Part 27: Layovers at DFW, or How I Learned to Stop Hating Airline Travel and Embrace My Inner JR Ewing

Sitting at the bar at Blue Mesa Tacos, the only decent restaurant at DFW’s Terminal E, a strange woman to my right struck up a conversation. She had clearly had work done — replete with an odd assortment of face lifts and myriad augmentations — and was wearing these garish cowboy boots one finds in airport gift stores throughout the Southwest. She informed me her name is Pam. Such encounters are the perils of long layovers.

Listening to Pam, I was reminded of various characters from the TV show Dallas.  Naturally, as a former TV junkie, almost everyone I meet reminds me of one character or another from one of the dozens of classic TV shows of the 70s and 80s. Dallas was such a caricature of the real place, but Pam has wholeheartedly embraced this style in an impressive and almost comical fashion.

I kept my eyes on the three TVs above me showing America’s Team beating the dastardly Philadelphia Eagles, one of the two most hated teams for any Texpatriate.  Still, she kept asking me questions...Where do you live? Where are you headed today, etc.

Virtually every time I mention I live in Chicago to a fellow Texan — especially in winter — the first response is some version of, “I could never live in Chicago, it’s much too cold.” Without fail, upon telling Pam I live in the Windy City, she responded, “Chicago, oh it’s so cold — I could never live there!”

Following the predictable discussion about weather — Chicago’s too cold, Texas is too damn hot, etc. — Pam proceeded to tell me about her various boyfriends. She mentioned at least three, and they all sound current. Moreover, they all sound rich and old—or at least older than Pam.

I don’t think she was flirting with me. Rather, I suspect the empty margarita glass before her wasn’t her first. Meantime, Dallas scored another touchdown to pull ahead of the Eagles. My cheering didn’t phase her, and she continued to discuss how cold Chicago is. Almost as if she was trying to imagine having another boyfriend in the upper Midwest — but in a conceptual manner, not in a specific way regarding me.

Eventually she had to catch her flight to see boyfriend number two. Or was it boyfriend number three? She offered a handshake and left. Cowboys scored again—this time sealing a victory.

Travel is strange — especially when flying through, but not to, my Texas homeland. But at least I didn’t get mistaken for Ed Helms this trip (see part 26 for that story!).

Part 26: My Bradley Cooper Story (Sort of)

Finally, I arrived at Austin Bergstrom Airport, tired and stiff from a long, much-delayed flight. Nearly all flights departing O’Hare Field — as older locals call it — in March have one thing in common:  delays. I couldn’t wait to get to my hotel room and settle in with a Shiner Bock and cheesy decade-old Law & Order reruns on TNT. Oh, how I miss Jerry Orbach! But that’s another story…

It was springtime in Austin, and South by Southwest had begun a day earlier. Unfortunately, I wasn’t there for the festival and didn’t have time to see any live music. Worse, the only Hilton room I could find for less than $500 was at the airport Hilton. (Yes, I’m a points whore, and Hilton is my hotel pimp.)

So I took the short taxi ride to my hotel hoping to check in before midnight. Upon entering the Hilton, a strange, circular edifice, I immediately heard live music and saw hundreds of hipsters meandering around the lobby. Wearing my navy suit I stood out like a sore thumb. The music was pretty good—reminiscent of George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic—but I wasn’t really in the mood to hang out downstairs and listen after spending several hours eating lousy airport fast food near gate K15.

Thomas Hobbes said life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short',” but I think he may have been referring to life while waiting for your flight at O’Hare during a spring snow storm. (All except for the short part as there are no short delays at O’Hare.) Still, it’s better than being delayed at LaGuardia (LGA). I think Joseph Conrad nailed the essence of being delayed at LGA:  “The horror! The horror!” Horror, indeed…two hours at LGA is on par with a visit to Dante’s fifth circle of hell.

It took me a while to find the check-in desk through all the hipsters swaying to the funk, but I eventually found two rather sullen Hilton clerks behind a large brown desk with a Hilton Honor sign slightly askew. They appeared somewhat annoyed that they had to work, which was depriving them of joining the throngs of people in the lobby in the Grateful Dead hippie dance.

I gave the clerks my driver’s license and credit card and asked to check in. They greeted me with a faint-hearted “Welcome, Mr. Lively.” Then the taller hotel clerk—a pretty girl in her early-20s with a nose ring, a name badge that read “Becky,” and an overwhelming millennial vibe that shouted “I can’t wait to get back to looking at my iPhone”—surprised me with her next comment.

“Your wife has already checked in, Mr. Lively.” What? I was traveling alone. My wife and kids were at home, sleeping as the snow continued to blanket Chicagoland.

“Uh, I am not traveling with my wife,” I explained. The two clerks looked at each other, then at me, and then at each other again with a perplexed look.

“Uh….let us look into this Mr. Lively,” Becky said slowly in a bewildered manner with a somewhat annoyed nasal tone. The two began typing away on their hotel computer systems.

Every time I’m at a hotel or rental car desk, I’m routinely amazed at how much the desk clerks type. In order to check-in a guest at the average Hilton, I’m convinced the clerk must write a short novella just to determine which room is yours. With all of their typing on this night, I’m convinced they could have re-written Prousts’s Remembrance of Things Past.  

Then, Becky looked at me and said the funniest thing: “Mr. Lively, has anybody ever told you that you look like that guy in The Hangover? What’s his name?” The other clerk, whose name I never got, looked at me and agreed.

Confused and flattered, and trying to remember the movie in question, I said, “Do you mean Bradley Cooper?”

“No, not him,” Becky responded quickly and definitively. "The other guy....what's his name?" At this point, she and the other nameless clerk tried to remember the name of the famous actor I resembled. After feeling flattered, I deflated and tried to figure out to whom they were referring.

Just then, Becky blurted out, “Ed Helms. You look just like Ed Helms.” And there you have it. No, I don’t look like Bradley Cooper, People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive. Rather, I resemble the nerdy character with the bad haircut and a missing front tooth.

“Okay then, well thanks, I guess. Can you find out who is in my room because it’s not my wife,” I responded.

