Grease is NOT the Word
Starting junior high with the summer's biggest film musical ringing in my ears
Greetings, Jagged Time Lapsers!
I’m hoping that this Harvest Moon finds you well, and that you have a great weekend in store for you.
Back when I first launched this Substack, a little over a year ago, I wrote the following:
For about five or six years now, I’ve also been toying with the idea of a musical memoir of my adolescence — a turbulent and confusing period in which my life and sanity were truly, to paraphrase Lou Reed, saved by rock and roll (and AM radio pop, and disco, and new wave, and heavy metal, etc.). I’ve already penned a few chapters for the book, but I need a kick in the ass to get going again, and I think launching this Substack will definitely give me one.
Launching this Substack has indeed kicked my ass into gear, and so far I’ve penned a bunch of new chapters — including ones on the first album I ever bought, why a Jimmy Buffett song was among my first 45s, and the first concert I ever paid my own money to see — all of which can be found (along with 100+ other entertaining and informative posts inspired by the power of music) in the JTL archives. These particular memoir chapters are only available for my paid subscribers, however; I’m hoping that the quality of my writing, the stories I’m telling and the ‘70s flashbacks they engender will inspire you to drop five bucks a month (or a mere $4.17, if you pony up for a 12-month subscription) into the Jagged Time Lapse tip jar.
But there are other good reasons to fork over for a paid Jagged Time Lapse subscription, as well. I’ve just celebrated my 30th anniversary as a professional music journalist, which means that I have amassed a fairly bottomless well of stories and interviews (many of which have never been printed in their entirety) in the course of my adventures, covering the gamut from soul and psychedelia to punk, heavy metal, classic rock and beyond. These are the kind of stories I’d tell you if we were out having a beer together; and hey, a monthly JTL subscription actually costs less than buying me a pint at most watering holes these days, so that’s some serious value right there. You don’t even need to pay for gas or bus fare to get to the bar!
But wait — there’s more! I’m currently in the process of launching a new podcast with a dear friend and fellow veteran music journalist, and those podcast episodes will only be available in their full-length form for my (or his) paid subscribers. More news on that coming shortly!
But wait — there’s still more! I am currently toying with creating a regular video feature for this blog — something short, fun, informative and of course music-related. Once I figure out how to make that happen, that’s gonna be made available exclusively for my paid subscribers, as well. (And if you’re already one of those, I thank you from the bottom of my garlic-infused heart.)
But if you can’t swing a paid subscription right now, that’s totally cool. I know it’s rough out there for a lot of us (hell, that’s one reason I hung out my shingle with this Substack thang — it’s more difficult than ever to make a living in my chosen profession), and we’re all getting slammed with bills and taxes and hidden charges and all kinds of other fun stuff. But even with just a free subscription to Jagged Time Lapse, you’ll get to read all kinds of cool content that you won’t find anywhere else — and you’ll get it delivered directly to your email box, so you won’t have to rely on my algorithmically-challenged social media posts to alert you that there’s something new happening at JTL. All I ask is that you share this Substack with a friend (or ten) who might also dig Jagged Time Lapse…
All righty, then — enough with the sales pitch. On to the next chapter!
Outside the school bus, it was a damp, foggy but nonetheless picturesque fall morning, the kind that Michigan seems to specialize in. Inside the bus, however, it was absolute hell.
Between the ages of 12 and 14, I lived in three different cities and attended five different schools. Though down the line I’d look back at this period as a crucially formative chapter that forged my social survival skills and taught me to embrace change rather than fear it, at the time it was often terrifying, confusing and lonely as hell. And I was never more confused and lonely than I was in the fall of 1978, when I started seventh grade at Ann Arbor’s Tappan Junior High.
I’d gone away for the summer — first to see my grandparents in Alabama, and then to stay with my mom and her sisters in Los Angeles — with the expectation that things would be a breeze when I returned. Most of the many friends with whom I’d graduated from Burns Park Elementary School would also be attending Tappan, and I figured we’d all just pick up in September where we’d left off in June. But when I came back to Ann Arbor that September, I quickly learned that this junior high business was a whole new ballgame — one that I was completely unprepared for.