Have you ever rediscovered something you’d previously loved but hadn’t appreciated for awhile?
You, too? Me, too! u2.
I had decided to watch Jimmy Fallon’s debut episode of The Tonight Show because, first of all, the man is a comic genius. Second of all, he isn’t Jay Leno. I’ve never cared for Leno. Johnny Carson was da bomb. I love Letterman. Conan O’Brien is the funniest redhead I know (sorry, Carrot Top). But Leno? I always found him off putting, and worse, not very humorous. Fallon is a breath of fresh air. I can’t say I’ll stay up past midnight every night to catch the show, but episodes are available On Demand, so if there are a good crop of guests, then I’ll try to catch it.
Anyway. One of the highlights of the show was U2’s rooftop performance 70 stories above Rockefeller Center. Didn’t catch it? Here you go…
That performance blew me away! And then they did an acoustic version of their Oscar-nominated song “Ordinary Love” on the couch inside the studio, which was like a soft bookend to their enthusiastic rendition of “Invisible” high in the sky. Suddenly I was like, “Say, these lads from Ireland aren’t too shabby,” a ridiculous statement given the fact that one of the oldest records in my collection is “Under A Blood Red Sky” and I’ve got more than 30 of their songs on my iPod. It’s not like I’d never heard U2 before. When Tara and I were driving past a landscape littered with joshua trees in the Nevada desert on our way to Vegas in 2012, our soundtrack was “The Joshua Tree” – about as literal as you can get (save for Springsteen’s “Badlands” which I played while driving through the Badlands. I’m funny that way. Guess which song I’m playing if I ever spend one night in Bangkok. Go ahead, guess).
Anyway. It’s funny how you can suddenly rediscover old favorites and see them in a new light. This Bono guy rocks. He might have a few social or political messages up his sleeve, too. Who knows?
A similar thing happened once with “The King Of Queens.” When it was a regular show on CBS’s schedule, I never paid it much attention. I’d tune in on occasion, but wasn’t a huge fan. And then a couple of years later I started watching reruns in syndication and realized just how damn funny the show was. So I started stockpiling episodes. At one point I had more than 30 episodes of “The King Of Queens” on my DVR. You might think that’s way too much Kevin James for any sane individual to digest, but I beg to differ. Kevin James is a superstar.
Rediscovery is different than discovery. It implies you once had at least a passing knowledge of something, and it was a part of your routine once in awhile, if not on a regular basis, before falling off your radar for some reason. Recent rediscoveries of mine include Tom Petty, Whiskey Sours, “The Godfather” and beef jerky. Meanwhile, discoveries are fun, too. Lately I’ve learned that “The Wire” was a brilliant drama, pistachios are a delicious nut, and Vern Fonk is the Saul Goodman of Puget Sound.
By the way, I’ve always had a thing for obscure references.
On The Next Episode of CSI…
Had a bit of excitement last night. Tara was in bed and I was watching TV when I heard loud voices coming from outside. Very loud. Like, through a bullhorn.
WhatTheHell…?
So I opened my door at the same time as my neighbor. We walked to the front of our garages, only to find a police car blocking the road and a couple of cops in a protective stance, guns drawn. They were aimed at the neighbor’s condo across the way, who they were urging to “come out with your hands up” just like you’d hear on TV. “We have you surrounded. There is nowhere you can go. Come out peacefully.”
Let me tell you, that’s a pretty scary thing. We were told in no uncertain terms to get back inside our houses, so we complied. Winding up with bullet holes in the torso would have been a real shitty way to end the day.
This went on for some time before he eventually surrendered. Tara did wake up to witness the melee, and afterwards, I told her, “I hope he killed somebody.” This prompted a look, so I went on to explain that I didn’t wish harm on anybody, of course not, but that if he had committed a crime I hoped it was a big one simply because I’d have a helluva story to tell later. You see, I don’t like this guy they arrested. He’s been bad news from the start. I left a nasty note on his car once because he was parked where he didn’t belong, and another time I yelled at him in the middle of the night to “shut the f$%k up” because he was making all kinds of racket. How cool would it be if you could tell people at a party “I once harassed a serial killer…and lived to tell about it?”
Yes, my mind works in weird ways. I know.
Oh, and by the way? Glad we’re moving out of this complex in a little over two weeks!
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