December 19 - Hold On

It's a bitter pill to swallow knowing you owe your life to Hold On by Wilson Phillips, but that's my reality. Every day from here on out is basically a gift--a honey drenched, harmonized gift from the ladies of Wilson Phillips.
You remember that song, don't you? Come on, of course you do: Someday somebody's gonna make you wanna turn around and say goodbye. . . Yeah, that one.
Wilson Phillips. Three chicks. At the time of that song's release, two of them hotter than hell, the other one more than a bit on the hefty side. But then she got a stomach staple and liposuction, and lost half of her mass, and celebrated by posing nude for Playboy.
Hey, good news! The chick from Wilson Phillips is in Playboy!
No way, the blond one with short hair?
No.
The one with the wavy red hair?
One more guess.
Oh.
But you looked anyway because, hey, naked celebrity. Plus as it turns out she was totally doable in a big boned, Midwest farmer's daughter turned truck stop waitress kind of way, and the next thing you knew you were attracted to the big chick from Wilson Phillips, and all of the sudden nothing about how the world worked made any sense, or at least that's how it was for me.
Anyway, that band. Offspring of Mamas and Papas (but then, aren't we all) and Beach Boys. Or something. I don't know. Google them if you don't what I'm talking about. Or don't. Jesus.
Anyway, that band. That song. Kind of a 'Don't give up, hang in there' sort of anthem. It's all right there in the title. Hold on (for One More Day). No subtext, no hidden meaning. Just a purely encouraging hug of a song. Basically, it's like 'I know life can be hard, but don't kill yourself.' Only not nearly that blunt or dark.
And speaking of which, when I say I owe my life to that song I kind of imply that I was on some sort of verge for a while, and I don't want to paint a picture of myself as some brooding, tortured dark soul (unless you think it might actually get my shit laid this decade). I was just down, that's all. Not limbless at the bottom of a well down. More like stuck in the basement while everybody else is having a great time upstairs kind of down. No job, woman left me, living with my parents, no prospects to pull me out of any of those ruts. All that plus a magical gift for self awareness that made me hate myself even more for having such unoriginal problems.
It helped/didn't help that I was drinking a lot at the time. Boone's Farm. Remember that shit? Strawberry Hills, my friend. You know, the shit high school girls drink when they're ready to graduate from wine coolers but not quite ready for real wine? It's like if wine is a bicycle, and wine coolers are training wheels, then Boone's Farm is . . . I don't know. Some sort of nonexistent middle step between training wheels and no training wheels, as well as proof that I'm not good with metaphors.
Anyway, daily bottle of Boone's. Looking through the want ads for jobs. Daytime TV. Not showering. Still on the couch when my parents get home from work. Everybody else winning. Shit going on like this for, seriously, months.
Anyway, this one day I was drunker than hell at 11 in the morning. Actually, during that time in my life, drunker than hell at 11 in the morning was the norm, but I usually had the good sense to stay in one place. But that morning I was like screw it, and I went out to my car to go for a drive.
At the time I probably told myself I was going out to get more booze, but I think I may have had darker intentions in mind. It's all kind of foggy, but I remember that even in my mind there was a subtext to what I was doing. Like on one level I was telling myself I was just going out for more booze, but on another level I think I was hoping that something might happen to me. Something bad. It would be better than the nothing I was going through day in and day out.
Anyway, I started up the car and turned on the radio and there was that song. And for the first time ever I actually listened to the words.
OK, that's not true. I listened to the words every time I heard that song, it's impossible not to. I guess I should say it was the first time I ever heard the words, which makes it sound like I'm trying to be cooler than I am, but not really because remember I'm the guy who said he owes his life to Wilson Phillips.
I guess what I'm saying is the words affected me, and to be honest, I couldn't tell you why. Maybe I was just so ready for something to happen to me--good or bad--that all I needed was a catalyst and that song was it. If it had been Captain Jack, I probably would have driven my car into a lake, but instead it was Hold On. Big difference. Point was it got me. The melody, the harmonies, the way they kind of break it down in the middle so it's just them and the drums and I could remember that point in the video when they're strutting along the boardwalk toward the camera and I just thought, yeah, of course. Hold on. I can do that. I can hold on for one more day.
I'm pretty sure it was a Thursday when it happened, so it made even more sense to hold on for one more day because then it was the weekend. And yeah, I was unemployed at the time so weekends didn't really mean as much, but still. It was momentum, so I didn't question it. I turned off the car and went for a walk instead. Walked myself sober(ish) and then went home and slept the rest of it off.
The next day I got my ass in gear. First day of the rest of your life, that kind of thing. If my life were a movie (it'd be boring as hell) this would be when you would get the main-character-getting-his-life-together montage: running, projecting confidence at interviews, taking out the garbage (literally and metaphorically--hey maybe I'm not so bad at metaphors after all), drinking herbal tea instead of Boone's, laughing, shit like that.
And it's all because of that song. My comeback anthem. Oh sure, it wasn't a completely smooth ride. There were ups and downs, but mostly ups. Point is the song worked. And as a die hard, cynical asshole, that kind of stings but whatever. I defend that song to this day. Sure it's cheesy, but it got me going again.
I even wrote a letter to Wilson Phillips saying as much. And they wrote back! Well probably not them. Probably just a publicist. And I'm pretty sure it was just a form letter, but it smelled really good. If you want, I'll show it to you sometime.