“Yes, Mr. Lively, we’ll call her and ask now,” Becky explained. She called the room and spoke with someone who claimed to be Mrs. David Lively. In Chicago it is nearly impossible to find another person with my last name. In Texas, however, there are a bunch of us and it is at least a remote possibility that a distant relative from East Texas was upstairs watching Jerry Orbach on TNT and drinking a Shiner Bock—though I suspect the person in my assigned room scammed her way into a hotel that was fully booked.

After some discussion between the two clerks, they agreed to give me a different room—the last available room in the hotel, in fact. I asked the clerks to ensure I wasn’t paying for both rooms, then grabbed my hotel key and began to walk toward the elevator.

As I walked away, both clerks said, “Hey, don’t forget to check out The Hangover—you look just like Ed Helms.” I nodded, gritted my teeth slightly, said thanks, walked slowly to my room, and flipped on the television.

No, The Hangover wasn’t on that night. Nor were Law & Order reruns—apparently I got there too late for those. Instead, I grabbed a beer from the mini-fridge and watched an old episode of Mannix.

“Damn, Mike Connors was cool…almost as cool as Bradley Cooper.”

 (...and that's my Bradley Cooper Story)

Part 25: Middle Life in the Middle West

“Ah Youth, Forever Dear, Forever Kind.”

--Homer

At the end of my jog this morning I ran into a group of Navy recruits from Great Lakes Naval Station and chatted with them for a few minutes near the train station in my neighborhood. (If you know me, you’ll know I’m an extrovert—I’ll talk to a telephone pole if left alone too long.) They were so polite and shy, but what struck me most is that they are so very young. They’d missed their stop—the Botanic Gardens—and were wandering around the train platform trying to figure out where they were. So young, indeed, with so much future ahead of them. I helped them find their path to the Garden and secretly wished I still had their enthusiasm and energy—especially their youthful energy.

A couple hours later I got a text from my brother Bill with a YouTube video of his youngest son playing drums. Watching it I literally teared up with pride and amazement. I was witnessing pure talent. My nephew is an amazing musician—and a wonderful, kind young man—and his future is so very bright. I couldn’t be prouder to be his uncle. 

I’ve never been as good at anything in my nearly 48 years as my nephew is at the drums today as a teenager. Perhaps just as amazing: he is so young he doesn’t even know how good he is. And I’m finally old enough to recognize and appreciate his talent. Maybe that is my talent…

What is Middle Age? And Am I Truly in the Middle?

At 48, actuarial life tables created by the US Census and Social Security Administration indicate I’m likely to live another 30.7 years. I’m not just middle aged, I’m firmly on the downward slope.

I was once told I’m an old soul. Apparently so is my prostrate as I have to visit the men’s room about 30 times a day. I’m almost 48 but I have a 70 year old prostate, and the liver of a 55 year old. My lower back died briefly in 2016 but was resuscitated by a half a bottle of Advil and several glasses of whiskey. If you could calculate the average age of my various parts, soul included, I’m certain I’m much closer to 60. I’d be much older but my sense of humor is still rather juvenile. (Who doesn’t love fart jokes or the movie Spaceballs?)

It’s abundantly clear by now that I’m not going to write the great American novel. I’m not going to see my paintings or etchings in a gallery or museum. And I won’t get discovered any time soon as the heir to Kris Kristofferson or Willie Nelson. Like Peter Schaffer’s Salieri (in his classic play Amadeus), I’m the patron saint of mediocrity—good enough to know how bad, or at least mediocre, I am at most things. And good enough to recognize true talent.

But recognizing my limitations doesn’t change my passions. And my limitations don’t prevent me from creating. And at middle life, I’ve decided that’s what I am going to do—I’m going to redouble my efforts to write and draw and play music and do the things that give me pleasure. The things that matter to me, regardless of their worth to others. 

Now…back to watching Spaceballs! (And thank you, Mel Brooks...May the schwartz be with you!)

Part 24: My Inner Dialogue: Or Like a Shark...Just Keep Moving

A dear old friend once referred to me as a good book. Good seemed a dubious qualifier at best, but the book reference resonated with me. Each of us is indeed a big, complex book—some more interesting than others, to be honest. I don’t know what my title would be, but I suspect it would likely include references to Texas or Elvis, or both. I’m quite certain my weird little inner world would be of interest to exactly no one. But maybe I’m wrong. (If you’re reading this then you’re either incredibly bored or you actually identify with this strange inner world.)

My inner world, my inner dialogue—the one that no one else can see or hear (at least I hope not!)—would constitute more than half of the book, and I wonder if that is unusual. I am so much in my head, bouncing and pinging and clanging away as I think, deliberate, fret, rationalize, contemplate and argue with myself virtually all day and night. 

In my dreams my mind endeavors to work through the complex and conflicting emotions from my waking hours. And from the moment I awake at quarter to five each morning, my mind races through myriad untethered thoughts and emotions.

Random memories from childhood mix with images from middle age. A cacophony of sights and sound…talking heads shouting political epithets on MSNBC; loud high school house parties ending with a visit from the cops; work meetings and endless spreadsheets and crosstabs; my youngest daughter’s 6th birthday party at a local swimming pool; exploring medieval Edinburgh with my wife on a cool summer evening; Dim Sum in Hong Kong; Spielberg movies on my mom’s boxy TV set; my dad telling us he’s leaving; tripping in a track meet after leading for three laps; sitting in the hot sun near dad at Texas Stadium to cheer on the Cowboys; my oldest daughter learning to ride a bike; my first and last days of high school; awkward fumblings in the back seat of my ’77 Monte Carlo; standing in line at O’Hare; hour upon hour painting in the visual arts studio at SMU; listening to Van Halen on vinyl upstairs with my big brother; oil paint on my hands and jeans; learning to play Claire de Lune and my mom urging me to work on my dynamics; late-nights in the library writing about Elvis; studying for my sister’s chemistry exams and making her giggle in class; early mornings reading history at the Village Coffee Shop in Boulder; dad teaching me to tie a tie; sobbing at my dear Papaw Kelley’s funeral. 

