Turn Back Your Clocks Song
November 6, 2010 4:42 PM Subscribe
Your dad wishes to remind you that it's time to turn back your clocks. And since he's heading there, do you need anything from Costco?
Great Job!
posted by mccarty.tim at 4:45 PM on November 6, 2010
posted by mccarty.tim at 4:45 PM on November 6, 2010
My dad lives in England! They went back a week ago!
(also don't have Costco)
( you know, I really should check to see if they have any cheap gadgets, they're great if completely random for that)
(oh, and damn you for your Puritan hatred of booze, WA)
posted by Artw at 4:48 PM on November 6, 2010
(also don't have Costco)
( you know, I really should check to see if they have any cheap gadgets, they're great if completely random for that)
(oh, and damn you for your Puritan hatred of booze, WA)
posted by Artw at 4:48 PM on November 6, 2010
How do you set a clock? Seriously, the only one that I'll have to change is the one in the car, everything else I own figures it out on its own.
posted by octothorpe at 4:53 PM on November 6, 2010
posted by octothorpe at 4:53 PM on November 6, 2010
Even the microwave? You always forget the clock on the microwave. You have to press "set" twice!
posted by Jacqueline at 4:54 PM on November 6, 2010
posted by Jacqueline at 4:54 PM on November 6, 2010
Great. Doing the memorial tree planting for my Dad last week? No problem. Inane dad instructions about how to set the microwave? Bawling like a stupid little baby.
Great.
posted by Capt. Renault at 4:56 PM on November 6, 2010 [31 favorites]
Great.
posted by Capt. Renault at 4:56 PM on November 6, 2010 [31 favorites]
(((hugs)))
posted by Jacqueline at 5:04 PM on November 6, 2010
posted by Jacqueline at 5:04 PM on November 6, 2010
Dads mean well, but they seem to think we're starting daylight shifting time instead of (mercifully!) returning to standard time.
posted by FelliniBlank at 5:05 PM on November 6, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by FelliniBlank at 5:05 PM on November 6, 2010 [1 favorite]
Wait, why hasn't my dad called me about that?
Excuse me, I have to go make a phone call.
posted by QuarterlyProphet at 5:06 PM on November 6, 2010
Excuse me, I have to go make a phone call.
posted by QuarterlyProphet at 5:06 PM on November 6, 2010
Now the clock in my car will be right again!
posted by longsleeves at 5:06 PM on November 6, 2010 [24 favorites]
posted by longsleeves at 5:06 PM on November 6, 2010 [24 favorites]
I love living in Hong Kong; we don't use Daylight Savings Time.
posted by bwg at 5:15 PM on November 6, 2010
posted by bwg at 5:15 PM on November 6, 2010
Dad awesomness! Now - wither someone needs to scruff up my hair - I am going to scruff up someone else's hair. That's a Dad Hug.
posted by helmutdog at 5:16 PM on November 6, 2010 [2 favorites]
posted by helmutdog at 5:16 PM on November 6, 2010 [2 favorites]
I mean either - I wish my Dad taught me how to spell better.
posted by helmutdog at 5:17 PM on November 6, 2010
posted by helmutdog at 5:17 PM on November 6, 2010
I usually get around to resetting the clock in my car about a week before the time change.
posted by killdevil at 5:17 PM on November 6, 2010
posted by killdevil at 5:17 PM on November 6, 2010
Man my dad can't sing that well, but he's better than those poseurs.
posted by graventy at 5:19 PM on November 6, 2010
posted by graventy at 5:19 PM on November 6, 2010
I'll be having this exact conversation with my dad tonight. I'm looking forward to being reminded that someone cares enough about me to make sure I do mundane things for my own good.
posted by Foam Pants at 5:23 PM on November 6, 2010 [2 favorites]
posted by Foam Pants at 5:23 PM on November 6, 2010 [2 favorites]
Yeah, I'm kinda bawling too. What is about these things that sneak up on you? (A Dad)
posted by willF at 5:26 PM on November 6, 2010
posted by willF at 5:26 PM on November 6, 2010
Switching back to "regular" time is always so sad because it means dark 4PMs really soon. Why don't we just keep Daylight Savings Time as standard time? Surely an extra hour of sunlight after work is better than an hour before?
posted by reformedjerk at 5:28 PM on November 6, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by reformedjerk at 5:28 PM on November 6, 2010 [1 favorite]
Wow, this was so hilarious and dead-on. Now I need to call my dad.
posted by lunasol at 5:37 PM on November 6, 2010
posted by lunasol at 5:37 PM on November 6, 2010
Luckily I just had my car battery replaced, which threw off my car radio clock—so I have to change it anyway.
posted by limeonaire at 5:37 PM on November 6, 2010
posted by limeonaire at 5:37 PM on November 6, 2010
Yay for dads!
I love the feeling of getting that "extra" hour of sleep!
Surely an extra hour of sunlight after work is better than an hour before?
