Today's category is Favorite Foreign Language Song.
In the early-to-mid 1990s I lived in Belgium (mentioned here) but traveled continuously as a protective service agent (fancy name for bodyguard). I tried to find something I liked in the countries I visited (detailed here). In a few—where I wasn't in control of the radio—all I seemed to hear was English or American music. In many more I was able to listen to local music but failed to discover a song-style or musician I liked enough to buy their CD. Not to shock anyone...but fifteen years ago, that really was the only way to re-hear a song you liked from the radio or television.
I spent more than four months in Italy during those three years. (In the protection business, cultivating security relationships can be helpful, therefore, team-members usually returned to countries where they'd made useful contacts. Mine were in France, The Netherlands, and Italy.) It was in Italy where I heard and bought the CD containing Cose della Vita by Eros Ramazzotti. I prefer this original to the 1997 duet-version with Tina Turner.
Just like listening to an Opera in English ruins it (makes me laugh) the translation of these Italian lyrics are unimportant. If I knew them they'd probably lose their je ne sais qua.
Since electronica and trance (and many of their sub-genres) are my preferred genres, it's simple to understand why Orbital's full version of The Box is my favorite instrumental (The Box Part 1 and The Box Part 2 is the full almost 13 minute title).
For those unfamiliar with elec-trance—claiming a preference for Orbital is the equivalent of declaring that one's favorite male vocalist of the 50s is Elvis or saying Pink Floyd is your favorite psychedelic rock band of the 70s. I know I'm picking low-hanging fruit. It's the best.
My personal Paragon of Protest Songs (today's category) is Timmy Thomas' 1972 song, "Why Can't We Live Together". The Hammond organ. That punctuation note. Hammering home the message. Demanding your attention with subtle simplicity.
I was a child during Vietnam (that's how everyone referred to it. One word. One noun. Heavily laden with invisible but not silent verbs.) When I joined the "teenager ranks" my requirement to register for the draft in a short five-years didn't seem very distant. I thought my choices were clearly defined by Walter Cronkite on the nightly news: become a scorned soldier who napalmed innocent villagers or join the ranks of protesters beaten by police.
At thirteen, I didn't want to do either.
The draft was eliminated when I was fourteen.
Vietnam ended when I was sixteen.
When I entered Purdue University (go Boilermakers) at seventeen, all the protests had faded like my jeans.
Papa (mentioned here and here) passed away from a heart attack in his sleep when I was nineteen years old. At Nana's house, after his funeral, my sister and I sat at the organ (mentioned here) while family members milled, cried, and whispered around us. We both tried to play Timmy's melody and punctuation note; demanding attention with subtle simplicity.
My song-category for this eighteenth day of thirty is: Your Favorite Duet.
There are almost as many forgettably-forgotten songs sung by two people in tandem as there are played by groups and sung by soloists. To identify this favorite I ran my mind, ears, and eyes across many such songs, tunes, and titles.
I recall not hating the film Duets directed by Bruce Paltrow and starring Paul Giamatti. The one duet which has always stuck with me from the film—Giamatti singing Try a Little Tenderness with Andre Braugher. Although it's not my favorite duet, by deconstructing it I was able to identify my favorite.
Try a Little Tenderness is a fantastic song. I've heard it sung by several artists. I enjoy the version by Otis Redding and the covers by Three Dog Night as well as The Commitments. So, first and foremost, a favorite duet must be a great song all by itself, no matter who sings it.
I was a bit surprised to learn that Giamatti and Braugher are capable-to-good vocalists, but there's a reason they both earn their livings acting and not singing. So, the second factor in identifying a favorite duet, is that both singers must be great solo-vocalists in their own right.
The third and final determinate is the gestalt or the mise-en-scène (if you'll allow a visual metaphor to describe the realm of song). Combine the tunes meter, rhythm, instrument's sounds, vocals, echos, vibrations, silences, etc...with the lyric's words, phrasing, inflections, structure, intended meanings and emotions. Now mix in all the unintended meanings and associated emotions introduced by each listener. The result is a favorite song.
My favorite duet is one which both of the vocalists as well as the band of musicians contributed equally to the creation of, and overall everything of: Under Pressure by Freddie Mercury and David Bowie. They never recorded it together live. None-the-less, this wonderful video adds an additional layer of emotion to the recording.
"Ok, folks! We're back. And we're here with the Insipid family. Talking with their adorably cute young daughter, Brandi. Hello there my dear."
"Hi."
"Your family already has two strikes. Are you nervous?"
"Maybe kinda. But, not really. This is, like, pretty simple."
