A Soda Fountain Adventure

Friends,

Some of you, no doubt, read S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders sometime around middle school. It was part of the curriculum in my county, so I found myself reading it aloud in class many times, my pubescent voice cracking at every change of inflection. I wonder what my classmates thought when I was called on to read; I was a good reader, but man, those voice cracks.

But today's topic is too grand for me to get bogged down in memories of 1997 and my changing body. The reason I bring up Hinton's coming-of-age novel is that it prominently features Robert Frost's "Nothing Gold Can Stay," especially its titular final line:

Nature’s first green is gold, 

Her hardest hue to hold. 

Her early leaf’s a flower; 

But only so an hour. 

Then leaf subsides to leaf. 

So Eden sank to grief, 

So dawn goes down to day. 

Nothing gold can stay.

I'm glad I was exposed to this poem in middle school, because it helped me in high school when the well went dry... the well of the sweet nectar of life.


Baby Come Back
Or I'll bring you back in a laboratory like a modern-day Dr. Frankenstein

The discontinuation of Tropical Sprite Remix was, to me, The Day the Music Died. If you had the privilege of tasting this heavenly concoction, you know exactly what I mean. If you didn't, you were deprived one of life's true masterpieces...

...until now.

Coca-cola (always leading) has developed a fountain machine, called Freestyle, that allows you to thoroughly customize your soda beverage. You've probably seen one in a Qdoba, Five Guys, or some other fast casual restaurant.

Just saying whatever comes into the top of my head... freestylin'

One glorious day, it occurred to me that Sprite is one of the beverages in the Freestyle. That for each beverage in the machine, there are plenty of flavor syrups to mix and match. And that, if the stars aligned perfectly, if God saw fit to pour out a special blessing on a random dude like me, perhaps those flavors could combine their powers to summon forth the Captain Planet of beverages.

On most machines, these are the flavor options for Sprite:

L to R: cherry, orange, vanilla, strawberry, raspberry, grape, peach

I could stretch this into a novella, but that would require inventing a villain hellbent on denying the world of delicious flavor combinations. Too dark. So I'll just cut to the chase...

It was only a matter of time and experimentation until I rediscovered the magic of Tropical Sprite Remix. Here's the formula that will change your life (in the sense that reading it, like any action you take, adds to your cumulative life experience):

Please try this.

A Drink By Any Other Name
Would at least closely resemble the taste of its former self

What is your current favorite soda beverage?
Have you made any fun creations in the Coca-Cola Freestyle?

Jon

Nostalgic Tangent series: music

I rarely yearn to be a developmental psychologist (if that's even a real term), but now is one of those times.  Because as I think back on my childhood music phases, I'm noticing that they occurred later in life than last post's TV phases or next post's movie obsessions.  Truth be told, I had very few "childhood" music faves, just a bunch of obnoxious adolescent ones.

Why is that?  Referring back to my opening sentence, I'm guessing it has to do with the development of our minds.  Kids have ample time to watch TV and are drawn in, entranced, to moving things.  But what context is there in a kid's life for music?  They don't have the patience to just sit around listening to music, and so if they have favorite songs, they're probably from Barney or some wretched Mickey Mouse detective show (much to the chagrin, I'm sure, of parents and older siblings).

Well, enough pretend psychology.  Here were my major musical phases growing up.  Be warned: they're going to shock you.


My ridiculous list of favorite musical performers while I was growing up

Phase 1 (1993-1994): Billy Joel

My early love of Billy Joel was the result of three factors:

1. I was the age when I started to like music
2. My dad was a huge Billy Joel fan and would often play his records for me
3. Billy Joel rules

And in case there's any doubt, I mean that third one.  Yeah, he has some annoying songs ("Uptown Girl" comes to mind), but he has some awesome ones as well.  One of my favorites is "The Ballad of Billy the Kid", the first line of which is

"From a town known as Wheeling, West Virginia, rode a boy with a six gun in his hand."

That line alone compels me to love Billy Joel.

• [Tangent-within-a-tangent: I have postulated a Billy Joel Hypothesis.  It states that if you visit an establishment in Pittsburgh, PA that plays a loop radio of pop music, you will hear a Billy Joel song during your time there.  I don't know which song, and I don't care how short your visit it.  You'll hear one.]

Phase 2 (1995-1997): Boyz II Men

For those of you who know me now but didn't in 1996, which probably accounts for 99% of people reading this, this will be a huge surprise.  But believe me, or at least believe my Boyz II Men cassette tapes, that I was a huge fan.

But there are consequences to every action, and being a fan of an R&B group at age 10 is no exception.  There is a hilarious-- and I mean uproariously funny, embarrassing, horrifying, amazing, and profoundly disturbing-- home video of me and my cousins, circa 1995, in which my cousin Simeon and I sing "I'll Make Love to You" as the musical accompaniment for our cousins' dancing.  I don't know about Simeon (who was a player from a young age), but I definitely didn't know what making love was at age 10. 