No thread ties these random experiences together apart from the fact that they’re all banging around in my gray matter trying to find purchase. 

Travel, especially solo travel for work, intensifies this internal dialogue. I am such an extrovert that long periods away from my beloved wife and daughters — and away from close friends and trusted work colleagues — sends my internal dialogue into overdrive. Like a shark, when traveling I must keep moving or else die. When not on appointments or answering email, I find myself walking endlessly. Exploring the exotic sights and sounds of each new city, creating new memories and expanding the available references that will help my mind interpret future experiences. I crave conversation and find myself talking to cabbies and waiters and flight attendants and shopkeepers. Travel is simultaneously exhilarating and lonely, and I find I tend to dwell on the latter.

When I go jogging, memories crash together until my mind becomes clear—or at least clearer—and I find peace for a brief but fleeting moment. Running is the one activity that pulls me out of my self-absorbed inner dialogue and ever so briefly relaxes my otherwise restless soul.

These memories and the emotions they conjure help me to interpret each new experience. And as I search and yearn and strive for meaning, the cacophony blares and wails. 

My book is more Joyce than Hemingway. Perhaps that’s why I prefer Hemingway. Most of my chapters are confusing and boring. In all honesty, they are the not very profound ramblings and half-measures of a man trying to make sense of middle age. But it’s my book. My book and I have many more chapters to write.

Part 23:  A Texpatriate in Shermer, Illinois:  Or, You Can’t Go Home Again Unless You’re Moving to John Hughes’s Mythic Hometown

--January 2018

“Don’t You, Forget About Me…”  

—Simple Minds, 1985

While buying ice cream for my daughters at the corner shop just a block from my home, I am reminded that 27 years ago Macaulay Culkin was filmed here stealing a toothbrush (at what was then the local drugstore) in John Hughes’s Christmas classic, Home Alone.

My movie friends will immediately take offense that I referred to this film as a “classic,” and they are justified in their outrage. It’s not a great movie, though it is mildly entertaining—especially in comparison to just about everything else on Disney channel and Nickelodeon this time of year. However, if you don’t have kids, you wouldn’t appreciate how good Home Alone is compared to the endless, nauseating stream of lousy programs on these (and other) infuriating cable channels. Indeed, the so-called “family channels” on my cable box are littered with endless holiday crap for months beginning in October, and Home Alone is arguably high quality compared to most other drivel. To be fair, these channels traffic in crap year-round—it’s not honest to be critical just of the holiday shows. (And by the way, my reference to the “cable box” illustrates how stuck in the past I am…almost nobody has a cable box anymore, much less cable. Nowadays, everything is streamed, or so I’m told.)

Moreover, myriad cable channels and Wikipedia, the ultimate online arbiter of all things real and imagined, will disagree with my movie-snob friends (with whom I typically agree)—for better or worse—in regarding Home Alone as a legitimate staple of modern Christmastime entertainment. There’s no comparison to It’s a Wonderful Life, or other true holiday classics, in my opinion, but I suspect that Home Alone is at least as ubiquitous as Mircale on 34^th Street or A Christmas Story, if not more so, in recent years. Not that ubiquity is synonymous with quality. Rather, modern audiences embraced Huges’s film as part of the holiday tradition much like kids from my era embraced the claymation classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer or the animated Charlie Brown Christmas. Home Alone is obviously inferior to these predecessors, but that’s just this humble Texpatriate’s opinion.

Regardless of debates about Culkin and this John Hughes franchise, I was standing on sacred ground—at least for folks who grew up with movies the way I did in the 1980s. After all, as a kid in the 70s and 80s, the films of John Hughes—and the physical landscape in which they were filmed—had an oversized influence on me and my understanding of those weird, painful, wonderful years between elementary school and college. And I suspect I’m not alone, though few will likely admit it.

Some Kind of Wonderful

A couple years ago I purchased a home on Chicago’s North Shore in the village of Winnetka, Illinois. When I first moved to Chicago twenty years ago, in my mid-20s, I never would have imagined that I would live in suburban Winnetka. It’s a beautiful village along Lake Michigan about 16 miles north of downtown Chicago. My city friends will scoff at my new address…”too homogeneous, too snobbish, boring, etc...” I concede these and other criticisms, but it is a surprisingly friendly, diverse neighborhood. In truth, I love my new home and my new neighborhood. It ain’t perfect, but something about this village just feels right.

Just then it hit me:  in moving to Chicago’s North Shore, I effectively moved to Shermer, Illinois—that fictional anytown, USA setting of Sixteen Candles, Weird Science, Pretty in Pink, She’s Having a Baby, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, National Lampoon’s Vacation, and Breakfast Club. And for that reason, Shermer, er Winnetka, feels extremely familiar. After all, Shermer is the locus of virtually every major movie of my misspent youth. As author Kevin Smokler explains in his book Brat Pack America, “If anyone can claim it, John Hughes is the cartographer of Brat Pack America. Thanks to his imagination, Shermer, Illinois, became its capital city.”

As a teen growing up in Duncanville, Texas, Hughes’s characters always felt very authentic to this young Texan. Indeed, Shermer was actually quite similar to Duncanville—a comfortable suburban enclave immediately adjacent to a major city—but was much more homogeneous. The characters from The Breakfast Club could easily have walked the aisles at Duncanville High School in my day, only there would be much greater diversity plus Texas accents. Still, Hughes’s fictional town felt authentic in its representation of suburbia during this period—lots of stupid teenage hijinks but all playing out within a relatively safe, contained place far removed from the dangers of the big city in the 1980s.

When I finally moved into a home in the town that served as Hughes’s backdrop a couple years ago, I discovered that it actually feels like the hometown of my teens—or at least the teens I lived out in my head and on the silver screen. In some ways, I feel more “at home” here than at any time since I left Duncanville in September 1989 to attend college at SMU. Though to be totally honest, I have always felt liminal. Out of place. Betwixt and between. Even, if not especially, growing up in Duncanville.

