Tag Archives: music

Chorus

There’s a song in my head, I’m not sure how it goes yet.

I don’t think another cup of coffee, or tea, or vino will get me there.  Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds does wonders… um, so I’ve been told.  But as it turns out this is not easily available at your local Walgreens.  I also don’t “know a guy.”  I assure you, this is a good thing.

Every time I’m at a loss for words I find myself increasing my reading and listening.  My take is that if you bombard eyes and ears with enough words you’re bound to run into the right ones.  Everything from comics, podcasts, music of all genres and eras, The Athletic.  Novels written by Japanese writers translated to English tops my list; Haruki Murakami, my favorite writer, receives my highest recommendation.

Silverchair, a 90s Australian band said in their song Tomorrow:

You say that money
isn’t everything

But I’d like to see you
live without it

This might be the realest shit I’ve heard all year.  This is not the song in my head, but I’m a little closer than before.

Southeast Asia is my favorite place on the planet.  My beautiful people are from this region, and I have adoration for all the other countries I’ve had the pleasure of visiting, and certainly the others that are awaiting a pushpin on my map.  I’m a glutton for southeast Asia’s genre of cuisine, and I can still remember the slight taste of regret that came with trying the spiciest green curry at Chatuchak Market, so spicy I could smell the burn.  I learned quickly that fresh coconut and several slices of water apples provide soothing relief, making the experience all worth it.

You can say a little bit of pain was followed by a little bit of peace.  There’s a song in my head, I’m not sure how it goes yet.  But it tastes something like that.

Take two of your fingers – pointer and middle – and place them along the windpipe of your neck so you can feel your pulse.  Count the beats of your heart for ten, thirty, or sixty seconds, it’s your choice.  Your time interval doesn’t matter here, because the results remain the same –

We all have a finite amount of beats in our heart, and those are x amount of beats you just counted will never be returned.

In our own ways I believe we’re all afraid of time.  It’s secured firmly in the realm of the unknown – we don’t know what, where, why, how, and when things will happen.  Sure as hell terrifies me.  So our desires make all this more comfortable to digest, Right? In other words –

What do you want?

Take a step further. Our attempts to fulfill these desires then make those heartbeats mean something a little bit different, even something a little bit more.  Undoubtedly this spectrum covers the simplest daily glasses of water to earning strenuous qualifications to be in control of a NASA rocket ship. In short –

Did you try to get what you want?

  • I need fresh air
    Go outside
  • I want to try Indian food, I’ve never had it
    Eat at a local Indian restaurant
  • My favorite band is in town for a show!
    Attend their live concert this weekend
  • What does Canada look like in autumn?
    Buy a train ticket to Toronto
  • How does it feel to be in flight?
    Jump out of a plane and skydive

This can be viewed from a mathematical equation: x/y = z

x = amount of tries
y = amount of desires
z = batting average

Baseball will pay you nine figures if you’re successful inside the batter’s box 30% of the time.  Sounds like a deal of a lifetime when you are allowed a 70% fail rate.  And there seems to lie the chorus of the point – a life filled with trying is a lifetime well spent.

There’s a song in my head, I’m still not quite sure how it goes yet.
*Swings*

But it just might sound like you.

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Swans

So it took a pandemic to get me to log back on my blog.  Sucks, right?

Not my writing, the pandemic.  Obviously.

I’m like many of you – I don’t have any answers to this.  I’m as worried and hopeful, fearful and fearless as anyone else.  Just the other day I ordered what I call a stress burrito.  It’s exactly what you think it is – a burrito to devour while under stress.  I don’t know if it was the greatest burrito I ever had, but it was quite memorable.  So I’m definitely no expert in the field, I’m not Brad Pitt from World War Z.  Especially after eating a burrito.

What I’ve been asking myself throughout this ordeal is something that you might be asking too – is this the apocalypse?

