Tracking Nostalgia: TV and Tears
I graduate from college in exactly 25 days. Holy crap. As the day of reckoning inches closer, I have been overcome by the expected wave of nostalgia. That is, I have spent a great majority of my time thinking about the past, with each picture I see, conversation I have, and street I walk down reminding me of specific moments. And regardless of whether these moments were good or bad, what is important is that they cause me to remember and spend my time not enjoying the present or embracing the future, but rather sucumbing to the memories I will be leaving behind. Like many other soon-to-be college graduates, I am prematurely longing for that euphoric feeling you get when you finish your last final of the semester, the laziness and drunkenness that takes over the semester you have only 3 days of class, and the conversations that take place at 5am on a Tuesday over cheap beer and Cheers reruns. Yes, from the general debauchery and commrodery of college life to the Boston specific things, like Marathon Monday and the buzz that takes over Commonwealth Avenue when a new Red Sox season begins, I will certainly miss college.
However, a funny thing happened on the way to the May 20: My primary rememberances are not of college, but of moments from my childhood. At first the reasons for the dominance was lost on me. Soon, though, I realized that I am not leaving behind cheap beer, late nights, and other college-type voyeuristic thrills. As long as I have no money, no steady job, and live with other 20-somethings, those things will still be there.No, what I am leaving behind is that period of my life I could hang on to as long as I was still in school: The innocence and memories of childhood. It is something quite different; it is not a specific moment in time or a great, drunken night, but rather a feeling that overtakes you when you think back to the days when picturing yourself in high school meant you were thinking 3-7 years down the road. And as soon as I walk across that stage in 25 days, all the simplicity, protection, and comfort of a sheltered life are likely gone forever. Age, responsibility, and bitterness, or in other words, reality, take over, and that is what I am scared to part with. And the result of this fear is my subconscious clinging to the past, with even the tiniest memory of childhood opening the emotional floodgates. There have been literally dozens of moments since Spring Break when I have been on the verge of tears for seemingly no reason; in the computer lab, lying in bed, and of course, when watching television. That last place is important, so keep it in mind.
What triggers these outbursts? Well, like I explained at the outset, it is remembering my past as I face the inevitable onslaught of my future. But what comes in to my mind to causes me to well up like the countless number of groups of men in movies and tv shows (Entourage, Just Shoot Me, etc.) while watching the last 15 minutes of "Brian's Song" (apparently, it is the only time is appropriate for a manly man to cry). Put simply, the trigger has been the memories of childhood. And because so much of my childhood centered around television, it has been old tv clips that make me look back sometimes wistfully, sometimes fondly, but always fondly, at what I am leaving behind. And after making you read through three excrutiatingly corny and philosophically empty paragraphs, I am turning the post over to these clips, and I am doing so for 2 reasons:1. The clips can explain my nostalgia so much more succintly and considerably more entertainingly than I ever could.2. I guarantee that are at least 2-3 clips on here that will connect with any person who is, who has, and who will be going through what I am.
And so without much further Apu, I give you not only the reasons for my trails of tears, but for about as happy childhood as one could imagine...
