Baiting the Bid

Last fall, I met somebody who was born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts. She was my age, and therefore I expected her tastes in the various realms of pop culture to be similar, at least on a generational level. Sure, you always run across someone in your dorm who can’t get enough of the Doors, Hendrix or Cream, and there’s that girl down the hall who refuses to acknowledge things like the Police breaking up or Motown group replacing members who have died, gone to jail, or as a Supreme, mistook the moniker for a calling to the lead the human race. But all in all, people are entitled to their own music tastes. Some people will follow the Dave Matthews Band across the country, while others want nothing to do with a “Jimi Thing.”

One thing I like to do when I meet new people is kind of get a feel of what they like in the worlds of sports, movies, and music. These three can say a lot about a person. It’s a Nick Hornby premise – what’s important is not what you are like, but rather what you like. While I may not wholeheartedly agree with that, it gets my point across. But there’s got to be a clever way to find out these pop culture preferences without coming across like an eHarmony questionnaire.

You bait the bid.

By baiting the bid, you throw out a predicted well-liked topic (David Fincher flicks, the latest Gnarls Barkley single, the Houston Astros) by either allowing the topic to enter the environment where you and this new person are interacting. Maybe you encounter a ball game on TV, where that person can pick a side without provocation. Perhaps you name-drop an actor, and see which movies come to mind for him/her first (those are probably their favorites-Morgan Freeman is good for this.)

But with music? You’ve got the trump card.

Volunteering to drive from Point A to Point B with Persons X, Y, and Z is essentially inviting those people into your element. It’s not so much about the car you drive (unless you are one of those people who look to impress by means of the car you drive – I drove a Volvo tank for 6 years), but rather the environment you set inside the car. What you have sitting on the back seat, what you have hanging from the rear-view, and what your pre-set radio stations are can give that person an idea of what you like. (fyi: my answers in HS would have included a Frisbee on the seat and my trusty Wildcat Relay angle-ometer.)

But what CD you have ready to go in the deck can force a reaction from a new person.

With this new person being from Boston, I thought I would get on her good side by throwing in a Guster album, as they were founded at Tufts and have that “slightly-below-the-mainstream” feel. For a Bostonian, though, this could have been right in their mainstream wheelhouse. A band from home who few listen to, that would make them comfortable, right?

Evidently, she wasn’t a fan. (And thusly, dead to me.)

What did this prove? Just because you are from a certain part of the country doesn’t mean you automatically must claim allegiance to your area’s exports. This may hold true on a international basis, but not interstate. Certainly, all the residents of San Diego don’t dig Blink 182, and no matter how many times they play it, Denver-ites may not be a fan of The Fray. But then again, shouldn’t I have seen this coming? My five favorite bands hail from Boston, Gainesville, Buffalo, Richmond, and, gasp, Canada.

And between Springsteen, Sinatra, and Bon Jovi, I own a total of one album.

Works for sports, but not for music.