Depends when you go to work. I'll be glad not to head to work in the dark.
posted by wiskunde at 5:41 PM on November 6, 2010
I love the feeling of getting that "extra" hour of sleep!
Surely an extra hour of sunlight after work is better than an hour before?
Depends when you go to work. I'll be glad not to head to work in the dark.
posted by wiskunde at 5:41 PM on November 6, 2010
Why don't we just keep Daylight Savings Time as standard time?
Year-round DST actually happened in 1973 and 1974.
It's really a psychology problem. Would people actually get more daylight with permanent DST, or would they adapt their schedules so work ends around winter sunset again? It's particularly tricky now that most people have jobs with flexible/varying schedules, not shift labor anymore.
posted by miyabo at 5:49 PM on November 6, 2010
Year-round DST actually happened in 1973 and 1974.
It's really a psychology problem. Would people actually get more daylight with permanent DST, or would they adapt their schedules so work ends around winter sunset again? It's particularly tricky now that most people have jobs with flexible/varying schedules, not shift labor anymore.
posted by miyabo at 5:49 PM on November 6, 2010
Capt. Renault, for me it was the part about the TV remote.
posted by MrMoonPie at 5:50 PM on November 6, 2010
posted by MrMoonPie at 5:50 PM on November 6, 2010
I feel like being told to change the clock makes me think a little bit less about how I'm destined to die.
posted by mccarty.tim at 5:51 PM on November 6, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by mccarty.tim at 5:51 PM on November 6, 2010 [1 favorite]
Sent to my dad.
posted by you're a kitty! at 5:56 PM on November 6, 2010
posted by you're a kitty! at 5:56 PM on November 6, 2010
Well, I hadn't realized this was happening till now. So metafilter is my dad.
"Dad, how come you never told me you loved me?"
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 6:03 PM on November 6, 2010 [1 favorite]
"Dad, how come you never told me you loved me?"
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 6:03 PM on November 6, 2010 [1 favorite]
That was great. My dad called me earlier this week to remind me that this Sunday we'd be one hour closer to each other (he's in PA, I'm in AZ - where we don't observe daylight savings). And I was happy. We'll be one hour closer. Time travel rocks.
awwwwww.
posted by Sassyfras at 6:10 PM on November 6, 2010 [3 favorites]
awwwwww.
posted by Sassyfras at 6:10 PM on November 6, 2010 [3 favorites]
My dad called me about an hour ago. This made me howl with laughter!
posted by brand-gnu at 6:23 PM on November 6, 2010
posted by brand-gnu at 6:23 PM on November 6, 2010
Don't touch the remote!
You don't know how it works!
posted by NoraCharles at 6:55 PM on November 6, 2010 [3 favorites]
You don't know how it works!
posted by NoraCharles at 6:55 PM on November 6, 2010 [3 favorites]
Holy heck that was fun. I was just nerding around reading up on DST. Did you know the US has nine time zones technically? I was all set to make a post about Chamorro Standard Time but I'll just comment here instead. Yay dads.
posted by jessamyn at 7:09 PM on November 6, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by jessamyn at 7:09 PM on November 6, 2010 [1 favorite]
My parents will love this! They'll forward it to all their friends. Quick, where can I find it as a 30mb .wmv (or .rv) file?
posted by prinado at 7:23 PM on November 6, 2010 [4 favorites]
posted by prinado at 7:23 PM on November 6, 2010 [4 favorites]
That was cute. I just moved across the country from my dad and this made me weepy. I miss him and his love of Costco.
posted by Tesseractive at 7:29 PM on November 6, 2010
posted by Tesseractive at 7:29 PM on November 6, 2010
This can get complicated. Canada, of course has, Newfoundland, but that's nothing compared to Antarctica. At least they don't bother with DST there.
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 7:33 PM on November 6, 2010
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 7:33 PM on November 6, 2010
Somehow I had convinced myself that the time change happened last weekend. Our office telephone clocks were an hour off on Monday, i was tired, and I saw an article talking about iPhone-related DST issues the same day (must have been a British thing). Oops.
posted by sevenyearlurk at 7:49 PM on November 6, 2010
posted by sevenyearlurk at 7:49 PM on November 6, 2010
my dad called earlier today but i let it go to voicemail. now i feel bad. :(
posted by janepanic at 7:57 PM on November 6, 2010
posted by janepanic at 7:57 PM on November 6, 2010
The clocks on the buses here in Portland rolled back last weekend. I almost had a heart attack when I got on the bus and the clock read 6:15 instead of 7:15, but then I remembered that when my clock radio (yes, clock radio) went off that morning, the NPR dude said the right time.
My dad called me earlier this week to remind me that this Sunday we'd be one hour closer to each other (he's in PA, I'm in AZ - where we don't observe daylight savings). And I was happy. We'll be one hour closer. Time travel rocks.
That is so sweet! It's the other way for me - I get sad when we roll back because that means I am 4 hours "away" from my family back home instead of 3. I thought I was the only one who looked at it that way!
posted by DrGirlfriend at 7:59 PM on November 6, 2010
My dad called me earlier this week to remind me that this Sunday we'd be one hour closer to each other (he's in PA, I'm in AZ - where we don't observe daylight savings). And I was happy. We'll be one hour closer. Time travel rocks.