-WSBK TV 38http://youtube.com/watch?v=a-Nq1_51Tfg and http://youtube.com/watch?v=EmjWXVdGgD4I could not decide on a single clip to represent TV 38 so I went with these two. For those of you who did not grow up in Boston, TV 38 was the one stop channel in Boston throughout the 1980's and early-1990's. Before becoming UPN 38 in the late 90's, it carried everything. So much of my childhood is brought back through the ads and music in these clips. From the ages 5-12, TV 38 could be counted on for the following things:-Red Sox games: With Sean McDonough doing the play-by-play and Bob Montgomery doingthe color, I was introduced to some truly awful, but still my favorite RedSox teams in 1992-93. And they carried just about every game. None ofpomp and cirumstances associated with NESN, but it was not necessary.-Cheers, M*A*S*H, and Murphy Brown reruns every night week night. Wow.-Dana Hersey's Movie Loft: As the second clip will only partially demonstrate, this was aweekly show in which local news personality Dana Herseyintroduced a different movie every week. The movies werelargely mediocre, but mention the name Dana Hersey to anyNew Englander between the ages of 23-55, and they will likelyrespond, "The Movie Loft guy? I loved that guy." And yet, likeme, they will not know their reason for living him. We just do.-Three Stooges New Year's Marathon: Running from about 8pm until 2am every Dec. 31,it became such a fixture, both when it aired and thecountless rewatchings on video tape, that for yearsI could not hear Auld Lang Syne with hearing theThree Stooges theme and thinking of 5 Jewish menpoking each other in the eyes and hitting each otherover the heads with saws. Try getting drunk andmaking out to that.Like at the ridiculous line-up. And these were nightly and yearly things. The greatest tv station on my lifetime.
-Newhart Opening Themehttp://youtube.com/watch?v=hytAuxshsbYThis is here only because the opening for "Wings" is not online. While this show was largely inferior to its predecessor, "The Bob Newhart Show", its opening, along with the one from "Wings" will forever remind me of the New Englang Spring, Summer, and Fall, specifically circa 15-20 years ago. The colors, the sights, the scenic drives. "Wings" takes it further with its shots of Cape Cod & the Islands on a sunny morning. Again, this may ring truer with anybody who has spent even a single minute enjoyed a sun-filled Cape morning. In "Wings" opening credits, when the plane casts its shadow over the store window, I am instantly back in Harwich Port in 1991, sitting in my grandparents kitchen on a Fall Saturday morning, eagerly awaiting that nights Cranberry Harvest Festival Fireworks. Alright, time to move on because it is suddenly becoming a little too dusty in the computer lab.
-Saved By the Bell Graduation
http://youtube.com/watch?v=QivuAbLP140
We have all seen it, so why spend too much time describing it. It is enough to say that it has my favorite closing line in tv finale history from Mr. Belding when he hands Zack his diploma. And I always loved the completely illogical chain of events that brought Zack to the podium (Screeh gets Valedictorian, unbeknownst to most, but it means more to Jessie, so he gives it up. Jessie is excited. Jessie finds out what Screech did and gives it back to him on Graduation Day. Screech cannot express himself, so he gives it to Zack. Yes, Zack, whose F, F, C, D grades inspired the Fine Feathered Cats and Dogs remarks). However, maybe there is no sense in looking for logic in a show in which Zack could call time-out and speak directly to the camera, Zack and Screech could end up at the same elite college, and Zack could spend exactly one episode each as the star of the track and basketball teams, with his participation never being mentioned again. Whatever the case, the show was such an integral part of all our childhoods, that this clip is 5 star tear jerker and I can remember watching it in my living room when they aired it on a Saturday night in Fall 1992. Here's hoping the COM graduation ceremony takes a similar route.
-Duck Tales Theme & Denver the Last Dinosaur Theme
http://youtube.com/watch?v=34Sb0hGUNIQ and http://youtube.com/watch?v=EH7UfKmXRUQ
Both shows bring me back to the early days of the Disney Channel, and such other shows as Tailspin, Darkwing Duck, and Under the Umbrella Tree. Although, juding by the openings, I would guess Denver was a product of the late-1980's. I chose these two because they have my two favorite theme songs. It was not an easy decision. Suffice to say, I really like the Duck Tales theme song.
-This Week In Baseball Opening Theme
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Week_In_Baseball
Scroll to the bottom, click on the link that reads 80stvthemes.com-This Week In Baseball.
