366 days

MUSIC has amazing power.

For me, in simplest terms, it's a litmus test and a compass. On the one hand, over time I have heard plenty of misguided souls say they're just not interested in music or their tastes are so narrow, their halfhearted involvement in it bores me. To me, it's the pulse of life. It can tell you where you are, where you've been, or where you're going, like some sort of flux capacitor of the soul. Great music especially evolves over time. It grows and changes with us, following us through all of our tidal pools and topographical missteps.

No blogs were posted here between early August 2009 and the end of January 2010, and for good reason. It's amazing to me how much of who we are can become based on the impressions of outsiders. Outside opinion can hold so much sway. Take for example being given a gift. It doesn't have to be a particularly expensive purchase. Honestly the cost doesn't matter. Let's say it's a gift of moderate cost from a key family member or friend.

You now have something new in your life. Unfortunately, you've come to realize it just doesn't fit your body or your personality, or just won't fit your well-devised Feng shui flow. What do you do? You keep it, of course. The 'gift giver' may show up some time and wonder where it is, seems to be the running edict. 'What will they think' is a phrase still carved inside the walls of our psyche from our formative years. The same concept can happen within a relationship.

Words are very unnecessary
They can only do harm

Depeche Mode's brilliant VIOLATOR album was released in March of 1990. The first time I caught wind of it was upon seeing the simple, but visually striking video for "Enjoy the Silence" wherein David Gahan roams the Scottish hillside dressed in royal garb, toting a glorified lawn chair. Over time it started to appear on random mix tapes I made others, even though I attempted to keep from using what had become such a signature tune.

Whether or not that would make it the best song on the set, it has always worked well as a centerpiece. This figured into my thinking when I directed the play 'Closer', which was a cleverly written, harsh, emotional drama. I decided that the performances should be the sole organic aspect of the play, so I layered the show with electronic music. Every night "Enjoy the Silence" brought the audience out of the intense, peak moments of Act One into the brief intermission with noticeable chills. Slowly but surely the song began to collect all of the baggage of the show and the life dramas surrounding it.

A couple weeks back there was an inadvertent or perhaps imperative merging of the former and the current at a local bar during what was slated to be an 80's old wave night. The first chords of "Enjoy the Silence" sent me soaring across time, but I quickly settled right back into the moment, completely unfazed by previous pain or yearning with which the song had become associated. My focus was instead riveted on the seductive dancing of my beautiful girlfriend.

All I ever wanted
All I ever needed
Is here in my arms

So here we are, a year since the curtain call, following three or four years of decline. Since then old friends and strangers have come out of the woodwork, creating a very different array of characters in my life. These are the people who will be moving forward with me, allowing me to fully unfetter myself from anchors of the past.

hughes laureate

Over the past couple of weeks, my girlfriend and I have been diving back into our youth with the makings of a John Hughes film marathon. His flicks were one cornerstone of any given child of the eighties pop cultural meal, but have now unfortunately been exiled to periodic rotation on the likes of TBS and Bravo. Before this month it had been quite some time since either of us had seen any of these works in their unedited entirety. So far we have gotten through the four Anthony Michael Hall entries (for those counting, we did include "Vacation").

Hughes was my age when he wrote the most revered of these movies. It was once a surprise to me that he was able to tap into the teenage psyche so well, but as I take a peek back at his mid-eighties triumphs I see not only the angst of children but echoes of many adult voices I know as well as issues I have torn through in this blog. As adults we may lose sight or become too jaded, but we too need to be noticed, strive to gain acceptance, struggle against oppressive forces, seek to realize our true nature and be respected for it, and most of all wish to harness as much fun as life has in store.

the eX-factor

I haven't seen David Fincher's recent Facebook movie, but I get the inkling that part of the reason the flick is receiving the generous reviews relates to its extremely topical nature. For many of us, Facebook is that monster that swooped out of nowhere, devouring not only Myspace and its lesser known 'social network' compatriots, but also the way we all qualify our lives and our worlds. We 'like' far more things than we ever thought feasible, we over-share with aplomb, we intensify our feelings for mass support, we erase past ills for the want of another individual in our human name-face-serial number queue, and we keep others well past their expiration date in the hopes to not offend, isolate, or do any of those other wonderful things we do so well in the 'real world'.

