Song for a Crappy Tuesday

A few years ago there was a segment on NPR's All Things Considered, in which they discussed why people tend to listen to sad songs when they are sad, rather than happy songs. My memory of the actual broadcast is dim, but the truth of it stayed with me. When I'm in the dumps, I really don't feel much like "I'm Walking on Sunshine". Whoever that person is that might be walking on sunshine, I want to trip them and throw dirt clods, and rat their hair.

GET YOUR JUBILATION OUT OF MY MISERABLE FACE. CAN'T YOU SEE THAT I'M HIDEOUS? HIIIIIDDDEEEEOOOOUUUUUSSS!!!!

Ahem.

So, since Tuesday is a crappy day anyway, I thought I'd share a song to help us all get through it- whether you be wallowing in self pity, yelping to providence over your situation, or simply annoyed that Rhonda in the next cubicle is, quite loudly and with much wet smacking, eating a peanut butter sandwich. (Shudder)

Tom waits has been on my favorite list for years. In college, my friends and I would get some beer, play cards (a complicated card game that I will not go in to here), and listen to Tom Waits on our little $15 CD player which we referred to with much affection as the Storm Trooper (Its white shell and wide speakers on either side gave it the anonymous look of the Imperial Soldiers).

I think the first album I purchased of Waits was Small Change.

Over the years, Tom Waits has been a constant through my ups and downs, and though I have become a less frequent listener, I have never lost my attachment. I wouldn't categorize his music as "sad" so much as thoughtful. The man knows how to turn a phrase and tell a story.

Here is a song that has long been a favorite of mine off of Bone Machine (an album which the universe has conspired to keep me from owning. Every time I obtain a copy, it is stolen, destroyed, or lent but not returned. This is true of a few other albums as well, most notably The Sunday's Reading, Writing and Arithmetic and Peter Gabriel's So. I do, however, own two copies of Madonna's Immaculate Collection, neither of which I recall purchasing.). "Who Are You?" is a blues catch-all. I have listened to this and directed my frustrated thoughts at someone else, other times, it sounds like it's talking directly to me. In the book on crisis and depression etiquette, "Who Are You?" is appropriate for any level of emotional disquiet.


Here's hoping your Tuesday isn't a total load of desolate suck.



If you have any suggestions for artists or songs...please feel free to make them. I'm always interested in different music. For those of you who are new to Tom Waits and would like to hear more, I'd start with Closing Time. It's his first, and probably my favorite.

The clumsy passion of the amateur

I hate air conditioning.

I understand it's prevalence. I get the need for climate control in areas of the world (including Chicago) where the heat and humidity, can be debilitating, even lethal.

And little can compare to the true pleasure of opening up your bedroom door - the one room in the whole apartment where your window unit will do any good - after the damp meat hooks of August have rendered you nearly immobile on the sofa, and having a pure, icy 50 degrees slap your whole body, chilling the sweat puddle in the little hollow below your throat. A faint Exorcist vapor escapes your lips as you sigh and slide into the refrigerated sheets...this is living.

(Wistful staring off, then remembering-)

I still hate it.

I don't want to be freezing my nips off in Walgreen's. I don't want to have to wear socks around the house in June. Cold slaps us around enough in January, with a bone chill we can't shake until the end of May, so why can't I sit in a movie theater without a scarf in July?

But the cold is the least of it.

It's the sound. The constant buzz or whir or white noise that cancels out certain frequencies making it difficult to hear the radio, or television or conversation. When the air conditioning is on, the windows cannot be open and we are hemmed in. Air conditioning robs us of one of the greatest pleasures of the Summertime (even greater than the walk-in freezer bedroom) : Outside noises.

Footfalls on the sidewalk. Crickets and night bugs. The Breeze. Distant thunder. Children squealing, screaming, crying, banging, giggling, falling, yelling. Parents hollering at their kids. Remote backyard conversations I can barely make out (and sometimes in languages I don't understand). Dogs. Cars driving by. Rain. Sirens in another part of town. A ballgame (depending where you are in the city a Cubs game can be heard very clearly, and without the hordes of fandom begging to be tazed). A fight someplace. Laughter in pairs. Laughter in groups.