What can you say about the greatest tv theme song of all time? To this day, no song brings me back to my childhood faster or more effectively. Coincidentally, it also aired on WSBK TV 38, on Sundays before Red Sox games. I think of the awful mullets and mustaches of 1986-1993 MLB. I think of a skinny Roger Clemens, of Wade Boggs pumping of his fist after hitting a walk-off home run, of Cal Ripken, Jr. fielding a ground ball, and then spinning around in a full circle and firing the ball to first base. I think of Chris Sabo's goggles and Barry Bond's cross earing. I think of Sean McDonough, Tim McCarver, and Pat O' Brien calling the Blue Jays back-to-back World Series for CBS in 1992 and 1993. I think of Fenway before the Monster Seats, with 70 win teams, before it was a place to be seen. I think of TWIB Notes, Bloopers, and "How about that?" I think of the amazing closing montage, and rushing out in to my front yard in my catching gear to play with my dad before the last-place Sox battled the second-to-last-place Tigers came on (how could I miss that game?). I think of watching Red Sox games on summer nights, with the small tv brought out on to the porch after we went swimming, and stuffing my face with Little Debbies Jelly Rolls. I think of all this and I get goosebumps because this simple 2:21 theme song coupled with Mel Allen's voice is the reason baseball went from a game to a way of life for me. And that is why it is the greatest tv theme song of all time. Period.
-Cheers Final Episode Intro
http://youtube.com/watch?v=vJM5UuyKPTI
Nothing spectacular, but it is among the first times I remember tv being an event. Long before the "Seinfeld" or "Friends" finale and before the Super Bowl meant anything great to me, this was Must-See-TV. Like "M*A*S*H" and "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" before it, this was one of the few times my parents got emotional over the end of a tv show. Not many current tv shows cause the attachment, emotion, and devotion of "Cheers." Perhaps it meant more to us because we were from Boston. In any case, my parents allowed us to stay awake for the finale. Aside from the great final moments, I remember it airing around the same week of the Larry Bird Retirement Special from the Boston Garden in 1993 (the one where Magic Johnson presented him with a Lakers Bird jersey and they raised "33" to the rafters). Chills.
-Bill Simmons Leaving Boston Column
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/021129
When I read this column my senior year of high school, I only hoped it captured perfectly what it is like to live in Boston on a daily basis (the city, not the suburbs). I also thought, "Why would anyone want to leave once they are there?" Now, as I sit less than a month from graduation, I realize it perfectly captured the daily Boston experience. The sights, the overwhelming sense of history, the good and bad of the sports fanaticism. For all of its blights, the small size, the occasional lack of social options, the dreary winters, it is a truly unique place that will forever have my heart. However, I also now realize the answer to my question: Because sometimes you have to move on. It is sad, but true. Some days I tell myself it is because I cannot become the next Robert Smigel or Hunter S. if I do not move to Chicago, Los Angeles, or New York. And to a certain extent it is true; to succeed in the world of sketch comedy, I need to go where it exists and thrives. In my heart of hearts, though, I know it is because if I do not make a clean break now, I will never leave. Too much of my heart is tied this area: family, friends, my sports teams; in short, my life. Sure, I will be back to visit, family and friends will come visit me, and I can attend 25 Cubs and eventually Dodgers games a year. Nothing, though, will ever compare to waking up in a place you call home, that you have always called home, knowing your friends are with you, your family is a short drive away, you can walk to Fenway Park in the time it takes you to chug a beer, the Cape is always a short drive & dream away (except on Friday nights and Saturday mornings in the summer), and the 4 seasons will come and go, while your comfort and love affair with your birthplace will remain forever the same. But sometimes you have to leave behind the greatest city in the world to achieve your dreams. It is not easy, but I guess the impending real world never is. That is why in less than 3 months, I will say goodbye to Grafton, Hopedale, Harwich Port, North Adams, Springfrield, Granby, Allston, Commonwealth Avenue, and all their inhabitants. And because it will mark the official end of my childhood, I can think of no more appropriate final link than the Simmons's column.
NEXT POST: The 25 man roster composed of my favorite MLB players since 1992.
