There Are Places I Remember

By Michael Frank

Every one of us have watched television shows, movies and listened to our favorite songs but how many of us have wondered how theyve affected and influenced us? Do we still have a fondness for the mediums we enjoyed as a child or do we outgrow the past? As an adult, is it easier or harder to accept the past or embrace the future?

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Sep 12, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524638818

Michael Frank

Michael Frank is the author of What Is Missing, a novel, and The Mighty Franks, a memoir, which was awarded the 2018 JQ Wingate Prize and was named one of the best books of the year by The Telegraph and The New Statesman. His essays, articles, and short stories have appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic, Slate, The Yale Review, Salmagundi, The TLS, Tablet, and other publications. The recipient of a 2020 Guggenheim Fellowship, he lives with his family in New York City and Camogli, Italy.

Book preview

THERE ARE PLACES

I REMEMBER

MICHAEL FRANK

40850.png

AuthorHouse™

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

Phone: [phone]

© 2016 Michael Frank. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 10/05/2016

ISBN: 978-1-5246-3882-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-3880-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-3881-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016914840

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1 Music

Chapter 2 Television

Chapter 3 Movies

Chapter 4

Chapter 5 The Pictures

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Epilogue

To My Parents,

Who have always given me an endless supply of love and support. Thank you.

To Allyson,

The guiding light in my life, thank you for your unconditional love. You are my rock.

To Madison,

May this book remind you what was once good and could be again. I couldn’t be prouder.

And to each of you, I love you more than words and actions can say.

PROLOGUE

O ne of my favorite episodes of any television show was Walking Distance from Season 1 of The Twilight Zone . In it, ad executive Martin Sloan (Gig Young), worn down by life, pulls in to a gas station to get gas and to have someone check under the hood. He sees he is only a short distance from his hometown and decides to walk there to kill some time. Seeing nothing has changed, he stops in to the old confectionary he remembers and orders his usual chocolate soda with three scoops – and it still only cost him a dime. Taking a stroll around town, he is stopped dead in his tracks when he sees himself as a young boy.

We the viewer know that Sloan has unwittingly traveled back in time but The Twilight Zone was always a show ahead of the curve. There was always something more than the obvious and this was no exception. We all want to go home again, don’t we? We all can’t wait to grow up and when we finally do, we’d give anything for just one day to relive our youth. I think adults have probably felt that way for hundreds of years.

In the episode’s climax, Sloan argues with his younger self but to no avail. As he sees the boy run away, he says, I just wanted to tell you there are no merry go rounds and band concerts. See, for Martin Sloan, life has been one long work week. He misses those times and we sympathize with him. The last scene, however, is of his father, Mr. Sloan, who says to the older Martin that there are in fact, merry go rounds and band concerts to be found. You just have to know where to look. There is no shame in looking back, but good times also lay ahead. The theme being, happiness or even life itself, is what you make of it.

I guess I could have started this book a hundred different ways but I started by referencing this particular episode because it encompasses what the book is about. While I have been known to reminisce about the past, I can’t help but feel a lot of it has made me who I am today. Like Martin Sloan, I have felt at times life has been one long work week, but I have also found joy in my work as well as my family.

While I admit I am still having some trouble wrapping my head around some of today’s culture, that doesn’t mean I can’t go back and dissect my own childhood and how I have come to love the mediums I love. So, what is this book about precisely and what does it contain? Well, there are countdowns as I grew up on them as I will explain but more importantly, it’s about change and influence. More specifically, how music, television, and movies have changed over the years and how some, not all, have had an influence on me. Years from now I hope this book could even be used as a reference guide of sorts for Madison, the beautiful light in my life. She will be able to read and understand how I came to like certain subjects and what things were like before her time.

Time. It’s funny, isn’t it?

We all grow up in a certain time and era and in a way we are forever frozen in that place. We grow up thinking everything will always be the same, but it never is. Nothing lasts forever. We are not only a constantly changing society, but a constantly changing world whether we like it or not. From the time I was in college to the publication of this book, I find I am, figuratively speaking, living in a completely different world; one that is almost foreign to me at times especially when you compare what things were like when I was a kid.

A cell phone? What’s a cell phone, I would have said years ago. Twitter? Buying clothes online? What does online even mean? Reading a book that I don’t actually hold? Watching a sports team on my television other than New York? How is that possible? Of course these are minute examples of things many of us would never even dream of years ago. That’s why we are so attached to our surroundings growing up whether it’s a song, a friend, a store, even a neighborhood. They’re all familiar; they’re dependable and we think they’ll always be there for us like an imaginary friend.

