Now let’s turn our attention to something really important: the future of the rock band AC/DC.
I’ve been a fan of AC/DC since the early 1980s, when Back in Black was the latest thing. AC/DC isn’t my favorite band. (That honor goes to Rush.) But AC/DC is definitely among my top ten.
The members of AC/DC, just like the rest of us, are getting older. Angus Young, the group’s iconic guitarist, is now 70. Lead vocalist Brian Johnson is now 77.
No, it isn’t 1981 anymore. (And oh, how I wish that it were, for any number of reasons.) But AC/DC still gives a pretty solid live performance, by my estimation.
I took guitar lessons for a while in the early 1980s. But only for about a year.
I did not have a knack for music. I lack the sense of timing that is inherent in all great musicians. Writing comes naturally to me. Practicing the guitar was always a chore. I wanted the result, but I did not enjoy the process.
Forty years later, I can still manage most of the basic chords. But where music is concerned, I am content to remain in the audience.
Nevertheless, music is an art form that I appreciate. But I appreciate it selectively. There is music I love (most of it 1980s rock) and music that I will simply never enjoy. I acknowledge Taylor Swift’s commercial success. Her music is not my cup of tea.
But I’m a 50-something male, and we all hate Taylor Swift. Right? Well, maybe, but that’s an oversimplification. Even in the 1980s, there was popular music I never developed an appreciation for: A Flock of Seagulls, Prince, Bruce Springsteen, most of Michael Jackson’s catalog.
On the other hand, I loved Rush, Foreigner, Triumph, Def Leppard, Bryan Adams, Journey.
I think that’s normal, where music is concerned. We all have preferences. No one, I’ve found, is neutral about music. No one likes all of it.
Which makes the public soundtrack all the more annoying. Whenever one enters a restaurant, retail establishment, or waiting room, one is immediately assaulted with random music, piped in from overhead speakers. They play music at my gym, even though most members wear headphones.
Another problem with music in public places is that it is usually played too loud. I won’t get technical here, and speak of decibels. If when addressing my lunch or dinner companion, I have to raise my voice to be heard over the music, then the music is too loud.
Almost as annoying is the street guitarist, tambourine player, or vocalist. I admire the chutzpah of those who publicize their art this way. But I quicken my pace whenever I pass by a street musician. Similarly, I would not stand on the sidewalk and read from one of my novels, stories, or essays.
I want to consume my music selectively: the music I choose, at a time and a place of my choosing. I don’t want a restaurant, fitness club, or a grocery store to tell me that listening to the music of their choice, at the volume of their choice, is the price of admission to their place of business. This is especially true when I find their preferences actively annoying.
As a long-ago failed musician, I understand how difficult it is to become a real, skilled practitioner of that craft. How many hours of practice is required to perform music at even a journeyman level.
All the more reason not to cheapen music, by turning it into aural wallpaper.
In the fall of 1984, I was a junior in high school. I had a passion for the novels and short stories of Stephen King.
My high school English teacher, not so much. He was a devotee of two twentieth-century writers: Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. So I read a lot of Hemingway and a lot of Fitzgerald that year.
I was 16 years old, and really two young for either writer. Hemingway and Fitzgerald wrote about adult concerns, and concerns of what was already a long-ago, bygone era. As a teenager of the Reagan-era American suburbs, I had little interest in the social conventions of the Jazz Age, or the moody ramblings of World War I veterans.
As an adult, I’ve developed a new appreciation for both writers.
I’ve recently begun digging into The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald: A New Collection. This collection, edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli, contains all the Fitzgerald short stories I remember as a junior in high school: “Winter Dreams”,“A Diamond As Big As the Ritz”, “Babylon Revisited,” etc.—as well as many that my high school English teacher never assigned.
Fitzgerald wrote his short stories long. Not all of them can be read in a single sitting. Many of his short stories resemble compressed novels more than typical short stories, as they deal with events stretching out over many years, even decades.
Fitzgerald’s writing style is accessible to modern readers, but his subject matter is a hundred years removed from our time. It takes some effort to put oneself in the mindset of an adult living in 1925. (I am soon to turn 57 years old, and that is the era of my great-grandparents. The one great-grandparent I knew was born in 1895, one year before Fitzgerald.)
Still, there are some universal themes in Fitzgerald’s fiction. One of my favorite stories is the aforementioned “Winter Dreams”. This is the tale of a man who, between adolescence and early middle age, mistakenly projects all of his ideals onto a woman with whom he has a fleeting romantic relationship.