Facebook certainly has changed the fabric of our interactions and I don't think it's solely due to the 'social network' status either, because before many of us arrived there we were on Friendster, Myspace and myriad others. I had several different accounts before hand, but was only active with Myspace, which initially seemed little more than a place for 'tweens, teens, and those two feet from high school graduation. With all of the flash and fuss put in all of the wrong places, Myspace really was a disappointment as an addiction.

On the other hand, Facebook was busy gaining acknowledgement and becoming embraced by an older crowd. Something about it seemed better. By comparison all of the bling of any given Myspace page was now far more streamlined. Gone were those slow to load, exhaustive journeys into website amateurism that so often burst instantly into irritating song samples. Everything seemed to become more about the words people chose to express themselves or the images they chose to share.

Honestly, at first glance it was quite refreshing. If Myspace was one type of an on-line animal, it soon became clear that Facebook was more of an out-and-out plague beast. Myspace wasn't for everyone, but 'everyone needed to be on Facebook'. Relatives young and old started to join. It soon became a litmus test for regular societal membership and meaning, as event invitations and photo shares only seemed to be for those who were connected. Facebook seemed to make life so much simpler, organizing everyone you know, once knew, wish you could know better, bumped into in an elevator, or those with whom you share an interest in spoons into this live action, living, breathing address book.

It has often called into question the meaning of the word 'friend', and it certainly does for me these days. I am reminded of arguably the best Simpsons episode: 'El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer (The Mysterious Voyage of Homer)'. It's the one wherein Homer's searching for his soul mate. One particular conversation in Moe's Bar demonstrates just how many nuanced relationships really exist (friend, colleague, compatriot, well-wisher, etc.). In a place like Facebook all of these people get lost together in one bundle, seemingly equalized based on when they decide to post something new.

toxic avenger

Interesting arrays of disconnected events tend to visit us in dreamland. In the morning we string it all together in an effort to make some sense of it, like some over-worked film editor, toiling away at turning six scrubbed films into something coherent. I tend to think that life runs through a similar course as our memories steadily become more and more vague with images culled from actual events, photographs, stories, wishes, dreams, and a smattering of some TV show we once watched. To some extent, assembled in whatever form we see fit, they become us.

I can't quite recall if it was during first grade or second grade (in fact, I did a quick Wikipedia search to see if I was even close), but at some point we all lost our baby teeth. We'd sit there at the center of the classroom, or lying in bed at night, or even on the playground at recess, doing everything in our power to fiddle with, tug at, or flick our tongue toward that irritating dangling piece of bone hanging by a string from our jaws, in a concerted effort to cause some change. At times the damned thing didn't even feel the least bit connected, merely held on by very weak magnets. It was frustrating, and as a tooth in its present form it was also completely useless.

Sometimes life gets this way. It reminds me of Dexter Morgan, that wonderful sociopath of print and screen. Like many a sociopath, he's the perfect outsider, quite able to recognize the nuances of humanity, who dons his life like a wardrobe. I wouldn't suggest he's necessarily the best of role models, but I would say it's true that one's world, one's lifestyle, one's reality does go in and out of fashion with time, sometimes fitting with ease and at other times chafing us to the point of action. When it gets like that, you have to do like Dexter would, and yank those teeth out!

A couple days back I spent the hazier part of the afternoon with my parents, who are recently estranged from my siblings. I didn't know what to expect when venturing out to the local Chick-fila, but it did give me several revelations. As I got a better gist of who these people are without the context of the seeming baggage that a functional family unit allows and they got perhaps a better sense of me in this space and time, I began to more fully grasp something about toxic relationships. In this instance, and likely in others, without all of the vile undercurrents, both parties are better off.