Basement Songs: Joe Jackson, “Home Town”
Thursday, August 21st, 2008 by Scott Malchus
For me, the waning days of summer always bring to mind the city homecoming fair that took place at the end of every August in my hometown of North Olmsted, Ohio. The fair, a celebration of the city’s past and present, was held at the North Olmsted Park, located right around from my childhood house, and was a weekend-long affair that always began on the last Friday night in August and ran through late Sunday afternoon.
I can recall the mystery, allure and romanticism of that city fair from the eyes of a child. At night, when the traffic noises had quieted, you could hear the excitement of the fair through the open windows of my bedroom. The cranking of the carnival rides, kids screaming, cotton candy machines swirling, grills sizzling, and rock and roll bands playing from the gazebo. Man, I wanted to be there; I wanted to be grown up enough to wander through the crowd and absorb those noises and smells and to feel like a part of the community.
By sixth grade, I was deemed old enough to venture up to the park during homecoming, as long as I was with a group of friends. If we were a pack we couldn’t get into trouble, right? Actually, I hung out with a good bunch of kids, and the heightened feelings and butterflies we felt around girls were more exciting than any mischief we might get into. Even as an awkward kid who didn’t attract many girls, it was still a great feeling to have.
Something happened during the transition between ninth and 10th grade, though, and the fair was no longer exciting; rather, it had become a quaint symbol of complacency. In my arrogant teenage mind, I looked at the hundreds of folks who had grown up in North Olmsted (and still lived there), and thought, “I’m not going to be like them. I’m going to get out of here.” Instead of looking forward to the fair’s wondrous foods and prizes, I looked forward to pointless nights of cruising the Metropark valley in the back of some guy’s Escort while the radio blared acts like the Who, Lou Reed and Joe Jackson. (more…)



I am running for my son.
Running is a solitary sport.
Once chance intervention, see what it can signify
Years ago, after packing away most of my old 45’s, I gave several to my friend Steve for prosperity’s sake.
In the fall of 1991, Robbie Robertson released his second solo album,
If you should find yourself in North Olmsted, Ohio with a few extra minutes, you can drive past the North Olmsted high school. There, if you know where to look, you’ll find a brown brick, perfectly centered between two windows on the way to the soccer practice field at the back of the school. Because it is brown, this brick blends in nicely with the rest of the orange and tan skin of the school. That layer of burnt umber, oil-based paint was applied to the wall on a humid, scorching afternoon in August 1990. At the tail end of my time working on the North Olmsted Board of Education summer maintenance crew, I decided to leave my mark on the school in which I grew up and started the path to adulthood.
Like many Saturday afternoons, we found ourselves straightening up the house, the children and I.
The death of Stevie Ray Vaughan struck a deep chord in me.
Late. I was late getting to the damn airport. If I hadn’t stopped by the library to renew that Le Carre book, I would have been on the road already. During the long drive on the constricted freeways, I spun the music of Neil Finn. It was the spring of 2007; Finn’s solo works and the music of his underappreciated band, Crowded House, had been providing me the soundtrack through a terrible three-month depression. I had experienced dark clouds over my head many times in my life, but nothing like this. I could not shake my sadness. Each morning, I awoke on the verge of tears. Not a day went by when I didn’t feel like Holly Hunter in Broadcast News, having to find a secluded spot at work just to cry for a few minutes.
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