All I can confidently say at this point is that, I hope it’s not.  There’s many things I’d still like to accomplish, like throwing a first pitch at a baseball game, see Tokyo, catch Thundercat live ten more times, go off-roading in Toyota Landcruisers in Borneo.  I’m sure many of you have list of things you’d like to continue to check off as well.  But most of us are in quarantine, and this has become a global effort to slow and cease the spread of *The Rona; the state of Florida seems to have missed this memo.  Our lives have been limited to the confines of how far out our walls and ceiling go, thus severely limiting our movements and reach.

Hence, aforementioned stress burrito.

In my confines I have put together a soundtrack of this possible apocalypse.  I’m titling it, “Swan Songs.”  In ten total tracks, this is how I see it go down:

  1. Man in the Mirror, Michael Jackson
  2. We Didn’t Start the Fire, Billy Joel
  3. I Like America & America Likes Me, The 1975
  4. The Man Comes Around, Johnny Cash
  5. Turn Back Time, Cher
  6. Let You Go, Chainsmokers
  7. End of the Road,  Boyz II Men
  8. God Bless the Dead, 2Pac
  9. Lost Cause, Beck
  10. Good Riddance, Green Day

The best albums tell a story from one track to another, not many musicians take you on this ride anymore.  Swan Songs starts off hopeful with exuberant beliefs that we can change the world, and it starts with our own first steps:

1. I’m gonna make a change, for once in my life.

Then, it goes into an idea that – hey – perhaps change wasn’t going to be enough anyway because:

2. We didn’t start the fire, it was always burning since the world was turning… no we didn’t light it, but we tried to fight it.

Once we realize everything is burning, fear comes into play.  Fear of what?

3. I’m scared of dying, is that on fire?

That only means one thing, as Cash eloquently told us, that death is around the corner:

4. The hairs on your arm will stand up, at the terror in each sip and in each sup.

We’re human.  We get filled with regret with a quick and simple blink of an eye.  With the reaper looming upon us, we are likely to think of the past:

5. If I could turn back time, if I could find a way…

And hope that there could be a way to return to those times:

6. Holding a room for you.

But, hope is lost:

7. Although we’ve come to the end of the road.  Still, I can’t let go.

And we’re all fucking dead:

8. Don’t worry if you see God, first tell him shit got worse.

But hey, as Billy Joel said in track 2, we didn’t start the fire.  So maybe having hope to change in the first place was a game played by fools?

9. Baby, you’re a lost cause.

Whether or not that’s the case, our time on this planet was always limited to begin with.  This isn’t measured by the amount of breaths you take:

10. I hope you had the time of your life.

So, if this is the apocalypse, just remember – it was probably Kim Kardashian’s fault.  What’s your ten songs for the apocalypse?

Hope to see you on the other side.

— – —-

*This is what the cool kids on Twitter call COVID-19.  Twitter is a free website.

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F&S

‘Father and Son’ by Cat Stevens is a very important song for me.  If you asked me to put together the soundtrack of my life, this song would make the album.  Might even be the first track.

On a creative level I’ve always wanted to be able to tell this song visually while being able to tell my own connection to this song as well.

Since day one through a good chunk of my childhood, I did not have a dad.  I had the best mom in history, amazing grandparents, and lots of aunts and uncles.  But that father figure was never there.  While I do have a step-dad (he too, is the greatest), there’s a certain level of egg shells that the relationship walks through, and the gloves aren’t put on and duked out between a step-dad/son relationship the way it would if it were a biological connection.

And it was actually my step-dad that introduced me to this song back when I was in college.  On first listen, it hit me like a ton of bricks.  The lyrics, the emotion, the performance, everything about it.  Even if the song is packed with resent and expresses revolution (from the verses from the son), that’s what makes it beautiful.  Opposition is large part of a father/son relationship.  In fact, I saw it unfold so clearly during this time, seeing my step-dad and my half-brother duke it out the way I never did.

They fought often, but even so I was envious.  I knew, I knew I would never play that part of the son.  That time and opportunity for me went out the window on my first day.

But I do have plans on playing the father.  That chance will not pass me by.

PS. How about them acting skills of mine on this though?!  #bomchickawahwah

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