Still, we grow up, learn and evolve but we never really leave behind what makes us who we are. We absorb the information, but it is never shed. Unlike the way Martin Sloan’s story is told, this isn’t so much about wanting to go back as it is a tale of how I got here. In order to do so, I must start from the beginning.

Growing up as a kid in the 1980s was a great time to be alive. You had great music and classic movies not to mention shows and the invention of cable television. It was a decade also known for everything from their wild styles and the very first computers to the birth of the video game console, Atari. Most kids including myself were seen playing outside and riding their bikes across town. We were only inside when dinner was ready and it was time to go to bed. There was very little to complain about growing up.

One of the things I mentioned a few paragraphs back was that this book contains countdowns. What do countdowns have to do with writing a book about your past? It has everything to do with it. I love countdowns. Can’t get enough of them. Whether I was watching Dial MTV, listening every Saturday morning to American Top 40 with Casey Kasem or just reading The Bible of Music Charts, Billboard Magazine, countdowns were my life. When I was a kid, I listened to the radio like everyone else and had my share of favorite songs. I used to argue and be mad at Billboard if a song I liked never went as high as a song I didn’t like. I, of course, didn’t blame it on the consumer, I blamed it on the magazine. Who actually makes up these charts, anyhow? I asked as if someone was listening. So in response, I started to write down my own personal Top 10 songs each week (Ah ha, take that Billboard)! It was around this time my cousin Steve was doing the same thing as we sent letters to each other dissecting our lists. We were becoming critics before we even knew what the word meant.

That, of course, was years ago but I still get a kick out of those lists even though I know not to take any of them seriously. That’s why lists and countdowns you see on such channels as VH1 and read about in magazines such as Entertainment Weekly are nonsense. The Top 100 One Hit Wonders, The 100 Hottest Women, The 100 Greatest Songs of the 1980s, The Top 100 Television Characters of All-Time. It’s all a matter of perspective; of opinion. It’s bullshit but it’s fascinating bullshit.

VH1, you say Living on a Prayer was the biggest hit of the 1980s? I say not so fast. Anyone who knows anything about music knows it was easily Physical by Olivia Newton-John but for today’s standards, it’s not sexy enough to say that. As big as a hit as Physical was, no one today heard or remembers the song. That’s why Living on a Prayer by Bon Jovi, which still gets radio play and still resonates with people, is considered tops even though the song itself was Number 1 for four weeks, compared to Physical, which was Number 1 for ten weeks. A lot of this is due to social media, which as we all know started with the invention of the Internet. There, everyone is a critic and has an opinion so I thought, why not me? I’ve been making such lists myself for forever it seemed. I think the reason why I’m addicted to such shows and countdowns is not only am I curious where people come up with their criteria for such lists, but how close does it resemble the list I would have made. At first I thought who is voting and why? Then I found out there is no strategy or criteria when compiling these countdowns. They don’t go by how the songs originally charted on Billboard. Various second-rate celebrities and pundits are asked to weigh in and they go from there. I know that now but I don’t mind. See, it’s not so much that I love controversy, as much I do great conversation and these lists, for as inaccurate as they are, are great conversation starters.

The thing is, to have a great conversation with someone, you need someone who knows what they’re talking about. Otherwise, you’ll just be talking with someone who nods the whole night. Sure I can have an intelligent, in-depth conversation with my wife or parents and a lot of other people for that matter, but there is also a large sum of people not so much and the reason for that is most people I find only know of today. They don’t know or can’t relate to something that happened yesterday.

A lot of people like to compare different eras and generations. I’m one of them because I am now old enough to have lived through multiple decades and see the changes for myself however constructive or destructive I feel they are. I’m also aware, however, that constantly comparing can be a double edged sword. The trouble with comparing is there are always different variables that one era had that the other didn’t and who knows what they would have made or accomplished with certain instruments and technologies. If you’re talking movies, you’d probably prefer to go with how films we’re made years ago. If you’re talking medical technology, you’d much rather go with today.

You see, the problem with a lot of people today and I’m really talking about the media here is a lot of them have no idea what they’re talking about. If you’re going to make a list – any list – or countdown, you need to know history and the problem today is a lot of these reporters and writers have seen nothing beyond their generation. Yes, they know the classics but they’ve never seen anything besides those. Case in point and my favorite punching bag – The Hollywood Reporter (THR). Now I bet THR thinks of itself as a prestigious publication but how can anyone take them seriously when they put out an article like they did on March 25 of this year?

That week there was an article, The Ten Best Musician Biographies by Stephen Dalton. Before I even clicked on the article, I knew there wasn’t going to be one film before 1980 and unfortunately, I was right. Not bad choices mind you but there were so many better musical biographies that to start even naming them all would be senseless. Didn’t Mr. Dalton realize that or perhaps he just never saw them? Perhaps he just wanted to cater to a newer and hip audience? And if you watch enough shows or read enough magazines, you will find there are plenty of articles like that. I’m not stating Mr. Dalton is a bad critic but he also doesn’t know what he’s saying when he writes such an article. That’s why in this day and age, it is so rare to find someone – critic or not–who knows what their talking about (depending on the subject) and is passionate on top of it.