Sound carries so well in the Summer. Must be the humidity.

Recently, I have rediscovered some of those sounds coming through the open window in my current bedroom. On Sunday morning while everyone was away and I sat typing at the computer, cars drove up and parked nearby, doors slammed, breakfast conversations were muttered in the house next door. As the church hour approached, the neighborhood fell into relative silence. And then I heard one of the most amazing and beautiful things I have heard in my life.

The boy next door, he must be around 12 or 13 years old, has lately received a guitar.

Listening to amateurs practice their instruments fills me with such an awkward mix of dread and joy. Every note is plunked out with the same emphasis, all nuance is wrenched from the sheet music. Often the the melody is totally unrecognizable. And should the student ever get on a roll, don't get too comfortable. The fumble is inevitable and as jarring as driving down a highway at full speed, only to slam on the brakes as a nursery of raccoons totters across the road.

It's the possibility of it that brings the joy. When they DO get on a roll, or I begin to to hear their own expression through the jungle of notes (especially if it's a song they really want to learn), it sounds...I don't know, lovely, I guess.

Now, to be clear, I wouldn't head to iTunes and download an album of amateurs practicing their instruments. Christ, I'd rather gauge my own ears out with a fondue skewer. Getting a glimpse, however, in the quiet of a Sunday morning, through an open window feels like an awesome secret.

The boy next door twanged and plucked at his guitar, playing the same phrase over and over. My heart swelled.

The song was Iron Man, by Black Sabbath.

Fuckin' A.

Sucks to you, AC.




(*If you're looking for something interesting in the realm of how all the buzzing and whirring of Air conditioners and appliances and office machines can affect your mood (and why certain musical intervals might make us feel one way or another, you should check out This American Life and the Mapping episode and then the Radio Lab Musical Language episode.)

-J-J- is Existing in Linear Time.

It seems a little perverse to write about Facebook on a blog, sort of nudging the snake even further around to make a meal of his tail.

I am addicted to Facebook. There I said it. I check it all the time, tooling around, updating portions that only express the most intriguing aspects of myself.

It really isn't ostensibly different from MySpace. The interface is cleaner and there are fewer ads to contend with. There is less of a possibility that some troll will peruse your profile, befriend you and hose your inbox with hanky panky emails about his or her webcam site.

The thing I believe is the real difference between the two, is the Status Update.

MySpace has a status update, but it seems less of an imperative. When you log on to Facebook the first thing you see is the looming question, "What are you doing right now?"

Jeez. What AM I doing right now? How in the world do I answer such a question?

Um...okay...how about this: -j-j- is watching TV. (Click)

With that, the whole of the Facebook universe can see what you're doing right now. Another click, and the list of status updates appears, revealing what everyone else is doing, too.

Suddenly, watching TV seems inadequate when compared to "Dan is All out of Love and So lost Without You." or "Betsy is BMX-ing. ROCK!" or the zen, if somewhat oblique "Gary is."

Oh, dear...Now I need to come up with something that is alluring but not trying too a hard, casually witty, perhaps with some political awareness, and maybe with an allusion to my own personal hopes for connection...but not too much! You must be careful not to give the milk away for free.

Reading through the Facebook status updates is like being in room with hundreds of blindfolded people, all of them announcing personal information at the same decibel. If you really pay attention you can find threads, see relationships emerge and disintegrate. Hopeful pleas. Excited yearnings. Mundane bullshit. Trivial aggravation. Forlorn entreaties. Some are crystal clear. Some require a decoder ring.


Or maybe I just think too much about this shit.

(Sigh) -j-j- is still watching TV. (Click)

Rap is Dead

Well, maybe not dead. It just got into a car accident and is living off a feeder tube, while friends and family search it's vacant eyes for signs of consciousness.

Perhaps it will revive itself, grow a new brain and awaken from its coma. Rap has died many deaths since the Sugarhill Gang, from "The Superbowl Shuffle" to the buffoonery of Vanilla Ice. Why not expect that it will rise like a Phoenix again?

I don't pretend to be a Rap connoisseur, nor do I have much more than a passing knowledge of its history. Like anything else, there are some songs I like, some I don't. But I am not blind to Rap as a cultural force.