Located in University Park—a swanky section of North Dallas—SMU, just 30 minutes north, may as well have been 30 hours away from Duncanville. SMU was wonderful, a whole new world, but my classmates didn’t exactly know what to make of me. During my freshman orientation I recall a fellow classmate—a graduate from Highland Park High School or Hockaday or some other elite school in North Dallas—sharing that her parents instructed her never to drive south of the Trinity River. My rejoinder was that in Duncanville we only drove north of the Trinity to buy beer (as Oak Cliff and Duncanville were dry).

However, I’m quite certain that despite our differences and cultural baggage, we were both fluent in the lessons and myths of John Hughes’s America. She was from a wealthy part of town and I was from the “wrong side of the tracks”—or in my case, the wrong side of the Trinity River. No, I wasn’t poor, but in her mind Duncanville might as well be in Arkansas. Hmmm…isn’t this Hughesian encounter reminiscent of Pretty and Pink or Breakfast Club? Only a kid from the 80’s with romanticized memories of youth would immediately jump to that reference. Naturally, I did, because movies were my cultural markers, my way of understanding the actions, thoughts and emotions of people around me, for better or worse.

As the child of divorced parents living in suburbia in the mid-1980’s—a worn movie cliché in itself—I subconsciously coopted select characters from favorite movies to complement my cohort of high school friends. Few friends shared my family experiences and fewer still understood the complex and often painful emotions I confronted when I came home each night from school. Movie characters were one-dimensional and at best they were cold comfort during the emotional rollercoaster that is high school, but at least on screen—albeit usually the small screen via VHS tapes rented from Video Safari—the story-lines were universal. I saw kids confronting the same bullshit I experienced, albeit in superficial storylines that all wrapped up neatly in 90 minutes. Nevertheless, I could relate to these characters, and I suspect I was not alone.

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

--Ferris Bueller

Now that I effectively live in Hughes’s fictional suburb of Shermer, these memories often come flooding back—though typically in positive ways thanks to distance and time. Indeed, most days I can’t drive to work much less the grocery store without passing at least two iconic locations featured in Hughes’s oeuvre. The Home Alone house is just a few blocks away, as is the home featured in the final scene of Planes Trains and Automobiles (Hughes’s best film, in my humble opinion). So are many scenes from Risky Business—though not a Hughes film, but certainly a classic of 1980s Brat Pack culture. Close friends of mine share a fence with the owners of the house where Sixteen Candles was filmed, and countless local friends were “extras” in this classic. (Apart from its casual racism, among its many flaws, I believe this film actually is a classic.)

So, a few weeks ago I had an epiphany:  I realized one reason—perhaps the reason—I love my new home so much is that I now live in a quasi-mythical place. My little nook of the North Shore is actually a part of my generation’s collective, shared memory. Gen-Xers all have the same collective Hughesian shorthand when thinking about or observing these places, from Ferris Buehler’s Chicagoland to over-the-top Christmas decorations on the Griswold family home (from Christmas Vacation). Which memory is real and which is from a movie? Or to quote a commercial from the 80s, “Is it live or is it Memorex?” (Remember cassettes?)

For me, it’s getting harder and harder to determine. As a teen, movies were as much my reality as anything else I experienced in the mid- to late-1980s. I lived inside them and watched them over and over. Movies provided an escape, but they also created the context in which to contemplate the silly, dumb, fun, heartbreaking, painful, and downright messy reality of being a teenager. All the laughter, tears, anger, joy and pain of adolescence could be sublimated by obsessive movie watching. In hindsight, it was a safer outlet than drugs and reckless behavior. It’s not that I didn’t indulge in the more-than-occasional reckless activity, but it was somehow muted thanks to my favorite outlet: movies.

Now that I’m raising a teenager in Shermer, I am reminded daily of both the beauty and absurdity during this critical stage of childhood. Only my daughter’s version of Shermer lives inside an iPhone. What in the hell will her reality be as an adult reflecting on this period in her life?

Now I have unexpectedly returned to that familiar place—and it is so very odd. Indeed, the false narrative of my childhood regarding what life would (or should) look and feel like as an adult—built on a combination of real and perceived experiences coupled with compelling but artificial scenes from 1980s movies—is now essentially fulfilled, and I’m literally a fortysomething character living out childhood fantasies. As I write this I realize just how pathetic that is. Have I literally become Clark Griswold? Apparently, the answer is yes.

In her New York magazine article, Jennifer Senior explains, “Why You Never Leave High School.” That’s especially true now thanks to Mark Zuckerberg. In it, she explains, “Until Facebook, the people from my high-school years had undeniably occupied a place in my unconscious, but they were ghost players, gauzy and green at the edges.” 

On the contrary, characters from Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles are still clear and present in my mind thanks to AMC, TNT, HBO and the other 300+ cable TV channels we pay several hundred dollars each month to watch. And that is especially true for me, an unrepentant, former movie-obsessed kid with an after-school job at Video Safari. Indeed, the movie characters from high school are permanently etched into my psyche. Throw in the fact that my parents were divorced and I spent far more time studying the works of John Carpenter, John Hughes and Steven Speilberg than solving quadratic equations or reading Animal Farm.

Leaving the ice cream shop and walking the short block back home, my mind begins to drift, as it usually does thanks to a hyperactive imagination fueled by caffeine and nostalgia, and I wonder if I can find Ferris Buehler on TBS or HBO when I get back home?

Part 22: “Once More Unto the Breach,” or How to Survive Your 25th High School Reunion

Sunday, August 2, 2014

Part 22:

“Once More Unto the Breach,” or How to Survive Your 25^th High School Reunion

"Why haven't you written any more Texpatriate essays?" asked Bonnie, an old friend from Duncanville whom I'd known since kindergarten.

Quite surprised, I responded, "I wasn't aware you'd read any of those pieces...frankly, I wasn’t aware anyone had."

In truth I hadn’t written anything since my youngest daughter was about a year old, shortly after Friday Night Lights concluded in 2011 and I went into a deep TV funk. (Only Walking Dead revived my enthusiasm for entertainment, but I’ve lost my weekly lifeline to Texas.)