That is so sweet! It's the other way for me - I get sad when we roll back because that means I am 4 hours "away" from my family back home instead of 3. I thought I was the only one who looked at it that way!
posted by DrGirlfriend at 7:59 PM on November 6, 2010
Well, that got me to reset my watch.
That video is a collection of stereotypical dad things that my dad just never would do. He does, however, have a slightly weird habit of leaving voicemails telling me what time it is where he is and what time it is where I am, as if I'm particularly interested and as if I can't figure it out from the phone if I needed to. I assume it's a product of his job--he also tends to end his voicemails with "Thanks."
posted by hoyland at 8:09 PM on November 6, 2010 [1 favorite]
That video is a collection of stereotypical dad things that my dad just never would do. He does, however, have a slightly weird habit of leaving voicemails telling me what time it is where he is and what time it is where I am, as if I'm particularly interested and as if I can't figure it out from the phone if I needed to. I assume it's a product of his job--he also tends to end his voicemails with "Thanks."
posted by hoyland at 8:09 PM on November 6, 2010 [1 favorite]
I totally want DST forever. I don't give a crap about going to work while the sun's rising (as I have been doing lately) because I can't go have fun at dawn anyway, but leaving work in the pitch black dark, having wasted an entire day stuck inside a building, just sucks donkey balls. Though I have to say that the only thing Dubya did that I approved of was making non-DST time shorter.
I asked my friend the same question that reformedjerk said, and she said that parents didn't want their kids walking to school in the dark.
Stupid kids.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:11 PM on November 6, 2010 [7 favorites]
I asked my friend the same question that reformedjerk said, and she said that parents didn't want their kids walking to school in the dark.
Stupid kids.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:11 PM on November 6, 2010 [7 favorites]
Aw. I miss my dad! Though he usually called to remind me to get my oil changed, since I always had it done at his shop.
posted by emjaybee at 8:23 PM on November 6, 2010
posted by emjaybee at 8:23 PM on November 6, 2010
Awesome.
Now my rice cooker will only be 1:37 minutes off!
posted by spinifex23 at 8:27 PM on November 6, 2010
Now my rice cooker will only be 1:37 minutes off!
posted by spinifex23 at 8:27 PM on November 6, 2010
"You've gotta love a country where 11:30 a.m. happens five times a day." - Terry O'Reilly
posted by furtive at 8:42 PM on November 6, 2010
posted by furtive at 8:42 PM on November 6, 2010
Oh god... so funny... I was laughing already (mine reminded me on Tuesday), but when they hit that bit about the alumni magazine, I literally had to take off my glasses and pause the video while I howled with laughter.
I am 38 years old, but my dad still receives - and dutifully forwards - my alumni magazines. Every single one. For, let's see, about 13 years now.
(Also, clippings from the newspaper which are relevant to my interests.)
posted by ErikaB at 9:02 PM on November 6, 2010 [3 favorites]
I am 38 years old, but my dad still receives - and dutifully forwards - my alumni magazines. Every single one. For, let's see, about 13 years now.
(Also, clippings from the newspaper which are relevant to my interests.)
posted by ErikaB at 9:02 PM on November 6, 2010 [3 favorites]
My high school alumni material goes to my mom, who throws it out and then calls me and says, "Those assholes from your high school sent me some shit asking for money and I almost set it on fire because you hated that place so much."
I love my mom.
posted by nev at 9:14 PM on November 6, 2010 [9 favorites]
I love my mom.
posted by nev at 9:14 PM on November 6, 2010 [9 favorites]
"You have to love country where H o'clock happens ten times daily, comrade!" - Commissar Ivanov
posted by circular at 9:18 PM on November 6, 2010
posted by circular at 9:18 PM on November 6, 2010
I'm 44, so I was torn between laughing/crying about stuff my dad does, and slowly realizing that I am turning into him. The alumni magazine bit was spot on.
posted by craniac at 9:22 PM on November 6, 2010
posted by craniac at 9:22 PM on November 6, 2010
It's part of life, losing people is, I miss my father so much some days. He'd never have called me to remind me of clock settings but we were close, I've been blessed with close familial ties in this thing.
I'm not a father, missed that boat, and too bad for me, it seems to me -- from my perspective now, having watched my sibs children and now their grandchildren -- seems to me it's the most important piece in life. And watching my younger brother change from an Ocean Beach CA musician/character into Ward Cleaver right before my eyes was an amazing thing; I really would not be surprised if when I see him next month he's wearing a jacket with leather elbow patches.
jenfullmoon: "I asked my friend the same question that reformedjerk said, and she said that parents didn't want their kids walking to school in the dark."
