In praise of the bop

"bubble gum pop songs lakeshore drive summer simple gorgeous"

I wrote that string of words the other night around midnight after riding home on the lakefront listening to really inane pop songs.  It was a note to myself that I wanted to remark on the simple pleasure of the ridiculously catchy and stupid pop song - particularly prevalent in summer, but always great.

Now, I like "real" music, yes.  But there's a case to be made for the summer hook, the completely pointless lyric, the repetitive na-na-na-na of a really great ear worm kind of song.  I want to go on record: I know the words are either stupid or non-existent, the tunes are simple and repetitive, but there are a BUNCH of super poppy songs out right now that I can't bring myself to spend money to own, but when they come on the radio, I turn it way up and dance in my seat in the car.  Or in my living room.

[Side note:  apparently I have a bit of a problem with spontaneous dancing.  A friend noted once that I will dance with hardly any provocation.  I do, it's true, and often badly, but with enormous verve.  Does  my sheer need to groove make up for the fact that I'm bad?  I hope so.  If you've ever witnessed one of my break-outs of dance, I probably should apologize, but I enjoy it too much, so FTS (the shit in that one=me apologizing).

Oh, you thought I forgot about FTS?  Nope. ]

All right, so I'm not a music snob, and it's not hard for me to enjoy a stupid pop song.  I appeal to all of you out there who think you're too good for the summer jam: give it a chance.  If it's really hot outside, go get in the car, or plug in your headphones, turn on the radio, and wait for some CLEARLY INSIPID song to come on.  Then bop for all you're worth.  Lean into the da-da-da-da-da-da.  Head bang a little to the beat.  Dance sideways.  Throw in a boy-band-brand outstretched hand at the end of a big phrase.  And I'm betting you'll discover it's silly, but damn fun.  It is the junk-food of the music world - I KNOW the calories are empty, but every once in a while, isn't it great to have soft-serve ice cream?

Yes, I'm including both "Call Me Maybe" and "You Don't Know You're Beautiful".  Both songs are indeed entirely subpar as songwriting goes.  BUT AWESOME SUMMER JAMS.  Find your own.

FTS

So often on this blog I'm all whiney-whiney, I-didn't-get-this, or I-miss-this, or here's-my-endless-essay-on-longing-because-that's-what-I'm-good-at.

Well, today, all four readers, I'm instituting a new catch-phrase, a clarion call: Fuck That Shit.

True, I haven't booked a job lately, even been released from a few holds (which means I had the excitement of thinking I had the job and THEN got passed over).

Fuck That Shit.

Yes, I lost a few people this past year, and I still feel their absence.

Fuck That Shit.

It's true I had really really hoped to take a short road trip this weekend, but it turns out I don't have the money or a good destination that I can reach in the limited time I have.

Fuck That Shit.

I spend too much time worrying about what I don't have, about missed opportunities and rejections.  I'm drawing a line in the sand.  This is now, I need to relish it.  Will I still get upset sometimes?  Sure!  If so, I have to relish that too, because who knows, maybe something cool will happen and I'll never be unhappy again.

But to let despair be the top-note of my personal perfume?  I don't have time left for that nonsense.  Fuck That Shit.

Now, I'm going to paint my living room instead of whining.  And if I have to play music really loud to shut off my brain, so be it.  If I have to call a friend to get some company, so be it.  If I have to meditate to dump any and all negative thought, my mantra will be, over and over: "Fuck That Shit."

Though I think I'll just abbreviate from here on out: FTS, man, FTS.

Need to sleep

Tonight I miss something that didn't ever exist, something I can't even really remember, and yet it's still keeping me awake.  It's an unreal dream pieced back together from slivers of half-formed images.

The sensation resembles missing a character I played - not the idea of a person I was but a person I pretended to be.  Wait, that's it entirely.  I don't miss this situation or those people, I miss the person I got to imagine myself being while I was in that situation.  And frankly, I cannot imagine a subsequent situation where I can return to being that person.  So I remain disappointed that I cannot find a single day to day entry point to this part of me I really enjoy but cannot conjure up on my own.

It's a loss that makes me want to throw things, to whine, to rage and storm.  I had a fit this evening about something quite irritating but fairly minor, and I suspect this disappointment is partly responsible.  I want to find an open space and rail at the sky, call down curses and weep and generally make such a nuisance of myself that the gods themselves grant me a favor just to shut down my caterwauling.