"Well, the topic is interesting song-meme titles. Two weeks of answers still on the board. Get this one wrong and the Snapperhead's get a chance to steal. What do you say?"
"A Song You Often Hear On The Radio?"
"Show us A Song You Often Hear On the Radio!"
*braaaaaaazzzzzz*
"To steal, Snapperhead, what do you say?"
"A Fucking Song."
"Are you sure? That can be interpreted as an intensifier, adjective, adverb, verb, emphatic particle..."
"That versatility makes it a brilliant title."
"Show us "A Fucking Song!"
*bing*
17th day, seventeen people surveyed said A FUCKING SONG. I'm going with the verb. Mia Culpa by Enigma happens to be the only song I've intentionally programmed to play while fucking.
Sticking with today's dual theme (fucking and 17) and trying to end on a humorous note:
If you're counting, this is my 16th consecutive day of song-O-rama. A few of the insipid titles I'm disregarding and replacing with my own: a song that no one would expect you to love (a shadow of yesterday's title) a song that you used to love but now hate, and a song from a band you hate (that you used to?..terrible grammar. Both titles are foolish—only a child hates bands and songs).
My title for today is The Oldest Song You Enjoy.
The reason mine is Boléro by Ravel (1928) is that it is in a portion of the wonderful 1976 Italian film Allegro Non Troppo, by Bruno Bozzetto. I first watched that humorous homage to Disney's Fantasia in 1979.
Yesterday, Ginny's post clarified (for me) that she's not the author of this month-long-song-o-rama. For days, I've colored outside the lines as well as fabricated a few more interesting (for me) titles. When I, naïvely, thought they were her titles, I bit my tongue; I like Ginny. Now that it's just a stupid meme, I have no compunction expressing scorn for unimaginative titles written by an early-adolescent girl.
I committed to a month. I still want to prove—to myself—I can do it, and I enjoy not only the memory mining but where my creative juices lead (like, an artwork's back-story, a new poem, or a parenting theory) so for the final two weeks, if I decide to fabricate my own title I'll include the insipid child's title (appropriately struck) only if it begs comment; as it does today, a song that is a guilty pleasure.
If an immature stranger were to criticize my playlist (and I can't imagine a situation, but, going with the premise) I would be unaffected. No friends would do it. A new acquaintance would become a stranger. The concept that someone experiences an emotion they label "guilty pleasure" is foreign to me. I don't do things on purpose that make me feel guilty. There are things which make me feel sated, angry, content, tired, excited, sad, scared, and—occasionally even—bored. Never guilty. That title was written by a twelve year old who still gets her hand caught in the cookie jar and slapped by her mommy.
My title today:A Song Which Reminds You of a Sport or Job.
My first full-time employment was a 1974 summer job at Mississinewa Country Club. I worked in the Pro Shop collecting greens fees, renting carts, selling golf equipment and listening to the radio. I rode to and from work on my ten-speed (which had a radio mounted on its handlebars). Late that summer they hired the recently-graduated highschool senior class president. Mister Charisma. Mister Popular. Mister Charm. I was asked to train him. Me. The dorky boyscout who liked to squeeze in a free 9-holes after shift when there was enough daylight.
One day our shifts overlapped. He joked around. I got the impression he might not look down on me any more than any graduate disdained anyone who just had a learner's permit. Led Zeppelin's new song D'yer Mak'er came on. (LEARNED TODAY: the title is pronounced like saying the country Jamaica with an accent...Dje-May-ka.)
He began to gyrate. He humped the door jam. He replaced some lyrics with other, funnier, ones. It was hilarious. Then he said, "My friend's coming to pick me up. Wanna ride? It looks like it might rain. You could put yer bike in the trunk."
I accepted. And then tried to politely decline when his friend arrived driving an MG.
"No biggy. Sit in my lap." He said.
I sheepishly accepted. Once on his lap, head crammed into the roof, zipping down the county road, he put the 8-track on, turned it to D'yer Mak'er, and began to grind again. His hands on my hips. "Oh Veach, you're so tight. Just relax into it." And the jokes went on and on for half the trip.
"Ok. Very funny. I'm used to being picked on." I said.
Although he giggle-apologized and claimed it was "all innocent fun" I realized he and his friend got much more of a kick out of the comments and actions than would be normal, and it dawned on naïve little highschool-sophomore me: Mister Popular was gay.
Brushing my teeth this morning I thought: with Ginny on sabbatical, what's the best way to select a title without any of the (already discussed) mental entanglements and involuntary pre-approval requirements? Teethbrushing. A song about teeth brushing!