Since my last essay Rahm replaced Daley at City Hall; I sold my dumpy condo at — or at least near — the bottom of the housing market and moved into a gorgeous but expensive high rise farther north; I changed jobs; and more generally I'm three years older and grayer. Quite a lot grayer. All in all, life is much better three years later, not that I had really changed…but do we ever really change? Indeed, that is the question.

Flying back from Big D en route to O’Hare, looking down on southern Missouri and reflecting on my 25^th reunion celebration the night before, I begin to sink into a deep melancholy reminiscent of my teens. Last night I joined a few dozen former classmates from Duncanville High School. Class of 1989 to be precise.

Twenty-five years ago the world was smaller. Much smaller. And perhaps less complex. However, I'm not sure it felt that way at the time. I’m quite certain it felt the opposite, but fortunately I’ve forgotten much about this period in my life — though not nearly as much as I would like, perhaps.

At 43, my high school friends and I seem to have settled in to our chosen paths with a certain peace or resignation that comes with age. We are all a little softer, a little slower, and hopefully a little wiser. Overall the reunion was an almost subdued affair, though I did manage to skip the Friday night drunkfest and the Saturday afternoon pool party (thank God and Sam Houston!).

Compared with high school on a Saturday night, there were far fewer fights (i.e. perhaps because reunion wasn’t held at the McDonald’s parking lot), less cliquish behavior, bigger guts, less hair, much less hairspray, and roughly the same amount of alcohol consumed—though the quality of the booze was much better, albeit more expensive.

As enjoyable as it was to see old friends, the event was accentuated by the absence of several others. In particular, I missed Marcus, Todd, Billy, Andrea, Gary, Jerry, Bronwyn, and many others. Indeed, the absence of many old friends was palpable — and as much as I enjoyed reuniting with those present it reminded me how much I miss those who were not. Spending precious time with Brad, Carla and Bonnie and several other dear friends who knew me when I was a five-year-old blonde, illiterate, obnoxious little Texan made the trip worthwhile. But it also brought on a surge of old memories and emotions.

As one of only a handful of Duncanville classmates I know living abroad as a Texpatriate, even the concept of a high school reunion stirs long-dormant emotions in dark recesses of my memory that generate many more memories and thoughts that lie too deep for verbal expression. Along with the routine high school bullshit and antics — drinking beer and smoking cigarettes with Todd, Billy, Brad and Jerry behind the baseball field, in the McDonald’s parking lot, and on top of myriad water towers throughout Duncanville; skipping class in Case’s yellow convertible to ride around Joe Pool Lake; going to silly high school dances in the east campus cafeteria with Todd’s older sister (Amy) and raging to the latest Depech Mode tunes; and listening to hours and hours of classic 1980s rock and roll (mostly Rush, Van Halen, U2, and Pink Floyd, but also the occasional punk band like Violent Femmes, the Cult or Jane’s Additction) — I vaguely remember going to class and studying for exams. However, I also vividly recall the complex, ugly social politics we engaged in—including the occasional cruel act and nonsensical behavior in which we all participated.

Moreover, I was reminded of the deep sadness I experienced beginning freshman year when my parents separated and eventually divorced. My yin and yang of high school always balanced the exuberance and joy I experienced with close friends coupled with the immense pain and melancholy I suffered at home — a pain that I rarely shared with friends at the time but have since dissected like the various specimens we encountered in Mr. Kennemer’s infamous Biology 2 class.

In her insightful and fascinating article in New York magazine (January 2013) entitled “Why You Truly Never Leave High School,” Jennifer Senior explains that we never really grow out of our high school personas. Our teenage self persists into adulthood and is inexorably shaped by the social dynamics we encounter during adolescence, only with less acne, less hair and a much nicer car. According to Senior, “Our self-image from those years, in other words, is especially adhesive. So, too, are our preferences.”

She continues to explain:

“It turns out that just before adolescence, the prefrontal cortex — the part of the brain that governs our ability to reason, grasp abstractions, control impulses, and self-­reflect — undergoes a huge flurry of activity, giving young adults the intellectual capacity to form an identity, to develop the notion of a self. Any cultural stimuli we are exposed to during puberty can, therefore, make more of an impression, because we’re now perceiving them discerningly and metacognitively as things to sweep into our self-concepts or reject… “During times when your identity is in transition,” says [development psychologist Laurence] Steinberg, ‘it’s possible you store memories better than you do in times of stability.’

At the same time, the prefrontal cortex has not yet finished developing in adolescents. It’s still adding myelin, the fatty white substance that speeds up and improves neural connections, and until those connections are consolidated — which most researchers now believe is sometime in our mid-­twenties—the more primitive, emotional parts of the brain (known collectively as the limbic system) have a more significant influence. This explains why adolescents are such notoriously poor models of self-­regulation, and why they’re so much more dramatic — “more Kirk than Spock,” in the words of B. J. Casey, a neuroscientist at Weill Medical College of Cornell University. In adolescence, the brain is also buzzing with more dopamine activity than at any other time in the human life cycle, so everything an adolescent does—everything an adolescent feels — is just a little bit more intense. “And you never get back to that intensity,” says Casey. (The British psychoanalyst Adam Phillips has a slightly different way of saying this: “Puberty,” he writes, “is everyone’s first experience of a sentient madness.”)”

No wonder I was a complete and utter freak in high school who still remembers every 1980s song lyric from Q102 by memory.

Being a Texpatriate who physically moved away from the homeland, these adolescent memories are perhaps even more robust and important. Not only is this period “stickier” in my brain, I am perpetually trying to hold on to my Texanness even as my 21 years away from the Lone Star state are dangerously close to eclipsing my 22 years in the homeland. My private insecurities are amplified by my fear of losing my identity as a Texan. Indeed, when I’m traveling and someone asks me where I’m from, I routinely say I’m from Texas but live in Chicago. Anyone else I know in Chi-Town or any other city — regardless of where they grew up (i.e. other than Texas and possibly NYC) — would immediately say they are from Chicago. Not us Texans…at least not this Texpat.

