I don’t watch the news anymore. It’s way too depressing. I do read various websites each morning, mostly scanning headlines, all of them an endless stream of calamity and man’s inhumanity to man. There has been a lot of heaviness in my life recently. My mom has been in NICU for a week. My daughter had a tragic death within her company yesterday. Syria is using chemical weapons on their own people… In a melancholy and reflectively masochistic moment last week I decided to re-read Tuesdays with Morrie.

Everyone has their “stuff” that they are dealing with, but today in a nostalgic moment I remembered back to a simpler time. In 1977 I was 14 years old. I was an impressionable teenager going to a Christian school, and attending a fundamentalist Baptist Church. Youth pastors were having bonfires with Rock ‘n’ Roll albums and if you played Stairway to Heaven backwards, there was a secret message from Satan. With that backdrop you will understand why my record collection included James Taylor, Seals and Crofts, and yes… Barry Manilow. I’m still ridiculed (and will be scorned here) for my Manilow fandom, but for you youngsters or for those short on memory, allow me to provide some music history.

AMERICAN MUSIC AWARDS: Barry Manilow

• FAVORITE MALE ARTIST-POP/ROCK OF 1977
• FAVORITE MALE ARTIST-POP/ROCK OF 1978
• FAVORITE MALE ARTIST-POP/ROCK OF 1979

BILLBOARD MAGAZINE: Barry Manilow

• #1 VOCALIST/SINGLES – 1976
• #1 POP MALE ARTIST/ALBUMS – 1978
• #1 EASY LISTENING ARTIST – 1978

CASHBOX: Barry Manilow

• TOP NEW MALE VOCALIST/SINGLES – 1975
• TOP NEW MALE VOCALIST/ALBUMS – 1975
• TOP VOCALIST/SINGLES – 1976

I referenced 1977 earlier because that was the year that the Live Album came out. 

I’m pretty sure my oldest brother Steve, bought the double album for me and I played it on a Turntable / Tuner / 8 track stereo that he handed down. I clearly remember having specific songs that I would play over and over again – carefully lifting the needle and dropping it deftly to the exact groove in the LP. I would take a pants hanger and use the cardboard center as a microphone. The door would be shut and locked, and the lights would be off, and the music would start and in my mind the live audience was cheering for me. It was me at the piano and my voice resonating through the speakers. I sang each of the big ballads to the top of my lungs, and soaked in the applause at each conclusion.

When Jackie and I dated in high school, I would call her on the phone at night and we would talk for hours and I would sing her the songs off of that live album. When my oldest daughter was born it seemed only natural that her name would be… Mandy. When my daughters were both young they shared a bedroom and often ended up in the same bed at night (which they still do). Every night I would come in and say their bedtime prayers with them, then they would roll onto their stomachs and I would rub their backs and sing to them until they fell asleep. My playlist was always the same – Weekend in New England, Lay Me Down, It’s Just Another New Year’s Eve, and of course, Mandy. For a little diversity I would throw in James Taylor’s If I Keep my Heart Out of Sight.

Today I thought back to those times locked in my room with my pretend mic and my showbiz imagination and pined to feel that emotion again. I found my fix on youtube and with earbuds in place, I went there.

My iPad just lit up with a news notification that reads: “Israelis Rush for Gas Masks, Brace for Retaliation Ahead of Strike on Syria…”  I’ll read the story later and I’m sure to wring my hands at the insanity of the world, but for now I’m going back to that place of innocence and maybe find some magic.