1922 magazine illustration for “Winter Dreams”
“Winter Dreams” is basically a story about the pedastalization of femininity. The theme is as relevant in 2025 as it was in 1922, when Fitzgerald wrote the story.
(Note: When I first read “Winter Dreams” in 1984, I “got” what Fitzgerald was trying to say. Some years would pass before I learned the real-life lesson.)
You might be hesitant to dive into a book of century-old stories. I would encourage you, though, to give Fitzgerald a try. Many of his tales, like The Great Gatsby and “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”, have been adapted for film in the modern era.
There is a reason why Fitzgerald endures, when so many other writers have fallen by the wayside. Fitzgerald was a skilled and insightful storyteller.
So much was superior about the Gen X childhood. We had decent schools, conscientious teachers, no social media madness, no “AI” nonsense, and no smartphone obsessions.
We also had a thriving children’s book industry. And no—I’m not referring to Harry Potter. (Most Gen Xers were in our 30s when Harry Potter appeared.)
We had comics and storybooks, of course. But there were also plenty of children’s books that respected the intelligence of children. Many of these books were quite sophisticated by today’s standards, what might accurately be called “middlebrow”.
Among these was the How and Why Wonder Books series. Most of these were published in the early 1960s.
I owned this volume: The How and Why Wonder Book of The Moon.
Out of print! So no Amazon link!
This title, targeted at the casual juvenile reading market, went into considerable detail about the science of the moon and the history of lunar observation. Since this was published before the 1969 lunar landing, that event was not covered, but plenty else was.
In the 1960s and 1970s, it was still assumed that intelligent people would spend more time reading than staring at electronic screens. How and Why Wonder Books, though written for children in the 1960s, would be beyond the reading comprehension levels of many adults born after 1990. Make of that what you will.
This is a promotional ad that McDonald’s ran in 1980. Breakfast customers were given a free Bic razor with the purchase of any breakfast entree.
1980 McDonald’s print ad
I don’t specifically remember this promotion, and my guess is that it didn’t last long. This is also one that you’re unlikely to see repeated in the twenty-first century. Clearly the ad appeals to one specific gender. (And in 1980, no one disputed the notion that there were only two.) But as we all know, women eat pancakes, too. So what’s going on?
My mother worked outside the home in 1980; but that was the very beginning of the Boomer-led “working woman” trend of the 1980s. The McDonald’s marketing folks probably figured that men would comprise the main market for fast-food breakfasts, presumably on their way to work.
This was the scene in my part of the world last night. (The photos below were taken about 5 miles from my house.) Storms moved through the area, with high wind and hail.
Tree fell on this home in Newtown on Church Street! Spoke with the home owner and fortunately nobody was injured! @WLWTpic.twitter.com/AykH3PstXa
My electricity remains on for the time being (fingers crossed). This morning, however, I did drive by a utility pole that had been snapped in half, presumably from last night’s wind. That was less than a mile from my house. Hopefully the electricity stays on.
Never a dull moment in the badlands of Clermont County, Ohio.
During the 1970s and throughout most of the 1980s, it was common to see full-page cigarette ads in glossy magazines. Advertisements for cancer sticks had already been banned from television, but print ads were still legal, and considered fair game.
Camel ad, circa 1978 to 1983
Much has been said about the “Marlboro Man” over the years. But the Camel Dude (shown above) got a lot more female attention. I remember seeing variations of the above ad in a number of magazines that ended up in my hands during the late 1970s and early 1980s, including Field & Stream, which I read with some regularity.
We can assume that the Camel Dude got lucky on the day presented in the above ad. But one wonders: is he still alive? Perhaps not, with that smoking habit of his.
I was a pre-adolescent and adolescent in those days; and I may have been slightly influenced by the marketing message. A “great-tasting blend of Turkish and domestic tobaccos”, and hot women on the beach? Count me in, said the adolescent version of me.
Speaking of which: I haven’t smoked cigarettes at all as an adult; but I did smoke them on occasion when I was 12 to 13 years old. Another thing about the 1970s/80s: cigarette vending machines were everywhere, and underage people had no difficulty accessing them.
I certainly tried Camels. The hot blonde, as I recall, was not included.
I am a resident of Cincinnati, Ohio, and a frequent visitor to Indiana. My father grew up in Indiana. I have many childhood memories of family holiday gatherings in Lawrenceburg and nearby rural Switzerland County.
I have always considered myself an “honorary” Hoosier (the nickname of a person from Indiana), because of my familial ties, and also because of my affection for the state.