My only defense against this inconvenient yearning for fictional situations is to measure the disappointment on a scale larger than today.  Take the camera back to a wide shot, and I'll have forgotten all about this.  Or so I tell myself, and so history supports.

Except that I will always miss this part of me I don't get to be anymore, until the day comes I forget I was capable of ever being that person.   Will that be better, to have forgotten I was capable of something else?  Or will it be better to remember her, knowing I cannot be her ever again?

I suppose it's like asking, is it better to forget how to open the door or to forget there was any way out?

Native

I went to see a play tonight about the Civil War - no, a play about General Sherman's march across Georgia and the Carolinas to burn and pillage.

Now, I was born and raised South Carolina.  And tonight it was brought home to me how much that statement might ring differently for different people.  Here's more or less where I stand.

Myself, I have complicated feelings about the Civil War.  No, I do not believe any population of any race should have ever been enslaved.  I believe that was wrong.  I believe it is possible that there were slave owners that were kind to their slaves, even though I'm betting those people didn't treat their slaves as equals and therefore were of course still contributing to the larger problem: that pretending you own another person is disgraceful, dishonest, and demeaning.

But I also think the Civil War had other causes and issues in it besides slavery.  And despite the fact that I do not support the "Cause" that many southerners were upholding, I still have pity and sympathy for the many people who were caught up in that fight and were destroyed systematically along Sherman's way.  I do not find it hard to understand that some of those people were good people who believed their way of life was righteous and supportable.

Fast forward to my experience of living in the South in modern day:  yes, there is closed-mindedness there.  There is bigotry.  There is insularity and misplaced pride and among some a devotion to a lost cause cemented by being mindless and impractical.

Having said all that:

The South is so beautiful, truly beautiful.  There's a care taken that comes from being a part of a place for generations.  Spring bursts from pear trees like someone throwing confetti.  Ginko trees bleach gold in fall and shed all their leaves in one swoop of an afternoon, like a lady flicking off a golden dress.  People smile and ask after your father and mother.  Back roads have decaying barns and cotton fields.  Houses have porches and rocking chairs, lawns have tractor tires.  Snow is a blanket that halts all activity and frees everyone for snowballs and snowmen, but rarely lasts more than a day.  Ocean sand is an open palm into a warm, friendly sea.  And the old houses...so beautiful, corinthian columns and dental work and gingerbread and turrets and wooden floors and fourteen foot ceilings and detail and workmanship.

And the people, the people can be unspeakably beautiful, can bring food to a funeral or help a neighbor in need or feed the neighborhood because a storm knocked out the power and all the food in the freezer would go bad otherwise.  Your family can be odd and crazy, because it's a heritage in the south, craziness, and we cherish it, we encourage crazy, it makes life interesting, and we like things to be interesting.

Above all, the south is haunted by history, buoyed by history, choked by history, hampered by history, obsessed by history, emboldened by history, nurtured by history.  It kills us and frees us all at once.  It's a ladder and a shackles.

I miss the South.  I long for it.  I have it with me all the time.

I need to drive through it soon.  I need to go...home.

Now fog

Last night, I got on the crowded bus last, so I was forced to stand up right at the entrance, right next to the front window.  I put all my bags down and plugged into my iPod and after one last stop, the bus drove express for six miles up Lake Shore Drive, the lake spread out dusky blue in twilight off to my right, apartment and office buildings rising up to my left.  A storm was rising over the city, but streaks of daylight remained out far off the lake.

As I rode, my music raging, I could forget anyone else was on the bus, I could look out the glass ahead of me and just see the cloud creeping closer and closer, lightning splitting the sky like a grin.  It felt like flying, or maybe like being at the prow of a ship (without the crippling seasickness I get on the water).

I owned the city, and I made that storm, and I coaxed it out over the tall tall buildings and I unleashed it, flying low and fast along the avenue that is Lake Shore Drive.

When I got home and was safe inside my house, the rain became hail and battered the house, as if to rebuke me for being so capricious as to tease it out and then abandon it while I retreated to comfort.

I listened to the intensity of its desperation fondly.  From safe inside.  And I didn't go out again.

Today the city is encased in fog so thick I can't see buildings 100 yards away.

Don't worry, nature, I want to say.  I can't escape you.  If you want to crack open my house, shower me with rain, pelt me with hail, or sweat me out with heat, you can.

All my safety is temporary.