“He was the RA in my freshman dorm. His nickname was ‘Rock.’...

“He was the RA in my freshman dorm.  His nickname was ‘Rock.’  He was blonde and skinny and made legendary mix tapes for the dance parties.  We never talked much in college, but we became good friends when we reconnected at a reunion.  The event was eighties themed.  There were a lot of Talking Heads cover songs, and we danced all night.  After that we started talking every day.  Even though we live on different coasts, we’d find different ways to connect.  He’d create scavenger hunts for me.  He’d send me on missions to find obscure books and records.  And we began making mix tapes together.  Both of us come from research backgrounds, so we take our mix tapes very seriously.  MMTR is our acronym for the meaning of music: ‘Magic, Meditation, Therapy, Reunion.’  So there’s a lot of MMTR mix tapes: ‘MMTR I,’ ‘MMTR II,’ ‘MMTR III,’ ‘MMTR 80’s,’ ‘MMTR 90’s.’  Then there’s ‘Clan McJangle,’ which is nothing but Scottish Pop.  Then we’ve got another called ‘Buzz Gems,’ which is nothing but guitar songs under three minutes that alternate decades as you go down the playlist.  Our mix tapes hold us together.  Lately we’ve been working on a business together.  And if we ever get too frustrated, we just put on our headphones, choose a mix tape, and hit play at the exact same time.”