Remember when Rap was just a fad? You, know, something for the kids like jelly shoes or Zima? I think that's what white culture prayed for - and always has when something new and extraordinary breaks from African American Culture. The same thing happened with Rock and Roll. "Oh, please, baby Jesus, deliver us into your gingerbread heaven from the scourge of beat driven sex music!"

But then, something more powerful than sex, more powerful than Baby Jesus dawned on the horizon. Money. As soon as the dollar reared it's head, it seemed like a new world. "You know what guys? I think we can SELL STUFF with this shit."

And lucky us. For in the wake of commerce we were subjected to some of the most astonishing advertising embarrassments ever. Here is but one:



Okay.

"We like this rap,
It really rocks,
But we'd rather jump
in the barbecue sauce,
'cause we're chick-en-en-en!"

I am aware that not every poem or rap has to conform to all the rules of style and meter but ROCKS AND SAUCE DOESN'T RHYME. YOU HAVE A TEAM OF PAID PROFESSIONALS WORKING ON THIS AND YOU CAN'T EVEN MAKE IT RHYME?!?!?!?

This commercial is the equivalent of the newly single next door neighbor coming over unannounced to make balloon animals for your son's 15th birthday. It's awkward and desperate, you wish it would end, but you kind of HAVE TO WATCH.

I will not go into my revulsion at the use of anthropomorphic food. That deserves a frothing post unto itself.

It is tough to say that this ad is even an insult to Rap, because it so far and away beyond what could even be considered hip-hop, its ridiculous. Like many firsts, though, it might be bumbling and self-conscious, but in the end, its blood paves the way for more insidious things to come.

Rap didn't go away. And neither did the advertising industry's attempts use it for the big sell. There are hundreds of commercials that blast rap as it's underscore to express how powerful the the SUV is, or how sexy that Beer is, or how indomitable this NFL team is. Raps have been written with more savvy to sell food, clothes and toys.

And now the recouperation of Rap as a challenge to the staus quo is complete:



Oh. My. God.

What better way to show the world that Rap has no power than to put two Douchbags in car at a Taco Bell drive thru, have them beat box about the glories of the value menu and then reiterate their Douchbaggery as they have a hissy tiff over DOUCHBAG 1 HAVING TO SPOT DOUCHEBAG 2 $0.89 FOR A BURRITO.

In my limited experience, Rap is about rising above, sex, money, machismo, social injustice, sticking it to the man, cop killing, wife strangling, swearing, exultation, degradation, mo' money and mo' problems, how it's hard out here for a pimp, authenticity and empowerment. It is a polarizing and pretty amazing art form.

And I can safely say, that this commercial is NOT about any of that. It takes it back, turns it on it's ear.

Machismo? Nope.
Authenticity? Authentically reductionist and "ironic", maybe.

Sex? Seriously, man. These guys are virgins.

Notice, there are no women in the car.

And there never will be.


Lastly, I want to make mention of the weird splicing in of the food in this ad. Like a subliminal insertion of porn, we are subjected to a slimy expulsion of Orange over a bed of Alpo. And it happens so fast it's like "Wha?"...all I know is that I am sad and queasy and a little violated.

Rap is dead. Long Live Rap.

Random Thoughts

1. Yesterday, I watched my nephew J. playing with a stuffed Tigger doll.

We sat on the couch, with Tigger between us. He grabbed the orange and black doll, whispered to it in his broken baby English and then gave it an adoring hug, squeezing it so tight and smiling.

He then hurled the Tigger onto the floor with a thud.

We both stared down at the castoff toy.

"Oh. Mo." J. garbled.

He slid off the couch and toddled to Tigger, picking him up by the tail. Hugging it again, pressing the doll's hind legs to his face, he said "I Sorfy...I Sorfy."

J. climbed back up onto the couch, Tigger in hand. We sat for a second and once again, Tigger was hurled onto the floor.

This cycle of love, scorn, separation, atonement, and redemption continued for another five minutes until J. discovered that slapping a puddle of spilled juice made a great sound.

I hate kids.