I graduate from college in exactly 25 days. Holy crap. As the day of reckoning inches closer, I have been overcome by the expected wave of nostalgia. That is, I have spent a great majority of my time thinking about the past, with each picture I see, conversation I have, and street I walk down reminding me of specific moments. And regardless of whether these moments were good or bad, what is important is that they cause me to remember and spend my time not enjoying the present or embracing the future, but rather sucumbing to the memories I will be leaving behind. Like many other soon-to-be college graduates, I am prematurely longing for that euphoric feeling you get when you finish your last final of the semester, the laziness and drunkenness that takes over the semester you have only 3 days of class, and the conversations that take place at 5am on a Tuesday over cheap beer and Cheers reruns. Yes, from the general debauchery and commrodery of college life to the Boston specific things, like Marathon Monday and the buzz that takes over Commonwealth Avenue when a new Red Sox season begins, I will certainly miss college.
However, a funny thing happened on the way to the May 20: My primary rememberances are not of college, but of moments from my childhood. At first the reasons for the dominance was lost on me. Soon, though, I realized that I am not leaving behind cheap beer, late nights, and other college-type voyeuristic thrills. As long as I have no money, no steady job, and live with other 20-somethings, those things will still be there.No, what I am leaving behind is that period of my life I could hang on to as long as I was still in school: The innocence and memories of childhood. It is something quite different; it is not a specific moment in time or a great, drunken night, but rather a feeling that overtakes you when you think back to the days when picturing yourself in high school meant you were thinking 3-7 years down the road. And as soon as I walk across that stage in 25 days, all the simplicity, protection, and comfort of a sheltered life are likely gone forever. Age, responsibility, and bitterness, or in other words, reality, take over, and that is what I am scared to part with. And the result of this fear is my subconscious clinging to the past, with even the tiniest memory of childhood opening the emotional floodgates. There have been literally dozens of moments since Spring Break when I have been on the verge of tears for seemingly no reason; in the computer lab, lying in bed, and of course, when watching television. That last place is important, so keep it in mind.
What triggers these outbursts? Well, like I explained at the outset, it is remembering my past as I face the inevitable onslaught of my future. But what comes in to my mind to causes me to well up like the countless number of groups of men in movies and tv shows (Entourage, Just Shoot Me, etc.) while watching the last 15 minutes of "Brian's Song" (apparently, it is the only time is appropriate for a manly man to cry). Put simply, the trigger has been the memories of childhood. And because so much of my childhood centered around television, it has been old tv clips that make me look back sometimes wistfully, sometimes fondly, but always fondly, at what I am leaving behind. And after making you read through three excrutiatingly corny and philosophically empty paragraphs, I am turning the post over to these clips, and I am doing so for 2 reasons:1. The clips can explain my nostalgia so much more succintly and considerably more entertainingly than I ever could.2. I guarantee that are at least 2-3 clips on here that will connect with any person who is, who has, and who will be going through what I am.
And so without much further Apu, I give you not only the reasons for my trails of tears, but for about as happy childhood as one could imagine...
