Closet Monkey

I'm sitting in my office right now, which is really a closet--converted into prime office space in the PaNaMa household. See, the kid got my big office, and so I was relegated to the back--or, the front of the house, since the smallish window in my office nee closet faces the street.

It's not such a bad little office. After all, it fits my desk--formerly a butcher block dining table that comfortably seats six. It was from the first marriage, this table. And anything from the first marriage stays either in boxes or in my office, away from the second marriage. Aside from the dog, of course, before he died. Fair's fair.

I like this space because it's quiet up here and I can write and not hear Mr. Na's shrill cries from below. So I have a lot of privacy and I can write about anything I want and listen to music really, really loud without disturbing anyone.

Which brings me to tonight's topic--music--since I'm listening to Rhapsody right now and I've created a new playlist which I love, love, love. It's not new music, it's old, old, OLD music. Music I grew up with--having to listen to it because either my mother, my sister or my brother was into it at the time. Or it was music that was on the radio during the 70s.

My brother, being the oldest sibling, was the trendsetter of the family. He loved everything synthesized, and I can remember the costume he wore to the Rick Wakeman Halloween concert at Madison Square Garden. I think it was the glittery Christmas tree blanket that he wore for a cape. Since he played his music on the family's quadrophonic stereo, I was introduced to the likes of Emerson, Lake and Palmer and Pink Floyd; and then he got my sister hooked on Todd Rundgren and Utopia.

When I was little, I had a radio in my bedroom, but it only played AM. So I can remember listening to WABC and WNBC out of New York City and those two stations played Top 40 hits like "Love the One You're With" and "Brandy". My mom, on the other hand, had the prime AM/FM radio in her bedroom and her dial was fixed to WPLJ ("White Port and Lemon Juice") which, at the time, played hard rock. Later, her boyfriend bought her an Audiovox FM receiver for her Camaro (she had a 1970 Rally Sport) and so wherever we went, I heard Led Zepplin, The Rolling Stones, and Steely Dan.

Sometime in the late 70s, my mom's taste changed. She traded her Camaro for a Cougar and her radio dial drifted to the right a little bit, until it landed on WYNY (somehow, she bypassed the whole Disco thing...) which played mostly soft hits from Air Supply and Barry Manilow. And if that wasn't enough, Dr. Ruth Westheimer had her very own show on Sunday afternoons--so I got to learn about "really good sex" from a woman with a German accent thicker than my mom's.

It seemed like everyone from my little suburban hamlet was switching over to softer hits because as my friends' sisters got older and started driving, I heard England Dan and John Ford Coley more than Deep Purple. Not my sister, though. She went the opposite direction and became a Dead-Head.

The very first record I bought was Steve Miller's Fly Like an Eagle and the second one was Pink Floyd's Animals. So I was kind of all over the map, but I tended to stay in the mainstream. I can remember my first Columbia House order--you know, the one where you tape a penny to the order form. It included Peter Frampton's I'm in You, Al Stewart's The Year of The Cat, Barry Manilow's Trying to Get That Feeling and Band on the Run from Paul McCartney and Wings.

Later, I had Meat Loaf's Bat Out Of Hell which was a big hit for me in fourth grade and my neighbor made me a tape of Fleetwood Mac's Rumours album. It was a crappy little Apex tape with psychadelic colors on the label and it broke after 6 months of listening to it day after day. That summer, disco lit up the New York skyline, so of course, I had the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack but I also bought a copy of Cheap Trick's Live at Budokan. A year later, it was Grease; a year after that, my brother's return from California in a bright red Karmann Ghia with his copy of Supertramp's Breakfast in America. And finally, the 80s happened and I was introduced to an entirely new style of music thanks, in part, to an older cousin who had The Police, Squeeze and Split Enz.

But sometimes I can't help but want to dig into the oldies and so tonight, I've created a playlist called "FM". It's a smattering of everything I heard and that seemed to stick inside my head all these years. The only addition, which was Pa's suggestion, was Rush's Limelight. For me, that was Freshman year of high school when my friend Gina was a full-on Rush fanatic.

Here's what's on:

Take it on the Run - REO Speedwagon
Give a Little Bit - Supertramp
Stone in Love - Journey
Isn't She Lovely - Stevie Wonder
Turn It On Again - Genesis
Story in Your Eyes - The Moody Blues
Long Distance Runaround - Yes
Limelight - Rush
Feels Like The First Time - Foreigner
Do You Feel Like I Do? - Peter Frampton
FM - Steely Dan
Crazy On You - Heart
You Make Loving Fun - Fleetwood Mac
All Right Now - Free
Time - Pink Floyd
Don't Fear The Reaper - Blue Oyster Cult
Cinnamon Girl - Neil Young
Sympathy For The Devil - The Rolling Stones
Thunder Road - Bruce Springsteen
Trilogy - Emerson, Lake and Palmer
We Gotta Get You A Woman - Todd Rundgren
I Can't Explain - The Who