Author: Frank

Music…

Red Sector A

Grace Under Pressure

Rush

and Words

All that we can do is just survive
All that we can do to help ourselves is stay alive
All that we can do is just survive
All that we can do to help ourselves is stay alive

Ragged lines of ragged grey
Skeletons, they shuffle away
Shoutin′ guards and smoking guns
Will cut down the unlucky ones

Lyric excerpts from Musixmatch.

I was in high school when I read George Orwell’s 1984; ironically, it was around 1984.  The words expanded my mind and darkened my heart; I loved that book.  Some allege that, in order to render a book boring to students, teachers need only label it required reading.  This book was required reading, and I loved it nonetheless.  I won’t spend my post detailing the events in the book.  I will say that its dystopian nature and the degree to which the state controlled everything awakened parts of my mind that lay dormant.

While I enjoyed reading other required assignments in high school, George Orwell’s 1984 sits at the top of the list.  I should be grateful that it was assigned reading, because I honestly doubt that I would’ve read it on my own.  On my own, I’ve read other books that others allege as classic must-reads, like Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, but it didn’t have the same impact.

Continue reading “In the shadow of 1984” →

Music…

DJ Play A Christmas Song

Christmas

Cher

and Words

No one on the streets and the city is quiet
I should be asleep by the heat of the fire
But I′m on my way out
And I’m gonna stay out

I can feel the pulse as I walk in the door
Take me through the crowd to the middle of the floor
The red and the green lights
Are hitting me just right

Lyric excerpts from Musixmatch.

From my earliest memory, my dad ran his own restaurant.  We lived in Puerto Rico, and he converted the front end of the residence, in the middle of our street, into a restaurant.  This means that my family has been in the service industry my entire life.  Most people have fond memories of Christmas Day.  They remember Christmas Day traditions with their families, with little else to do.  After all, most businesses close on Christmas Day.  Chinese restaurants do not close on Christmas Day.  My dad didn’t close our restaurant on Christmas Day.

Once my dad passed away, we moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida.  My mom didn’t speak English and had only a limited education.  She took on work as a seamstress and found side jobs in the kitchens of Chinese restaurants.  However, the rest of my siblings and I started work at an early age.  I started working at the age of twelve by washing dishes.  My sisters similarly worked in the food industry.  In fact, my mom ran another restaurant in Florida.

Continue reading “Another holiday” →

Music…

Something Just Like This

Memories… Do Not Open

The Chainsmokers & Coldplay

and Words

I′ve been reading books of old, the legends and the myths
Achilles and his gold, Hercules and his gifts
Spider-Man’s control and Batman with his fists
And clearly, I don′t see myself upon that list

But she said, “Where d’you wanna go? How much you wanna risk?
I’m not looking for somebody with some superhuman gifts
Some superhero, some fairy tale bliss
Just something I can turn to, somebody I can kiss”

Lyric excerpts from Musixmatch.

As we got a new car nearly a year ago, we finally enjoyed integration with modern technology.  In our case, this meant having digital music in the car as well as a combined playlist.  We both contribute to that playlist.  Honestly, on most trips, we talk instead of playing music.  These trips mostly occur when we start or end our workdays, and thus, we often converse about the events of our day.

However, we do play music when the mood arises.  She is more selective than I am about the songs that we play, whenever she selects the music (hint: most of the time, since I normally drive).  She often skips certain tunes based on mood.  I understand that; I often skip songs even on carefully curated playlists.  There are some songs that I occasionally request we not skip, such as Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin’.

Continue reading “My superhero and fairy tale bliss” →

Music…

You Really Got Me

Van Halen

Van Halen

and Words

Girl, you really got me now
You got me so I don′t know what I’m doin′
Girl, you really got me now
You got me so I can’t sleep at night

Girl, you really got me now
You got me so I don’t know where I′m goin′, yeah
Oh yeah, you really got me now
You got me so I can’t sleep at night

Lyric excerpts from Musixmatch.

For some time now, a quiet thought lingered as I wrote these posts.  Is my writing a sanitized version of the thoughts that bounce in my head?  While I definitely write about loss and even longing, it’s all neatly packaged and resolved.  It gives the quiet impression that I have my shit together, and that you can similarly magically resolve all conflict in your life.

The story I tell myself is that I choose not to write about it yet because it’s not yet complete.  To follow typical high school writing instructions, a piece needs an introduction, a body, and a conclusion.  Writing about unresolved conflict felt a bit like giving you only the first half of a book without showing how it all resolves.  Why would I write a story that leads nowhere?

Continue reading “In Praise of Van Hagar” →

Music…

Unwritten

Unwritten

Natasha Bedingfield

and Words

I am unwritten
Can′t read my mind, I’m undefined
I′m just beginning
The pen’s in my hand, ending: unplanned

Staring at the blank page before you, open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you cannot find
Reaching for something in the distance, so close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions

Lyric excerpts from Musixmatch.

On a lazy weekend evening, we settle at home to watch a film.  We hadn’t yet decided on our selection, but we looked for something that would entertain us for the evening.  After looking at some trailers, we settled on the movie Anyone But You.  It seemed like a fun, light-hearted romantic comedy.  The movie didn’t disappoint; it was precisely what we needed that night.

