Switch to mono

The wife and I abandon our children every Saturday. But it’s the harmless type of abandonment that won’t require counseling later in life. We rise quietly and walk through the house in our socks. My boots are too loud on the tile, and they might awaken the beasts. We turn on the TV with lowered volume as a distraction tactic. We leave piles of food and notes full of pleasantries and promises. “Here’s some breakfast. Mommy and daddy love you. We’ll bring you back surprises!” We walk out the door as I pull on my boots. We run to my truck with giddy smiles and drive away. It’s really not that big of a deal. Our oldest is 13 and she comments rarely on our absence; she can’t see much through her cloud of angst. And our 6-year-old is a feral beast who can fend for herself. If the zombie apocalypse ever actually happens, I’d help her fashion a spear and send her on her way. It’d probably only take her a month or two to assemble her own band of invincible road warriors.

Our first stop is always coffee. We drive for what seems like 20 years down the mesa, through town, and to the rutty parking lot in front of 81301. In case you didn’t know, their coffee is the best on Earth. This claim is sans hyperbole. They import and roast all sorts of exotic beans from seemingly mythical places. They pour hot water lovingly over the grinds through crystalline beakers like caffeine scientists. I always order an iced Americano with four shots, honey and almond milk. I guess I could start calling it a “quad shot,” but it seems apropos to keep my order lengthy considering the amount of time and attention that goes into making it. My wife orders her drink, an almond milk wet cappuccino, and then I trade a couple of my dollars for quarters. I buy a newspaper, and we sit to sip and hunt for garage sales.

The garage sales here are just as mythical as the coffee at 81301. The wife and I were at one not too long ago when she spied an “Alaska Grown” T shirt. We asked the affable lady clutching a wad of ones if she was from Alaska. She said no, but she had family there, and did we by chance know the Keeners?

 Yes! I did know the Keeners! I grew up with Jon! The woman with all the ones turned out to be his cousin. So I got his number and called him. As it turned out, it was his birthday. Think about that for a moment. I was 3,000 miles away at a random garage sale. I found a shirt, asked a question, and was reconnected with an old friend whom I hadn’t spoken to in 20 years, and it all happened on his birthday. My brain exploded so hard that grey matter erupted from my ears like two miniature geysers.

But that has nothing to do with why I’m writing this. At another garage sale, my wife found a Walkman. I stole it from her and paid the $3 before she could object. It’s mine now. This wasn’t just any Walkman, it was the one I always wanted as a kid. Shiny and sleek and not much bigger than a cassette. My mom bought me an off-brand “Walkman” when I was young and I suppose my dad thought that the Gameboy and psychological issues he gifted me were good enough. But now I have my Walkman, and it’s almost perfect. I say “almost” because it didn’t come with those foamy headphones. It’s for the better. If it did come with those awesomely retro headphones, I’d start questioning the very fabric of reality.

Here’s the kicker: the Walkman came complete with a mix tape trapped within its steely bowels. Life’s tedium faded to mere background static as I started to wonder which songs were magnetically written on the brown tape between the reels. Fast forward a few hours. The wife and I stare from our backs into the darkness above our bed. We shared the headphones, one ear bud each just like Jeremy Grimes and I did on the back of the bus during a band trip two decades ago. He and I were listening to Metallica. My wife and I were listening to Annie Lennox and other relics from the early ’90s. Someone had loved that tape and made multiple recordings. Listening carefully, I could hear the ghosts of songs recorded previously hidden in the silence. There are songs on that tape that I’ve never heard before, and you have no idea how odd that is for me. I memorize eidetically every song I hear, and to hear something new after all this time came as a shock.

My ear drums were drowning in wonderment. One of those new songs was “Silver Thunderbird” by Marc Chon. Dear god, how is it that I’ve never heard that song? It’s incredible. As I lay there listening, I wanted to make sure I was hearing everything that he had to offer. So I fumbled with the switch from stereo to mono so that I could hear both the left and the right tracks.

Have you ever wondered why old-school devices have that little switch? I now know why. So does my wife. And so does Jeremy Grimes, if his memory is still lucid. It’s so music can be shared in its entirety if you’ve only got one set of headphones. Can you do that with your iPhone? Nope. That’s because your iPhone isn’t meant to be shared. It’s a device created to ensnare you within its high tech trappings. It can tell you in real time what the weather is like in Cupertino. It can talk to you and understand your requests. It can plot maps taking you to places where you really don’t need to be. But it can’t give you music in mono because it doesn’t want to be shared. So put it down. This weekend, if your children are old enough to be left alone, leave them that way. Head into town. Stop for coffee. Wake up. Find a garage sale and hunt for your very own Walkman (you’ll never, ever get mine). Find someone you care about and switch to mono, because life is lived better with only one ear bud.

– J.J. Anderson