Press Play, Mr. Wilson

Valentine's Day.

As we go through life, there are days that we will always dread, a day that rolls around every year that we reluctantly face just so we can wake up tomorrow. For some, it's a dentist appointment; for others, it's their birthdays. For me, it's Valentine's Day.

I hate Valentine's Day. Always have. Always will.

Now I know this is actually the popular position to take on this Hallmark spawned day of diabetes and papercuts, but I'm not just doing it to fit in with the crowd. If I wanted to do that, I would watch "American Idol" and LOVE Maroon 5, or some similar masochistic cultural activity that makes me yearn for my suicidal days. No, my beef with Valentine's Day is personal. And maybe one day I'll surprise V-Day when it leasts suspects it--it'll be walking out of some bar, staggering around, happy to be spreading the love, and can't believe it has to wake up in 4 hours for work. And then BLAMMO! there I am, right behind it with a sawed off shotgun and litany of abuses for which V-Day must answer. Watch your back, V-Day: I' m like a cat, and this kitten's got claws, baby.

I could recount all of the abuses that V-Day has foisted unto me, like a drunken uncle at a family get together. I'll eschew all of that to talk about the real reason I despise Valentine's Day: I'm a Romantic. I don't even know if I'm allowed to qualify myself as such, or if a declaration will get me kicked out of the frilly club, but I stick by my statement. I still believe in the one true love. I still think one day I'm going to do something foolish and brave, and before I set off in search of my herculean task, I hold my great love in my arms and we kiss like she's a crack pipe and I'm addict lookin for a fix. Blame it on TV, or the movies, or comic books, or Love in the Time of Cholera; but I do believe in all of these altruistic and ideal forms of love--where there's no awkward positioning or cramping during sex, and you don't spill Alfredo sauce all over your pants at a nice dinner, or you don't accidentally insult your love's mother (how could I know? She didn't seem like a scientologist.). And while my romantic visions have always met the cruel fate of being mashed under reality's heel like the dying flames of the last cigarette you'll ever smoke.

So that's why I despise V-Day, above all else: because V-Day is the day that I should be in my element--sending flowers, getting kisses, making sweet love in time with some slow jazz in the background. It should be the day I consummate all of my passionate dreams and hopes, where I finally tell Suzy Dreamgirl that I like her so much, and the day where she realizes that she likes me, too. But the fact of the matter is that I usually spend the day avoiding the radio and TV for fear of seeing some schmuck who's just as awkward and lame as myself proposing to some hot girl, and that she says yes emphatically and they live happily ever after, while I wonder how bad prison could be (three squares and a gym? not too shabby...). V-Day is the confirmation that my dreams don't live in this world; instead they flop around impotently and die a slow suffocating death desperately trying to swim as freely as they do in my heart.

But it's not all doom and gloom. Sure I hate V-Day, but I wouldn't trade complacency for giving up on my romantic dreams. And that's why I love the Beach Boys. What? Huh? Yes, The Beach Boys. Specifically Pet Sounds, their seminal album from 1966.

It was before Brian Wilson went completely batshit crazy, one year before The Beatles came out with Sgt. Pepper, and three years before hundreds of hippies would be beaten in the streets of Chicago while screaming "the whole world is watching"; it was the cusp for America, a country still realing from the death of their bootlegging prince of a president and a few years before the wave of counterculture would rise up to wash across the nation like a Pollock painting during one of his more grotesque benders. Pet Sounds is filled with some of the best songs on any album ever recorded; but more specifically, it has the best love songs found anywhere. It covers every hue of love--from puppy love, to deeply devoted, to fleeting, to unrequited, and every shade of heartache in between. It's the album I listen to when I want to revisit all of my previous crushes and loves, when I like to remember all of my resounding victories and crushing defeats in the battle of the sexes. It reminds me of the sting of all of those disappointments, when the girl I liked just walked away. It fills me with hope of finding that special woman that, when I play "Wouldn't It Be Nice", she GETS it. She doesn't think it's corny that I start to bop around with the bombastic drums of "I'm Waiting for the Day", partly because the rhythm is infectious, and also because it's the tale of the Best Man, the second in line who's waiting to be pulled from the wings to star in his own romantic tale with his Lady Love.

And then there's "God Only Knows".

To anyone reading, if you play this while in the vicinity of your significant lover, you will inevitably profess your love and end up one tangled ball of flesh by the time the scant 2:52 of the song is up.

Don't play this song if you're single and drunk: You Will Drunk Dial. It is one of the most potent songs every encapsulated.

Remember that scene in "Yellow Submarine" when the Blue Meanies are being beaten by the words to "All You Need Is Love"? That's pretty much what happens in your mind when you listen to this song. Your heart grows, your mind recollects every great moment of every relationship (even those shortlived, poorly conceived ones that normally you scoff and attempt to play off as youthful naivete), and you welcome those moments again.

Even in my bitter solitary moments, there are those songs, those great love songs that you play and suddenly, it's not so bad. "The Fragile" by Nine Inch Nails, "Don't Change Your Plans" by Ben Folds, "Take Me With You" by Morphine, "Waste" by Phish, "As Is" by Ani DiFranco, "Something" by The Beatles, "Buggin" by Flaming Lips, "The Curse of Great Beauty" by Clem Snide, "The Shining" by Badly Drawn Boy. Hell, if I'm in a particularly sappy mood, even "I Would (500 Miles)" by The Proclaimers and "She Drives Me Crazy" by Fine Young Cannibals reels me in like a suicidal trout.

Great love songs don't just make you recall the best moments of a past relationship, but they also let you reflect and recognize those horrible moments. The anxious seconds before one of you said "it's over", that moment when you realized she had been cheating on you, the time you said "I Love You" and you didn't mean it. All of those moments come rushing back to you at once, and for some, they look into that motley collection of romantic disasters and triumphs, and they walk away from the edge. But for me, when that emotional flood rushes through my veins, I realize those are the moments that I felt most alive--if only because I was combating or caring for another human being. A great love song forces you to see all of the scars on your past relationships, but it also concludes with you looking hopefully and expectantly to the future. So as much as I hate you, V-Day, I can't wait for when you roll around next year when, maybe, I'll have someone to embarass with lavish gifts, nerdy mix-tapes, insipid promises, and stolen kisses.

As The Beach Boys sang on "Here Today":

It starts with just a little glance now
Right away you’re thinkin’ ’bout romance now
You know you ought to take it slower
But you just can’t wait to get to know her
A brand new love affair is such a beautiful thing
But if you’re not careful think about the pain it can bring

It makes you feel so bad
It makes your heart feel sad
It makes your days go wrong
It makes your nights so long

You’ve got to keep in mind love is here today
And it’s gone tomorrow
It’s here and gone so fast

Right now you think that she’s perfection
This time is really an exception
Well you know I hate to be a downer
But I’m the guy she left before you found her

Well I’m not saying you won’t have a good love with her
But I keep on remembering things like they were

She made me feel so bad
She made my heart feel sad
She made my days go wrong
And made my nights so long

You’ve got to keep in mind love is here today
And it’s gone tomorrow
It’s here and gone so fast

Keep in mind love is here today
And it’s gone tomorrow
It’s here and gone so fast

Love is here today
And it’s gone tomorrow
It’s here and gone so fast