Why I Hate The Oldies

There’s another “Oldies” station in town with a pretty good playlist of nostalgia from the fifties, sixties and seventies. In the morning they play The Beach Boys, Ronnie and the Daytonas, Jan and Dean. American West Coast Beach Tunes to start your day. They’re also rotating plenty of British Invasion, Psychedelic and Rock Anthems. All of it is familiar and moderately enjoyable. Of course, there are a few duds, but generally the music is a way to endure the six-mile drive into town. Oldies.

I fucking hate Oldies Music. Nostalgia and Sentiment are stalkers, killers and thieves that lie dormant in my cerebral database, waiting for me to let down my guard, watching as I tap out the beat on the steering wheel and (god help me) sing along while trying to remember what I was doing, who I was with; suddenly it’s 1962, 1967, 1975 and I’m craving beer and I’m driving too fast. There are girl groups wailing about a sick, enmeshed, dangerous love for some greasy dirtbag. DooWop music and young men singing perfect harmonies, vocalizing illiterate sounds (dit dit dit, mumm, mumm, mumm) to fill space between the stupidity, women-fear and codependence.  Plenty of talent, but limited subject matter. Love, loss, sadness, anger; repeat.

I try not to get hooked but from the first Chord of “She Loves You” I’m back in Fairfax, California, watching the Ed Sullivan Show, sitting next to my girlfriend, my hand creeping into her unbuttoned blouse.

The insistent bass line from “My Little Red Book” by Arthur Lee and Love; I’m digging in the glove compartment for a half finished bottle of Canadian Club, driving my wasted ragtop Corvair deep into Oakland to take LSD for the first time.

I listened to the radio all night at Long’s Drugstore where I worked as a janitor during an unusually hot Northern California Summer while I waited for college to start, again, after I’d flunked out. Again

The bar, Jean’s Bit o’ Bohemia, closed at 2 a.m. and I pulled up in front of the store a few minutes later. I fumbled an alien key into the complicated security lock and tried to get inside the store within the allotted time. If the door was opened for more than 2 minutes a siren went off and lights would flash until the cops showed up. This was to prevent theft, but it also made it difficult for a doped up, half drunk janitor to get to work.

Work. On the Lob. Earning my Living. When I finally got the goddamn door closed and heard the lock snap into place, the first thing I did was patrol the store to make sure I was alone and that there weren’t any ambitious stragglers.

Long’s Drugs was a full service outlet, but there were some areas that were definitely off limits. The Pharmacy, for one. Locked, coded, seriously alarmed. No way. Expensive fountain pens and jewelry, rubbers, power tools were also under heavy lock and key.

 Once satisfied that I had the kingdom to myself, I hit the cooler. Coke, Wine, and Beer inventories were strictly controlled. The only thing they couldn’t keep track of, due to daily theft by alcoholic senior citizens and high school kids, were the crappy canned cocktails. Mai Tais, Pina Coladas, Martinis and Manhattans. They were like novelty items and not designed for people who drink. The stubby little cans of sweetened mixers had only about 30 percent alcohol, but I knew from eavesdropping on administrative conversations that they were nearly impossible to keep track of. I grabbed a half dozen, took them to the back of the store, arranged them on a shelf.

Next I found a comfy poolside lounge chair. I set it up in the Women’s Break Room. The women had their own break room and I thought this was unfair so I used it as my private space, my nightly vacation accommodations. In the interest of fairness and gender equality.

I’d grab a Science Fiction novel off of the book display, Theodore Sturgeon or Alfred Bester. The Sunlamps were boxed and neatly arranged on the Health and Hygiene aisle. I carefully arranged one over my recliner in the woman’s lounge, turned the artificial sunlight to “Low” for a nice bronze, then I’d strip and pop open a canned Martini. Wretched, but cool and alcoholic. Finally, naked, I’d power up one of the stereo systems in the Home Entertainment section and lie down for the first half of my shift.

The station in San Francisco that played the best music was KMPX. Hendrix, The Who, The Doors, Airplane, 10 Years After. Not Oldies, either. Then it was all New music, music no one had ever heard before, not nostalgia but groundbreaking, world changing stuff, shattering reality and illusions, great guitars, intelligent lyrics, really long drum solos; poetry, politics and pain.

A few hours later, toasted, coming down off of too many chemical cocktails, I’d spring out of my reverie, dress, put away the lounge chair and sunlamp, toss my empties in the trash compactor, return the books to the rack. Arnie, asskisser and over achieving Assistant Manager, showed up around 7 a.m. so I made sure to be fully clothed and busily emptying ashtrays and mopping floors, toting garbage and washing windows. He’d grunt, “Hello”, check the store for cleanliness, eye me with suspicion and lock himself in his office until the store’s ten o’clock opening, at which time I would punch out and go home, exhausted, to try and sleep in 100 degree heat, miserable, sporadically unconscious throughout the day, missing sun, fun, movies, drive-ins, my buddies and my girlfriend. All the stuff that I keep hearing on the goddamned Oldies station. Things others were doing while I goldbricked at Longs and later tossed and turned in a hot room, awake, sweaty, sick.

Today I listen to Avant Garde Jazz, 20^th Century Contemporary, and Nouveau Soul. Modern music. Newies, with no history. I don’t want to be reminded of the good old days of bad jobs, confusion, heartbreak and hangovers and all of the horrible good times that I never experienced. I hate the “Oldies”; memories of an unpleasant summer and another shitty job. I maintained a pretty good tan, though, for a guy who worked nights and slept all day.