that had two of the more fantastic ex-child star meltdowns in history. Dana Plato left Diff’rent Strokes to rob video stores, act in porn, and OD on prescription painkillers. Todd Bridges became a drug addict and dealer with repeated run-ins with the law.

Gary Coleman got into some physical altercations with strangers, but much of that was provoked by people who wanted to fuck with him (granted, he also had some domestic disputes, and was charged as the aggressor in at least one of them). But his post-sitcom life was considered more sordid than sad because he caught the shrapnel of his ex-costars’ explosions. Bridges and Plato blew up, and Coleman was collateral damage.

Anything bad that happened to him was labeled another sick chapter in the “hilariously” awful Diff’rent Strokes saga. Like how he had to sue his parents because they mismanaged his assets and left him broke. That horrible circumstance was put on the same level, in the public’s mind, as Todd Bridges slinging crack, even though Bridges was a drug-dealing creep and Coleman was victimized by his mother and father.

Gary Coleman is one of the most egregious examples of what I call The Vanilla Ice Syndrome. Vanilla Ice’s debut album sold 11 million copies, but almost overnight he turned into a pop culture whipping boy. The savageness directed at Vanilla Ice was in direct proportion to how honestly popular he once was. Once people decided they were done with him, and realized he kinda sucked, they had to mock him to compensate for once liking him.

The Vanilla Ice Syndrome is especially vicious when the ex-star in question was beloved by children and/or teenyboppers. At that stage, most kids don’t really have much taste at all except liking what’s popular. Violently rejecting something you liked when you were 12 is a way of showing you’ve grown up. In other words, I fear for Miley Cyrus’ future.

In the late 70s/early 80s, Gary Coleman was one of the hugest stars in America. He was one of the most beloved and recognizable people in the country. Then, after eight seasons on the air, his act grew stale. But it wasn’t good enough for people to just not watch Diff’rent Strokes anymore. They had to shit all over the guy because they once loved what he did. It was a product of the collective embarrassment over making someone famous for saying “watchu talkin bout Willis”. He had to pay for the rest of us feeling so retroactively dumb.

So when he died, a lot of people couldn’t resist the temptation to make lame cracks, most of them using that catchphrase. I know this is a hard concept to grasp in the Internet Age, but not everything is a springboard for your savage wit. It’s okay to let something pass without making a snotty remark about it. It’s okay to not spit out the absolute first thing that pops in your head when you hear about someone’s death.

People made jokes after Dennis Hopper died, but at least Dennis Hopper lived a long life and was able to enjoy a second act of his career. Gary Coleman died at age 42, never got to live a non-shitty life after his heyday, and had troubles that were mostly not self-inflicted. No other details of his life make that even remotely funny. And if you think it is funny, pray no one’s laughing if you get hit by a bus tomorrow.