I wrote this in 2013. I’ve since started listening to fictional podcasts like Welcome to Night Vale and Hello from the Magic Tavern. I still don’t really listen to music on my commute, if I do I have a looping rotation playlist (much like a top 40 radio station would make). This is part of a series of 2013 Medium drafts that I never published.
Am I weird for not jumping on the whole portable music bandwagon? I do stream music more than anything these days and I inherited a couple iPod minis and shuffles, but the habit never stuck. I think it was riding the NYC Subway that deterred me the most. Everyone in their uniform white earbuds, missing stops because they didn’t hear that the train was going express or not moving when I say “excuse me” because their volume is up so high.
I was so excited about my first walkman. I was maybe 7 years old. My family was confused about what I’d do exactly with a Walkman because I wasn’t allowed to leave the house. I’d sit in the middle of the living room floor with my dad’s crate of cassettes, playing each one for 1 song and then changing it out. I couldn’t even get through whole Disney story cassettes, because I’d lose interest so quickly. I used a Walkman to sit, not walk!
I remember browsing at a Bay Area department store called BEST and spied the Sony Discman that I’d beg my dad to buy for next Christmas. I was 11 and I was active. I was allowed to bike around the block and hang out in the backyard unattended. The problem with CDs is that they skip. I wanted to look cool with my crappy foam headphones, wire noodling from the inside of my backpack on the way to school. But at the rate that I walked, the music hiccuped and sometimes stopped. I’d keep walking as if I were still hearing music, afraid that someone would ask if they could listen for a minute. I’d set the Discman on the kitchen table while I did homework and would get upset if anyone rose too fast and shook it the slightest bit. As I got into high school, the CD player would whirr and visibly shake. It was time to move on.
In 1999, there was nothing to do in the Antelope Valley except go to the mall, watch a movie, or visit Best Buy. My dad liked to go to Best Buy for hours to browse the CD racks for new music. I’d play with everything from cameras to turning the knobs on the unhooked kitchen appliances, and I’d lounge on the couch in front of the sample home entertainment system. High school was when I discovered Napster, Kazaa and —gosh darn it— how to make zip files. It started with my friends Chris and Gene. They’d send me zip files and I’d run downstairs to my dad’s collection to rip a CD or two in exchange. We all got invited to Napster and there was no looking back. I filled up the computer so much that it’d slow down the AOL connection. I’d tell my dad that it was because we lived so far out in the desert, the dial tone echoes and boots you off. On one of our trips to Best Buy, I spied the RCA Lyra, an early mp3 player. Ho boy, I was so excited about my 32mb of storage. Another Christmas present from Dad, shiny and silver. So much smaller than my Discman.
I was so ready to dump gigs of music onto it. It took forever to install the driver for the disc slot and even longer to sync the files. 32mb was just enough for a short rock album or maybe 3 gabber tracks. But hey, at least I could go running with my music now. That fleeting dream lasted about 5 minutes when my headphones kept falling off my head and I had to jog back home to put the damn thing away. I’ve always been uncomfortable with in-ear listening devices because my father was 40% deaf. I knew the effects of music that was too loud and too close to your eardrum. My father later actually had surgery on his ear canal a couple years ago and he can actually hear better then me now.
Toward the end of high school, I got tired of listening to the same songs and waiting forever for the music to sync. My beautiful Lyra rested in my desk drawer when I departed for college, where my life became much more sedentary (in my dorm room) and when I discovered college radio. A regression to cassettes, record and cds happened after I suffered a massive hard drive crash in 2004.
I think that I’m trying to say is that I prefer to sit back and digest my music, rapt like I’m watching a movie. Maybe the business of the subway sullies it with distractions. Or vice versa, if I’m walking in a park.
It’s strange that it means so much to me that I don’t want to hear it all of the time.