May 24, 2012

The Turntable, B-Side



     Normally when I choose to write something, I can see an entire outline unfold in front of my mind's eye almost as soon as I come up with the main idea. As I start to flesh out the text, the words simply pour out in a euphoric rush, and before I realize it I have a cohesive piece that I can be proud of. It's as close to an out of body experience as I ever have, like some benevolent higher being pushes my psyche aside for a few hours with a "don't worry, I got this" smirk, and usually when it has relinquished my body back to me I have no other recourse but to feel contentment. After all, most people get probed under bright lights in these kinds of situations; I get a few decent essays out of them.

     Unfortunately, it seems that my muse is on break, and instead of words and ideas flowing gently through my mind, there is instead a maelstrom of typeface more akin to alphabet soup. I suppose this is because of the subject matter I am trying to approach, which is the life and death of my dad, Howard Myers. Today (5/19/12) is the one year anniversary of the day that his life tragically and suddenly ended, violently altering my family's lives forever.

     Somewhere in that day, that week, this past year, is a great story that is waiting to be written. About the first true tragedy a typical middle-class family has ever really faced and how it sheds light on repressed issues and reprioritizes storge in their lives. About a sweet, innocent middle-aged woman who is forced to bravely start her life anew, discovering hidden strengths and friendships. About a beautiful, bright young woman in the midst of a massive transition and a transcontinental romance. About the effects of a power-vacuum on a family struggling to steady itself.

     About a naive college kid struggling with self-identity and his true calling. About the irony of having his birthday party 20 hours before his father's memorial service. About redemption at an idyllic lakeside camp. About reconnecting with old friends, and realizing the deep compassion of new ones. About odd jobs, strange cities, depression, mania, serenity, chaos; about the human condition. I can't write that story yet, though. The wounds are still too fresh, and all of these threads continue winding themselves beyond the visible horizon, awaiting a resolution.  And besides, why would I post that in a blog? I'm getting a freaking Pulitzer for that.

     So this is not that story. Maybe one day I'll share it with you all; it really is quite a tale.

     Instead, I simply want to remember and honor my dad, though it will be only a trifle of what is deserved, and the best way that I can think of to do this is by finishing the story of my (his) turntable (reference: http://thetroublewithmetaphors.blogspot.com/2011/10/brokenness-turntable.html).

     It has been over a year since my turntable lost half of its audio signal, and over half a year since I completely broke it while haphazardly trying to fix the wiring in pursuit of (stereophonic) happiness. As the month of May approached and I walked past my turntable every day, now reduced to nothing more than a monument to my failure, I thought about how all I would want to do is listen to my dad's favorite records during the week commemorating his death and, ironically, my birth. I scoured the Internet for spare parts that would help, managed to find a guy selling stripped bits, bought the necessary one (full tonearm with wiring), and impatiently waited until it finally arrived.

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     I would like to reiterate a point I made when I wrote about this analog relic months ago; this turntable is the last and best tangible connection I have with my dad. A gift from him, yes, but also a reminder of some of my only vivid memories of him.

     My dad wasn't the type of person that you could talk to about girls or games or movies or popular culture; sports talks sometimes sufficed, while deeper subject matter like fears and hopes would rarely arise (this wasn't the case with my sister; she could pour her heart out to him like I only wish I could have). The one subject we could talk for days on, though, was music. Topics like the golden era of gods like Young and Waters, the experience of being at a live show, and newer artists that I would delicately introduce to him (with mixed results) yielded the longest and most involved conversations we ever had as father-son.

     It's odd, because it took me years to find this connection with my dad. I don't remember ever associating anything musical with him when I was young; hell, in church I distinctly remember that he rarely sang the hymns. At some point, coinciding with my increased obsession with music whether by design or by providence, I discovered the multitude of concerts he had been to, that he performed in the school band up through college, that he was opening up his own musical instruments company, and even, as if to tie it all together, that he used to have long hippie-hair (imagine that, the same man that I had bought a gag-gift of "bald head polish" for!). Then, one glorious day, he brought out his old hi-fi and turntable, opened up his office closet, and, like manna from heaven, there sat some of the greatest records of all time just waiting to be consumed. I take those albums for granted now, but on that afternoon, spinning record after record, I could scarcely believe I was even allowed to share the same roof as them.

