The reel that started it all….

OK, things are gonna get weird here, so beware.

I think I’m having a mid-life crisis  (can 58 be mid-life?). Either that or I am having a psychotic episode.  Am I bored? Do I need a distraction? Am I feeling lost/sad because of fairly recent deaths in my immediate family?  Could be.  Here’s what’s been going on.

I was scrolling through Instagram one night as one does when she can’t sleep at 2 in the morning, and somehow happened upon a reel of Benjamin Orr and the Cars singing Just What I Needed from 1978.  I was going into the seventh grade when The Cars hit.  I had the original Cars album, purchased through the Columbia House record and tape club that my parents for some reason allowed me to join.  Remember the ads in the back of the Sunday paper or in magazines?  You’d circle the titles of the eleven albums you could get for 1 cent, with the commitment to buy a number of full priced albums over the course of the year.  How exciting it was when you received your new albums in the  mail!  Yipee!   Oh, goodness gracious, the old days! 

Anyway, I’ve always enjoyed the trips down memory lane when I’d hear their hits from over forty years ago every once in a while. But this was totally random.  The post was from an account I do not  follow and have never seen before.  It literally appeared as if from nowhere. I know, I know.  There are no random chances anymore.  Everything happens by algorithm now, but anyway…

Something happened. I was dumbstruck by the absolute beauty of this man. I mean gobsmacked. The strong, strange emotional response to watching this sent me down a rabbit hole that I am still deeply in.  This happened almost six months ago and I have been listening to almost nothing else but The Cars since.  I purchased another copy of their first album a few years ago, had gotten rid of the original one I owned decades ago, but immediately hopped on-line and bought an original collector’s edition of Candy-O.  Never had that one as a kid.  Then the next day I went down to the local record store (yup, we have a small one) and bought Panorama and Shake It Up.  I also found the absolutely excellent CD Live at the El Mocambo from their 1978 performance in Toronto on Etsy.  Let me tell you, they were hot at this show.  And I also spent an ungodly amount on The Cars live at the Agora, which is difficult to find on vinyl, as well as the extended version of Heartbeat City on vinyl.  I also got a copy of Door to Door just to have a complete collection. 

I have fucking lost my mind.  

Watching the Instagram reel at 2 in the morning I was struck at first by Benjamin Orr’s beauty, and then by his performance.  His mannerisms, his delivery of the lyrics, his enunciation, the shag haircut, the earring, the cleft in his chin, the way he glances to the left as he plays his bass. I could not stop watching. There was “pureness”, for lack of a better word, to the performance.  There was something rock-star yet not rock-star about it.  He was so natural and effortless in some unusual way.  But there was something else, and I,  for the life of me cannot figure out what it was. But I felt a very strong connection to this person.  

Again, I have fucking lost my mind.

I have had rock star crushes.  I have followed many bands, groups, and singers that are attractive.  I have had slight obsessions with other groups; The Beatles, The Doors ( Jim Morrison- need I say more?), The Tragically Hip, every iteration of The Grateful Dead,  U2- 

Bono was a total babe back in the day. I had a real attachment to The Cure in the mid-eighties. I fucking adore Willie Nelson and have seen John Mellencamp many, many times. 

But this is different. 

I started scouring the internet for more information. I clearly remember him being the best looking guy in the group and that he seemed sultry.  I dug his photos on The Cars album cover and record sleeve.  I knew that Ben Orr had died, a long time ago, at an unusually young age, but I didn’t really know any details. I do remember that when I heard or read the news, I immediately thought of those Benjamin Orr photos from the first album, that unbelievably beautiful and mysterious looking New Wave rock star. When I started reading and getting more information I was intrigued, hooked, baffled, sad.

I hadn’t really followed The Cars beyond my time in high school.  They had a bunch of hits in 1984, think “Drive”.  The tune “Magic” brings back some sweet memories, but their sound had changed and I moved on to different types of music.  My musical tastes were not particularly sophisticated when I was younger. I loved listening to music.  I liked the way songs made me feel, but I didn’t listen to them musically, if you will.  It wasn’t until I was a full grown adult that I paid attention to the actual music, the melodies, the rhythm and the instrumentation.  

Right away I bought the only biography I could find, the only one apparently written about Benjamin Orr,  titled Let’s Go by Joe Milliken that came out in 2018.  I read the entire book in about three days, save for the last 50 pages.  I could not bring myself to read the end because I knew what was going to happen.  I had to wait until I thought I could handle it.  It’s so fucking sad.  And then I had to read it again.  And now  I’m  reading it a third time. I am a pretty voracious  reader. I read A LOT of novels, mostly fiction.   But I have been unable to  read another book since I got this one.  Can’t read anything else. For some bizarre reason.  The same way I can’t seem to listen for more than a short while to any music other than The Cars at this point.

I could not believe this guy was born and bred in Cleveland, two and a half hours from where l live.  And that he is buried in a rural, remote cemetery in Ohio, a little closer to where I live.  

Can the other man in my life be a rock star who’s been gone for over 23 and ½ years and who was 19 years older than I?   Who I never met or saw in person? And who I never can? 

I have so much more to write. But the last few months have me feeling some really strange feelings, and thinking about things in a different way.  To be trite, maybe this was just what I needed.  And I don’t mean that jokingly.