On Faith No More's "Album of the Year" and a Snowy Drive

by editor Michele Catalano

I’m driving to Pennsylvania from Long Island. It’s February, it’s snowing and I have a deep fear of: driving long distances by myself; driving in the snow; getting lost. This is before smartphones. I have a printout from Mapquest that I have to follow, and I try to memorize the instructions so I don’t have to keep looking at the map while I am white knuckling this drive.

I’m in my inherited Cadillac, the one my father gave me after my ex took the minivan with him when he left. It’s a big, heavy car and that makes me feel somewhat safer but not much. The car does not have a CD player, so I bring my boombox on the trip, stuffing it with fresh D batteries that will hopefully last for both sides of this ride. I have a stack of CDs with me: Korn, Type O Negative, Machine Head, Fear Factory. Stuff that will keep me alert and awake. The first CD I put it in is Faith No More’s Album of the Year. This record will come to represent so much, not just on this ride but for the entire premise of the ride: I am going to see the guy I’ve been spending a lot of time with on AOL. This is a completely new adventure.

Online dating is new, and most people who know what I am doing think I am insane. I’m going to meet my death, they say. Who knows what kind of creep this person I’m going to meet is? I retort, “How do I know that the guys I meet in the bars you drag me to aren’t creeps or insane?” I  tell them I’ll take my chances. Justin and I have been talking nonstop since November. I feel like I know him pretty well, that I’ve felt him out and he seems charming and pleasant. We like all the same things. We have great phone conversations that last almost all night; sometimes we’d fall asleep, and I’d wake up with the phone pressed to my ear and his light breathing on the other end. It was sweet. This will be fine.

I look at my directions once more and head west, starting off on my great adventure. I’m nervous about so many things; about the driving, the snow, and whether or not Justin and I will hit it off in person the same way we do on the computer. I have this off-putting adrenaline coursing through my body. I’m scared. 

Album of the Year is a perfect companion. I don’t really need the driving force behind Fear Factory or Korn. I need comfort and mellowness, something that will keep me calm while I head into the snowstorm. 

Faith No More is, more than anything, a band that connects us. We are both big fans. His screenname on AOL is FNM525 (mine is Redefine, an Incubus tribute). We trade Mike Patton stories, we talk about our favorite songs and albums, we bond over the fact that we both love Album of the Year unapologetically, despite it being a least favorite among FNM fans. It was exciting to find someone who not only is interested in my take on all things Faith No More, but who actually listens to me when I talk. This is new territory, as is the driving.

I am on the Cross Island Parkway, barely into my journey, when the snow really starts falling. I think about turning back, going back to the comfort of my home, the safety of my living room. I could just stay home and talk to Justin online—the kids are at their dad’s for the weekend—and plan for a trip on a nicer weather day. But I have this weird, almost foreign feeling: determination. I am going to do this. I am not going to cower in fear. I am not going to let a little snow get in the way of meeting this person for whom I have developed a lot of strong feelings. I’ve always been one to give up when the going gets hard. Not this time. This time, I am going to meet my fate. I just don’t know what that fate will be.

I sing my way through the album. “Last Cup of Sorrow” finds me singing my heart out on the Throgs Neck Bridge as the snow whips around me. Add bridges to my list of fears. I hold my breath for the first part of the span and sing with fervor in the second half. I find that singing out loud is a way of confronting—or maybe scaring off—fear. By the time “Helpless” starts, I’m wishing I had turned around before the bridge and gone home. My knuckles are white, my hands shaking, my singing voice quivering. I shouldn’t be here, I think. I should not be on the road to Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, in a raging snowstorm to meet a guy who is younger than me by a lot, whom I know only through phone calls and online messaging. I had kids to think about. I just started a new job at the district court. I am getting my life together, and part of me is thinking I am about to throw that all off track.

Mike Patton’s plaintive wails in “Helpless” fly at me from the boombox speakers, and I cry-sing for a little bit. I’m scared. Scared of so much. Scared of the storm, this trip, the future. I’m scared of being alone, so much so that I am willing to risk my life and limb on this dumb escapade because I may have found someone who would keep me from being alone.

I struggle with the map. At one point I think I’m lost, but it’s just that everything looks foreign and frozen in the snow. I can’t tell one exit from another, and I slow to a crawl in the right lane, along with dozens of other cars. 

I’m not even halfway there when Album of the Year ends, but I don’t want to take my eyes off the road for more than necessary and the CDs have all fallen to the floor on the passenger side. I hit play on Album of the Year again. It’s a good companion. It’s just what I need.

Smiling, with the mouth of the ocean

And I wave to you with the arms of the mountain

I’ll see you

“Ashes to Ashes” is playing, and I’m contemplating things. I’m lost in thought, and we’re all going slow enough that it’s okay. I have my hazards on. I can hear the snow crunching under the tires over the sound of Patton’s trembling voice. I’m in the beginning grips of a panic attack. I sing these words, loud and with all the power I can muster. This song—more than any other on the album—will come to define this trip for me. It will be the musical marker, the song I cam put on and be instantly transported to I-95 on a snowy winter day. From what I can tell—and this is wild guessing—I have about twenty minutes to Stroudsburg, and I just keep hitting repeat on “Ashes to Ashes,” letting Patton comfort me and guide me.

Give it all to you and I’ll be closer, closer

I belt out the song, using my voice to fight off whatever demons are coming after me at this moment. I can feel the panic attack working its way from my fluttering stomach to my brain. I am on the verge of turning around and going home, leaving this questionable relationship behind, crawling home to my family—none of whom wanted me to go—telling my ex husband he’s right and I’m crazy. I am so close to calling it quits. 

And then I see it. My exit. East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. I made it. I fucking made it. And the snow has stopped. The sun is shining. And Mike Patton is singing about mountains and oceans and I know right then that I’ll never hear this song or album again without thinking of this very moment, how I just put a marker in the History of Me. 

I drive the rest of the way, consulting the map for directions, consulting Faith No More for reassurance. When I get to Justin’s house, he’s outside waiting for me, a sheepish grin on his face. “You did it,” he says, before embracing me. “Holy shit, I did it,” I say. I say a silent prayer to Mike Patton. 

I make the drive twice more before Justin moves to New York. One ride is just as nerve wracking as the other, with or without snow. I never want to see a sign for the Delaware Water Gap again.

Album of the Year still remains a favorite. I play it often now—on vinyl, not a boombox—and it holds true to this day that any single note of that record will have me right back on I-95 or I-80 in a snowstorm, wondering what the hell I’m doing with my life. I can look back on the sheer insanity of making that trip with the clarity of now. I know it was a bad idea. I know it was stupid. But I don’t regret it, nor do I regret my association of Album of the Year with this event. Everything you do in life will later serve as a reminder. This is all a reminder that once in my life I took a chance. I was reckless and careless and I wouldn’t change a thing. Especially not the soundtrack. 

[i would love to tell you about a happy ending for justin and me. alas]