Don’t you hate it when one of your favorite songs on your Spotify playlist is magically replaced by a live version of it?
I like live albums. There also some songs that only work in their live version. Think Peter Frampton’s Do You Feel Like We Do.
What doesn’t work is putting one song into a live version when I expect something else. Or doing anything to mess with any of my playlists. Kenny G playing that weird saxophone might fit around bedtime, but I hope it doesn’t show up on my playlist when I’m doing the mowing in the late July sun. It doesn’t work.
But in the right context, a live album is an experience.
So, my self-assigned task on this trip was to build an Apple Music playlist called Live Albums. Then I dropped in some of my favorites like Frampton Comes Alive, Eric Clapton Unplugged, Kiss Unplugged, Waylon Live, Queen at Wembley, and a few more. I figured I could just have singular concert experience, or, if I’m really feeling wild at age 60, put it on shuffle and just have a greatest, greatest hits live experience.
On the flight to Houston, I opted for the shuffle (likely inspired to be wild by the JD at the little ABQ airport bar) and settled in.
Freddy Mercury sang “AAAAAYO!” and I wanted to sing along.
Waylon Jennings ended his concert with This Time and I found myself silently screaming for an encore, even though I’ve listened to this album since I was 12 and there is none.
Johnny Cash sang the Folsom Prison Blues and I felt like I was there. I could imagine the heat and the sweat and the B.O. and the exhilarating, freeing feeling of having someone famous do a concert just for you.
And then I realized that each of these men have long since passed away. But in this moment, they are alive as ever. They still make you want to sing along. You feel as much as you hear.
Most of us probably won’t put out famous live albums. Or any albums at all. What we do put out each day are those reminders of how we make others feel. One of my worst bosses in the Navy wore a constant grin, even when he was pissed. Like one of those creepy clowns in a haunted funhouse. That grin really freaked me out. I constantly felt as if I was in fight or flight mode.
Maybe that’s why clowns really disturb me now. I feel threatened and go into fight or flight mode.
On the other hand, one of my first bosses in my civilian career, was a guy named Gary Engebretson. He was the president of a trade association in DC. We were relocating there since Barb got commissioned as an officer and was now being stationed there. I applied for the job by faxing over my resume. Gary interviewed me over the phone when I was still in Memphis for the Director of Training position and I remember thinking he sounded like Charlie of the 1970s TV show Charlie’s Angels. I later found out they thought I sounded like Al Gore’s little brother.
This is Gary and I a few years after he retired in the mid 2000s.
I was hired sight unseen and showed up to work one June morning in an office on 12th and G Street.
Gary was as I had pictured him. Maybe early 60s. Grey suit. Grey hair, neatly parted. He was wearing a cologne or aftershave that I had never smelled before.
Even though that job wasn’t what I expected and wanted to leave, I stayed longer for Gary. He was a great boss, one of the first really “important” people I met, and he always treated me with respect. He was even excited for me when I told him about the job I was taking at Holy Cross. He was gracious enough to let me stay on part time when I went to work at the hospital in 2001 and brought my dad on (my parents relocated to Maryland from California) part time to do the administrative and marketing stuff I used to do.
On my trip down to Atlanta a couple weeks ago, I was navigating the crowded lobby at the Westin hotel. A group of people walked past me and one of them had on that same cologne. And immediately I thought of Gary. And it was a really good, happy feeling. And significant since Gary passed away a year or so ago.
Some things do live on forever, don’t they?
I’m challenging myself to doing some focused legacy stuff. I’m not even sure what it looks like, but I’ll figure it out.
I wonder if that’s something you might try?