My mind then did what I can't prevent it from doing, and ran a search. About 1 result (.038 seconds). Upon examination, I realized that the one result was an advertising jingle. I discarded it. Began shaving.
My internal stream-of-consciousness dialogue continued. Toothbrushing reminds me...I don't have any cavities. Which is a lie. I have one. When I was thirteen the dentist discovered a crack in the enamel of my top-right-rear molar. He said it would become a cavity and so I got a filling. But, since it wasn't yet a cavity I'm not really telling a lie when I say I've never had a cavity...only if I were to ever say 'I don't have any fillings'.
I wonder. Why do I have only one? My blood relatives all have much worse dentition, so it's not genetics. Is my oral hygiene routine better? I brush twice a day, but I never floss, and I haven't seen a dentist in so long I can't remember. So, that can't be it. Maybe I brush better than others; could once when I wake up and once before bed be sufficient?
At this point my brain forces itself to do calcuations. Struggles. It can't be that hard. Math. But it is. Finally, I come up with: 830 times a year; 832 on leap years. Then... Fuck I'm terrible even at multiplying 365 times two! And, again finally, I arrive at: 730, 732 on leap years. Others may say they brush regularly. But, like my no cavities but one filling shite, people lie. Even to themselves. How about others I've lived with? I've witnessed their routines. All my sig-o's possess relatively bad teeth. So maybe I've kept the evil bacteria at bay for a lifetime because I've never skipped a 1/2 day. Others fudge. They may say they brush but I know they forget because I witnessed it, smelled their breath, and paid their dentist bills.
Just like they also said they were on the pill. Or they couldn't get pregnant.
I've paid those bills too.
My first abortion—four years after my one and only filling (to date)—cost me $179.
Six years later my on-the-pill wife got pregnant, which cost me more than a little bit of freedom of choice (I joined the military to have both an income and attain free natal care).
And we mustn't forget the child support payments which began three years after that.
Another three years...let's see...didn't use a condom because she said she couldn't get pregnant, which resulted in another abortion. And another several years after that. (Totally on me. Because the adage "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, I'm a moron who deserves to be force-fed off the idiot's menu" very much applied to me in that instance there). I got into the shower and began washing my hair.
Many say they're against abortion but their regimen to prevent tooth decay is not really strict habit but, in fact, more sketchy practice. Like the practice of birth control. If I skip a day or three of brusha-brusha-brusha what's the worse case scenario? Several hundred dollars poorer and a few hours, maybe a day, of discomfort after the offending tooth is extracted.
Wait...where was I going with this? My brain confused itself. Like it does. How did mulling over dental hygiene successes become discombobulatentwined with birth control failures?
Steering blindly back onto the perfect smile highway, I wonder, what about that tooth experiment, in third grade, at Meadowbrook Elementary in New Haven, Indiana? The school where I had to run around the outside edge of the gymnasium, while listening to...
Ahh HA! The title for today is: A Song That Reminds You of Elementary School.
The gym teacher played the same song every day. We were permitted to stop running when the music stopped. He would, randomly, lift the arm of the record player mid-song and... finally!...we could walk a while. Catch our wind. Then he'd start it over near the beginning. With the whistling. Winchester Cathedral (which I always called "wind"chester) by The New Vaudeville Band will always remind me of that elementary school.
About the dental experiment (don't worry, I never forget the punch line). A week after we returned our permission slips, the whole school filed into the cafeteria. We were patiently instructed by doctor-like people wearing white coats. They told us what they expected us to do. In front of each of us was a small paper container and a new toothbrush in cellophane. In each paper cup was a brown gritty-looking goop like substance. We were to unwrap the toothbrushes, scoop the paste onto the bristles, and—all at the exact same time—brush our teeth, all-over, for two full minutes. We were warned it would not taste good. But, they said, it would only be effective if we kept brushing the entire two minutes. It was going to help fight cavities, they said.
They had us all hold our toothbrushes over our heads while assistants and teachers walked around and inspected. The head white-coat did on your mark, get set, go! And we all began to brush.
It wasn't as terrible as some of my classmates made out. Some quit immediately, stood, and began spitting on the floor. Others made it longer and got to the trash cans near the front table with the water cups. All this time the teacher's assistants, teachers, and the "doctors" talked over the din...keep going and sit down and one more minute! I felt like I was brushing my teeth with a salty soap mixture made of mostly beach sand. The idea I have a mouthful of dirt was the hardest. As the countdown made it to ...ten, nine, eight... I stood up, kept brushing, moved to the front table and took a cup of water. At the ok, you can stop now point, I began swishing and spitting into a trash barrel.
