my dad: the original curator
Today is my dad's birthday. A few notes on how he shaped my love of music and writing, and a few other recommendations for today.
Hi friends —
It’s my dad’s birthday today, and it’s kind of tripping me out.
Watching your parents age is beautiful, and also a reminder that you, too, are getting older. It’s interesting seeing the roles shift: the parent coming to you with new discoveries, curious about your interests and opinions on things. I can’t necessarily pinpoint the shift, but it just makes me smile. My dad’s latest discoveries have been J. Cole’s The Fall-Out and Kendrick Lamar’s GNX.
As an only child, I spent a lot of time with my dad. In many ways, we grew up side by side. I was learning about life while he was learning about fatherhood. We shaped each other as we went, often without realizing it. With that, he’s always been my guiding light and one of my daily sounding boards.
Throughout our life together he taught me so many things: how to use chopsticks, the importance of learning people's names in conversation, the importance of routines, money management, and that people-watching could be transformative for my creative process. While he’s taught me so much, one of my favorite things he has given me is a love of music.
Talking about new artists and songs with my dad is one of my favorite things — it always makes me giddy. And since this newsletter is about books and music, I want to talk specifically about what he has shared with me in those spaces. Some of my earliest experiences with him laid the groundwork for the way I connect stories, sounds, and memories.
MUSICAL MEMORIES
My dad took me to my second concert ever, which was to see Cameo at Kimball’s East in Emeryville. I was about five or six and I can remember my feet swinging in the chair as I ate popcorn shrimp. I can’t remember the concert in full, but what I do remember is my dad truly in his element, singing along to the songs and happy to be there. That is one of the memories that birthed my love of music and concerts. It gave me my first real understanding of what music can do to a person when it really gets you.
And it only grew from there. Throughout the years my dad exposed me to so many of his favorite artists: Marcus Miller, De La Soul, Loose Ends, Eric Benét, and Whodini. He also introduced me to my second crush ever, Warren G, via a cassette tape in the back of his Honda Accord (my first crush was Martin Luther King, in case you were wondering). He introduced me to Musiq Soulchild, which led me to some of my favorite artists of all time: Van Hunt, Ledisi, Kem, Corinne Bailey Rae, Dwele, and Eric Roberson. He has taken me to see many of these artists live, and those concerts have been some of my favorite memories with my dad.
BOOKISH THINGS
Every other weekend my dad would take me to Barnes & Noble to get new books. I’d ball out, getting lost in the store, grabbing everything I wanted. To this day when I faux-complain about how much I spend on books, he always says there are worse things I could be spending money on.
Rich Dad Poor Dad is one of his favorites, and it shows: stay open, save when you can, splurge when necessary. He read The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch for a book club and came back with so much to say that I went and read it myself. It has been one of my favorite books ever since, while it’s not quite a desert island book, it’s one I return to often.
More recently, Rich Paul’s Lucky Me has become one of those books we both consumed and keep coming back to in conversation. He listened to the audiobook while I read it in print, and he says it’s one of the best audiobooks he has ever listened to. In Rich’s story he talks about his relationship with his dad and how he instilled so much in him throughout his life. While our situations were different, I can resonate with that wholeheartedly. So much of what I write and enjoy started with my dad. From car rides and roaming the city to our second concert together, those moments shaped everything I share here.
Happy birthday to my dad.
A few other things worth checking out this week:
Last year for my dad’s birthday, I made a playlist for his birthday party and it was pretty good. You can listen to it here via Spotify — truthfully it was jamming.
Arsenio Hall’s new memoir, Arsenio, comes out on March 31st (some B&N’s already have it) and I could not recommend it enough. It was a great read and I loved learning the stories about how his show came to be, the backstory on Coming to America, his relationship with Eddie Murphy, Quincy Jones, and Richard Pryor.
Also, on Arsenio Hall, here’s an interesting article on him and his memoir for The New Yorker. And just because, here are a few of my favorite performances from the Arsenio Hall Show—yes, I do often watch old things like this on YouTube.
Judy Blume’s biography came out earlier this month, and I saw that she was not doing any press for the book. I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would, but did think this was an interesting article about biographies.
Not sure if I have shared this yet, but this was a great read on Audi Crooks. I am also wishing everyone well wishes on their March Madness brackets.
That’s it for this week. I’ll catch up with you :)
this is so so sweet. happy birthday to your dad!
Such a great person! Happy birthday Keith! 🤗