Tuesday Tuneage
Mike Post - Theme from The Rockford Files
1974

In the first summer of my self-employment, NBC would show an hour of SCTV at midnight, after the 11 p.m. showing of The Rockford Files on WGN. It didn’t get any better in that summer of 2000 when there wasn’t much to do the next day — I’d just sip whiskey in my little apartment on Emerson Avenue and watch those two hours of great TV and smile and that is how these great journeys get started.

This was when I was hepped to the true genius of Harold Ramis (me, looking him up on the Internet: “Holy crap! He was SCTV’s first head writer! He co-wrote Stripes and Ghostbusters! No wonder he was in those movies!”)

The temp agency was still occasionally sniffing around at that time. I would get some phone calls saying: “Can you take this two-week assignment as a favor?” I had been so good at my work 1996-99 that two-to-four week assignments would get extended for months as the clients would like me so much. But I turned these latest offers down, hoping to sustain my income on only self-employed work. 

One hungover afternoon that summer, I came up with the knockoff Black Sabbath Vol. 4 font for Exiled on Main Street #24, using graph paper, a ruler, dime, and pencil. (It was all measuring and math.) And somehow using the Paint program on my PC to put it all together.

There are other memories — reading Nick Tosches, buying a 1997 Chevy Cavalier and being excited about it, adding some Gary Stewart and Jerry Lee Lewis to those whiskey trips, seeing The Godfather on the big screen at the Oak Street Cinema, and scheming to get out of that little apartment as the building had been bought by a (since disgraced) landlord.

I compare that era to now. I start my Sleepy Time Extra tea around 9:30 p.m., toast half a bagel, add light cream cheese, watch an episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine on DVR, then head for bed. Still smiles all around.

Tuesday Tuneage
Nick Gilder - "Here Comes the Night"
1978

“Hey we’re Nick Gilder and band and we don’t dress like your typical rockers of these late seventies because we are not your typical rockers of these late seventies. No jeans, tee shirts, and regular-guy looks here.”

Left to right: First we have Nick, whose pants sport a high waistband (sans belt) and pinstripes. Extra button undone on the sheer shirt. Then we have the dude who is confident enough to pull off brown shoes with black slacks. The confidence abounds as not only can he pull off wearing a vest (not all can) but he also wears a necktie unconventionally — without a corresponding collared shirt: the breathtaking audacity. Next is the guy whose shirt has a nonconforming design, plus his shoes look damn comfortable. Okay, the band’s fashion approach hits a little bit of a snag as the next gent is obviously the traditional rocker trying to fit in: hair parted in the center, mustache, jeans (d’oh). Put him in a white blazer and sneakers, have him hold  a cigarette in a rad way, and hope he blends in. (Around this same time, The Cars would do a better job of hiding Elliot Easton’s obvious rocker intentions on the sleeves of their first two albums.) The final dude has short hair but also goes with the high waistband look and considers the buttons on his shirt optional. Two of the guys have their hands in their pockets, anticipating Alanis Morissette or maybe just indicating cool casualness. (This could be two-point-five guys, hard to see what Gilder is doing with his left hand.) And hey nobody’s smiling, but neither did the Dwight Twilley Band on their two albums and they were America’s power pop finest!