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     The repair was, after a year of frustration and failure, burns and wreckage, astoundingly smooth. Well, OK, I did break the needle after repairing everything else, so I had to wait two extra agonizing days before a replacement was available, two days that I had a finished product with no way of confirming success or failure. The feeling is akin to baking a pie, then sitting and staring at it. Salivating. Incessantly.

     Dammit, pies are meant to be eaten!

     After receiving a delivery alert (technology, baby) and subsequently skipping out on work early, I ripped open the package containing the needle... and let it sit there for two hours.

     I was nervous about finding out if my repairs were sufficient, sure; I had invested a lot of time and money into this relic after all, and this latest attempt was my last, best hope. I'm sure I was also nervous about posthumously letting down my father; I know all sons fear disappointing their parents, but I think it's an especially debilitating fear for me. I think more than all of that, though, I was nervous about inviting memories of my dad back, like the turntable deck was a Ouija board and the needle was the planchette.

     After all, it seems easiest to lessen the sting of grief by ignoring it outright.

     Well, I'm proud to provide this story with a happy ending. The turntable, once I found the courage to reinstate it, ended up sounding better than ever. The rest of the afternoon was devoted to blazing through some of my dad's favorite records, reminiscing all the time.

     First, Young's Harvest, remembering how he had told me just weeks before his death that its B-Side was possibly his favorite single side of a record he'd ever encountered, and of course listening to Heart of Gold on the A-Side and remembering the song playing at his memorial.

     Next, The Best of Arlo Guthrie, listening to the bizarre mixture of anti-war proclamations and slapstick comedy ballads, thinking how well that stark contrast of almost bipolar seriousness and shameless silliness summed dad up pretty well. I remembered singing the nonsensical “Motorcycle (Significance of the Pickle)” song on long car trips. I remembered the night I took him to see a greyer Guthrie live and listening with bated breath to dad's stories of shows past, including how, in the handful of times he'd seen Guthrie live, he had only managed to go to one show where Arlo played the famous and elusive “Alice's Restaurant Massacree,” only to walk into the auditorium during the song's final chord because of car trouble, and simply having to laugh about the irony of it all. I especially remembered the wide smile on his face long after Guthrie had treated us to a brand new rendition of the “Motorcycle” song, and his whooping and hollering like he was 20 again.

     The rest of the day was a blur of Darkside of the Moon, Yes Songs, Abbey Road, Introducing... the Beatles, Rumors, some deep-cuts, some old favorites, much-too-loud sing-a-longs, and a surplus of nostalgia: memories of singing in the car, relaxing in the family room, chatting on the phone 600 miles apart, all with dear old dad.

     None of these things really made me miss him, though. Don't get me wrong, it's great to experience all of these memories and emotions just by spinning some innocuous circle at 33 1/3 rpm, but I experienced those memories as if he was still here, like nothing had changed, which is a great thing I suppose. Magical, really, to be able to turn back the clock by turning a flimsy piece of vinyl.

     Look, Pa, I made a time machine.

     There was, however, one moment in all of this that I truly missed my dad. When that needle first struck down, and the scratches were overtaken by the first notes of “Old Man,” and I was filled with palpable feelings of relief and accomplishment, I just wanted to tell someone about all of the endless mistakes and pratfalls, the frustration of soldering a new piece only to watch another one break, the pride of making something work with your own hands, and a myriad of other thoughts and feelings swelling up inside me, but I knew that no one else would appreciate, understand, or find these things interesting. No one, that is, except the one that taught me how to problem solve, the one that patiently showed me to solder before I even knew what a circuit was, the one that I could trade tales of accidental electrocutions and burns with. In that moment, the only person I wanted to talk to was the only person I couldn't.

     In that moment, I truly missed my dad.