I've had so many preferred songs, bands, and even genres in the five-feckin-hundred months which have elapsed since I started formulating favorites (described here) that it seems unfair/impossible/cheating to pick one. I could never only eat just one.
It's not that Led Zeppelin would get jealous if I said I like Pink Floyd better. Nor would Chicago Transit Authority get a bruised ego if I chose Fleetwood Mac over them, either. But as the last dozen days have shown, it is better—for me—to tie either an emotional balloon or a temporal anchor to my selection switch.
Ginny's title—a song from your favorite band—seems like it's missing that connection with my past or my soul or my sumthinerother. I prefer: A Favorite Song From (Random Year).
I used a random number generator to choose the year. With the parameter years between when I was 12 years old and today (52). The generator selected one integer for me. It chose 24.
I turned twenty-four years old in 1983.
Sticking with Squire as the font of all knowledge, I used Squire's favorite chalkboard to remind me what songs were released in 1983; then what songs were hits in 1983. (Unsurprisingly, it lists all years.)
From that quick scan of albums, artists, and songs I remembered many...but one was my favorite that year: Spandau Ballet, True. (My bona fide fy-ants will karaoke it, sometimes. She sings it fantastically.)
My brain often reminds—I was once much more free of cares.
In the pajama years, my heart thrummed light all thru the night.
Until my supposedly-asleep adolescent ears heard Johnny Carson.
On Tonight, in black & white, he jested about statistics. Sleep attire.
How much we wore; at what age. My brain no longer retains the funny.
It probably wasn't (even though Ed, Doc & the audience had to chuckle).
That night, my mind decided to completely remove myself from childhood.
I tossed it, rumpled, on the rug—the next morning I dropped it in the hamper.
The next thirteen and a half thousand nights weren't carefree—my brain recalls.
There were the bunks of clothed nights in open-bay barracks hounded by snores.
The months singing the sleepingbag blues, just catchin a snooze in all but my shoes.
And the occasional fright; foxhole without light; desperate night forced to nap upright.
Or even those rare unkissed but unmissed, pulling the full-moon into the next's sun-rays.
Sleep is now a skittish kitten, creeping in after all sounds (internal and external) extinguish.
White noise from a nearby brook does help damp down the unexpected, nearby coyote's yip.
Earplugs help transcontinental flights or when an inconsiderate bucking fastard is playing music.
From books on the nightstand to Bogie downstairs on-demand, the sandman has many assistants.
Warm mint tea in the evening, a bedtime valerian/melatonin dose and then a nice refractory period.
Ginny's title today: A Song That Makes You Fall Asleep caused me to sketch this prose-ish poem. There are no songs that make me fall asleep, lull me toward rest, nor do anything besides wake me...except white noise or—like the two-hour nap inducing video above—waves (and I might even be woken around the 17 and 42 minute marks of this, when some rude seagull shouts 'wake up!').
Today's title: A Song You Can Dance To reminds me of my current reality. I don't "hit the dance floor" with enthusiasm anymore. I don't have the energy I once had. I'll join my partner on occasion, but I don't enjoy it (unless I'm not driving, have imbibed sufficiently to no longer care that I look like a goofy gyrating grampa, and the right music is playing). The Chemical Brothers, Block Rockin Beats is still the right music.
...when half of what they got, you know, they never will use. Enough to get by suits me fine; I don't care if you think I'm funny...
I've got the baton. I enjoyed following Ginny, but yesterday she forwarded all her planned titles, which—I think—means she's relayed the song-a-day baton. Hopefully she'll resume. Until then, I'll cherry pick from her list and make up my own until...questionmark.
Choosing a title is much more complex than the linear exercise of identifying a song to fit someone else's title. This conundrum (similar to mentally wrestling with a kōan) stems from my mind instantaneously "discarding" titles which don't immediately pair-up with a tune from my frontal and parietal lobes. Even when I remind myself the challenge is to force yourself to dredge deep; you can't do that if you're putting the song before the title, my conscious brain still cheats when it competes with itself. I never could finish a paint-by-numbers, because I already knew what it would look like.
Today's title: A Song That Describes You.
The Supertramp song, Poor Boy, succinctly describes my personal politics, character, as well as a portion of my attitude (lassitude?) towards others and life in general. The "mouth-trumpet" which bookends the song is a key ingredient to my enjoyment of it. For me, it imbues an attitude of: too destitute to own an instrument but not too proud to fake it.
The one lyric which captures me best: Although I'll rant an I'll rave about one thing an' another...the beauty of it is (hope you'll agree)...tho' I'm a poor boy, I can still be happy, as long as I can feel free.