2. Tuesday is the worst day of the work week.

Monday is the day everyone gets a pass because of whatever alcoholic dmage may have been done and the collective understanding that no one wants to be back from the weekend.

Wednesday is the "Hump Day". We're all in it together so let's just get through this day it's smooth sailing from here on out.

Thursday is the unofficial start to the weekend. There's a sense of hope for the Saturday and Sunday to come: time away, time to imagine a life where I can pursue what my innermost self desires or -barring that- drink myslef into oblivion with people I barely know but hope to sleep with.

Friday. IT'S FRIDAY...WE'LL ALL BE FREE IN 8 SHORT HOURS COMRADES! VIVA LA LIBERTE!


Tuesday is a day with no excuses. No fun lables. No chats about what you'll be doing this weekend. Just the stark reality of the week ahead and no alibi for your listless job performance.

3. When faced with a sea change - like the sort I've been experiencing this week - I have discovered that there is never a time of rest or completion. I can never sit back and think: well, this is it. This is how I'm going to feel.

It just doesn't happen. Every second is a new adventure in "How shitty will I feel now? How excited? How angry? How abandoned? How supported? How relieved? How sad? How hopeful?"

And the moment I think the waters have calmed, another wave breaks and I'm right where I thought I wouldn't be again. A stranger to myself...and, in many ways, to those around me.

I know it will pass. A tempest can't last forever. It's just hard to see beyond those white capped waves on the black ocean.

4. I am enormously grateful to those who have offered their support. It is humbling to be surounded by such thoughtful people. Thank you for even the smallest reaching out. You have no idea the comfort it brings.

5. Sometimes I play a game on the bus: If the other passengers and I were trapped on a deserted island, with whom would I most likely pro-create? Sometimes, the pickin's are slim.

I smell funny things, sometimes

As those Axe commercials* laughingly mention (passing off some five-finger discount wisdom as their own), smell is very much attached to memory.

In college, my acting teacher told us the story of why he couldn't have the scent of cloves anywhere near him. Apparently, when he was in the 6th grade or so, he was running home, pursued by the school bully. Just as he crossed into the grass of his yard, he turned, and the bully gave him a swift kick to the groin. At that moment, the smell of cloves wafted from the his mother's baking through an open window, altering his ability to enjoy mulled cider or, for that matter, any harvest season cooking, forever.

His balls seize up with a phantom nut-jab from the distant past.

I have a similar visceral reaction to most smells (obviously, not in the nuts, but you get the gist). Walking down the street, after hitting a cloud of misty exhaust from an apartment building's laundry room, I am bathed in an overwhelming sense of comfort. The smell of laundry detergent and fabric softener, heated and vaporized, takes me back to my mother's house, as she is folding shirts and corduroys, watching the Love Boat (Followed immediately by Fantasy Island) on a Friday night. At the age of seven, everything was right with the world when Captain Merrill Stubing was on the tube and Bounce dryer sheets were strewn on the floor.

Of course, not every smell carries the tranquil nostalgia of a specific time and place. Many (and I would hazard, most) call up an awkward and ambiguous emotion, particularly if the the feeling is of unknown origin. Why on Earth does the smell of a Waldenbooks force me into an undefined sense of longing? Is there some dark reason I can't handle the smell of Tussy deodorant?

Below is a list of smells and the crazy things they call up for me. In some instances, I know exactly where they came from...in others I have not a clue.

Stinks and Thinks:

Cherry Chapstick = Second grade Wintertime (Similarly, the taste of Luden's Cherry Cough drops, which amounted to little more than candy, brings up something around the same period...only more tubercular.)
Wet Wood = Giddy Anticiaption caused by The Pirates of the Carribean ride at Disney world
Garage = Sleepover
Oriental Flavor Ramen Noodles = The Neverending Story Movie
Aquanet = Stage jitters
Spaghetti-O's = Nausea (Of the most explosive sort)
Drakkar Noir = Desolation and aggravation
Elmer's White Glue = expectation of the unknown
Carpet Glue = September
Finesse Shampoo = Inner conflict
The smell of new plastic tubes = An Asthma Attack
Burning paper = Christmas
Old Cigarettes = social hesitance

I may add more as they arrive unexpectedly up my nose.

