In the car with dad, me driving, him riding shotgun. I was driving carefully through busy freeway traffic, navigating west on the Banfield on our way to a doctor’s appointment for him.
My Happy playlist was on shuffle, volume low, but I caught the opening chords of a driving buzzing guitar riff, and John Roderick’s warm, dynamic, resonant voice sang
“American schools called you Starlight
in fourteen point type
Ten times ten, and then
your most brutal-ful smile”
and I couldn’t help but turn the volume up and try to sing along. My voice, ravaged by a persistent cough and allergies, couldn’t keep up even at my best, but I did nod my head along to the beat.
Dad, his neck artificially stiffened with the metal rods the surgeons used to repair his broken spine, looked over at me from the corner of his eye, his head turning like Batman, from the shoulders. Dad’s mouth turned into a little smile.
“I,” I said, “have such… complicated feelings about this song.”
Dad’s eyebrow crooked a question at me that I could feel even though my eyes were fixed forward out the windshield. The wipers intermittently wiped away droplets of rain, squeaking just over the music.
“I don’t imagine you’ve ever heard of The Long Winters, but they are basically John Roderick. I’m pretty sure this whole album was written and performed by him, maybe with some session players from Seattle. I first heard him play as an opening act for another band I love.”
Long pause as the memories of standing at the edge of the stage of the Aladdin Theater, next to the speakers, listening to John Roderick and Sean Nelson from Harvey Danger, performing together. And at my side, she leaned into me, softly singing along. I felt her tiny but strong body fit perfectly against mine, my arm around her lower back.
“It was an early date with… Deb.” Or as my friends at the time called her, Devil. I scoured my memory. I don’t think Deb ever met any of my family. That had actually been a red flag. “You never met her, but Deb and I had one of those hot-and-cold relationships. We were either madly in love, or hated each others’ guts. And since we discovered The Long Winters together, when he sings about the New Girl, I can only think of Deb.”
“You erased so many mistakes
By sitting up and smiling
Your solo show
I hope it never closes
It was the ride of my life
Twice, you burned your life’s work
Once to start a new life
And once just to start a fire”
I laughed, loudly, suddenly, in the car. I gestured with a free hand, palm down, showing one level, then moving my hand up to cut a higher level. “And then, on top of all of that, there’s the whole Bean Dad thing.” I laughed again, feeling dad’s confusion at the reference.
“I don’t know what that means,” he said, finally.
“I know, I know! Sorry. So several years ago, John Roderick got canceled on Twitter for making a dumb joke about making his daughter cook some beans. He was trying to be funny, to play a character, the mean dad who makes his child do something hard to teach her a lesson, and it did not go over well. He got pushback, and instead of just saying he was exagerating, he doubled down and pushed back even harder. Eventually he deleted his Twitter account, stopped making his podcasts, and the Kids Online called him Bean Dad. It was silly and stupid.”
“If my nephew or neice were in the car right now and this song came on, they would have their own reaction to this, probably a very negative reaction. But damn, if I don’t love their music.”
So many complicated feelings in one song. And despite my attempt at explanation, I was quite certain dad had not even the slightest idea what I was talking about.
We drove over the ramp from the Banfield onto I-205 South, in the gray Friday rain.
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