Originally I was going to start this post with a picture of myself on the prom court, just to prove to everyone that I wasn’t lying when I wrote that last night. I even have the prom program (or whatever the hell you call that book with everyone’s pictures in it) in my desk in my home office. I would like to say that the reasons I’m not posting it are technical in that I lack a scanner and I don’t feel like taking a picture of a picture. Sadly, the real reason is that I looked at it tonight and my reaction was “Oh dear God did I really look that bad. Why didn’t anyone tell me I looked like a dork?”
(Actually, everyone told me I looked like a dork. And a nerd and a geek and a doofus and a whole batch of other things that resulted in so many repressed memories that I can no longer recall ever being fifteen.)
So there is no way in hell I’m posting that picture. That’s how bad it is. The guy who admits he has no shame, who will willingly discuss pro wrestling on a public website, will not subject himself to this again. Though I have to admit, the girl I’m with looks pretty darn good. I still had skills, they just weren’t fully formed yet.
The other reason that I was thinking about prom is because of VH1 Classic last night and their brilliant if horribly mislabeled marketing campaign. While flipping through the channel listings last night it said that at 11 PM there would be 120 Minutes. I had my hopes up that they would literally just show a rebroadcast of the show and I would be greeted by Dave Kendall introducing videos. That was a lie as really it was just a renaming of their old show The Alternative, which was just a video block made up of videos that would have been on 120 Minutes. It wasn’t what I wanted to see, mainly because I’d kill for two hours of an actual episode of 120 Minutes, but it brought up two important points.
The first is a musical one. The second video (after a 10,000 Maniacs vid) was for Tori Amos’ “Silent All These Years.” It hit me that I have no idea how in the world did that song and that video become a hit. This isn’t like Norah Jones, who basically has become popular with people who drink Starbucks. Tori was in the same rotation as Metallica even though the song consisted of her and a piano and the video was just stark. I don’t know how else you describe that video. It was her rolling around in a box or her standing or just an extreme close-up of her face. Even today it is unlike anything you typically see.
And that’s what really amazes me. Tori Amos not only was able to get airplay with that song but it launched her career and made her a star. I know that the music industry has changed and maybe there is someone on YouTube who is having the same breakthrough stardom but if there is I’ve missed it. Maybe I was lucky to grow up at a moment when music was changing. I don’t think that I’d like to be building my musical tastes right now. I’d hate to claim that Fall Out Boy is speaking for me.
The other point that I really need to talk about is the effect that watching these videos had on me. I didn’t leave my couch for a very long time last night. I basically just sat there in the dark and watched video after video. Didn’t matter that I had work in the morning, didn’t matter that I was tired, I just had to watch one more video. And to be honest, I had no desire to go to bed.
Because I swear that while watching each video I was reliving conversations that I had in high school. Or replaying moments of my college life. I know that this might just sound like run of the mill nostalgia but it goes a lot deeper than that. I know how I felt back in those days and the friends and adventures and I wonder where the hell they all went. In some cases literally as I’m not in touch with a single person I went to college with. But I even wonder what happened to that version of me. I know at the core that I am the same person but somewhere that person has changed. And I have to admit, part of me would really like to go back to that time.
Even if only to tell him to get a better haircut. And put on some weight. I’ll have to say, the fact that I’ve gained sixty pounds since college is a good thing.
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