Catching Up to the Present: Ken Just Bought TP&tHBs Greatest Hits, and I Just Started Watching the X-Files

Just the other day, Ken called me from the music section of one of the department stores, I think it was Target, as he was leafing through CDs and picking a couple to buy. I started asking about his choices and if the store had this or that. Ken indulged me, like he often does, because he's a great guy. A lot of what I'd recommend, I knew Target wasn't the place, but that didn't stop me from trying. Subsequent to a few band names that probably had him shaking his head, Ken decided it'd be easier to tell me what they did have rather than search for a lot of CDs they wouldn't. He started listing some music where I was "no", "no, you don't want that" and "oh, you've got to be kidding". Then, he casually mentioned Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Greatest Hits, on sale. What? TP&tHBs? Even Ken, methinks, would have that staple. I mean, I know him enough to know that he'd like TP, and, really, I was kind of surprised that his CD collection didn't have at least one of the TP/HBs classics -Damn the Torpedoes, Hard Promises, Long After Dark, or Southern Accents. As he scanned the songs on the CD, he knew American Girl but after that, unless he was yanking my chain -- always possible, but he sounded honest -- he didn't recognize hardly anything. Listen to Her Heart? I Need to Know? Don't Do Me Like That? Even the Losers? Here Comes My Girl? The Waiting? No, no, no, no, no, and no - he said he didn't recognize anything - I think I may have gotten a hesitant yes at Don't Come Around Here No More or Freefallin'. Now, I'm no psychiatrist, but this, to me, sounded like an urgent cry for help. My thoughts were: where had Ken been all this time and please, Ken, be joking? Immediately, I told him to get the CD. I went so far as to say I'd buy it from him for the sale price plus tax if he didn't like it, even though I already have it and have had it for years. Inside, because I'm a little bit, or a lot a bit, of a jerk sometimes, that little "music elitist" (which is really a joke - because I have no talent for singing or playing an instrument, and really only have this subjective taste like anyone else, but mine is just a little more narrow - and for whatever reason, I take pride in that -- yeah, that's the SIN pride), part of me scoffed at my friend (I'm apologizing now Ken - SORRY!) for not being on the musical "in", whatever that is, for so, so long.

Mirror reflection.

Just a day before that, I was in Wal-Mart with my kids, and I saw a package deal, Season 1 and Season 2 of The X-Files, on for $16.99. I remember when the X-Files hit way back in the early to mid-1990s, and I had a lot of good folks recommend it to me. Because I am like I am (well, I've been working on it since), I resisted, then, in getting caught up in something about which everyone else raved, even though, when hearing about the episodes and arc, I knew I'd like it. Over the years, I've caught a few X-Files shows in syndication, and I've always gotten wrapped up in them when I've watched. Since the syndicated shows I watched were at 1 a.m., however, it made it hard to keep up a steady diet. Plus, there was no chronology in the shows I watched. A few had Mulder and Scully, but others had Scully and Doggett and then Doggett and someone else, and then I couldn't figure out what all had taken place. Anyway, to make a short story that I've made longer but am trying to rectify that from the rambling mess of where this post could go, I bought The X-Files Season 1/Season 2. I'm five episodes into Season 1 and, of course, am hooked. All the accolades, at least to this point in my watching, seem well-deserved. And it just makes me think, what in the world was I thinking back in time when other folks, people I trusted and that knew me, told me that I'd love The X-Files? Not hard to see that it was, once again, pride. On the scale of things, I'm fortunate that watching a TV show isn't a big deal, so this time, my pride hurting me is just looking silly for starting to watch a TV show now that I could have been "in on" sixteen years ago. No real harm. Unfortunately, and as an aside, my pride has, believe it or not, reared it's smirky face in other, BIGGER, instances, for real harm - but maybe those another time. And maybe not.

For now, if anyone is a fan of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers or The X-Files, you're welcome to crack on me and/or Ken for being so out of the loop for no good reason. You can especially crack on Ken, because my feelings get hurt easily. I like giving, but taking's not really my thing, if that's okay ;). Nah, I'm kidding, give me what you got!

OR! You could take a higher road, and share some of either your TP or X-File insight with us.

OR! Even better, you could join in my lament on living in the past, having to catch up to the present, and hardly ever glimpsing the future. What are some of the "in"-type things, that you're trying and/or might like now, that were more popular back then. Hopefully, not wearing plaid golfer pants (I've still got enough pride in me to scoff at you if you're doing that, and scoff I will).

AND! Just so everyone realizes I'm not sociopathic without a conscience, the moral I've learned from all this, because it's so very important to apply life lessons correctly, is this:

DON'T EVER LAUGH AT KEN. NEVER. NOT EVER.
NOT FOR ANY REASON AT ALL.