Well then start school later. I always hear that argument dragged out, kids walking to school, and the one about farmers needing light to till their soil or plant oats or whatever it is farmers do nowadays, maybe sew their coveralls. Well hey, farmers have headlights now, so they ought to turn them on, or they can start later, it's not like they're out with Bessie the cow at dawn anymore, that's all in factories, so what's it matter what time they go out? And school can start later or The Youth Of America can take a bit more responsibility and walk in the dark or something, maybe they can get glow-in-the-dark Pez dispensers and wave them around so as to be seen... This is my very least favorite day of the year, no one has ever given me an even half-decent answer as to why the time isn't moved back an hour the *other* direction, or two hours, or five ...
... grumble grumble grumble ...
posted by dancestoblue at 9:25 PM on November 6, 2010 [3 favorites]
I'm not a father, missed that boat, and too bad for me, it seems to me -- from my perspective now, having watched my sibs children and now their grandchildren -- seems to me it's the most important piece in life. And watching my younger brother change from an Ocean Beach CA musician/character into Ward Cleaver right before my eyes was an amazing thing; I really would not be surprised if when I see him next month he's wearing a jacket with leather elbow patches.
jenfullmoon: "I asked my friend the same question that reformedjerk said, and she said that parents didn't want their kids walking to school in the dark."
Well then start school later. I always hear that argument dragged out, kids walking to school, and the one about farmers needing light to till their soil or plant oats or whatever it is farmers do nowadays, maybe sew their coveralls. Well hey, farmers have headlights now, so they ought to turn them on, or they can start later, it's not like they're out with Bessie the cow at dawn anymore, that's all in factories, so what's it matter what time they go out? And school can start later or The Youth Of America can take a bit more responsibility and walk in the dark or something, maybe they can get glow-in-the-dark Pez dispensers and wave them around so as to be seen... This is my very least favorite day of the year, no one has ever given me an even half-decent answer as to why the time isn't moved back an hour the *other* direction, or two hours, or five ...
... grumble grumble grumble ...
posted by dancestoblue at 9:25 PM on November 6, 2010 [3 favorites]
Well I was a kid way back in ancient times. There was an 'energy crisis' and Nixon's response was to make Daylight Savings Time last all year long. It was pretty scary walking to school in complete darkness. I heard about kids getting run over.
My Dad would always tell me (or e-mail me) to set the clocks back. This year I'm on my own.
posted by eye of newt at 9:48 PM on November 6, 2010
My Dad would always tell me (or e-mail me) to set the clocks back. This year I'm on my own.
posted by eye of newt at 9:48 PM on November 6, 2010
Man, that's a really.... that's a good video. Thanks for posting.
Off topic, does anyone know how to get my dad to stop emailing me with the day he emailed (most recent was "Saturday Morning") in the subject line? I'd be so grateful. Also, he just put a home video of me on youtube. Wtf.
posted by Night_owl at 9:48 PM on November 6, 2010 [1 favorite]
Off topic, does anyone know how to get my dad to stop emailing me with the day he emailed (most recent was "Saturday Morning") in the subject line? I'd be so grateful. Also, he just put a home video of me on youtube. Wtf.
posted by Night_owl at 9:48 PM on November 6, 2010 [1 favorite]
My dad is noticeably absent from that video. Probably because 1) he can carry a tune, and 2) he agrees with me that once we invent a working time machine, we need to go back and punch Ben Franklin in the snoot for inflicting this "spring forward fall back" crap on the nation.
posted by The Ardship of Cambry at 9:55 PM on November 6, 2010
posted by The Ardship of Cambry at 9:55 PM on November 6, 2010
Aww, man. I could swear I saw my Dad in the back, singing off key, asking me if I needed anything. Yes, Dad. I need you. I miss you.
posted by wv kay in ga at 10:22 PM on November 6, 2010 [6 favorites]
posted by wv kay in ga at 10:22 PM on November 6, 2010 [6 favorites]
I LOVE my Dad!
You know what's gonna happen? I'm going to get into my truck tomorrow, and the clock therein is going to say 4:10, and I'ma be all like NO! IT'S THREE-TEN, ASSFACE!
posted by deep thought sunstar at 2:54 AM on November 7, 2010
You know what's gonna happen? I'm going to get into my truck tomorrow, and the clock therein is going to say 4:10, and I'ma be all like NO! IT'S THREE-TEN, ASSFACE!
posted by deep thought sunstar at 2:54 AM on November 7, 2010
And THAT is why this damn day is going to suck! We're going to spend most of the day trying to get in touch with 6 kids, ALL of whom have degrees, one with a JD, one working on a PHD/MD, another working on an MA.... You would think that at some time these fancy universities would do a little "here's how to set the clock you moron-101" class.
You think it's easy to get ahold of them, hell no! We'll e/mail, we'll call, we'll IM, we'll message them on Facebook.
You think they'll take 5 minutes out of their SOOOO busy days to call us back? Hell NO!
We'll go to sleep tonight wondering if the clocks got set... It gets to the point that I start to wish they would all lose their jobs and get kicked out of school so as I wouldn't have to worry about the damn clocks anymore!