In the spirit of being a good military wingman (Ginny's probably currently engaging the enemy with Gatling guns a-blazin) and a desire to—mixed metaphor ahead—pick up the fumbled ball and serve it with scallions and cheese...I'll keep her video-for-a-month thing going with an abstruse tip o' the dunce cap to April 1st (All Fools Day). My title for today is A Song That Makes You Laugh.
I was never mentally supercharged enough to orchestrate an April Fools Day Joke. Days like today were the bane of my youth. In pre-cellphone years not only would I arrive an hour late each year on the day after Spring-forward's daylight savings but six months later I'd arrive an hour early after failing to Fall-back; I'd always get pinched for failing to wear green on March 17th; and I seemed to be a prank-magnet every April's Fools Day morning (after falling for the first one, I'd then engage my remain-vigilant and overly-suspicious filter).
As a serial monogamist, I've been involved with, married to, or in a serious relationship with, a relatively small quantity of women. Over the decades, I willingly adapted to the druthers, hobbies, and preferences of my partner. I started with Catholic Mass (I was young, forgive me for my hypocrisy) and over the next thirty years, as I dumped /slash/ became the dumpee /slash/ agreed we should go our separate ways...I morphed. From church, to wherever any other military personnel would not be, to bingo, to wherever her boyfriend wouldn't be, to slot machines, to hiking trails, to dance clubs, to casinos, to . . .
In 2003 I fell in love with a woman who loves to sing Karaoke. Last year she agreed to be my fiancée (pronounced fy-ants). And, can't forget to mention: she's bona fide.
Now I—too—kroak on occasion; and I've learned the words to some. One of my favorites is The Soggy Bottom Boy's rendition of Man of Constant Sorrow. Here's why it is the perfect song to sing in public:
Not many sing it because nobody remembers the artist or title.
Once the first chords begin...everybody recalls it from the film, and loves it.
It's short.
You can almost talk all the words with a breathy nasal twang.
There are a few well-spaced instrumental breaks so you can catch your breath.
If you over-pantomime a few hillbilly-esque step-turn-kicks and duck-walks (from the film) while pretending to run your thumbs under shoulder straps you can OWN the audience.
I'm unsure which came first—learning that our births were exactly 106 years apart or falling in love with his brushstroke-genius. Vincent by Don McLean always reminds me of today. As an added coinkeydink...my favorite painting is at the three-minute and thirty-second point of this video.
For all the skeptics who don't believe in coincidences: Ginny and I didn't discuss today's topic ahead of time. It's just a happy circumstance that her song reminds her of giving birth and my song reminds me that Vincent Van Gogh's and Veach Glines's geboorte verjaardag valt samen. Since, in the US, today's date is depicted: 3-30; I also didn't coordinate with the creator of this video to insure Wheatfield with Crows would appear at the 3.30 mark...and it really has been my favorite since 1994, when I saw it at the Van Gogh Museum.
...one floor below me you don't even know me, I love you...
- Caught my Mother in a lie; began
filtering my thoughts and actions (and stopped confiding).
- Had my first
crush on a classmate—Janice Brailer (but not on her twin, Janet).
- Discovered masturbation (far out,
man).
- Began to cultivate a new-found
interest in music different from that favored by family members.
- Asked for a Panasonic Ball Radio
for Christmas, which I'd seen in a magazine.
- Joined the Nashport Elementary
basketball team (a mean feat for the shortest boy in class).
- Became crossing
guard (allowed to be late for first period; had to leave last period before
everyone else).
I actually received the
Christmas present I asked for—unheard of in my family—since we normally
received clothes, books, safe and sanitized bargain-bin toys which may have
been popular a year or two prior, and odd things that mom and
2dad wrongfully concluded we would enjoy. I hung this radio on my
headboard and listened to it constantly until the battery died. And the
next battery. And the next. Weeks. Months. Any rainy
weekend, most winter evenings, every night...I was in my bedroom with the door
closed. Doing homework. Reading books. Beating off while
fantasizing about Janice. But always listening to my radio.
The prefixes great- and grand- before "parent" measure both the distance along a family tree and (oft-times inappropriately) imply a distinguished performance, therefore, I'll use more algorithmic pronouns. Grandfather is father2; great-grandparents are parents3 (ad infinitum).
My parents5 (on mom's-father2s-side) would have thought the need for parenting skills was as ridiculous a concept as paying for water. They came from people of means. This was New England in healing-from-civil-war American times! Not only was indoor plumbing making it easier to relieve oneself with comfort—no more trudging to the outhouse in the middle of the night with a kerosene lantern and a Sears & Roebuck catalog—but this newfangled electricity-thingy was making all manner of things easier. Just in time too. The first Republican president's emancipation-thingy meant you had to cut back on the unpaid-household staff and all the nannies had been the first to go.