Family reunion in Switzerland County, Indiana, 1987.
But there are famous Hoosiers, too.John Cougar Mellencamp was born in 1951 in Seymour, Indiana, and he grew up there. Mellencamp, now in his seventies, is a proud son of Indiana. He has long incorporated small-town Indiana into his musical brand.
Mellencamp was one of the most popular solo artists of my teenage years. He was also a frequent presence on MTV. (This was back when MTV actually played music videos, as every Gen Xer will remind you.)
Many of Mellencamp’s songs and MTV videos incorporated small-town themes. Whenever possible, he inserted an Indiana-related Easter egg or two. I have become aware of some of these only decades later.
Consider, for example, the MTV video for “Hurts So Good”. This song hit number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1982. In the summer and fall of that year, it was hard to turn on FM radio without hearing “Hurts So Good” within the hour.
The “Hurts So Good” MTV video was also popular on MTV. Little did I know, back then, that this video was filmed in the small town of Medora, Indiana. Medora is close to Seymour, where John Cougar Mellencamp grew up, and about ninety minutes from Lawrenceburg, where my father grew up.
The lesson here, for me, is that great art—and great artists—can come from anywhere. John Cougar Mellencamp would not have been the songwriter and musician he became, had he spent his formative years in Los Angeles or New York.
Many people grow up in small town or rural environments and do not find art, of course. But it is a mistake to assume that every denizen of LA is working on a screenplay, or that every NYC resident is an aspiring novelist.
I was in a minor accident in January. As a result, my Toyota Venza spent a week in the body shop for repairs. During that time, I drove a rental vehicle, as provided for under the terms of my insurance policy.
When I arrived at the Enterprise office, I was given two choices: a Chevrolet Equinox or a Jeep Wrangler. I had to make an on-the-spot decision.
Without any hesitation, I opted for the Jeep. The Equinox, I knew, would be another hyper-computerized, overly engineered vehicle marketed at suburbanites. Boring! But the Jeep Wrangler would be, for me, a novel driving experience. I had never driven a Jeep before, nor even ridden in one.
The novelty got to me. Driving a Jeep is a fun exercise in driving. And I do mean exercise. When you drive one of the basic Jeep models, you feel every bump in the road. Steering the Wrangler reminded me of steering my grandfather’s 1975 Ford pickup truck, back in the day.
But hey, it was an adventure. For a few days, I imagined myself as a Jeep owner.
Then I learned about this Jeep ducking thing. When I was first told about it, I thought that my interlocutor was pulling my leg.
Then I started paying attention: I began to notice Jeeps with little rubber ducks mounted on their dashboards. They were everywhere.
If you’re unaware of the trend, look around a parking lot sometime: you’ll see that at least half of all Jeeps have dashboards adorned with rubber ducks.
Apparently, Jeep owners leave ducks on each others’ vehicles as a way of expressing their esprit de corps. And when a fellow Jeep owner gifts you a duck, you’re supposed to mount it on your dashboard.
Jeep ducking is just a bit too cutesy for my tastes. But it’s harmless; and if Jeep owners enjoy doing this, why not?
Nevertheless, I’m glad that there is no similar custom of placing bath toys on Toyotas. No way I would drive around with rubber ducks mounted on the dashboard of my Venza.
In early April of 1974, I was but a wee lad in kindergarten. My dad worked in sales. My mother and I sometimes accompanied him on business trips.
And so it was that on April 3, 1974, my father, my mother, and I traveled to Louisville, Kentucky—just in time for that city’s historic 1974 F4 tornado, which was part of the equally historic “super outbreak” of that year.
Why was it called a “super outbreak”? Between April 3 and 4, at least 149 tornados were documented across 13 states. Over three hundred people lost their lives. It was a big news story, for anyone alive and sentient then.
My parents and I were staying in a one-story motel not far from the Louisville F4 tornado when it hit. I was not yet six years old, and so I had only the vaguest idea that something bad was happening. But I realized that all was not well.
For one thing, my parents were visibly alarmed. When you’re a young kid and your parents are nervous, that probably means that you should be concerned, too.
I remember the high winds and the freight train sound of the tornado. I did not see the tornado itself, but I certainly saw its aftermath. Louisville looked like a war zone. On our drive home to Cincinnati the next morning, I recall seeing a swing set thrown into the middle of the highway by the tornado. I particularly remember that.
So far as lasting traumas go, there were some minor ones. For a number of months, I had recurring dreams about a giant lifting off the roof of our house. And to this day, I don’t like violent spring and summer storms. I learned at an early age how quickly such storms can turn deadly.