On a final note, my friend Jan is a make up artist and works at Sax in LA. I was visiting and trying to entertain myself with the different tubs of lip gloss and eye shadow, when I came across a bar of soap called "Beach". I brought it to my nose and suddenly I was eight years old, staying at our beach house in Wrightsville, walking with my sister, covered in sand and suntan lotion towards the pier to buy ice cream. I shoved that bar up my nose and completely freaked out, snorting at it again and again, trying to reawaken that swell of memory.

I think all Jan's co-workers were a little geaked out by my complete lack of composure. But wouldn't you be jumping up and down if you were flooded with a complete and full body reminiscence of something so awesome as buying ice cream on the beach?

Jan understood. She bought me the bar of soap as a going away present.


*I will probably be doing an Axe rant at some point...although bitching about Axe commercials is like shooting hamsters in a barrel.

Every song is a dick

Music is a major component of the work I do. It is rare to see me on the street or riding the bus without my iPod on.

(God knows the hearing damage I've sustained after nearly 20 years of listening to headphones. For my 13th birthday, I put in a feverish request to my parents for a set of AM/FM radio head phones. I was nearly sick with the anticipation of receiving them and when the day finally arrived and the item was presented - a futuristic silvery grey electronic rectangle accompanied by the ear speakers, padded in attractive orange foam - I wasted not a second in shutting myself my room. I slipped the headphones over my ears and availed myself of the three radio stations we were able to pick up on the mountain.

It is nearly impossible in this day and age of "On Demand Everything" to appreciate the quivering suspense of listening to the radio in the hopes that "West End Girls" would play, or whatever the favorite but rare song was at the time. Hours, and I'm not exaggerating here, upon hours were spent wading through "That's What Friends are For" and "Conga" in the hopes that the one cool local DJ would rock out "Sledgehammer".)

I am at turns a total snob and absolute philistine when it comes to music. Friends who have had the dubious opportunity to listen to my music selection would readily back this up.

One the "hip" end I have: Throw me the Statue, Spoon, The Magnetic Fields, Billy Bragg

On the "music appreciation" end I have: The Beatles, Queen, John Coltraine, Beethoven, Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald.

And finally, on the "What the-?!" end I have: 1 Mandy Moore song, That "I Kissed a Girl" Song, Some Christina and Britney, Falco, and a few show tune selections.

This list is only meant to highlight the somewhat arbitrary music choices on my Pod...it in no way expresses the depth and breadth of my guilty pleasures. At this juncture, I'm not prepared to bare my neck so completely to the cyber wolves.

I have an affinity for pretty much all music, whatever the cultural, musical, or artistic signifigance...for better or worse. When music is playing I try to find the story of it - who would listen to Salt-n-Peppa, America, or Timbaland? What is their day like? When do they listen to this or that? Why?

It's how I begin to write and compile ideas.

Lately, though, every song is a dick.

We all know it. If ever there is a time in our lives when something goes awry - a relationship fails, a loved one passes away - every song, regardless of how great it is, or how jaw-droppingly awful, somehow our emotion drenched brains attach an aching poignancy to EVERY WARBLING NOTE OR FOOL LYRIC.

I am shocked and dismayed at the songs that reduce me to tears on a constant basis. And sometimes they don't have anything to do AT ALL with the situation.

Here are a few...don't ask me where I heard them, I don't know. I can assure you that it was quite by accident, wherever it was. None of these songs are on my iPod. I swear to God.



Seriously? Josh Groban makes me want to barf. Even his cameo on "I'm Fucking Ben Affleck" couldn't wash away his singular musk that attracts 45-year-old midewestern mothers of two into his fan base.

But I heard this in Walgreens and got misty in the hair care aisle.



As Robert Downey, Jr. says in Tropic Thunder: "Just because it's a theme song don't mean it's not true."

(Sheepish sigh.) I suppose so.

And, at last, here's this one. If you want to revoke my friendship with you...I understand.



Oh....God.

Someone...drive me out onto the open highway, and let me off by the side of the road and just drive away...don't look back. Just don't look back.