I just sang about it.



Phase 3 (1998-1999): Bad Religion

I will probably devote at least one blog entry someday to the craziness of middle school.  Isn't it amazing that almost everyone, especially girls, hated middle school?  But I won't let myself get carried too far away on that tangent.

For me, middle school wasn't too bad.  And for that, I mainly have to thank my then-best friend Brett.  At a time when other middle schoolers were... well honestly I have no idea what they were doing... Brett and I would sit in his basement and ponder metaphysics, mathematics, Jesus, and women.  I'm serious.  That's what we did.

In addition to making my middle school years unique, nerdy, and cool, Brett introduced me to a lot of music.  Foremost among this music was Bad Religion.

Ironically, the person who probably laid the most groundwork in those years for me to know God also introduced me to a band whose logo is an X-ed out cross.



Phase 4 (1999-2000): Dave Matthews Band

I won't go into much detail here.  Dave Matthews Band's first three studio albums were incredible, and they were even better live.  But beyond just the music, the rampant popularity of DMB eliminated all middle ground and forced all my peers and me to choose a side:

• DMB-lover: You had to go to one DMB concert every 18 months, listen to them at least once a week, and complain about how the radio was killing "Crash" by overplaying it.
• DMB-hater: Your only rule was mandatory complaining anytime a DMB song came on the radio, a DMB fan droned on about their awesomeness, or a "DMB" bumper sticker was spotted on a car.

I chose to love.


What about you?

What music did you grow up on?
Please comment.  I get lonely.

Jon

Nostalgic Tangent series: television

I was a little panicky last night when I realized, O faithful tangent explorer, that I had no adventure in mind for today.  Maybe I was still a little teared up from our last journey.

But my friend D-Rod (why do all my friends who give me ideas have handles with first_name_initial--last_name_opening_syllable?) gave me a great idea.  He said I should blog about old awesome nostalgic things from childhood.  The idea is so awesome that I'm going to get 3 or 4 tangents out of it.  We'll start with TV shows.

The format of nostalgia

As I look back on my childhood, I see a lot of things.  Many of them make me shudder, as they're based on embarrassing footage from home videos where I must be trying to experiment with how annoying a young boy can be.

But one of the things that fascinates me about my childhood is that, apparently, I could only be into one thing at a time.  So all my favorites come in "phases", sort of like fashion trends (I wouldn't know about this, since I've been in a hoodie and sweatpants phase for about 5 years now).

And so, I give you...


My childhood TV show phases

Phase 1 (1987-1988): Alf

This phase was so early in life that it doesn't even exist in my memory -- only in my stuffed Alf doll, the VHS of Alf's Special Christmas, and a few pictures of me in ALF pajamas as a kid.  But I've taken it upon myself to learn about this early-life obsession. 

In case you don't know, Alf is an alien from the planet Melmac who lands in a family's backyard.  They keep him secret for his own safety, and in return he keeps them entertained with jokes about wanting to eat cats.  Yeah, for some reason he always wanted to eat a cat.


Phase 2 (1989-1990): Ghostbusters

You've probably seen the movie (or its awesomely terrifying sequel with the dude that comes to life from the painting -- nightmares, anyone?), but you might not be as familiar with the early 90s animated TV show.  I was.

It was the cartoon that introduced me to the idea of fighting ghosts, which I would end up doing regularly with every Ghostbusters action figure known to man.


Phase 3 (1991-1992): Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Of all the phases, this one probably hit me the hardest.  Maybe it's because at ages 6-7 we are first able to really sink our teeth into an obsession for the first time.  Maybe it's because I was first learning I was going to be an intellectual nerd, and Donatello's smart-but-cool persona gave me hope.  Whatever the reason, I was all about the ninja turtles.


Phase 4 (1993-1994): Saved by the Bell

I guess at age eight, a boy decides it's time to come of age.  There's no better way to do that, as far as I can see, than to spend 30 minutes a week with a role model (Zach Morris), his rival-but-still-best-friend (Slater), the class nerd (Screech), and a bunch of pretty girls.  If that won't grow you up, what will?

Aside from general life lessons, this show provided me with awesome sci-fi imagination skills (mainly from Zach freezing time with a cool snap of his fingers) and my first fictional character crush -- Kelly Kapowski.


Phase 5 (1995-20111997): X-Men

I guess after I grew up with Saved by the Bell the previous two years, I felt too serious and mature at age 10.  So I turned to the imagination, superpowers, and awesomeness of X-Men. 

I probably would have watched this cartoon up to the present day, but the show ended in 1997.  And believe me, you can't follow the reruns.  Despite the show purportedly being for kids, they introduced so much time-traveling with Bishop that it was about as easy to follow as jumping into the 5th season of LOST.

What shows did you grow up on??

Jon