Kerplunk! by Green Day (1992)
Way back when I heard a great song while listening to late night radio. Maybe it was Brave New Waves or Late Night with David Wisdom on CBC or maybe it was some long forgotten show on CJSR. I loved that song and hunted down the artist and album. That took effort “way back when” because there was an Internet but no World Wide Web. It was 1992 or 1993. The song was 2000 Light Years Away, the band was Green Day, and the album was Kerplunk! I had never heard of Green Day and I have no idea if anyone else had when Kerplunk! was released. Everyone knows them now.
Kerplunk! remained a favorite of mine for years. I played it continuously while programming and it was finally pushed out of rotation by The Lemonheads CD titled Lick. I let a friend of mine borrow Kerplunk for a while. A while turned out to be forever. He had the CD in his car under the passenger seat. Many times he came over to my place but each time forgot to bring in the CD. I always said, “No problem, I’ll get it from you next time.” Eventually my buddy sold his car with Kerplunk still under the passenger seat.
My buddy recently visited with his wife and Kids. It’s about 10 years since I lent him the disc. He grins and hands me a CD and says, “I finally got it! I found a copy of your Green Day disc!” It was Dookie, Green Days first big commercial success. We were both disappointed, but truth be told I could not remember the title “Kerplunk!” I only remembered the first track “2000 Light Years Away.”
So, now it is just a month after my friend tried to replace Kerplunk and I still couldn’t remember that it was actually called Ker plunk. I was in a record store with my wife. I’m not sure because I rarely ever go to record stores… they never have anything I want. I happen to spot something familiar in the “two for one” bin! I recognize the winking cartoon girl with revolver and the smiling-flower t-shirt. It was Kerplunk!
So I am not happily singing along to 2000 Light Years Away, Android, and Dominated Love Slave. Even after a 10 year absence, Kerplunk is my favorite Green Day disc. It has lots of energy, interesting lyrics, and an authentic sound (no over-production).
So you, too, have been having moments of music coincidences. It’s nice having a soundtrack, if you will, to make life more like a movie… at least its more fun to watch.
And I noticed that you’ve linked me under the Cog Sci section!! EEK! (but thanks for the link, I am a little flattered) But what if someone goes to my ridiculous little blog expecting some kind of academic brilliance?! EEK! I’m just afraid they wouldn’t find it…
But I also noticed you’ve posted a link to Andy’s stuff (he’s my supervisor *and* the coolest man on earth). So I’m just finishing my dissertation with him, and for me, he is such an inspiration to work with. Any of these papers are brilliant (especially Extended Mind and Linguistic Anchors), and if you’re into cogsci, just yesterday I stumbled across http://www.edge.org/, a great collaborative academic blog touching a range of philosophy-y, mindy issues.
Glad you stumbled across my blog, cloned milkman!
I found your blog while searching around for ideas for a connectionist research project. I read your post from when you first talked to Andy Clark. I remember the enthusiasm in your post and just had to link to it so I would remember to go back and read your blog from time to time.
This fall I am doing an undergraduate independent research project related to connectionism. One broad topic I am interested in exploring is connectionism and embodiment. Your link to the papers is much appreciated! Pages that list Andy Clark’s papers, come up over and over when I do searches and I know I’ll be reading many of them soon. I know I read one last year while doing a course on embodied cognitive science.