I think nearly everyone has one of those idyllic summers that are often the centerpiece of Stephen King stories of youth, like “The Body.” I’m not talking horror stories but coming-of-age pieces that, when you look back upon them as an adult, seem to form the absolute best times of your adolescence. For me, it…

Some songs are like time machines: they can transport you through the years. Living Colour’s “Broken Hearts” is one such song. But in stark contrast to a song like “Don’t You Forget About Me,” “Broken Hearts” takes me to a place beyond those raging and changing hormones, a place to where I’d finally found friends…

High school. The fall of 1987 was my first year in high school: 10th grade. I didn’t got to my local high school. I was part of the magnet program in Los Angeles and went to Cleveland Humanities Magnet in Reseda, California. (At the time, my local high school would have been Kennedy High School).)…

I’m halfway through this musical autobiography with just ten days remaining in my 30s. The last few songs have been covering those awkward years when puberty hits and the rush of hormones through your veins cause all kinds of strange feelings and emotions. Perhaps no song better epitomizes these feelings for me than Berlin’s “Take…

My first New Year’s Eve party was on December 31, 1984. I was in 7th grade. This was an all-night party and lots of kids from school were attending. There wasn’t anything illicit going on. No drinking or drugs that I am aware of, but everyone was euphoric. The party started in the evening and…

Remember your first school dance? I’m not talking about the square dancing you would do in sixth grade as part of a program for the school show. I’m talking about a real dance where your music was playing and there were, you know, girls to dance with? I think mine was in seventh grade, although it…

That same school year that saw me in the darkness of seventh grade also saw a number of musicians come together as part of USA for Africa. “We Are the World” is another iconic song of the mid-80s and an equally iconic song for my life in seventh grade. Unlike “Don’t You Forget About Me”,…

Seventh grade was a new world for me. New school, new friends, and there was also the fact that you didn’t remain in the same classroom all day, but instead you moved from class to class over the course of the day. Six periods, with a break in the morning and a break at lunch…

The summer olympics in Los Angeles was one of those truly memorable events for a twelve-year-old. There were all kinds of interesting things happening that summer. In addition to Olympics Everywhere, there were these strange little signs cropping up all over town. Sometimes it appeared on a billboard. Other times on a bus bench. Still…

When I first moved to L.A., I didn’t realize that I wasn’t going to like it. There was the usual sadness over leaving behind friends (and especially my grandparents). Most of those friend connections were forever severed by that move. But my first school year in L.A., sixth grade, was a breeze for me. I…

Van Halen’s “Jump” is a kind of transitionary song for me. And a big transition it was. In October 1983, after living in Warwick, Rhode Island for four years, we moved again, this time to Granada Hills, California, a suburb of Los Angeles in the San Fernando Valley. Shortly after we moved, Van Halen’s “Jump”…

Sometime in 1979 or 1980, my dad got a new company car. It had an FM stereo with one of those antennas that would retract. Back then, we used to make the trip from Warwick, Rhode Island to Spring Valley, New York with fair regularity. We’d hop onto I-95 and sit on that road for…