And, while I'm here, does anyone know how much postage to put on a GVSU alum magazine??
posted by HuronBob at 3:03 AM on November 7, 2010 [4 favorites]
You think it's easy to get ahold of them, hell no! We'll e/mail, we'll call, we'll IM, we'll message them on Facebook.
You think they'll take 5 minutes out of their SOOOO busy days to call us back? Hell NO!
We'll go to sleep tonight wondering if the clocks got set... It gets to the point that I start to wish they would all lose their jobs and get kicked out of school so as I wouldn't have to worry about the damn clocks anymore!
And, while I'm here, does anyone know how much postage to put on a GVSU alum magazine??
posted by HuronBob at 3:03 AM on November 7, 2010 [4 favorites]
As it happens, my dad's dead, so I won't get any notice on this, or any new notes pinned to his Chromega dichroic photographic enlarger explaining to use THIS knob to make adjustments and not THAT knob, which WILL BREAK THE MACHINE! I won't find a yellow sticky note inside the battery case of every portable piece of equipment he owned, warning that THESE BATTERIES ARE NOT FOR YOUR WALKMAN, and I won't find additional handwritten annotations in the rumpled pages of the manual for his '72 Triumph Daytona 500 that announce that he MOVED TURN SIGNAL SWITCH TO OPPOSITE HANDLEBAR TO PREVENT SKINNED KNUCKLES, and I won't find any updates to the two page set of instructions at my swiftly tilting cabin in West Virginia that warn THE PLUMBING MUST BE DRAINED EXACTLY PER THESE INSTRUCTIONS OR PIPES WILL FREEZE!
Life moves on, and you get your warnings elsewhere.
In my capacity of the caretaker and manager of the only giant freestanding novelty clock tower advertising a tranquilizer-laden granular stomach remedy in the world, the city of Baltimore will be my dad.
"Hey there, I just drove by the Bromo tower and the clock didn't fall back."
Sigh.
"Press 7 to delete this message or 9 to save."
7
"I just wanted to let you guys know the clock's still on the old time."
7
"Are you going to set the clock to the right time today?
7
"Hi there, sir, I would like to report that the clock is showing the wrong time."
7
It's not that I'm not glad to have the attention. It's just that a bearing went out in the main gen-set that runs the elevator last night around 5:21 or so and I'm going to have to drive 25 miles to the city, find somewhere to park, climb seventeen stories of stairs, shut the clock down, sit for an hour in the clock room, restart the clock, then climb down seventeen stories of stairs. It's been a long, long week, and I may yet try to see how much trouble I'd get into if I just left it until Monday morning.
My surrogate dads will let me know, so I'm on the knife edge of decision. I do have responsibilities now, you see, and I seem to be on a career path of escalating public awareness of my efficacy on the job. As the facility manager at the American Visionary Art Museum, I had constant problems with the large neon sign spelling out M-U-S-E-U-M on the northeastern point of the building, which would sort of randomly rearrange itself with every hard rainstorm.
"Joe, I left a copy of the City Paper in your mailbox," our illustrious founder's message breathlessly explained. I pocketed my cellphone and went for my mail slot, where the paper, marked with a note, clearly had my troublesome sign in the Whose Responible? photo column for the week, though it was an old photo, as I'd fixed the problem some time earlier. I explained this, hoping to soothe the panic, but it takes a while, sometimes. Besides, isn't it just a little screwed up that when I get behind on my work, it ends up IN THE GODDAMN NEWSPAPER?
It's okay. I like what I do. I've just got a lot of dads looking over my shoulder.
My own father wouldn't have submitted to the indignity of participating in a video making fun of his rhythm. He happened to have good rhythm, and a grasp of a well turned-out song, with one of the few pieces in his regular repertoire as an amateur pianist being the beloved "Memories of You" by Eubie Blake which he'd play as a sort of a nervous tic, or a strain relief, perhaps, upon finding himself in a quiet moment in front of our old Chickering grand. He'd let the notes run, just following through with whims and flourishes and little explorations of the minor moments of the piece, the way you do with music like this.
His indignities were private, really, though we'd often catch him in his oversized AKG headphones in front of the stereo, dancing and conducting in his Sears yoke-style boxer underpants that were so anachronistic they were a special catalog order even in the early eighties. You'd be somewhere else in the house, reading or indulging in the teenage sport of competition boredom, and you'd hear that he'd cranked it up so high that the tinky-tinky beats and high notes would filter through the whole house, and come down to find him dancing in the way you dance when no one's watching.
"RELAX, DON'T DO IT," blasted a set of tinny lyrics out of the leatherette cups of the headphones, and he wouldn't even see you there, looking dour in your parachute pants, until the song would hit a point where he do a little spin, and he'd finally realize you were there, arms folded, with an eyebrow raised.
"Frankie Goes To Hollywood? Seriously?"
He peeled off the headphones and stood there, out of breath, the music still blasting out of the headphones, his baggy underpants criss-crossed with seams that were probably put there for some good reason when yoke-style drawers were conceived, back in 1911 or thereabouts, looking a little irritated to have been knocked off his cloud.
