I’ve always been someone who is a student of the game, who has been all ears when it came to history of something that I’ve been into and have always enjoyed speaking to and learning from those who were there before me and who studied something so in-depth that they’ve become a master or historian of the subject but even more, of multiple subjects. While sitting in the American Airlines lounge this past weekend heading to Atlanta, I had a great conversation over beers with an older gentleman who struck up a conversation with me about where I was going and what I did. That conversation lead to a back and forth of similarities but from 2 different time periods of life, yet fully connecting to each other. We spoke about our youth and what we enjoyed, how we matured as adults but still have maintained to keep our childlike spirits of enjoying life. As a kid, he talked about reading comic books and especially pre-code horror comics, but he also loved to collect baseball cards and eventually train sets which he says that he still has a room in his home where they are on display. We also spoke about life, both social and political as well has his time spent in the military and going to war which led me to saying the only war that I’ve seen were in my favorite movies which he laughed and said like “Where Eagles Dare”? I responded with yes, with Clint Eastwood, Richard Burton and Ingrid Pitt, that’s in my top 5 of World War II films of all time. He laughed and said, you truly are a renaissance man. It was from this conversation that made me realize that it’s becoming far and few in between where I’m in public or meet someone that is a true renaissance man. You know, the cool older hip guy that dresses stylish and can tell you about seeing whatever legendary jazz musician performing in a whole in the wall spot uptown and has the best jazz record collection and can tell just about anything about Blue Note, Prestige or Strata East.
I’ve lived a life where I’ve always been into things and have always been around people much older than me who were also into things that have schooled more. One of the earliest people that I clung onto was my uncle who hipped me to the best TV shows and movies which in turn made me have that appreciation for them and who also got me into building and collecting model cars and Navy boats. From being a collector of vintage toys, records, art, comics, books, magazines and other ephemera, TV shows and movies recorded directly from the broadcast onto VHS, from made for TV movies to porn. I feel that I have a solid mental database of knowledge and can hold a good conversation with just about anyone on any of the above to world travels, food and more. But I have not reached that age yet where I would consider myself a renaissance man and have always regarded that title for a much older generation of well rounded and well versed human. I’ve met so many people over the years from old hippies who could tell you about psych rock 45’s and had an incredible psychedelic art collection to a film connoisseur who had every essential film on some sort of physical format from 16mm reels to VHS and Blu-Ray with shelves filled with books on the history of films and directors. People like this are always my favorite to meet and spend hours talking to and not just about their interests or hobbies but also about life because they’ve lived through a certain time period that I’ve only read about or was too young at that time to truly experience. That’s why I’ve always said that as a DJ or record collector, I find that the most interesting people are the ones who have equally as great of an art or book collection as they do records and know why they have them. It’s not just about having grails but understanding what makes them special to you. If you collect soundtracks or library records but have never seen the movies that connect with them, I find that rather suspect. It all goes hand in hand and should equally be of interest. If you have the soundtrack and have seen the film then the next logical step is having any ephemeral that’s connected to it to tight it all togther.
One of the last things that I realized about the renaissance man is that once they pass away, all of that knowledge that they possessed is no longer available and dies with them which is the case that I have seen a few times in recent years with the passing of Biz Markie, Dan The Beatmann, Paul Nice, Ed Piskor and my OG, DJ Groove. Groove, Biz and Dan were older and had incredible knowledge because they were there, and although both Paul with Kung Fu movies and other genre films and Ed with art and comic history are in my age bracket, they were an incredible wealth of knowledge but sadly no longer with us to grow old and pass their history on. As someone who is connected within different social scenes, there are still plenty of guys out there who know everything there is to know about whatever they are into like vintage toy collector Scrooze from LA or my go to guy for all things vintage comic knowledge, Bill from Frankenstein Comics. These two gentlemen are truly walking encyclopedias when it comes to not only collecting, but life in general. As I mentioned above, I’m not quite ready to give myself that esteemed title but if someone younger than me and even the occasional older than me see’s me as such, I will gladly embrace it and continue on to pass on knowledge to those who just want to sit and talk or have a passion for something cool.