I picked the wrong year to move Long Weekend to a summer-only seasonal release schedule.
Now that we’re in the midst of a pandemic and people are streaming media at an unprecedented scale, Memorial Day weekend seems impossibly far away. So in the meantime I’m keeping the curation muscle flexing by live-streaming a set of lo-fi surf punk, garage, and psych rock music every Friday afternoon in what I’m calling the Long Weekend Spring Broke Streaming Sessions.
Though I haven’t been a regular comic book reader for the last half of my life, I was thrilled to guest host a pair of recent episodes of The Brotherhood of Batman podcast chronicling the controversial rise and violent fall of Jason Todd, the street punk-turned-sacrificial lamb who stole Batman’s tires—and my adolescent heart.
Visiting the Brotherhood’s Batcave
Photo: Passport to Dreams Old & New
Earlier this summer I returned for the first time in decades to the Lake of the Ozarks, a resort area in central Missouri I frequented as an adolescent in the years after my parents purchased a time share there.
Though gentrification has had its way with much of the vacation landscape I remember, there are still a few reminders of area’s swankiest era—circa 1969, when the opulent Lodge of Four Seasons first opened and elevated what had largely been a glorified fishing and swimming hole to something more akin to the Tahoe/Catskills retreats that dominated the American public’s ideal of a summer getaway in the mid-20th century.
It’s this recreational residue that continues to haunt me and make the most compelling case for revisiting the Lake region, and it was in these dated lobbies, atriums, and lounges that my latest cultural fixation first took root. Seeing these glorious old bones again wasn’t enough; I wanted to immerse myself in the golden age of American leisure, when even Disney World leaned on water sports, country club steakhouses, and discotheques to lure visitors.
Everything kind of coalesced midway through my vacation on an evening lake cruise. Sometime around my third or fourth glass of pinot noir, Nicolette Larson’s 1978 single “Lotta Love” hit the boat’s PA system and gave this vague vibe some clarity and shape.
The result is a new playlist for anyone else who’s ever longed to loiter in a hotel lobby or lounge in 1970-something. Listen via Spotify below or access the Apple Music version here.