It was long ago and it was far away and it was so much better than it is today
----Meatloaf, "Paradise by the Dashboard Lights"


That line was bouncing in my head a few days ago, and then it rather vanished, only to resurface during my mini-nostolgia trip of my last entry. How I could go from New Wave to Meatloaf, I am not qwuite sure, but that is the genius of my mind and I have learned it is not wise to question such matters too deeply.

I remember when "Paradise by the Dshboard Lights" was actually a "cool" song. It was during a time period that encompassed a span of, oh, six months, in 1991. I had never heard of the song before then--actually, that may not be true. I think I has heard it, in bits and pieces, during random dials of MTV (back when they played vidoes--and that was so long ago that simply the refrain "back when they played music videos" is in itself a trip down memory lane; wheels within wheels, the spiral doesn't end, it just gets dizzier; catch me if you can.)

The song really hit my consciousness in June of 1991, during my cousin Robin's Sweet Sixteen party. Because "Paradise by the Dashboard Lights" is a staple (or was, at any rate) of Sweet Sixteen parties. Not that I knew this at the time. I barely had male friends, let alone female friends, so all I knew is at one point the DJ had the guys lined up on one side and the girls on the other. The thing was, that put me and Toni on opposite sides.

Ah, Toni Fessler. First girl I ever dated. Met her there at my cousin's Sweet Sixteen party. I had no idea how she and Robin got to be friends. I would like to point out that she, in fact, was two years older than me. She had graduated Manalapan High School just a few days before the party. Yes, my first date was with an older woman. This might also explain the whole "tall women" thing, because I do remember her being taller. But this could be a chicken/egg situation, so best not to dwell on such matters.

The point is, Toni was at the party. I had seen her now and again in the halls at school, and that was where things began and stopped until that night, where we talked and danced and I asked her out and she said yes. I was 15. She was 17. Coo coo ca-choo, Mrs. Robinson. It was a marvelous thing. My brother congratulated me. My parents were happy. My Grandfather was glad he "no longer had to worry about me." Toni and I even kissed that night. (Not a real kiss, mind you. More of a “hey, this person’s kinda cute” kiss, not a “oh my god if I don’t come up for air I’m going to die but it will so be worth it” kiss. But that’s for another blog entry.)

At any rate, admist all the hoopla of infatuation and pride, this whole "guys on one side, girls on the other" thing happened. Like I said, it was all new to me, but I was enjoying the flow of the evening so far and saw reason to complain. So there we were, and just as suddenly:

"Will you love me forever?" she cried, as if she wanted to burst into tears but she had too much pride to give him the satisfaction.

"Let me sleep on it," he said cooly. Because it's the 70's dammit, and James Taylor and Alan Alda and all those other "Mr. Sensitives" can kiss my sensitive ass.

"Will you love me forever?" the girls cried out, in their '91 fashions that still relied too much on trends from the 80's, and hair that relied on far too much Aqua Net.

"Let me sleep on it," the guys shouted back. Hormones running rampant desperate not to let the other guys in the line know that most of us hadn't gotten half as far as we claimed we did.

Except . . . it occured to me that if the whole point was to get the girl, and get the girl to give it up, and seeing how my first reasonable chance at this (possibly) happening was now standing two feet across from me, it might not be the smartest thing in the world to blow her off by acting Too Kewl For Words.

"Will you love me forever?" Toni parroted at me.

I looked at her and answered: "Sure."

Got me another hug and a (not reallly a) kiss out of it, and the lesson learned has been remembered to this day.

Mind you, things did not last long for me and Toni. We went out once or twice, hung out a time or so after that, and then it took two weeks of her not returning my phone calls and me tracking her down at the pizza place where she worked to actually hear her say she didn't want to date me anymore. Thus ended my first official romantic relationship and, looking back, I must say it was quite the harbinger of things to come. But that's another blog entry.

The point is: I rather liked "Paradise by the Dashboard Lights" back then. It's hopelessly hokey, I understand that, and mired in that lousy 70's feel--it was bad pop music and yet had that unquantifiable je ne sais pas that made it so damn catchy. Or, at least it did for a few months before I realized what an utter overindulgent bore the song is. (I was 16 and stupid, but not that stupid.)

Except . . . that ending. That refrain: "It was long ago and it was far away and it was so much better than it is today." That terrible line--terrible not because it's painful, terrible because of it's implications. That those fleeting moments of time inexorably slip futher away. Last week, last year, last decade; it doesn't matter because it all goes the same way: away.

And then you forget. You know what I'm talking about. Those moments that were so indelible in your mind, the ones you swore you'd never forget (because how could you possible forget them?) just vanish. And you don't notice that they're gone until the day you drive down to your parent's house (taking the back roads because the traffic on Route 9 is a bitch, even at 10:30 in the morning), and you drive past the Firehouse where your cousin had her Sweet Sixteen birthday party and before you know it you're replaying the Ballad of Toni and Craig in your mind, realizing you haven't seen that movie in years. (Yes, I'm mixing metaphors. Spiral, baby. Spiral.)

Terrible because there's some beyond reasonable sense of longing attached to these mostly-forgotten snapshots. Is it a sense of innocence? A "simpler" time? A "freer" time where the best thing in the world to happen to me was that a girl on the dance floor agreed to go out with me?

Ah, but let's not kid ourselves--or me, admittedly, the far more guillible of us two--this sort of logical yo-yo-ing isn't solely the property of this one moment. Every memory becomes instantly and as equally desireable. Even the ones far, far worse, the ones that are terrible in that most painful sense of the word. Because it wasn't so much better than it is today. It's different, of course, and in the sense of always wanting what you do not have, then, yes, it is a far better thing to be back there with Toni and Meatloaf ratber than sitting over here, now, listening to Tori Amos coo "Cooling" on my MP3 player. But that is no more tangible a truth than any of these mis-remembered memories I can bring up in this entry--and I seem to be on quite a roll here so you bet your ass I can bring up a lot of them. There's another quote worth mentioning. It's the opening line from The Glass Menagerie: "This play is from memory." And it should be the opening line to every autobiography and every slip down memory lane anyone ever bothers to write.

It was long ago and it was far away and it was so much better than it is today. It isn't. It was what it was. That was zen and this is tao. Yes, we are getting older--and some of us are older faster than others (nyah, nyah)--and there is an appeal in our youth. It's a paradoxical pratfall to think holding onto our youth will somehow make us young. I can wax poetically for another eight pages and still won't bring the past back. When I've finished, I'll just be that much older than I was when I started. The seduction of the past is that its maliability is subconscious. And as for Meatloaf and Jim Steinman's ode to younger days: even with its almost epiphany, it still is a stupid little song. It's cute and it's catchy, but there are better songs to listen to.

(With apologies to Elton and Bernie for ripping off their far better tune.)