I know this song came out in 1987, but somehow it didn’t register with me until 7th grade, which was ’89. I don’t remember why that was, but my guess is that 1989 was when the Disintegration album was released, with “Lovesong” being a huge single, and all of The Cure’s videos were in heavy rotation on 120 Minutes, which was why I discovered all these songs at the same time.
The Cure has a very special place in my psyche, because 12-15 year old me identified heavily with this music as it tapped into a tragic romantic feeling of unrequited love that puberty afflicted me couldn’t get enough of… for some reason. Looking back on this music, I see now that I was beginning to make my first entrants toward alt-rock, which would pay dividends in 1991, and set me on a trajectory of music that I still follow to this day.
And “High” is just one of my favorite songs of all time.
I used to watch HGTV for all the remolding shows. I will stress the word “used to” because after a few weeks, I noticed that all the shows were the same in their structure, and they didn’t show you how to improve anything in your home. Such as every HGTV show had the same reality tv plot wherein half way through the show, the hosts discovered some huge “whatever” that would cost way more money to fix, and then they had to call the client and get their reaction, and decide what to do next. But no matter what the issue was, it all worked out, and Joanna put a huge “LIVE, LAUGH, LOVE” sign up on the wall. Oh, and they only thing I learned about fixing my home was to hire a good contractor.
All of this has now lead me to watching YouTube videos. At first, I was looking for clips that would help me patch a hole in the wall, or install trim, or build a built-in. But, the Algorithm caught on to me, and started pushing all these renovation videos on me. Like, “we bought a school building in the country and turned into our dream house” type videos. Or “I bought a row house in Boston, and am fixing it up with my girlfriend and our dog.”
I won’t lie, late at night, these videos suck me in. Not so much the people, or their story, or how they did it all (though I wish they would go into more of those details), but I get sucked into their home renovation ideas, and I try to figure out if that would work in my apartment. See, I have a mudroom area, and a place for a built-in buffet/bookshelf but I can’t figure out how to make it work…
As I have watched more and more of these renovation videos, I have started to notice, especially the ones that are a long series, that they all kind’a do the same thing. They all have a time-lapse video of their demo, or a time-lapse of the contractors doing something, with a jangly guitar underscoring it. Or, they do this confessional thing where the “admit” that they might have bit off more than they can chew, and the whole project might fail.
But it never does.
They always figure out a solution, or they pay more money to the contractor who figures out a solution. Yeah, it’s all rather cliché.
Or to put it another way…
Once, you know, I’d like to see someone just throw in the towel; They can’t do it, it’s just too expensive, or they settle. Sure, that wouldn’t be a very interesting video, but it sure would be a cautionary tale for all of those middle-aged guys out there, that have no experience at home improvement, but think they can do it because they watched a video at 1am.
I’m not using this as an excuse… but here’s my excuse; the kid is on Spring Break, and we’ve being doing stuff in the City, so I haven’t had any time to write. Which isn’t 100% true, as I have had some down time after running around with the kid, but I’m so tired, I just stare at my phone or nap.
Right now, I’m at a playground on the Upper East Side, watching the kid and her friend running around. What I want is to nap, because we did run around the Guggenhiem for a couple of hours. To keep myself awake, I’m trying to hammer out a log on my phone. It’s kind’a working.
(An’ I don’t really care if you think I’m strange…)
As a balding man, haircuts are a very funny thing. What hair I do have still grows and needs to be cut periodically. Yet, with a significant smaller amount of hair on my head, having to pay full price for a haircut does make me feel like I am being taking advantage of. Shouldn’t there be a bald man’s discount?
My dog also has to get periodic haircuts, but that’s called grooming, but in the good way. She gets her trim every three months, and when we enter into the final weeks before her cut, she is a hairy mess. She’s a little Chewbacca, if I were to describe accurately.
I am a fan of hats, and that was before I started balding. When I was doing costuming in my college theatre department, I would try to come up with any excuse to put a hat on a character. In my real life, I’m a baseball cap and beanie guy. But what I would love to be is a fedora guy. And not one of those short brimmed hipster fedoras; no, I’m talking a classic wide brim 1930’s or 40’s fedora. But I think for the look to work, you have to be in a suit. Fedoras are formal, while a ball cap denotes a casual or sporty aesthetic. So, I need to wear more suits is what I’m saying.
