On Facebook I was asked to list my top ten all-time albums that most influenced me. Since I can't list anything without a huge explanation, this is it. Not only that but I'm writing about my Top 19 instead of my Top 10.
This is what I wrote on Facebook: "I never lived in Los Angeles. I wanted to do, but I was too chicken to move across the country after I graduated college. Even though this band is from Sacramento, for some reason this album's sound seems like it would be the soundtrack from the mid-90s LA. I have no idea why I think this, I just do."
I've always been really interested in TV and movies. I've also been interested in writing. What I wanted to do more than anything in the world was to graduate college, move to LA and see if I could become a TV or movie writer. It never happen. The reason, which I explained above is because I was too chicken. I had a ton of excuses, "I'd my miss family and friends", "I wouldn't know anyone", "How would I get out there?", "How would I find a job, a place to live, etc?" but all of those questions boiled down to me not having the stones to go out there and try my luck as a writer or a comedian or something interesting.
Instead, I played it safe and worked at jobs that, other than the newspaper, I really hated. I wasted a lot of time in my 20s just kind of finding myself. And while things worked out really well, it took a long time to get where I'm at. Which, I guess it's all about the journey, but some journeys are more exciting than other.
How does Cake play into this? When I think of this band and their eclectic sound, I feel like this is the band that would be playing in LA dive bars, trying to make a name for themselves. The band that the cool people knew about before Cake broke big with "The Distance". And I think that it would have been cool to be a part of that scene.
The other day I listened to a podcast (Movie Crush) with comedian Scott Aukerman and he came of age as a writer during the time and he was reminiscing about the mid-90s LA scene and it sounded like what I've thought it was like. He had a crew of young comedians (Patton Oswalt, Brian Posehn, David Cross, Sarah Silverman) that he worked (at the coolest show on TV, "Mr. Show") with and hung out with. Every afternoon they'd call each other and determine which bar they were going to hang out at and then spend the night talking and making each other laugh. It sounded awesome.
Anyway, when he was telling this story this album was the soundtrack that I was picturing playing in the background. It's weird to feel nostalgic for someone else's past.
In any event, I knew of Cake from the aforementioned single "The Distance" which was got really big at the end of the summer of 1996. And that sparks a different kind of melancholy in me, as that is when it began to dawn on me that summer was over and a. I had no real job (I was delivering pizzas) and b. I was never going back to school. Suddenly the summer was over, my friends were working and moving on with their lives, I was broke, alone and living in my parents house and I that depressed the hell out of me.
I sort of forgot about Cake until the end of the decade when I started watching the reruns of the little-seen, but awesomely great WB cartoon "Mission Hill" on Adult Swim. The infectious theme song is an instrumental version of Cake's "Italian Leather Sofa". Once I figured out where I could find the song, I went on a mini Cake obsession that ebbed over the years. The last time it bubbled up was around the time when Giuliana was about seven months old and the new Cake album came out.
So now instead of missed opportunities and other people's nostalgia, Cake reminds me of moving to Burlington and the first year of my first child.
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