Running Toward Kokomo
Ray Brimble
June 2021
In the 1980s, the Beach Boys made a surprise comeback with a hit track titled “Kokomo”. Even though it had been nearly two decades since the Beach Boys had slipped from the top 40 charts, there they were, sitting pretty at the number one spot on Billboard.
The song Kokomo was all about running away to an imaginary place in the Caribbean (“Aruba. Jamaica. Ooh, I wanna take ya”), with vague references to the Florida Keys (“Off the Florida Keys, there’s a place called Kokomo”). And even though there’s nothing but a whole lot of Gulf Stream water off the Florida Keys, nobody seemed to care. That summer, everybody wanted to run away to Kokomo (“Putting out to sea, and perfecting their chemistry”).
With its catchy lyrics and upbeat harmonies, the song and its theme were simply irresistible. After all, who doesn’t want to run away and take it easy, right? “We‘ll get there fast, and then take it slow.”
These days, Kokomo is no longer the reigning king of the charts. But with Ben Brimble having just graduated college, that song’s been on my mind again lately. I’ve been thinking about journeys; about taking it fast, and taking it slow; about getting to where we want to go. And it has me wondering: where do you imagine your Kokomo is?
Maya Angelou once said, “people don’t remember what you said or did, they remember how you made them feel”. The same could be said for a journey.
And she’s right. It’s human nature to associate a journey with a place and a feeling. It’s like getting a waft of a scent that suddenly takes you back, or hearing a tune that reminds you of what you were feeling at the time. But are those feelings — those memories — the real spirit of the journey to begin with, or are they just the details of a bigger picture?
Ben is a part of one of the strangest graduating classes in recent history. Because of the pandemic, he not only did not get to attend live classes for almost a year, but his graduation ceremony was virtual. While he kept his attitude positive (and was truly thrilled to have accomplished this huge milestone in his life), I sensed an underlying disappointment. After all, getting into college is surrounded by a lot of hype, which tends to make graduation day expectations more elevated than ever. And the universities themselves don’t help; they make it seem as if you’ll walk out of there as a master of the universe. But when that bubble bursts, the discussion inevitably turns toward, “was this really worth it”?
For Ben, he sensed that he had been oversold on a dream. And many of you out there would probably agree that he’s correct. The accomplishments of Ben’s college journey were pitched to him as a literal destination. Like Kokomo, somewhere off the Florida Keys, he thought he was supposed to arrive there on graduation day, ready to wiggle his proverbial toes in the sand while sipping on a magical margarita under palm fronds made of diploma parchment paper.
But imagine if someone had set out for the actual Kokomo, only to discover that it was just a figment of the Beach Boys’ rum-soaked imagination, all dressed up in a hula skirt. Ben might have felt that his degree was likewise a figment of academia’s imagination, dressed up in a gown complete with a decorative sash and graduation cap.
So, if the university’s Kokomo doesn’t actually exist in the way academia says it does, well, does that make it any less real? Not important? Not worth the journey? Is the proverbial Gulf Stream that runs between “real” and “imaginary” too hard to cross?
Kokomo, like a diploma, both represent aspirations. They are representations of journeys desired, as well as journeys taken; of that feeling you get when you’ve “arrived”; they are the dock from which you might launch your next voyage. That’s the reality of it all.
So, all of this to say, yes, Kokomo is real. Ben, your education and your degree are worth it. The song makes us happy because it represents an aspiration to run away to someplace else, somewhere better. And isn’t that also what a degree is really all about? In this way, these aspirations give us the wings we need to fly — so we can actually get to our destination, way down in Kokomo.
Many journeys start with a desire to run away. While running away is tagged as negative it can also be one of the most dynamic forces in the world. As the son of divorced parents, I learned to run away early. (I have often said that the happiest day of my life was when I left Houston to attend the University of Texas — Austin; the day I sped down Interstate 10, away from home, toward a vague something that I did not yet know.)
But it’s important that a complete journey involves both the aspiration and the destination. When I say that, I mean this: every time I have run away, I have also run toward something else.
Kokomo is any place you have yet to arrive at, but would like to eventually be. Everyone needs to dream of Kokomo every once in a while. Better yet, go ahead and run toward it. Get there fast and take it slow.
Curious about other writings of mine? You can find all my thoughts, musings, and words of “wisdom” on my website. https://www.stringtheorybyraybrimble.com/