"Son, if you'd stop being such a critic, you'd find that Welcome to the Pleasuredome is a canny statement on the tenor of our times."
It didn't help that he'd grown out a full white beard under his neatly groomed handlebar mustache by that point, which meant he looked more or less exactly like Santa Claus, except that Santa Claus was seldom found rocking out to Frankie Goes To Hollywood in our living room in just underpants and a worn-out undershirt.
"Ugh, that stuff's just beats and sweat, Dad. Jesus, why don't you just go to a gay bar and put on a fishnet t-shirt?"
"You're just showing your ignorance."
"Just sex music, that crap."
Me—I was so very above that sort of thing back then. It was the mid-eighties, I was a maladjusted pretentious homo with a clear conviction that I knew what the whole rest of the world needed to know, but people are idiots, right? I could do the deadpan monologue from "Desire" in perfect rhythm and "Would We Be Alive?" by The Residents would often blare out of my own stereo at grating volumes that would trigger my mom to attack the door and scream "HONEY, SHOULD I BRING UP YOUR FATHER'S POWER DRILL AND SKIL SAW SO YOU CAN PLAY ALONG WITH THAT?"
Dancing to a song just because it moves you just seemed so...decadent. I was a revolutionary, you see, someone who finally knew how to fix the world, and I just needed everyone to shut up and listen to my brilliance for a moment.
"See, this song is about Reagan's warmongering. It's not just sex music."
"Sex music," I said, and added, Gay sex music."
"Sometimes you just gotta let your balls tell you what to do."
I turned a shade paler.
"This is why we say you're embarrassing, Dad."
"What, because I said 'balls?'"
"Yes."
"Half the people in the world have 'em."
"Never mind. Go back to your disco, Dad."
The years roll on by. Once in a while, I find a note in a case for a tool I haven't had a reason to use until now, warning THIS MUST BE CLEANED AND RETURNED TO THE CASE IN ITS PLACE, JOE - CJW. My brother found one not long ago in a light meter among the photographic gear he'd inherited, and it was also personal.
WILL DON'T TAKE THESE BATTERIES-THESE BATTERIES ARE NOT FOR YOU - CJW
We write our own notes now, usually just to ourselves. We make our own warnings, dance to our own gay sex music, and go into ourselves for the wisdom that was once found as easily as you'd catch Santa Claus dancing in his underpants in the living room of an undistinguished log farmhouse in Scaggsville, Maryland.
We write our own notes because we have to.
So maybe today, I have "car trouble," see, and maybe I can't get up to the city to deal with the clock in a giant freestanding novelty clock tower advertising a tranquilizer-laden granular stomach remedy, and I'll just tend to it first thing Monday morning, after the dads of Baltimore have a satisfying opportunity to make a well-founded complaint. Maybe it'll be my gift to cranky old guys everywhere, coming from someone who is, by heritage, a bit cranky, himself.
Maybe tomorrow morning, I'll get off the train, head to the Tower, climb seventeen flights of stairs, turn off the clock, climb down fourteen flights to my office, put on "Memories of You," and wait out the hour while playing back my messages, listening for a familiar voice that's just not going to be there, not like I remember hearing it, alone in that little bubble of stalled time before I climb back to the top and set the world in motion again.
posted by sonascope at 4:15 AM on November 7, 2010 [29 favorites]
Life moves on, and you get your warnings elsewhere.
In my capacity of the caretaker and manager of the only giant freestanding novelty clock tower advertising a tranquilizer-laden granular stomach remedy in the world, the city of Baltimore will be my dad.
"Hey there, I just drove by the Bromo tower and the clock didn't fall back."
Sigh.
"Press 7 to delete this message or 9 to save."
7
"I just wanted to let you guys know the clock's still on the old time."
7
"Are you going to set the clock to the right time today?
7
"Hi there, sir, I would like to report that the clock is showing the wrong time."
7
It's not that I'm not glad to have the attention. It's just that a bearing went out in the main gen-set that runs the elevator last night around 5:21 or so and I'm going to have to drive 25 miles to the city, find somewhere to park, climb seventeen stories of stairs, shut the clock down, sit for an hour in the clock room, restart the clock, then climb down seventeen stories of stairs. It's been a long, long week, and I may yet try to see how much trouble I'd get into if I just left it until Monday morning.
My surrogate dads will let me know, so I'm on the knife edge of decision. I do have responsibilities now, you see, and I seem to be on a career path of escalating public awareness of my efficacy on the job. As the facility manager at the American Visionary Art Museum, I had constant problems with the large neon sign spelling out M-U-S-E-U-M on the northeastern point of the building, which would sort of randomly rearrange itself with every hard rainstorm.
"Joe, I left a copy of the City Paper in your mailbox," our illustrious founder's message breathlessly explained. I pocketed my cellphone and went for my mail slot, where the paper, marked with a note, clearly had my troublesome sign in the Whose Responible? photo column for the week, though it was an old photo, as I'd fixed the problem some time earlier. I explained this, hoping to soothe the panic, but it takes a while, sometimes. Besides, isn't it just a little screwed up that when I get behind on my work, it ends up IN THE GODDAMN NEWSPAPER?