Kurt Vonnegut argued that high school “is closer to the core of America experience than anything else I can think of.” Ultimately, the lessons we learned at this period prepare us for life, for better or worse. Considering my education included a full year of Texas history (albeit in 7^th grade) coupled with two decades of Dallas Cowboys games and innumerable meals consisting of chicken fried steak, Tex-Mex, barbeque beef brisket and Frito Pie, it’s no surprise that the lessons I learned taught me to be a Texan regardless where I hang my (cowboy) hat.

With respect to the reunion, it was fun and I’m glad I flew home to attend. Yet, I can’t escape the nagging feeling that Facebook has essentially nullified any reason to stage or participate in future reunions. Not only do I know what my high school classmates are up to, I know what they ate for dinner last night.

As the plane begins to descend toward O’Hare, I’m excited to see my family and return to my life as a Texpat in Chicago. Of course, I’m listening to Joshua Tree on my iPhone and reminiscing about lazy drives down Wheatland Road toward my old Duncanville home with U2 blaring on the radio.

Fortunately, some memories will never die…

Part 21: Friday Night Lights...Grow Dim

Part 21: Friday Night Lights...Grow Dim

July 2011

Since last Friday night I've been in a funk. Actually I'd call it more than a funk—I'm downright depressed. Over the past five years I've had the opportunity to visit Texas (i.e. the homeland) each Friday night, at least vicariously, thanks to the producers of Friday Night Lights—arguably the best program on TV. (Yes, my Chicago brethren, it was indeed better than Mad Men.) However, last Friday evening this remarkable program concluded with a breathtaking, if somewhat understated, series finale.

Like a teenager anxiously anticipating the latest Twilight or Harry Potter movies, I waited patiently over many months to learn the fates of (coach) Eric and (high school counselor) Tami Taylor, the shows protagonists, as well as many other unforgettable characters from fictional Dillon, Texas. Now that it's over I am left with an emptiness that I cannot seem to fill regardless of the countless programs available on more than 500 cable TV channels.

Neither my ever-growing stack of books on my nightstand nor my massive Netflix queue can fill this void. The only possible palliative my feeble mind can conjure is to purchase all five seasons of Friday Night Lights on DVD. In truth, however, now that it's over a second viewing wouldn't be the same either. I already know what happens; I've already experienced the emotions and enjoyed the ride. A roller coaster is never really quite as good on the second trip once you know all its twists and turns.

Friday Night Lights (FNL) was based on journalist Buzz Bissinger's best selling non-fiction book and the subsequent film of the same name, directed by the author's second cousin, Peter Berg. Bissinger's engaging narrative offers an authentic—and often quite harsh—sociological portrait of Odessa's Permian High School football team and the obsessive, myopic, parochial—and acutely racist—culture that surrounded it. More than two decades later, Bissinger's book is regarded as a classic. Football is secondary to the oppressive culture that surrounds and obsesses over it. Still, in spite of all the bigotry, misdirected priorities and cultural ugliness depicted by Bissinger, readers will find themselves rooting for the team and its diverse cast of characters.

Berg transformed his film version for television and created a rich, fictional adaptation with characters rooted in the Texas archetypes from Bissinger's book. He smoothed over most of the rough edges, especially the ugly racism from the book, without sacrificing any authenticity. In spite of their occasional ugliness and misplaced priorities, Berg's characters—from coaches and players to boosters and school officials—are always authentic and multidimensional. For instance, consider "the booster," Buddy Garrity. Unlike so many one-dimensional villains from movies and TV shows of the this genre, Garrity, a prototypical obsessive high school football booster and former player (nee, former state championship football player) is tenderly portrayed as a complex, real character. Always overbearing and often misdirected—and frequently manipulative—Garrity turns out to be a warm-hearted guy who occasionally does the right thing against all odds.

What I miss most, however, is the authenticity of FNL—especially with respect to its depiction of Texas and Texans. Filmed on location in Austin, FNL had the true look, feel and sounds of home. Moreover, like real life in Texas, the small, intimate dramas of suburban life are punctuated with scenes from epic battles on the football field. Indeed, football is the cultural glue that binds Texans to their communities and to one another, whether it's Friday night at the local high school (go Duncanville Panthers), Saturday afternoon at the nearby college campus (go SMU Mustangs), or Sunday at Cowboys Stadium. (Of note: Houston has a third rate NFL expansion team, but like most things from Houston I prefer to ignore its existence.)

Sounds from the football field create the soundtrack to our lives as Texans—at least from August through January. The clashing of helmets and shoulder pads and the banging of drums coupled with the flare of trumpets and trombones emanating from the marching band in the corner combine with cheers and chants and the roar of the crowd to create a dissonant, staccato symphony that is immediately recognizable to anyone who has ever attended a game, whether at Darrel K. Royal Stadium in Austin or Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, not to mention the thousands of high school stadiums from the Piney Woods of East Texas to the Llano Estacado out west. This may sound odd, if not downright silly to Yankees and other non-Texans, but most Lone Star natives will likely understand and agree with my sentiments. For this homesick Texpatriate in Chicago, FNL helped fill that silence each Friday night.

"Turn Out The Lights, The Party's Over"

Now that FNL has concluded its run on TV I have to look for something to replace my sixty minute psychic sojourn to West Texas football stadiums each week. With the Longhorn Network—a new cable channel devoted to all things UT—about to launch plus the return of J.R. and Bobby Ewing of TV's Dallas on TNT next year, I will have plenty of Lone Star replacements for Friday Night Lights. Yet, somehow I already know that nothing will be quite as good.

Part 20: Yankee Fever

Part Twenty: Yankee Fever

I'm on my third glass of wine, or is it my fourth? There's a full moon, so I feel justified celebrating this milestone with another glass of California's best export, especially from my current vantage point. I'm not in Chicago or Dallas—or California, for that matter—but in a tiny village on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, the height of blue-blood Yankee culture.

The Boston Bruins, the local favorites, are hoping to win the Stanley Cup tonight for the first time since those weird years between the '60s and '70s know as the "Nixon era," but as a native Texan my true interest in hockey is only slightly greater than European soccer or the Strongest Man in the World competitions on ESPN. That is to say, I'll passively watch it if it's on TV, but I won't bother to seek out a sports bar and watch the game as if my very life depended on it as I would a college football or Dallas Cowboys game. (NB: I left Dallas before the Stars moved there, and as a Chicago resident I only follow the Blackhawks when they're winning. I know, I'm a fair-weather fan. So be it. After all, what kind of sport has only three periods?)

