I went to high school with this guy, let’s call him Dan. We weren’t really friends, such as we didn’t hang out after school, but we hung in parallel social groups, and if we had a class together, we sit near each other so we could crack jokes and pass the time. He was very tall and lanky, but with no athletic coordination or maybe he didn’t like sports, so he preferred to be an outsider, but with his height, you couldn’t miss him. He was soft spoken, real dry sense of humor, and he was the type of guy you’d see reading Naked Lunch or The Bell Jar. He was smart, but a slacker, and he carried himself like a 90’s neo-hippie, you know, he looked like he was in The Spin Doctors.
Dan had a thought or an opinion on just about everything. I had read about it somewhere, is what he would say when he had some knowledge that covered a rather arcane subject. But music, that was his big thing. I was, and still am for that matter, a huge Beatles fan which Dan was as well. He told me, that one day my music taste would evolve – not that I would stop liking The Beatles – but I would follow down the path of enlightened music enjoyment. He said that I would start with The Beatles, then in a few years I would be all about Led Zeppelin, and that I would end with Pink Floyd. I didn’t think too much of it, but his idea did stay in the back of my mind.
I graduated and went away to college, for a reason I have forgotten, I bought “Physical Graffiti,” and I got hooked on Led Zeppelin. Somewhere, hiding in the back of my mind where I placed it, I envisioned Dan sitting Lotus style, hand raised to heaven, surrounded by a cloud of pot smoke, smiling and nodding at me – “You have attained the next level” he imparted on me. The truth is that I did start on a path of deep diving into all things Led Zeppelin. Got all the albums, hunted down rare “B” sides, read biographies, even did a sad stint of trying to learn how to play their songs… that didn’t go well.
Then, jump ahead three years, and I have dropped out of college and am working at a pizza delivery place in my home town. Who should happen to come in and get a job at that pizza place? Why, it’s Dan! It didn’t take him long to scope out my car, which had three band stickers on the back window; The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and Nirvana. “What, no Pink Floyd?” he asked.
I was slightly surprised that he remembered that conversation, but I had to admit that I never really got into Pink Floyd. I mean, I had a copy of “Darkside of the Moon,” and it was cool and all, but I never had any interest in going any farther than that.
It was like I kicked his puppy. Dan was so disappointed in me. “Pink Floyd will be there for you when you’re ready,” he added.
I don’t think about Dan often, but when I do, it’s all pleasant and happy memories. Sad to say, I have never come around to Pink Floyd. Not that I have anything against them. It’s just not my thing. Yet, when a Pink Floyd song comes up on a Spotify playlist, I think of Dan; knowing that he is still floating on a great pot cloud in the sky – waiting for me to join him – maybe to push play on “Wish You Were Here.”