It's okay. I like what I do. I've just got a lot of dads looking over my shoulder.
My own father wouldn't have submitted to the indignity of participating in a video making fun of his rhythm. He happened to have good rhythm, and a grasp of a well turned-out song, with one of the few pieces in his regular repertoire as an amateur pianist being the beloved "Memories of You" by Eubie Blake which he'd play as a sort of a nervous tic, or a strain relief, perhaps, upon finding himself in a quiet moment in front of our old Chickering grand. He'd let the notes run, just following through with whims and flourishes and little explorations of the minor moments of the piece, the way you do with music like this.
His indignities were private, really, though we'd often catch him in his oversized AKG headphones in front of the stereo, dancing and conducting in his Sears yoke-style boxer underpants that were so anachronistic they were a special catalog order even in the early eighties. You'd be somewhere else in the house, reading or indulging in the teenage sport of competition boredom, and you'd hear that he'd cranked it up so high that the tinky-tinky beats and high notes would filter through the whole house, and come down to find him dancing in the way you dance when no one's watching.
"RELAX, DON'T DO IT," blasted a set of tinny lyrics out of the leatherette cups of the headphones, and he wouldn't even see you there, looking dour in your parachute pants, until the song would hit a point where he do a little spin, and he'd finally realize you were there, arms folded, with an eyebrow raised.
"Frankie Goes To Hollywood? Seriously?"
He peeled off the headphones and stood there, out of breath, the music still blasting out of the headphones, his baggy underpants criss-crossed with seams that were probably put there for some good reason when yoke-style drawers were conceived, back in 1911 or thereabouts, looking a little irritated to have been knocked off his cloud.
"Son, if you'd stop being such a critic, you'd find that Welcome to the Pleasuredome is a canny statement on the tenor of our times."
It didn't help that he'd grown out a full white beard under his neatly groomed handlebar mustache by that point, which meant he looked more or less exactly like Santa Claus, except that Santa Claus was seldom found rocking out to Frankie Goes To Hollywood in our living room in just underpants and a worn-out undershirt.
"Ugh, that stuff's just beats and sweat, Dad. Jesus, why don't you just go to a gay bar and put on a fishnet t-shirt?"
"You're just showing your ignorance."
"Just sex music, that crap."
Me—I was so very above that sort of thing back then. It was the mid-eighties, I was a maladjusted pretentious homo with a clear conviction that I knew what the whole rest of the world needed to know, but people are idiots, right? I could do the deadpan monologue from "Desire" in perfect rhythm and "Would We Be Alive?" by The Residents would often blare out of my own stereo at grating volumes that would trigger my mom to attack the door and scream "HONEY, SHOULD I BRING UP YOUR FATHER'S POWER DRILL AND SKIL SAW SO YOU CAN PLAY ALONG WITH THAT?"
Dancing to a song just because it moves you just seemed so...decadent. I was a revolutionary, you see, someone who finally knew how to fix the world, and I just needed everyone to shut up and listen to my brilliance for a moment.
"See, this song is about Reagan's warmongering. It's not just sex music."
"Sex music," I said, and added, Gay sex music."
"Sometimes you just gotta let your balls tell you what to do."
I turned a shade paler.
"This is why we say you're embarrassing, Dad."
"What, because I said 'balls?'"
"Yes."
"Half the people in the world have 'em."
"Never mind. Go back to your disco, Dad."
The years roll on by. Once in a while, I find a note in a case for a tool I haven't had a reason to use until now, warning THIS MUST BE CLEANED AND RETURNED TO THE CASE IN ITS PLACE, JOE - CJW. My brother found one not long ago in a light meter among the photographic gear he'd inherited, and it was also personal.
WILL DON'T TAKE THESE BATTERIES-THESE BATTERIES ARE NOT FOR YOU - CJW
We write our own notes now, usually just to ourselves. We make our own warnings, dance to our own gay sex music, and go into ourselves for the wisdom that was once found as easily as you'd catch Santa Claus dancing in his underpants in the living room of an undistinguished log farmhouse in Scaggsville, Maryland.
We write our own notes because we have to.
So maybe today, I have "car trouble," see, and maybe I can't get up to the city to deal with the clock in a giant freestanding novelty clock tower advertising a tranquilizer-laden granular stomach remedy, and I'll just tend to it first thing Monday morning, after the dads of Baltimore have a satisfying opportunity to make a well-founded complaint. Maybe it'll be my gift to cranky old guys everywhere, coming from someone who is, by heritage, a bit cranky, himself.
