It's Pop Culture, It Makes Me Cry

I'm a recent Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast devotee. I found out about the NPR podcast a few weeks ago when Dean Trippe, a comics artist I admire, posted a link to an episode where Glen Weldon, a writer for NPR, plugged his comic on the podcast. I like Pop Culture Happy Hour because it's got a bit of snark, a bit of emotion, they talk about comics, and I love that, but they also talk about TV, opera, music, theater, etc. I hear conversations there I feel like I've had with my friends over the years. When I first started buying comics my friends and I would go to one of the Local Comic Shops, buy our books, then take them to Schmuckers, a local burger joint. Before we were allowed to read our comics, we had to finish the signature "Wimpy Burger", and an order of fries, and a cup of coffee. When that was all gone we ordered a slice of one of a dozen or more homemade pies, got our coffees refilled, and tucked into our comics. We talked about creator dream teams, which characters we'd like to see team up, who should star in the movie about our favorite characters. It was like our own little pop culture happy hour.

So, every PCHH podcast has a theme, and last week it was Pop Culture that Makes Us Cry. I took a cue from them and made my own list of pop culture that gets me every time I encounter it. Here it is, for your pleasure, with some visual aids when applicable.

1." In a Season of Calm Weather' It's a short story by Ray Bradbury, the opener in a collection called A Medicine for Melancholy. There was a bookstore called Friedly's Books here in Toledo, and they specialized in Sci-Fi before they finally went out of business. I used to go to a lot of the used bookstores looking for Bradbury books because I love him and I wanted as much of his stuff as I could find. Friedly's had a copy of A Medicine for Melancholy, wrapped in plastic, on a shelf in a display case. I asked to see it, and I held it with due reverence, saw the price, written in pencil on the first page, and regretfully handed it back the the staff person. It was $35, and I had $9. And then the staff person said, "You know, the pages are kind of yellow, and the binding is going to go any minute. If you have five bucks, the book is yours." And I did, so it was.

The story, 'In a Season of Calm Weather', is about a man who loves Pablo Picasso, who finds out he is vacationing only minutes away from where Picasso is vacationing. He takes a walk down the beach and sees an old man drawing in the wet sand with a popsicle stick and that's all I'm going to tell you. I cry every time I read this story. I've read it out loud lots of times, to girlfriends and dear friends, my wife and my son, to myself, it's beautiful. I mean, it's Bradbury. Of course it's beautiful.

2. The Iron Giant It's an animated movie about a boy who finds a giant iron robot in the woods near his house. Its'a movie about heroes, making good choices, and the wild imagination. When my dear friend John Swaile was alive, he did a passable impression of the robot's voice. Also, Superman. If you haven't seen the movie yet, don't follow the link to the clip. Big, big spoiler.

3. The opening credits score for the Superman movies, by John Williams. I cry like a fool, because Superman is the greatest hero, even if he isn't my favorite hero, and that score is just perfect.

4. The Black Cauldron, book two of the Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander. If you've seen the abysmal Disney adaptation of this book, don't hold it against the story--the story is brilliant. Brilliant. I've read the whole series nearly every year since I was 9 or 10. When I worked at Borders I must have sold the first book in the series, The Book of Three, to a thousand parents who said their sons wouldn't read. And when those boys came back for the second book they were readers for life. Just about a month ago, while I was at Barnes and Noble with my son, I over heard a mother encouraging her son to find something to read, and I recommended this series. I saw them leave the store with the first two books. Success!

The Black Cauldron finds our protagonist Taran in the midst of a great adventure. He is burdened with responsibilities both joyous and odious and seems several times to lose more than he gains. I'm moved to tears several times throughout this boy's challenging, heart-wrenching adventure.

5. Every year I get to read the penultimate selection for the annual Jack Kerouac Memorial Reader's Theater, called Back to Jack. It's the closing passage from On the Road, where Sal, the novel's protagonist, is thinking about his friend Dean who has just walked off into the American Night. I've read it one hundred times, and every time I get to the part where Jack describes nightfall, and I read the words "...cups the peaks and folds the final shore in...", I think of my beloved friends who have passed on and I crack, tears well up and my voice loses strength, every single time.