Toad

John Cusack, Glen Phillips, The Friend Zone, & me

High school. It’s an age where you've watched too many movies in which John Cusack comes out on top because of symbolic, thoughtful, micro-heroic-romantic gestures: he raises a stereo that’s blasting a Peter Gabriel song above his head or skis the impossible K12¹ or whatever.

You see these gestures—the blaring boombox, the daredevil skiing—as the heat with which to melt the fairer sex. But life is not a screenplay. And you? You are decidedly not John Cusack. And most crucially, women are not as predictable as characters in a movie, usually because they have far more dimension than most balding, lonely, single male Hollywood screenwriters would like them to possess.

My big October 1993 gesture started when I called the record store in a town 40 minutes north, to see if they had any tickets for the next night's show. Every ticket in our part of the valley was gone. The radio declared the show sold out. And I knew (ok, maybe “thought” is more accurate) Toad The Wet Sprocket was this girl’s favorite band. I would not be denied in ways that felt grand and noble and fate-driven at the time².

The record store had three tickets left. And they could hold them, but they were closing in an hour.

So somehow the girl’s best friend and I (this also felt like a movie-ish turn of events: get in with the friend/parent/whatever, charm a little, then write myself into the script³) found ourselves driving north. This was years before Googlemaps and GPS. Just an address and a vague idea of which exit to take. The car was a red (not Ferrari red or candy red or lip gloss red, just Toyota fading red) Camry. We had that giddy teenage feeling, of near-bursting energy about something completely meaningless that leaves adults rolling their eyes. "You're driving all the way to Ogden to get tickets to a music concert?" "Toad The What…?" All of which only emboldens and reinforces the youthful commitment. We felt impulsive and invincible. Impetuous and young, racing up I-15 at the speed of youth. We were probably blasting Toad The Wet Sprocket because what is being a teenager if not overdoing it? But, really, who in the world ever needed to blast Toad The Wet Sprocket? Led Zeppelin—yes. Nirvana—yes. Maybe even Rush⁴. But Toad? (Especially if you call them Toad) No.

Our heroic journey earned us the last three tickets⁵ , a nice surprise for the not-that-secret object of my affection. I can’t tell you whether we listened to Toad on the drive back to Salt Lake or not. Probably, though.

I regret to inform you, dear reader, that getting these tickets in such monumentally heroic fashion was not the gesture that nudged the girl into my arms. It wasn't the momentous little-big thoughtful John Cusack thing that sprung her from like into love. No. But. We went to the show. The Gin Blossoms opened. They played their soon-to-be hit “Hey, Jealousy” and the best friend called it, saying the song would be huge, which it was. Toad The Wet Sprocket played all our favorite songs⁶. z

And that was that. And I kept on wishing I were more whatever. Good show, though⁷, and that’s what matters⁸, right?

1. …or wades into a hot tub time machine or crawls into John Malkovich’s psyche?

2. A drive to Ogden in 2022 doesn’t have quite the risk-it-all romance it seemed to have when I was 16.

3. The truth is: I was probably the same level of friends with both girls, but the story sounds better and (maybe) paints me as less of a—as the kids say—simp if it seems like I was making moves, maneuvering in some way, puppeteering the strings, rather than just trying and failing to exit the dreaded Friend Zone. But, really, I hung out with these two for the entirety of our high school experience. They were good friends. I went to a dance with each of them. Had big laughs. Threw frisbees around at soccer games. Watched dumb movies on big couches. Drove around aimlessly while listening to favorites songs. And, as you can see, for a little while there, got all twitterpated by the idea that it might be something more. It was not.

4. My freshman year of high school, my school’s football team held (and was sadly extending) the nation’s record for most consecutive losses. I don’t remember the number. But it had been years, traversing multiple seasons. We’d already lost a game or two when we were slated to play one of our crosstown rivals (West High School; we were creatively named East High School). The game went down to the wire and, with some Friday Night Lights heroics by a guy named Jeremy Jaggi, we broke the streak. We stormed the field as if we’d just won the Super Bowl. It was the most pathetic reason ever for storming the field while also being absolutely epic. It was the deepest sigh of relief. It was bad news for whichever team had previously held the nation’s second-longest losing streak. It was a nice place to put all that young energy and flooding testosterone. And what song did we listen to on the drive home to accentuate the triumphantness? That’s right: “Tom Sawyer” by Rush. Teenagers…

5. Third wheel? I 100% thought that the best friend was the third wheel in this equation when, in retrospect, the two best friends absolutely viewed me as the third wheel who just so happened to be willing to drive to Ogden. No question. And it was worth it. I’d do it again. Though maybe in 2023 I’d try to Uber-Tix the tickets or something.

6. Including a particularly memorable and perfectly earnest version of their song “I Will Not Take These Things For Granted” as their final song. I’m not ashamed to say that I still get chills thinking about it.  Holly often asks me why I tend to end shows with quieter, more meditative songs. I just know that, as a listener, I like going back out into the world with a deep breath. That’s not to say there’s not a place for a rowdy “Twist & Shout” or “Killing In The Name Of” but I do prefer the candlelit pindrop. And some of that preference can probably be traced to getting the chills during “I Will Not Take These Things For Granted” (and a score of other downbeat, emotive last songs over the years).

7. By no demand whatsoever, here are my underthunk Toad The Wet Sprocket album power rankings:
1. Dulcinea. I will not be taking arguments.
2. Fear. It’s the big one.
3. Pale. The one before the big one. Typically underrated
4. The song “Brother” off of the So I Married An Axe Murderer soundtrack
5. Coil
6. Abulum (Glen Phillips solo record)
7. Bread & Circus
8. I haven’t really listened to any of the reunion-era records. Should I?

8. My footnotes are now officially longer than the actual post. I knew this day would come. I just never thought it’d be here so quickly (and happen on a post about Toad The Wet Sprocket).