Long Distance Love

By Michael Comeau

Every Monday night Niccola sits in a cyber café well into the wee hours of the morning drinking over-priced coffee. In an effort to bridge the distance between her and the boy she loves, she logs on and listens to his all night radio show all the way from Pittsburgh. The theme recurred as I read an Emily Carr art school newspaper (BC) in the OCAD library (Toronto). I came across an article written by my current crush subject. I read it slowly. Like her letters I hoped it wouldn’t end, all the while pretending she wrote it just for me. That same night I tuned into CIUT on my radio expecting to hear JC kicking out the jams on Mods and Rockers. Two songs into the show and I intuitively knew it was my friend Allison spinning instead and better yet my homies the Pin-Ups were there rocking out as well. My youth was spent inhabiting an insular world focused on my teen-age kicks. That veneer has become outdated and growing up is done with a twinge of loss. Smoking and drinking are way cooler when you’re criminally underage. The realities of our actions come crashing down around us. Fingers begin to yellow, kisses taste like ashtrays and drinking gin before AA meetings doesn’t have the same thrill as in the closet before high school. And as my friends scatter themselves all over the land, I can take heart in the knowledge that age has provided the knocking of opportunities. Opportunities to form bands, record labels, produce magazines, movies; to take back the media and reclaim our culture. This development can make for something as bold as a revolution, or as simple and sweet as a kiss blown across the country.

Radio Free Elvis

 

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