-WSBK TV 38http://youtube.com/watch?v=a-Nq1_51Tfg and http://youtube.com/watch?v=EmjWXVdGgD4I could not decide on a single clip to represent TV 38 so I went with these two. For those of you who did not grow up in Boston, TV 38 was the one stop channel in Boston throughout the 1980's and early-1990's. Before becoming UPN 38 in the late 90's, it carried everything. So much of my childhood is brought back through the ads and music in these clips. From the ages 5-12, TV 38 could be counted on for the following things:-Red Sox games: With Sean McDonough doing the play-by-play and Bob Montgomery doingthe color, I was introduced to some truly awful, but still my favorite RedSox teams in 1992-93. And they carried just about every game. None ofpomp and cirumstances associated with NESN, but it was not necessary.-Cheers, M*A*S*H, and Murphy Brown reruns every night week night. Wow.-Dana Hersey's Movie Loft: As the second clip will only partially demonstrate, this was aweekly show in which local news personality Dana Herseyintroduced a different movie every week. The movies werelargely mediocre, but mention the name Dana Hersey to anyNew Englander between the ages of 23-55, and they will likelyrespond, "The Movie Loft guy? I loved that guy." And yet, likeme, they will not know their reason for living him. We just do.-Three Stooges New Year's Marathon: Running from about 8pm until 2am every Dec. 31,it became such a fixture, both when it aired and thecountless rewatchings on video tape, that for yearsI could not hear Auld Lang Syne with hearing theThree Stooges theme and thinking of 5 Jewish menpoking each other in the eyes and hitting each otherover the heads with saws. Try getting drunk andmaking out to that.Like at the ridiculous line-up. And these were nightly and yearly things. The greatest tv station on my lifetime.
-Newhart Opening Themehttp://youtube.com/watch?v=hytAuxshsbYThis is here only because the opening for "Wings" is not online. While this show was largely inferior to its predecessor, "The Bob Newhart Show", its opening, along with the one from "Wings" will forever remind me of the New Englang Spring, Summer, and Fall, specifically circa 15-20 years ago. The colors, the sights, the scenic drives. "Wings" takes it further with its shots of Cape Cod & the Islands on a sunny morning. Again, this may ring truer with anybody who has spent even a single minute enjoyed a sun-filled Cape morning. In "Wings" opening credits, when the plane casts its shadow over the store window, I am instantly back in Harwich Port in 1991, sitting in my grandparents kitchen on a Fall Saturday morning, eagerly awaiting that nights Cranberry Harvest Festival Fireworks. Alright, time to move on because it is suddenly becoming a little too dusty in the computer lab.
-Saved By the Bell Graduation
http://youtube.com/watch?v=QivuAbLP140
We have all seen it, so why spend too much time describing it. It is enough to say that it has my favorite closing line in tv finale history from Mr. Belding when he hands Zack his diploma. And I always loved the completely illogical chain of events that brought Zack to the podium (Screeh gets Valedictorian, unbeknownst to most, but it means more to Jessie, so he gives it up. Jessie is excited. Jessie finds out what Screech did and gives it back to him on Graduation Day. Screech cannot express himself, so he gives it to Zack. Yes, Zack, whose F, F, C, D grades inspired the Fine Feathered Cats and Dogs remarks). However, maybe there is no sense in looking for logic in a show in which Zack could call time-out and speak directly to the camera, Zack and Screech could end up at the same elite college, and Zack could spend exactly one episode each as the star of the track and basketball teams, with his participation never being mentioned again. Whatever the case, the show was such an integral part of all our childhoods, that this clip is 5 star tear jerker and I can remember watching it in my living room when they aired it on a Saturday night in Fall 1992. Here's hoping the COM graduation ceremony takes a similar route.
-Duck Tales Theme & Denver the Last Dinosaur Theme
http://youtube.com/watch?v=34Sb0hGUNIQ and http://youtube.com/watch?v=EH7UfKmXRUQ
Both shows bring me back to the early days of the Disney Channel, and such other shows as Tailspin, Darkwing Duck, and Under the Umbrella Tree. Although, juding by the openings, I would guess Denver was a product of the late-1980's. I chose these two because they have my two favorite theme songs. It was not an easy decision. Suffice to say, I really like the Duck Tales theme song.
-This Week In Baseball Opening Theme
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Week_In_Baseball
Scroll to the bottom, click on the link that reads 80stvthemes.com-This Week In Baseball.