I feel I’m a passionate individual and I say that because I know if I’m going to talk about something, I better make sure I know what I’m talking about. It’s like being a salesman. You have to know your product inside out before you make a sale. Even if you disagree with me, at least you know what you’re talking about as well and we can have an intelligent, thought-provoking conversation. I talk about these songs and shows and movies because I have lived through the eras, I have seen the shows and watched more movies than I can count. I’ve read books by professional critics and historians on the subjects and listened to many who were there when I wasn’t including my parents. I was always absorbing information to write a book such as this and that’s what makes it worthwhile. The book may initially be about me but you see how I grew, what I experienced and how I came to have the interests and opinions I do. That’s why I said the hell with it and wanted to give you everything I can. Aside from the three mediums, I wanted to give you what I felt were the worst movies that I had ever seen along with random subjects such as my favorite and most memorable restaurants. I list it all and why? Why not. I have nothing to hide and give each subject a full discussion as to how and why I came to my decisions. I loved music even before I had an appreciation for movies. Instead of talking movies first, which we’ll get to later, I’m going to discuss music and all my thoughts as to what made the ’80s music scene so good and how it got lost along the way.

Speaking of ’80s music, I was in my house on April 21 of this year watching an afternoon game between the Seattle Mariners and Cleveland Indians when analyst Dave Sims informs me Prince has just died. Prince? Prince Fielder? Prince William? Prince Who I thought. Is he serious? When did this happen?

It seems death was in the airwaves.

As far as Top 40 hits, Prince was one of the Top 5 artists of the 1980s. Love him or hate him, there’s really no arguing that. Now I thought he was an alright musician, nothing special. He had some good songs but nothing was ever my favorite. I acknowledged he had a presence on the charts and had five No. 1 songs, which is impressive for any artist. Still, when Mr. Sims informed me he had passed, I didn’t think anything of it. I wasn’t shocked or blown away or visibly distraught. I think a wow escaped my lips and then I went back to the game. The media however was another story. You would have thought he was as big as The Beatles or Elvis Presley. Sorry, but it wasn’t so. Not even close.

Late night talk show hosts dedicated shows to him and his music, while digging up old interviews and videos. Even late night talk show host Jimmy Fallon started to actually choke up when talking about him as if Prince was his brother. This I don’t get. Growing up, my favorite band was Def Leppard and if I found out today lead vocalist Joe Elliot had died, you wouldn’t see me bawling my eyes out. I’d say that’s officially the end of Def Leppard and that was that. I don’t know if I’d even be sad about it. I didn’t know the guy personally and even so, the music of Def Leppard or any music act for that matter derived from a certain time and place, which has since sailed out to sea. It should be like when I heard about Whitney Houston’s death.

I was driving back from work one night listening to WPDH, a classic rock station, mind you, when after a song finished the DJ said, This just in. Whitney Houston has died. Details are forthcoming and we’ll tell you more when they come across. Now here’s some Aerosmith. Even though it was a rock station, he and I’m sure others weren’t beside themselves. Whitney Houston in her heyday was one of the biggest artists in the world and was one of my favorite artists when I was kid. All she had was one number one song after another and most of them were pretty darn good. To this day, I still say she has the greatest voice I have ever heard. Her octave range was off the charts but I wasn’t sad or shocked when she died either. After she married Bobby Brown, her life as well as career took a nosedive as she got heavily involved with drugs. As sad as it is to say, it was just a matter of time. What else could I say? It’s unfortunate? A tragedy?

Now as I’m writing this I don’t know if Prince was involved with drugs or not although I wouldn’t be surprised. Why is everyone so shocked when rock stars die of some combination of drugs and overdoses? Obviously it’s part of the lifestyle but don’t they ever learn their lesson? From what I read, he did seem like a private fellow but the one thing that puzzles me about his death is not how or why he died but the outpouring of grief years after he remained relevant. Prince may have been a great performer then but that doesn’t mean I should cry for him now. I could see and understand the sorrow and grief had he passed away in 1989 or even 1999 but the man hadn’t been heard of in years. And yes, I know he performed supposedly a kick ass show at the 2007 Super Bowl (I don’t know, I was working) but it was a rehash of his hits from three decades earlier. Prince’s last song to crack the Top 40 was I Hate U, which reached No. 12 in 1995, a song I don’t even remember. So as far as his death is concerned, you have a guy who the