It is difficult to believe that 5150, Van Halen’s seventh studio album, is now 39 years old. But this is indeed the case. 5150 was released on March 24, 1986. Has that much time really passed? I’m afraid so.
I can still remember when “Dreams” and “Why Can’t This Be Love” were new songs on FM radio. I immediately liked what I heard; and I became one of the thousands of people—mostly teenagers—who purchased the album in its early days. (More than 6 million copies of the album have been sold since then.)
This was the 1980s, and so we bought all of our music in record stores at the mall, of course. The album cover featured a muscle man holding up a metallic sphere, Atlas-like. This struck me as both interesting and strange, but I shrugged and went with it. (I was an avid reader of Muscle & Fitness in those days.)
The big news about this album was that Van Halen had a new lead singer. David Lee Roth was out, Sammy Hagar was in.
Sammy Hagar already had a following of his own as a solo artist. So this was rather like a merger between two companies with established brands. I was already a fan of Hagar, so I was predisposed to like the new, changed Van Halen.
Speaking of which: I had been a very lukewarm fan of Van Halen until then. Like everyone, I appreciated Eddie Van Halen’s unique guitar skills. But the Van Halen songs of the David Lee Roth era were banal in the extreme, even by the standards of a high school kid. The Roth-era songs were all about girls and parties, or they were about nothing at all.
I also suspected, even back then, that David Lee Roth was something of an egotistical jackass. These suspicions were confirmed for me decades later, when I read Runnin’ with the Devil: A Backstage Pass to the Wild Times, Loud Rock, and the Down and Dirty Truth Behind the Making of Van Halen. Written by former band manager Noel Monk, Runnin’ with the Devil describes Roth’s self-indulgent, often vindictive behavior in detail. I didn’t know any of these details then; but I was glad to see Sammy Hagar replace the compulsively peacocking Roth.
5150 was a different kind of Van Halen album. The songs on this album had a mystic, almost aspirational quality. And yet—5150 was still upbeat, fun, and accessible. It wasn’t one of those dreary, navel-gazing rock albums that people claim you have to smoke weed in order to appreciate.
Van Halen would never be its old self again. The new trend—of better songwriting—would peak over the next two VH albums: OU812 (1988) and For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge (1991).
Should Sammy Hagar be credited for these changes? Given the magnitude and the timing of the shift, it is difficult to conclude otherwise.
“Love Walks In”, the second song on Side 2 of the album, is one of 5150’s most interesting pieces. The song’s lyrics suggest time travel, fate, reincarnation….who knows?
Some years after 5150 was released, Sammy Hagar stated that “Love Walks In” was written about communication with extraterrestrial aliens. I took a very different meaning from the song at the time—which I’ll spare the reader. And I still do. But that is one of the hallmarks of successful art: each person can walk away from it with a slightly different interpretation. For decades now, millions of people have regarded the Beatles’ “Let It Be”, as a Catholic ballad about the Virgin Mary. Paul McCartney actually wrote the song about his deceased mother, who was also named Mary.
5150 is one of those albums that, for me, will always represent a specific time and place. The spring of 1986 is long gone. I will turn 57 this year, and I don’t try to pretend that I’m still a senior in high school…not even when I listen to my favorite music from that bygone era.
I still have my own interpretation of “Love Walks In”, though. And I still enjoy listening to this almost 40-year-old album. Its songs never get old. If only the same could be said for this particular listener.
This week’s cold wave brought record, or near-record, lows to much of the country. Temperatures fell below zero here in Cincinnati. In Pittsburgh (I have a friend who lives there), the low reached -11 F.
In January 1977, the Ohio River froze over. I was only nine years old then. But one of my older friends, then in his late teens, claims to have driven his car over the river that cold January. Many people did, after all.
That said, I’m relieved to see the weather forecast for the upcoming week: afternoon highs above freezing, and one day with a forecast high of 50 F.
I’m no fan of this weather we’ve been having. But it could always be worse.
At the end of 2024 I read Stephen King’s The Dead Zone for the second time.
I had read this book for the first time back in 1984, when I was fifteen going on sixteen. In the intervening years, I had never revisitedthe book. (I did see the 1983 film adaptation starring Christopher Walken. While this was a valiant effort on Hollywood’s part, the movie simply didn’t capture the essence of the complex, multilayered source material of the novel.)