My parents4, proud Bullards from the northern Bullard stock, sent their son (father3) to Exeter Academy. He matriculated to Harvard with all of his schoolmates as was expected of him. After college, he married a Davis (mother3). She was also from a family of means and her uncle5 had been Isaac Davis.
My father2 was shipped off to boarding school just like his father a legacy at Exeter Academy. Unlike his father, however, he dropped out of Harvard because he impregnated my mother2 and needed a job now that he was all-but-disowned. His mother, always very full of herself, said to him—about my mother2—"How could you? With the low-born offspring of common grammar school teachers! Your life is over! Now you'll never amount to anything."
My mom—the compound-product of generations of the never-parented—couldn't attend Exeter Academy like her brother (my uncle) because of that unfortunate born-with-a-vagina-thingy. Instead, she got a summer waitressing job at The House on the Hill, an inn and restaurant in Kennebunkport, Maine, run by my father's parents. Mom did, however, fully embrace her parent's pregnant-before-marriage-thingy. And then dad had to stop busing tables and join the Navy in order to support his newly formed unplanned family.
I never knew my dad, Leverett Glines, nor any of his ancestors because my mother divorced him when I was just three and then moved us back-in with her parents—my parents2—whom I called Nana and Papa.
For the few years we lived at Nana and Papa's house (until my mom re-married and we moved in with my 2dad) Nana would oft times attempt to lull me to sleep, naptime and bedtime, by playing music on the 45rpm record player which was always positioned on the back of the organ, or by playing the organ itself. Of the stack of 45's she played over-and-over, I strongly remember only one. This one. And every time I hear this song, Canadian Sunset by Hugo Winterhalter, I remember my Nana.
Nana...who recognized she'd been a terrible parent and tried to make up for it by cutting all the crust off her 2son's Fluffernutters made with Wonderbread and slicing them into strips she called "little soldiers." Nana, who put a scoop of vanilla in my rootbeer and called it a "Brown Cow frappé". Nana, who—referring to her scornful mother-in-law—said: "Great-Nana Bullard somehow thinks being distantly related to the only damn-fool-idiot killed by the 'shot heard round the world' is somethin to be sovery proud of."
I have absolutely no parenting skills (and don't miss not having them, either). Is that because of my genetics? My environment? Probably because of heaping dollops of both.
Watching Christina Aguilera sing I Am Beautiful will chime no more emotional bells than Andy Rooney creaking I Am Elderly or Mel Gibson blathering I Am Crazy...but, every time I watch the two-minute video of Madame Aguilera's tune being sung by an animated ostrich, it strums my heartstrings, brings tears to my eyes, and—no matter how many times—makes me feel a little sad.
Although today's topic in Ginny's video-a-day challenge was 'song that makes you sad,' I decided (like I do) to color outside the lines a bit. Not because there aren't plenty of songs which make me sad. Oh sure there are me'boyo. By the raft load. Hell, I'm ovaries-deep in male menopause. I get a wee bleary if I overhear someone discussing In The Ghetto by the late-great Mister Presley. [Note: I've not a clue why the last few sentences came out as if I were a leprechaun. But, they did. And re-reading them made me giggle, so I left them.]
I jumped aboard this thirty day cruise because Ginny kicked it off four days ago by smashing her "video-a-day" bottle of bubbly across the bow. So even though this song, alone, doesn't make me even a little bit sad—in this video, it does. And has ever since I saw it six years ago.
Sad songs are better if you begin listening in a happy mood. If you're not happy right now, listen to yesterdays song first.
There are certain beats, chord combinations, and rhythm syncopations which strike us viscerally. I think everyone should become as self-aware as possible—which, along with identifying mood-altering sounds, includes learning your odors, flavors, tactile sensations, and visual stimuli.
I'm calmed by seeing earth-tones (especially orange), tasting vanilla or wintergreen, and smelling lilac. There's a dusty powdered-rose odor that can cause me to become quite angry if I'm not able to get out of its aura of influence fast enough. And, I wrote about a song yesterday which makes me uncomfortable-angry if I hear it and can not turn it off - which are some of my Asperger's traits.
Today is (this) is Day 3 of follow-the-Ginny title: A Song That Makes You Happy.