Upon seeing the credits, I was delighted to find that Sydney Sweeney, the actress who played the lead, got top billing over her love interest, played by Glen Powell.  Both characters were likeable and flawed.  It’s refreshing to have finally escaped the misogynistic double standard about promiscuity from my youth.  Naturally, you can predict that the two of them will end up together.  Though, as with most romantic comedies, it’s not about the destination; it’s about the journey.

Continue reading “Today is where your book begins” →

Music…

Dream On

Aerosmith

Aerosmith

and Words

Every time when I look in the mirror
All these lines on my face getting clearer
The past is gone

And it went by, like dusk to dawn
Isn′t that the way?
Everybody’s got their dues in life to pay

Yeah, I know nobody knows
Where it comes and where it goes
I know it′s everybody’s sin
You got to lose to know how to win

Lyric excerpts from Musixmatch.

Broward Mall, the local mall where I grew up in Fort Lauderdale, sat on the corner of Broward Boulevard and University Drive.  It was a modest drive away, at 10-15 minutes by car.  However, considering that I didn’t have my own car until I had basically graduated from high school, it was somewhat inaccessible.  The times I did make it out there relied on my older sister’s generosity, since she had a car.

On a particular day during high school, I browsed the music section at Spec’s in the mall.  They played this song by Aerosmith, ‘Dream On’, over their speakers throughout the store.  I knew the song and artist; I liked the song.  Meanwhile, another patron walks up to the cashier’s station and asks about the song, insisting that he wants to buy the album.  Instead of simply making the sale, the clerk responds with, “This particular song is unlike the rest of Aerosmith’s music; you’d be better off getting the single.”

Continue reading “Dreaming of something other than dishonor” →

Music…

Where Do The Children Go

Nervous Night

The Hooters

and Words

Surrender into the night
Silently take my hand
Nobody knows what′s inside us
Nobody understands

They handed us down a dream
To live in this lonely town
But nobody hears the music
Only the echo of a hollow sound

Where do the children go
Between the bright night and darkest day?
Where do the children go
And who’s that deadly piper who leads them away?

Lyric excerpts from Musixmatch.

I started college at the University of Miami in 1986.  I was a computer geek in high school and continued in college.  People looked upon computers differently back then.  In high school, we word processed and played games with computers; only a select few dared to program these machines.  I learned to program BASIC from the thick 3-ring binders that came with the computer.

I moved into Pearson Hall.  My dorm room sat in a short wing, half a flight from the lobby.  The elevator button to my floor was “R1”, for Rear 1.  All my neighbors in that short hallway were incoming freshmen, save the handful of upperclassmen from the year before that retained their dorm room.  This is where I first met George, and through him, I met other friends.

Continue reading “Where did we go indeed?” →

Music…

Blinding Lights

After Hoursy

The Weeknd

and Words

Yeah

I′ve been tryna call
I’ve been on my own for long enough
Maybe you can show me how to love, maybe
I′m goin’ through withdrawals
You don’t even have to do too much
You can turn me on with just a touch, baby

I look around and
Sin City′s cold and empty (oh)
No one′s around to judge me (oh)
I can’t see clearly when you′re gone

Lyric excerpts from Musixmatch.

Back in March 2020, the world shut down.  They instructed us to work from home until it all passed; they non-ironically speculated that it’d be a few weeks.  We packed up our laptops, but our considerably more powerful desktop machines remained at work.  Being nowhere but home started to drive us a bit batty.  Our transition from ‘work’ to ‘home’ mode occurred in single-digit minutes.  A teammate had a brilliant idea; upon ending his ‘work’ day, he’d get in his car and ‘drive’ home.  I don’t know where he went, nor how long he’d drive, but he ‘drove’ home to help him separate from work.

This is genius.  Driving is therapeutic.  I lived in Fort Lauderdale when I got my driver’s license, and their public transportation system sucked.  Most classmates spent their sixteenth birthdays waiting in line for hours to get their driver’s licenses.  While I got my license when I was sixteen, I didn’t do it on my birthday.  Truthfully, I looked upon driving with a certain apathy, though that changed.

Continue reading “The Joy of the Drive” →

Music…

You Belong to the City

Above the Clouds

Glenn Frey

and Words

The Sun goes down, the night rolls in
You can feel it starting all over again
The moon comes up and the music calls
You′re getting tired of staring at the same four walls

You’re out of your room and down on the street
You can feel the crowds in the midnight heat
The traffic roars, the sirens scream
Look at the faces, it′s just like a dream

Nobody knows where you’re going
Nobody cares where you’ve been

Lyric excerpts from Musixmatch.

Miami Vice premiered while I was in high school.  They integrated popular music into their television show, being among the first to do so.  In fact, some popular music was only released initially on their soundtrack.  At least among my age group, this show forced you to watch, even in its Friday night time slot.  However, it wasn’t simply about the music.  Their themes were uncharacteristically gritty; for instance, they killed Jimmy Smits’s character after one episode.  It felt real.

Furthermore, Miami is a few miles from my childhood home of Fort Lauderdale.  We buried my dad’s remains in Miami, so we would drive down to visit them regularly.  The city maintains that unmistakable Latin flavor from my days in Puerto Rico, albeit with a more pronounced Cuban twist.  As I approached my senior year in high school, I spent a summer at the University of Miami studying engineering.  Upon finishing high school that year, I decided to continue my education at Miami.

Continue reading “Belonging to Miami” →