What can you say about the greatest tv theme song of all time? To this day, no song brings me back to my childhood faster or more effectively. Coincidentally, it also aired on WSBK TV 38, on Sundays before Red Sox games. I think of the awful mullets and mustaches of 1986-1993 MLB. I think of a skinny Roger Clemens, of Wade Boggs pumping of his fist after hitting a walk-off home run, of Cal Ripken, Jr. fielding a ground ball, and then spinning around in a full circle and firing the ball to first base. I think of Chris Sabo's goggles and Barry Bond's cross earing. I think of Sean McDonough, Tim McCarver, and Pat O' Brien calling the Blue Jays back-to-back World Series for CBS in 1992 and 1993. I think of Fenway before the Monster Seats, with 70 win teams, before it was a place to be seen. I think of TWIB Notes, Bloopers, and "How about that?" I think of the amazing closing montage, and rushing out in to my front yard in my catching gear to play with my dad before the last-place Sox battled the second-to-last-place Tigers came on (how could I miss that game?). I think of watching Red Sox games on summer nights, with the small tv brought out on to the porch after we went swimming, and stuffing my face with Little Debbies Jelly Rolls. I think of all this and I get goosebumps because this simple 2:21 theme song coupled with Mel Allen's voice is the reason baseball went from a game to a way of life for me. And that is why it is the greatest tv theme song of all time. Period.
-Cheers Final Episode Intro
http://youtube.com/watch?v=vJM5UuyKPTI
Nothing spectacular, but it is among the first times I remember tv being an event. Long before the "Seinfeld" or "Friends" finale and before the Super Bowl meant anything great to me, this was Must-See-TV. Like "M*A*S*H" and "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" before it, this was one of the few times my parents got emotional over the end of a tv show. Not many current tv shows cause the attachment, emotion, and devotion of "Cheers." Perhaps it meant more to us because we were from Boston. In any case, my parents allowed us to stay awake for the finale. Aside from the great final moments, I remember it airing around the same week of the Larry Bird Retirement Special from the Boston Garden in 1993 (the one where Magic Johnson presented him with a Lakers Bird jersey and they raised "33" to the rafters). Chills.
-Bill Simmons Leaving Boston Column
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/021129
When I read this column my senior year of high school, I only hoped it captured perfectly what it is like to live in Boston on a daily basis (the city, not the suburbs). I also thought, "Why would anyone want to leave once they are there?" Now, as I sit less than a month from graduation, I realize it perfectly captured the daily Boston experience. The sights, the overwhelming sense of history, the good and bad of the sports fanaticism. For all of its blights, the small size, the occasional lack of social options, the dreary winters, it is a truly unique place that will forever have my heart. However, I also now realize the answer to my question: Because sometimes you have to move on. It is sad, but true. Some days I tell myself it is because I cannot become the next Robert Smigel or Hunter S. if I do not move to Chicago, Los Angeles, or New York. And to a certain extent it is true; to succeed in the world of sketch comedy, I need to go where it exists and thrives. In my heart of hearts, though, I know it is because if I do not make a clean break now, I will never leave. Too much of my heart is tied this area: family, friends, my sports teams; in short, my life. Sure, I will be back to visit, family and friends will come visit me, and I can attend 25 Cubs and eventually Dodgers games a year. Nothing, though, will ever compare to waking up in a place you call home, that you have always called home, knowing your friends are with you, your family is a short drive away, you can walk to Fenway Park in the time it takes you to chug a beer, the Cape is always a short drive & dream away (except on Friday nights and Saturday mornings in the summer), and the 4 seasons will come and go, while your comfort and love affair with your birthplace will remain forever the same. But sometimes you have to leave behind the greatest city in the world to achieve your dreams. It is not easy, but I guess the impending real world never is. That is why in less than 3 months, I will say goodbye to Grafton, Hopedale, Harwich Port, North Adams, Springfrield, Granby, Allston, Commonwealth Avenue, and all their inhabitants. And because it will mark the official end of my childhood, I can think of no more appropriate final link than the Simmons's column.
NEXT POST: The 25 man roster composed of my favorite MLB players since 1992.
posted by Andrew Felper | 2:09 PM
|
0 comments