Gina G's, Ooh Aah Just A Little Bit turns my amp up to eleven and bludgeons happiness into my nervous system. I don't really like the song very much. It's too chirpy and bubblegummy. But medicine doesn't have to taste good. If I'm down, all it takes is three minutes. Anyone who can stay in a bad mood after hearing this song is a hardcore angerball scrooge-grinch.
Until the summer of 1990, there was nothing in my Song You Fucking Hate category. Sure, there were (and are) entire genre's I don't like to listen to, but fucking hate? Strong words for a few minutes of lyrics surrounded by a melody. However.
The song Ginny fucking hates is Kenny Loggin's - Playing with the Boys. In her video-a-day challenge (which I'm shadowing—today is Day 2) she states: "...I hate the living snot out of this horrible (yet refreshingly homo-erotic) soundtrack abomination..." She chose not to detail much in the way of why. In my case, I have an explanation. You betcha.
After eight years as an Infantryman and MP, in the spring of 1990 I began my apprentice year as an CID Agent at Fort Benning, Georgia. At the risk of overusing the adverb du jour by using it twice in one sentence (and this might go without saying) it's important to underscore at this point in my tale about a song I fucking hate, that summer in the southeastern United States is-was-and-forever-shall-be fucking humid. As I arrived at work 0700 on Monday, 18 June 1990, the temperature was in the mid 90s (34 Celsius) and the humidity was over 80%. The dress shirt under my suit jacket was soaked-through with sweat just from walking from my air-conditioned car to my air-conditioned office. I was the "Duty Agent" today and, therefore, would be the lead investigator on all crimes reported to this office for the next 24 hours. At 0730 the MP Desk Sergeant informed me of an alleged suicide. This would be my first as a Duty Agent.
The fifteen foot (4.5 meter) square barracks room I needed to search, measure, collect evidence from, photograph, sketch, dust for prints, describe in detail, and videotape, was not air-conditioned. Its windows were closed. I had to keep its door closed.
The room contained a bunk bed set, two desks with chairs, two wall lockers (wardrobes), a large stereo system, a television, a small area rug, and fifteen assorted rifles. One nearly headless body wearing an Army BDU (green/brown/black camouflaged uniform) was on the tile floor near the wall opposite the door. A brain was laying next to a loaded M16 rifle inside a pool of coagulating blood about the size of an adult's hula-hoop. A portion of the back wall and ceiling above the body was splattered with blood, tissue, hair and bone fragments.
I processed that scene for over two hours wearing plastic gloves on my hands before I could allow the mortuary assistant to enter the room. Then, because he was alone, I helped him load the body into a body bag and used the cardboard backing from a pad of paper to scoop the brain into the bag.
Prior to shooting himself in the face with two rounds of 5.56 NATO ammo, the soldier had programmed a Metallica CD to play the song Fade To Black, indefinitely. The volume was set to about 25dB. So quiet that, although I was aware the stereo was on, it took me more than 20 minutes to realize I was hearing the same song over and over. While processing the scene, I had to listen to that song—his fucking suicide note—at least a dozen times before I could dust the stereo for prints and turn it off.
The inside of that room was well over 110 degrees (44 Celsius) before I finished—I was constantly wiping my face and neck with a towel to prevent my sweat from contaminating the scene. Dealing with the smells was memorably unpleasant...but the song. I still can't listen to it without feeling uncomfortable (so, if the video below doesn't play correctly please let me know).
I am here to testify that the Ludovico Technique from Clockwork Orange is real (although Metallica is not Beethoven and I was never a huge fan). After processing this suicide, I immediately began to create the work of art pictured at the top of this article (also titled: Fade To Black). I finished it in about three months. It was approximately 5' x 3' x 18" deep (1.5m x 1m x .5m); acrylic paint on spray foam, constructed on a wood and metal base. I sold it in 1999.
There are some high-quality writers I eagerly look forward to reading. Andrew Vachss, Dean Koontz, and Malcolm Gladwell are three (off the tip of my temporal cortex) who've sufficiently proven themselves that I spring for their hardback.
There are other writers who I feel the same way about. Ginny is one. Because she posts infrequently, I normally check monthly for new articles on her site, Praying to Darwin. Today, I discovered she just lit a self-inflicted fire under her own ass. The intent of Ginny's post a video-a-day for a month self-challenge, in her own words: Who knows what kind of stuff that’ll make me write about?
If I'd not checked on Praying to Darwin until after April Fools Day—and she was already a couple posts into this challenge (I say this because I can't completely avoid commenting on the funny flying pink elephant in the corner)—I wouldn't think about joining hands in solidarity or in emulation or in an icky meme-like fashion. But. This is her day one. That's a sign. A SIGN, I SAY. So. I'm in.
