Notes From The Flip Side: 11.17.2002
Rest in peace, Jam Master Jay. Like millions of other white suburban kids, you introduced me to rap. If it hadn't been for you, I never would have heard Public Enemy, Boogie Down Productions or any of the other conscious bands that followed in your footsteps, that found easier traveling on the trails you blazed. I never got a chance to thank you for it, but I'll mourn you just the same.
"They've got the airwaves too / And I'm still black and blue / From the record skipping / Stricken from the record once again" - The Explosion
Working through email. Listening to Jets To Brazil. Writing in fragments. Thinking. In. Shorter. Blocks.
Years ago, I was washing clothes at a shot-out little laundromat in Golden Hill and a guy at the table across from me was trying to get his radio to work. I think the batteries were dead, something like that. I know I've written about it before, but as he struggled with this cheap little transistor, he looked up at me and said "Sometimes, music is your only friend."
And how painfully true those words have proved to be.
It's Friday night. Pushing 11. It's supposed to drop down to 26 degrees tonight. Blake's piano has me on the verge of tears and I'm thinking that the new J2B album is one of the best things I've heard in years.
The longer I spend here, the more I realize that I don't really fit in. I feel too old for the station. I suspect I'm too outlandish for most of the people I work with. I'm a stranger in a stranger land and the only relief I seem to be able to find is in a broken receiver with one functioning channel.
"I must live to know that time alone is always healing as long as there's bleeding." - Hot Water Music
I don't think I've ever forgotten how being alone feels. It seems as though fate conspires to remind me whenever I start approaching happiness.
I'm lonely, but not intensely lonely. I'm just adjusting. I'm trying to match my pace to the pulse of a small town and I feel like I'm failing with every step.
Site Updates
Added more links. Also added a piece from Alex called "I'm The Man Who Loves You."
Now Playing:
tiltWheel. Flogging Molly. Jawbreaker. The Gordon Solie Motherfuckers. American Nightmare. Bane. Jersey. Radio 4. Dag Nasty. Sunday's Best. Rilo Kiley. The Faint. Jets To Brazil. Against Me!. Lucero. Wilco. Preston School Of Industry. Hot Water Music. AC/DC. Beth Orton.
Just Finished:
Walker Percy, "The Second Coming"
Now Reading:
Thomas Wolfe, "You Can't Go Home Again"; Andrew Feenberg, "Questioning Technology" and "Alternative Modernity"; Steven Heller, "Graphic Design History" (edited with Georgette Ballance); Gunnar Swanson, ed., "Graphic Design And Reading"; Italo Calvino, "t zero"; Greil Marcus, "The Old, Weird America"; Naomi Klein, "No Logo"