Et Cetera
Been on a bit of a break thanks to my vacation -- since commute time is also post time, the staying-home behavior seriously messed with my dwink.net schedule.
I spent the last few weeks in a bit of a funk, actually, a bit of a placement crisis in the world I've built. Therefore I figured it'd be appropriate to pull out some Red Hot Chili Peppers -- Blood Sugar Sex Magik, not the safe-ass new Adult Alternative crap -- and write for a bit about whatever came to mind.
In my funks, I always am reminded of some of the fundamental things that make me who I am, that keep me together when my imbalanced brain and stress addiction threaten to shred me. Music, for one: I was a musician long before I was a computer nerd. It started when I was a kid, and my brother ( who is five years my senior) was big into music; I started out liking whatever he liked. Then he went off to college, and I found BMG Music Service and Columbia House, and started ordering tons of new music.
I found some of my favorite music during that time: Morphine, Nine Inch Nails, A Tribe Called Quest, REM, U2, Living Colour, Live, Public Enemy, Guns 'n' Roses...
These riffs, hooks, grooves, they coat my brain -- like a good lube, they keep the parts moving. They ease away the tension, the knee-jerk reactions to the idiots and lazies, the doubts and the worries. All that remains is the sound, the smooth high of melody and harmony, tone and and timbre, and if I can ride that wave for a while, the rest of it seems to wash away.
Elbow says it well:
"and out of a doorway the tentacles stretch of a song that i know/and the world moves in slow-mo, straight to my head like the first cigarette of the day..."
So here's to the music: thanks for keeping me sane.