Ever since I arrived in Boston three days ago I've had a nagging headache, which is likely caused by allergies to the local flora, and it won't go away. Of course, the three (or four?) glasses of Pinot Gris won't likely help my cause much. Perhaps I'm allergic to the slower pace of life on the Cape. Or perhaps I'm having trouble clearing my head after a hectic day, which took me through a layover at New York's dreaded LaGuardia airport, arguably the grittiest, unfriendliest, most annoying airport in America. (Miami's airport is a close second, followed by O'Hare.) I'm definitely allergic to NYC and especially to its hellish airport, and after a bit more deliberation I conclude—with absolutely no scientific basis to support my conclusion—that my lingering headache is due to my two hour sojourn at LaGuardia.

Anyway, I'm out here on the Cape trying to embrace the New England lifestyle. After gorging on a sublime lobster roll and throwing back a pint of locally brewed IPA for dinner at the Chatham Squire, an authentic pub replete with nautical theme and shabby chic old money clientele that feels almost too stereotypically Cape Cod to be real, I'm watching the moonrise on the still waters of Buzzard's Bay. The moon seems larger than usual, and its affect on the tides can be heard as waves begin lapping the shore before me. The evening breeze brings a slight chill to the air and the hypnotic sights and sounds on this cool June evening are as poetic as a passage by Thoreau. We're definitely not in Dallas anymore, Toto.

Still, my headache persists.

Does my Texanism Trump my Americanism?

As a Texan I have complicated feelings about New England. I love the food—especially fresh seafood—and I'm drawn to the rich history, not to mention the gorgeous landscape, of this region. Yet, when I think of the revolutionary period and our nation's struggle for independence my mind goes in two directions. On one hand, I think of founders and revolutionaries like Adams, Washington, Franklin, Jefferson and Hamilton in 18th century Boston and Philadelphia fighting for independence and crafting a new constitution. And on the other hand, my thoughts drift to names like Bowie, Crockett, Austin and Houston, am I reminded that Texas celebrates an independence day as well (on March 2, for those who care). Okay. I realize the two events hardly compare in the grand scale of history, and one almost certainly wouldn't be possible without the other. Still, I'm an unapologetic 7th generation Texan full of Lone Star pride. Too full, my wife and (Chicago) friends would (rightly) argue.

So this leads to the following question: am I more Texan than American? Put another way: does my Texanism trump my Americanism?

After all, Texas did start as a Republic, and unlike the other 49 states, we entered the Union by treaty. Moreover, we fly the Lone Star flag parallel to the stars and stripes at the Capitol in Austin rather than subordinate to it. And just for kicks, our constitution allows Texas to break into five separate states should we be so inclined. (Think about it: that's ten senators with oversized personalities, each with a Texas-centric perspective and a pair of Lucchese's)

Unfortunately, just thinking like this makes me sound like Rick Perry or some cooky Texas secessionist with too much gun rack and too little grey matter. Still, it's an interesting question, at least to me, and my response is somewhat reminiscent to that of the Marine's when asked about his code, i.e. his hierarchy of loyalties: "unit, core, God, country." My personal hierarchy is, in order: Texan, American, Elvis Presley fan. (Elvis, you ask? One man's "Semper Fi" is another man's "Suspicious Minds.")

In Chicago, many of my friends would claim to be American first, then Irish or Polish, followed by Chicagoan. Notre Dame alumni are the exceptions to the rule: they start and stop with the golden dome. Judging by the number of Red Sox Nation bumper stickers I witnessed on the Cape Highway from Boston, it would appear folks in this neck of the woods are Red Sox fans first, Americans second.

New England culture is so exotic to me that when I'm here I often feel as though I'm in another country—an ironic emotion considering I'm just a few miles from Plymouth Rock and no more than an hour from Boston, the birthplace of the American Revolution. Yet, foreign though it may feel, it's actually quite comfortable, except for this nagging headache, of course.

Then there's the question of sports. New England is decidedly more appealing than many regions of the U.S. with respect to its sports teams, though I'm no fan of the Pats, Celtics, Red Sox, or Boston College, not to mention the Bruins. Still, these New England franchises are vastly more palatable than so many other sports programs around the country, including every team from the Sunshine State.

The accents of folks here are frankly no stranger than those of my Lone Star brethren, though Bostonians speak much more rapidly. It's not quite as openly friendly here as New Englanders don't like to emote as freely as we Texans. Still, I think I could spend some time on the Cape and feel quite contented. I could definitely stay and enjoy a few more oysters, chowder and lobster rolls.

It's Wicked Hard Being a Texpatriate

The longer I'm away from Texas—from home—the more comfortable I become living in strange and foreign lands. Could I live in New England? Sure...just as easily as Chicago. With time and experience I continue to become ever more adaptable to life outside the Lone Star Nation.

Except Florida and a few spots in the deep south and Midwest, I could probably live just about anywhere in the U.S. Yet, this nagging itch to return home will likely always be with me, even if I never act upon it. Likely, I will continue to sublimate my desires to live in Texas into more rambling observations in this clearly self-absorbed blog.

In the meantime, I think I'll pour another drink and try to get past this persistent headache while I gaze out at the calm waters of the Cape...

Part 19: Fandango

Part 19: Fandango

Late last Saturday night—or early Sunday morning, depending on your orientation as a night owl or a morning person (I'm neither, just a fatigued dad of two)—somewhere past 2:00 AM, I sat on my faded olive green couch feeding Cate, my beautiful nine-month-old daughter who continues to resist our entreaties to sleep through the night. Of course, at nine months her ability to understand English—much less English spoken with a Texas accent through garbled, monosyllabic grunts at 2:00 AM—is still quite limited. To avoid falling asleep I flipped the tube on and searched cable TV for something better than infomercials about shoes that make your butt slim and juicers so good they can hasten the second coming of Christ. Somewhere around channel 516 I clicked through a familiar image: the opening scene of Fandango, a movie filmed in West Texas in the early 1980s by UT law student-cum-filmmaker Kevin Reynolds.