‘The Dead Zone’: an experiment in rereading
I decided in December 2024 that forty years was enough time to wait between readings of The Dead Zone. I therefore gave the book another reading. While I remembered most of the major plot points, I had forgotten enough that the book was “fresh” in my rereading.
I also did this as an experiment of sorts. I have been disappointed by Stephen King’s recent novels. Last year I plodded my way through the meandering Fairy Tale (2022), and I struggled to finish it. I was glad when Fairy Tale was over. I nearly gave up on The Outsider (2018) and Doctor Sleep (2013). I did give up on Cell (2006), Under the Dome (2009), and Lisey’s Story (2006), abandoning all three books midway through.
And yet, I recalled loving Stephen King’s early novels so much. Seemingly everything published under his name between 1974 and 1983 was pure gold. Carrie, The Shining, Cujo, The Stand…I had gone through all of those books like a hot knife through butter. And that was back when I had the distracted mind of a teenager.
I wondered if my tastes had changed, or maybe matured. For example, I still enjoy the music of the Canadian rock group Rush. But I have backed off from my teenage assertions that Neil Peart’s lyrics are absolutely brilliant, a complete system of philosophy set to music.
The fifty-something eye can simply not see the world through the teenage lens. Therefore, a rereading of The Dead Zone would be a worthwhile test. Had Stephen King changed? Or had I changed?
‘The Dead Zone’: not quite a horror novel
The Dead Zone is the story of Johnny Smith, a Maine English teacher who emerges from a car accident and a four-year coma with psychic powers. Not long after his awakening, Smith discovers that he has an important mission to perform, one involving an act of political violence. But in committing this one act, Smith will literally save the world.
Although there is a serial murderer subplot, The Dead Zone is not a horror novel in the conventional sense. If Stephen King hadn’t written it, The Dead Zone would have been shelved in the science fiction section. The Dead Zone reminds me of something the late Michael Crichton would have written.
So what did I think? Forty years later, I will tell you the same thing I would have told you in 1984: The Dead Zone is an absolutely brilliant novel. I enjoyed The Dead Zone just as much as a 56-year-old as I did at the age of not-quite-sixteen. In fact, I enjoyed it more, because there were some layers and references that went over my head forty years ago, that I appreciated this time around.
The power of narrative drive
Why is The Dead Zone such a good novel? The premise? Well, yes, the premise is an intriguing one. But Stephen King, in the early years, made magic with vampires in ’Salem’s Lot, his second novel. Vampires were hardly original by the time ’Salem’s Lot was published in 1975. Bram Stoker had already done them seventy-eight years earlier.
The Dead Zone has a compelling premise and strong central characters. More than that, though, The Dead Zone has a strong narrative drive. Although by no means a short book, there is not a single wasted scene in The Dead Zone. There are no meandering subplots.
The problem of the Frankenstory
Fairy Tale, by contrast, is what I would call a Frankenstory. It lacks a coherent wholeness. If you read the book, you’ll find that it is actually two novels in one. There is the “in-this-world” story that comes in the first half of the book. And then there is the portal fantasy.
Or, no…that isn’t exactly right. It would be more accurate to say that Stephen King devotes a full novel’s worth of space setting up the main story premise in Fairy Tale.
I first noticed that Stephen King’s style had changed back in 1986, when I read It. Whereas before his novels and stories had moved along a straight narrative throughline, now they meandered to and fro.
What else makes a novel a Frankenstory? A story with too many characters, especially point-of-view characters. (This is a particularly pernicious trap for many fantasy authors.)
***
Anyway, I very much enjoyed my reread of The Dead Zone. The book really is that good. I recommend it for those who would like to read Stephen King at the top of his game.
Zoe.languages is one of the language YouTubers whom I like. Below she speaks about her language learning goals for 2025.
What about me, you ask? I love learning foreign languages, and could easily spend all my time doing so. But for me, learning languages (especially new ones) is now a sideline.
My goals for 2025, therefore, will be somewhat limited:
Maintain my Japanese and Spanish
Become more articulate in Mandarin
Become fully proficient in Russian and German
I.e., I’ll be focusing on five languages this year, four of which I already speak and understand to a significant degree.
I am sorely tempted to take on Polish, Korean, and Arabic, too. But these are three difficult languages that would require more time than I can justify at present.
In the past I have studied French, Italian, and Portuguese. I may pick French back up near the end of this year. We’ll see. As for Italian and Portuguese: they are so similar to Spanish that I tend to mix them up, when I’m not spending a lot of time in a Spanish-speaking environment (as I’m not doing now).