Maybe tomorrow morning, I'll get off the train, head to the Tower, climb seventeen flights of stairs, turn off the clock, climb down fourteen flights to my office, put on "Memories of You," and wait out the hour while playing back my messages, listening for a familiar voice that's just not going to be there, not like I remember hearing it, alone in that little bubble of stalled time before I climb back to the top and set the world in motion again.
posted by sonascope at 4:15 AM on November 7, 2010 [29 favorites]
Does anyone else in Arizona have the wrong time? My iPhone fell back incorrectly and subsequently made my alarm an hour late. Or maybe it's the right time and my computer clock is wrong. I don't know.
posted by lizjohn at 5:07 AM on November 7, 2010
posted by lizjohn at 5:07 AM on November 7, 2010
Um. AFAIK Arizona has never actually observed DST?
posted by elizardbits at 5:50 AM on November 7, 2010
posted by elizardbits at 5:50 AM on November 7, 2010
Sigh, I miss phone calls from my dad.
posted by octothorpe at 6:23 AM on November 7, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by octothorpe at 6:23 AM on November 7, 2010 [1 favorite]
That was terrific sonascope.
posted by futz at 7:42 AM on November 7, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by futz at 7:42 AM on November 7, 2010 [1 favorite]
Surely an extra hour of sunlight after work is better than an hour before?
Depends when you go to work. I'll be glad not to head to work in the dark.
Agreed. I leave the house at 7AM, which lately has been a good half hour before the sun feels like doing much of anything. When I get home? I'm just lying on my couch. I can do that in the dark no problem.
I certainly never felt this way at times in my life when I would wake up at the blissfully indulgent hour of 8AM (or later).
I've been told the rationale for the US switching clocks a week later than Europe is to give an extra hour of daylight for Trick or Treating.
(Also: I have three dads and one of them always leaves voicemails that start with "Hi sonika, this is your dad." As if that NARROWS IT DOWN. Also, my phone knows who you are, thnx.)
posted by sonika at 8:08 AM on November 7, 2010
Depends when you go to work. I'll be glad not to head to work in the dark.
Agreed. I leave the house at 7AM, which lately has been a good half hour before the sun feels like doing much of anything. When I get home? I'm just lying on my couch. I can do that in the dark no problem.
I certainly never felt this way at times in my life when I would wake up at the blissfully indulgent hour of 8AM (or later).
I've been told the rationale for the US switching clocks a week later than Europe is to give an extra hour of daylight for Trick or Treating.
(Also: I have three dads and one of them always leaves voicemails that start with "Hi sonika, this is your dad." As if that NARROWS IT DOWN. Also, my phone knows who you are, thnx.)
posted by sonika at 8:08 AM on November 7, 2010
These dads forgot to remind us to put new batteries in our smoke detectors after changing the clocks. I should forward them the email I got from my dad this morning.
posted by Fui Non Sum at 8:54 AM on November 7, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by Fui Non Sum at 8:54 AM on November 7, 2010 [1 favorite]
Dad, all the clocks I use do it on their own now.
Annnnnnnnnnd, just had to tell this to my own Dad after he reminded me.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 9:00 AM on November 7, 2010 [1 favorite]
Annnnnnnnnnd, just had to tell this to my own Dad after he reminded me.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 9:00 AM on November 7, 2010 [1 favorite]
Sonascope, when are you going to write up some memoirs?
posted by killdevil at 12:17 PM on November 7, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by killdevil at 12:17 PM on November 7, 2010 [1 favorite]
*sigh*
It's Daylight-Saving Time. (I prefer to use a hyphen for clarity, but it's okay to go without.)
Saving. Not Savings.
posted by desuetude at 2:11 PM on November 7, 2010
It's Daylight-Saving Time. (I prefer to use a hyphen for clarity, but it's okay to go without.)
Saving. Not Savings.
posted by desuetude at 2:11 PM on November 7, 2010
WTF, where are people getting decorative clocks (for under $20) that set themselves AND update what day that is supposed to happen?? All I ever see are the ugly (and completely unreliable, IME) "atomic" clocks and the regular old quartz-via-AA-battery ones.
posted by DU at 6:40 PM on November 7, 2010
posted by DU at 6:40 PM on November 7, 2010
Why does a clock have to be decorative? Get a painting. And why does a decorative clock need the right time?
posted by furiousxgeorge at 6:41 PM on November 7, 2010
posted by furiousxgeorge at 6:41 PM on November 7, 2010
Check the expiration dates on your condoms, too. After changing the clocks and replacing the batteries in the smoke detectors.
posted by janell at 8:31 PM on November 7, 2010
posted by janell at 8:31 PM on November 7, 2010
I'm wondering if Sonascope had to watch parts of The Hudsucker Proxy as his employee orientation video. Oh crap, now I'm going to be thinking of him as looking like Bill Cobbs.
posted by BrotherCaine at 2:11 AM on November 8, 2010
posted by BrotherCaine at 2:11 AM on November 8, 2010
janell, a wise man once told me: "Never check the expiration date on a packet of condoms. If you're unsure, just chuck 'em. It'll hurt less that way."
posted by Pallas Athena at 7:38 AM on November 8, 2010
posted by Pallas Athena at 7:38 AM on November 8, 2010
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