Sometime around 2:30, after she had finished her bottle and fallen sound asleep in my arms like a precious little lump of clay, I gently laid Cate back in her crib and ambled back through the darkness toward the flickering lights of the TV in the den and continued watching Fandango, an occasionally sophomoric but always entertaining—and surprisingly poignant—coming of age/road trip movie I fell in love with during my teens but which I more fully appreciate now as an adult in spite of its numerous flaws and silliness.

The film follows the adventures of The Groovers, a group of five University of Texas seniors on graduation night in 1967 (including a then unknown Kevin Costner playing Gardner Barnes, the lead protagonist, and a pre-Breakfast Club Judd Nelson who plays Phillip, a nerdy ROTC enthusiast eager to fight in Vietnam), who drive west from Austin on a pilgrimage to dig up DOM, a bottle of Dom Pérignon buried on a hill overlooking the Rio Grande somewhere between Presidio and Lajitas, Texas. In addition to Phillip, at least two more Groovers—including Costner’s easy-going character—are bound for Vietnam, and their road trip to dig up DOM is a final attempt to enjoy "the privilege of youth" before heading off to war. (The movie's title, Fandango, means "a lively Spanish dance," or, alternatively, "a foolish act.")

Along their journey toward DOM the Groovers visit historic Marfa, Texas where they engage in some hijinks with a couple of local high school girls before sleeping beneath the decaying ruins of a large house that was once the film set for Giant. The crux of the film features a hilarious scene in which the tightly-wound Phillip (Nelson) honors a dare by his fellow Groovers to go sky-diving in a remote Texas parachuting school run by a pot-smoking Vietnam vet-turned-hippie named Truman Sparks. Of course, the first parachute doesn’t work since it’s packed with Truman’s dirty laundry, and the scene turns both comical and tense. The efforts to encourage Phillip to open his backup parachute are hilarious, and for most folks who’ve seen the movie I imagine this is the scene the likely remember most. (In fact, a black and white version of the parachute scene was originally a 30-minute student film before director Reynolds was encouraged to expand it into a feature-length film by Steven Spielberg, who produced the movie.)

However, the real star of the film is not Kevin Costner or Judd Nelson, but the beautiful, hot, desolate West Texas landscape. In one scene, regarding this harsh, barren environment, Nelson's character Phillip—a New Jersey native—remarks: “Texas is really ugly, you know? I mean, what could anyone possibly like about this state?” In response, Costner delivers a classic line (which also happens to be one of my favorite all-time quotes about Texas), “It's wild, Phillip. Always has been, and always will be—just like us.” Texas is indeed “wild.” Beauty is clearly in the eye of the beholder, but few would argue with the notion that the Lone Star landscape—not to mention its culture—is anything but wild.

As I gazed outside my window I was struck by the rather stark juxtaposition between the landscapes of desolate West Texas and dense, suburban Chicago. In spite of being spring—Palm Sunday, in fact—the weather had turned cold again and a gentle snow fell on the rooftops and against the window. It was quiet and I was alone with my thoughts watching this coming of age film from my youth. Complicated, unresolved emotions from childhood came flooding back. Memories of divorce and its attendant gut-wrenching pain and loneliness were coupled with images of high school antics that should have landed me in jail or at least detention.

The film's stark, beautiful images of the desolate West Texas landscape reminded me of vivid scenes from numerous college road trips and myriad personal fandangos from my early 20s, and I began to experience an overwhelming desire to be in wild, wide-open spaces like the arid desert near Big Bend depicted in the film. These images of West Texas coupled with a haunting, lyrical soundtrack by Pat Metheny in the film’s final act, which involves an enchanting, dream-like wedding scene, produced a melancholy I haven’t experienced in years as I reflected on my life as a teen in 1985 coping with my parents' divorce compounded by the messiness of high school.

I distinctly remembered the anticipation of adulthood with all its attendant fears and excitement, wondering who I’d be and what I’d be doing in my 20s and 30s, and what life would look like as a father at middle age in my 40s. Also, I thought intensely about the Texas of my youth. My memory of Texas from this seminal period in my life coupled with the mythical image of the Lone Star State formed by literature, film and fable is fused in my mind creating a fanciful image of home that never really existed. My personal history and emotions are so distinctly tied to my perceptions of Texas circa 1985 that it’s frankly quite difficult for me to have a clear image of this unique place—especially while watching TV in the middle of the night in a second-floor apartment in Chicago with snow falling during the height of spring.

Twenty-Six Year On

In my mind's eye I'm still about 25, about the time I was first fully independent, employed and self-actualized. Of course, the mirror always betrays this image, especially my graying temples. Similarly, my image of Texas is also from a younger period in my life, somewhere around the mid-1980s, when I was an immature teenager in suburban Dallas. It would seem my image of Texas is, in fact, stunted by my premature departure at the age of 22.

Having never lived in Texas as a fully independent, post-collegiate adult, it is fair to say I have a rather immature, incomplete half-image of the Lone Star State. Movies like Fandango along with seminal albums from my youth like Stevie Ray Vaughan's The Sky is Crying and iconic books such as All the Pretty Horses, The Last Picture Show and Lonesome Dove seem to inform my memory from this period more than any real knowledge about my home state of Texas. Not that I don't know many specific, concrete facts about Texas—after all, I dutifully took 7th grade Texas history (albeit taught by my rather dim basketball coach) like everyone else back home. It's just that I now realized my perspective is flawed and my vision of the past and of my home is refracted through the awkward, disjointed prism of youth and immaturity.

After the credits rolled up the screen and the soundtrack faded I walked softly back to my warm bed and fell asleep next to my beautiful wife. Fanciful images of Texas crept into my dreams and danced in my head, and for the next couple hours I was back home, or at least home as I want to remember it.

And one thing is for certain: soon it will be time for another fandango, only this time I will enjoy the adventure as a fortysomething wide-eyed adult in the company of my beautiful girls.