Page 15 - My FlipBook 1

Forever grasping at the past as life sped into the future. tent that was fun and familiar. More
Now that I’m older, I realize the song is almost defi- than a third of us reported watching
nitely about anal. But my youthful interpretation of BOWL OF CAP’N CRUNCH. things we’d already seen. We wanted
it has proved to be true: In times of stress, when the a laugh, but more than anything, we
pressures of the present are too much to bear, I do THE MENTAL-HEALTH BENEFIT OF A Rule No. 287 NEVER UNDERESTIMATE needed to be sure of an ending. Young
find myself lookin’ for the good stuff, which requires As the weeks stretched on, some Again
a little backstrokin’ to the television, movies, and of us found ourselves digging a little
music of the 1970s and ’80s, a time when things were, deeper. In my experience, when
if not less complicated, then at least complicated for you’ve been in the same sweatpants Back in 1974, Neil Young
someone else. And now that we’re living with the for three days, things like “following recorded what his label
trauma of a pandemic, I see that we’re reaching back a story arc” become an unnecessary was absolutely sure would
to old comforts, via Netflix, Hulu, and YouTube. strain. I programmed the destination be an album stacked with
We’ve been spending these endless days and nights coordinates on my Quarantine Time hits. Young was certainly
in the Quarantine Time Machine, and though I have Machine to a more remote time and in the market for a few—
no idea what the world is going to look like when this space: old game shows. There is a Time Fades Away and On
issue comes out, I’d bet dollars to grocery-store-brand network called Buzzr that has immediately become the Beach, his two pre-
doughnuts that the future you is still time-traveling. indispensable; it offers a 24/7 stream of game shows vious LPs, hadn’t fared
It didn’t start this way. As COVID-19 spread through from throughout TV history, particularly the ’70s well with fans. But Home-
the country, we lost access to our go-to self-soothing through the ’90s. It’s a freer, more day-drunk world grown, a de facto musi-
tool of “being outside of our homes” and wound up on Buzzr, as Brett Somers and Charles Nelson Reilly cal companion to 1972’s
craving a shared cultural escape. So we turned to smoke and spar on Match Game. It’s a more joyous behemoth Harvest written
Netflix’s Tiger King, in numbers that eclipsed the view- place to spend your time, as couples in matching in the wake of his break-
ership for even Stranger Things. It was good for about sweatshirts sprint toward the fish sticks on Super- up with girlfriend Carrie
one week, before we understood there was nobody market Sweep. It calls to mind the more pleasant Snodgress, was never re-
to root for, and that animal cruelty is hard to watch aspects of being home sick from school, and the leased—until now. “It was a
even if the guy doing it is wearing sequins in the day- stakes are low enough to keep your blood pressure little too personal,” Young
time. We crazy cats and kittens said, “No, thank you.” from spiking; the dollar amounts are small but still said in 1975 of the decision
The Golden Age of Television has been studded larger than a government stimulus check. in an interview with Rolling
with antiheroes: Frank Underwood, Walter White, I don’t know when I’ll be able to go to a concert Stone. “It scared me.” He
the nameless character at the heart of Fleabag. But again, but in the meantime, I’ve let the Quarantine echoed the sentiment re-
this was a time for . . . pro-heroes. A time for comfort Time Machine book me tickets to some great ones. cently as he announced
and stability. We needed an escape to a simpler place, In the Before Times, the quickest way to make an the plan for the legendary
and since we couldn’t move our bodies anywhere, enemy of me was to go to any rock show I was at, be work to emerge: “It’s the
in my house, that place was Cheers. Its familiar multi- anywhere in my eyeline, pull out your iPhone, and sad side of a love affair. The
camera rhythms gave our nights some stability, the start capturing video. For more than a decade, I have damage done. The heart-
peerless writing brought laughter back into our lives, quietly stewed at these people. “When are you going ache. I just couldn’t listen
and it was uplifting to watch people perform an ide- to watch this?” I would scream—internally. to it. I wanted to move on.”
alized version of what we were all doing, i.e., slowly It took a safer-at-home order to make me see the Seven of the 12 songs had
drinking ourselves to death in a single room. We truth: These kind strangers were filming it for me. never been released be-
didn’t have any answers about our basic safety, but Do as I have done: Search YouTube for your favorite fore in any studio album,
we knew the problem of the week would be wrapped artists, scroll on past the official videos, and there including “Separate Ways,”
up for Sam and Diane within 22 commercial-free min- a pedal-steel-laden lament
DESIGNS STOCK/SHUTTERSTOCK (ICE CREAM). EYEEM/GETTY IMAGES (REMOTE).
utes, and in the moment, that was enough. for the lonely, and the dev-
The movies of 2020 are sitting on shelves and will WE NEEDED AN ESCAPE TO A astating “Try,” which adapts
be for who knows how long, but in the meantime, some of Snodgress’s actual
there are hundreds of hours of old sitcoms waiting SIMPLER PLACE. IN MY HOUSE, phrases into lyrics. And as
to be rediscovered: Taxi, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, THAT PLACE WAS CHEERS. has long been rumored,
The Bob Newhart Show. Living in the past is generally the record features both
frowned upon, but when the present is this rotten, the Band’s Levon Helm
it’s pretty much your only option. Given the choice they are—videos of shows you missed because you and Dr. John acolyte Karl
between it and another information-deficient press didn’t happen to live in Kansas City in 2011. Thanks T. Himmel on drums, plus
briefing, I will throw myself into the Quarantine Time to being homebound, I’ve been to a Frank Turner Emmylou Harris on back-
Machine any day. I know this, because I have. festival show in Holland in 2019 and a Jason Falkner ing vocals. All the tracks
Media-research company Magid found that media gig in a Tokyo basement restaurant in 2016, all from were painstakingly mas-
consumption has increased in the past few months— the comfort of the home I am forbidden to leave. tered to vinyl from the
findings that were published in the trade journal The world is in chaos. I don’t know who I’m going original analog tapes. To
Yeah, No Kidding—but also that the kind of media to be when you read this. But I do know this: The listen to them is to finally
we’ve been looking for has changed. At the begin- past—as packaged into sitcoms, game shows, and hear one of the necessary
ning of the year, we sought out shows that were new bootlegged concerts—is exactly as it was, and it feels building blocks of one of
and thrilling: a Jack Ryan, an Ozark. But the dawn of much better. American music’s finest
the COVID-19 era saw an increase in searches for con- Tighten up on your backstroke. The water’s warm. catalogs. —Madison Vain

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