I enjoy spurring myself towards discovery, research, and the crystallization of ideas (both new-to-me and new). This was why I compiled Like a Version: My Alpha-vile Autopsy. Creating the pics and mining for just the right words in order to identify an alphabet of things I dislike was an extremely self-informative challenge.
Back to Ginny's Day 1 topic: My Favorite Song. Her's is Everlong by the Foo Fighters. I hadn't seen the video in a decade and didn't remember it. It contains overlapping dream sequences.
I have an aversion to dream sequences. It's not strong enough to call dislike, but I recognize my avoidance urge. I'm bothered by them (which my little sister once called dream sequins and then got mad when I wouldn't tell her what I was laughing about) because when a story uses a dream to explain what a character is thinking I can't stay in the story. Flashback's are fine; story within a story—also fine; jumps in time, yup, still fine...but when a character says, "I had this dream..." Nope. As I read (or watch) my mind keeps reminding: this is just a dream.
I feel the same avoidance urge when reading fiction and the main character is a writer; or watching a TV show, play, or film about an actor; or listening to a song about music; or when the poem is about poetry; or the artwork is about the medium; or the joke is about being funny.
There are exceptions, but most creative people don't have what it takes to craft a convincingly successful multiple reflection in a mirror. Or a dream.
Following in the shadow of Ginny's footprints—my favorite song...anchoring me in time. The instrumentals of Starship Trooper by Yes are as important (if not more) than the lyrics.
...take what I say in a different way and it's easy to see that this is all confusion...
This radiation dose chart (created by Randall Monroe of xkcd) explains in layman's terms some of the various sources of radiation and their relative dangers.
The priest was calmly explaining reality to us. I understood most of the words. He was speaking English. But. As his sentences became paragraphs and those paragraphs became formulations of complex descriptions...I realized (to my axiomatic dismay) not only was I never going to be able to completely understand what he was attempting to communicate, but—worst of all—I was never going to be able to check his facts. He was superior. To me. To us all (or, at least, to everyone I knew).
I admire his genius. He doesn't rub my face in my stupidity. He tries to make it simple to understand. He has an easy smile. I trust that his professors knew what they were doing when they awarded his PhD. I hope all the people who pay him to flex his brain and all the others who fund his sermons employ incredibly intelligent fact checkers. I suspect they don't. I bet they take his intelligence at face value just like I do.
After the service—if I were given an open book test, permitted to query him at length and then write down his replies, I would still fail that test. I know I'll never get it. I'm doomed to being aware that I'm too stupid to formulate the question let alone comprehend my priest's answers.
I understand where my faith comes from. And. Now. I can speak intelligently about the reason I believe, and what I believe, and why I believe it. I should, now, be able to more-easily understand others who profess to have faith and believe. Shouldn't I?
My priest is theoretical physicist Michio Kaku. He was explaining the theory of everything. Eleven dimensions. Membranes. An infinite number of parallel universes (a word never supposed to be pluralized, now infinitized). Incredibly tiny vibrating strings. The big bang and the spaces that existed before it now explained as two membrane-like waves crashing into each other. According to Professor Kaku, the math works. It explains where gravity comes from and why it's weaker compared to the nuclear forces as well as electromagnetism (it bleeds over from a nearby parallel universe).
My get-the-fuck-outta-here meter is glad it's my priest talking this crazy talk. Any other priest would never hold my attention.
He says the math works—but it's the sacrosanct alphanumeric equations scrawled on multiple blackboards in films about geniuses like Good Will Hunting and A Beautiful Mind. He knows we don't have the mental capacity to translate the equations, let alone follow the computations to their conclusions. I'm saddened by my inability to visualize the immensely large-and-tiny entities and landscapes Professor Kaku describes. I'm envious of anyone's ability to visualize eleven dimensions; I can just stretch my mind around four. Five gets me discombobulated.
I watch my priest's conviction. His energy. He's obviously very eager to teach. I interpret his body language. I believe that he, honestly, understands what he is talking about. I have faith that he's speaking truthfully.
Could his sermon be fabricated from the same building blocks that Lafayette Hubbard used to construct Scientology? It's more fantastic than science fiction, but I have faith in Professor Kaku's explanations—that this theory is supported by quantifiable facts. I also choose to believe that he isn't in the midst of orchestrating a life-long hoax. My faith is grounded on an assumption that my priest has checked and will continue to check the equations of all his theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and mathematician peers who's combined work is constantly refining what we now believe about our multiverse—a bizarre, infinite, and phantasmagorical reality beyond my ken.
