Two Days Until 24

It's some time around 6 a.m. on Tuesday, September 10.  Why am I being so specific?  I have no idea.  But we're going to make this blog post interesting, because it's going to be a stream of consciousness type deal.  Man... you think rant enough already?

So, I've been working on this short story for a really long time.  Probably since about March of last year, give or take a couple of weeks.  It's semi-autobiographical.  The main character is basically a depiction of the kid I used to be during my first couple of years of college.  Actually, he might be a little more daring and a lot more of a ladies man than I was.  Even though he lacks game in the story, I used to lack ten times more game than him.  It's kind of sad really.  There's subtle hints as to him being me.  Like how we share the same initials and how we both have an intense interest in music.  He doesn't really dress like I do, but then again, we can't all dress as well as I do.  Some people can't afford Brooks Brothers.  Well, neither can I, but I find it in thrift stores everywhere.  That's Connecticut for you.

Anyways, the female in the story is kind of a composite of all of the girls that I have had an interest in over the years.  Maybe not all of the girls, but the ones that actually meant something to me.  Those who friendzoned me, the ones that didn't, the ones that broke my heart, the ones who hated my guts.  I like to think they're all somewhere inside this character.  At the same time, she's almost the reason why it's a work of fiction.  Blondes aren't really my type and I'm not really an ass man like I made the main character of the story.  I'm not really an anything man.  I like cute short brunettes who like good music. That's really all it takes to impress me.  I'm easy.  I better not broadcast that too loudly.  People are going to think I'm a slut.

I can't believe I put Manchester Orchestra on this writing playlist.  Especially "Colly Strings."  It's the song that reminds me of my first bad breakup.  Maybe I wanted to be reminded so that I could add another piece of myself to the story.  Hey, anything's possible.  I haven't slept at all tonight and I'm still running off of some caffeine I had a little earlier with a Diet Pepsi.  I'm stuck on my story and I don't know how to continue it to the point where I want it to end.

The last hour of my time was spent Googling "songs about heroin."  Why?  I have no clue.  That search was done after the "songs about cocaine" search.  Again, I have no idea as to why.  Maybe I thought the songs would make me feel better about myself.  Maybe I thought that I could attempt to understand that euphoria through the songs rather than experience it.  Works out better for me, health and profession-wise.  I can't be doing that shit when I want to be an officer in the U.S. Army.

To be honest, I really hate officer candidate school.  It sucks.  But I want to be an officer and it's the only option I have left to do it.  I've graduated college, so I can't go the ROTC route.  I'm not going to law school, so I can't be a JAG person.  I'm definitely not going medical, so I can't do that either.  This is really the only way for me to be an officer.  OCS sucks and all the TACs gang up on me because they think I'm weak.  Yeah.  Good luck trying to break me, you sons of bitches.  You get me for one weekend a month.

Damn.  I have drill this weekend.  I really don't want to go.  But I have to.  It's a necessity.  Why do I even want to be an officer?  Because I want to make my country and family proud?  Nah.  Is it the money?  No.  I want to be an officer because I want to feel like I've accomplished something in my life.  Obviously, my college degree isn't doing anything for me.  When I spoke to my recruiter, I honestly felt like this would be my last chance to make my mark on the world.  I just wanted to accomplish something good in my life.  Live up to more than what I expected for myself.  Is that fucked up?  Am I messed up in my head?  Who isn't?  We've all got problems.  Some are just better at hiding it than others.

Reorganizing My Record Collection

One of my all time favorite films is High Fidelity.  There are lots of reasons as to why it's one of my favorites.  First of all, it's hilarious.  But it's funny not because it's absurd humor like a Will Ferrell movie or because it's stupid like a Farrelly brothers film.  It's funny because it reminds me of my every day life.  No, I don't own a record shop in Chicago nor have I ever had sex with a recording artist.  The emotions and what the main character, Rob, goes through, though, that's what makes it relatable.  He's a self-loathing music freak like me.  His "friends" (the quotation marks don't need to be there, but he doesn't really see Barry or Dick as more than employees initially) are music freaks, too and contribute to his personality.  It's a better book than it is a movie, but both are phenomenal.  It's just that you see a little more into Rob's head in the book.

But I'm not reviewing either the book or the movie.  I'm talking about reorganizing my record collection.  Yes... I really am going to talk about that.

In the book and the film, Rob talks about how every now and then, he'll feel like his records need to be reorganized.  Sometimes he does it chronologically, sometimes by artist, sometimes by genre.  The most interesting way he talks about is organizing his records autobiographically.

It's an interesting concept, but I totally dig his thought process.  It's hard for me to organize that way because when I started collecting vinyl records, I just bought them to have them.  As time went by, there was more meaning behind every purchase.  Like now, if I want to listen to the Gaslight Anthem's The '59 Sound, I have to remember that I bought two of them in the summer of 2012 at a concert I attended with a certain female that shall remain nameless.

It's kind of interesting the way that I get into music sometimes.  For the most part, I'll discover things by getting recommendations from the website last.fm.  "If you like this band, try this band."  A lot of times in the past, though, my music tastes varied because of the women that I was interested in.  I mean... come on.  That's how I try to relate to everyone.  "So what's your favorite band?"  After a while it actually gets annoying to me because that's all I can talk about.

During high school, I was pretty narrow minded when it came to music.  Classic rock all the way, you know?  But once I hit college, I started listening to a lot of different stuff.  My junior year was when I had my first serious girlfriend and she got me into all kinds of music.  That was when I started listening to hip hop (which I loathe now).  So a lot of my iTunes library was devoted to hip hop solely because of her.  When she and I decided to part ways (I'm putting that super delicately), I started getting into really sad depressing music.  After her, I didn't think I'd be able to find another girl.  But that changed.  And because of this new girl, I started listening to the Gaslight Anthem and am now way too into Bruce Springsteen than I care to get into.  We ended up parting, amicably, and I still enjoy listening to those bands a lot.  Springsteen is my shit!  I just completed my collection of his studio albums on CD.  But I digress.

Now, I've been listening to some new bands because of someone else.  It's weird because I enjoy listening to music, but I never have anything else to talk about.  It also doesn't help that I've been out of society for the past 4 months or so.  All I can talk about with anyone is either the military or music.  It's like it's all I know.  Oh, well.  I'm sure there's something that'll pop up that I can talk about soon.

When I organize my records autobiographically (it's actually really hard to do), it brings up good memories and bad memories.  The organization feels like it's by love interest as well and sometimes creeps me out a little bit.  In a way, though, it's therapeutic and helps you to think about your past as the past.  It helps you look toward the future a little bit as well.  What's the next record I'm going to buy to put at the end of this shelf?  What's the next juncture in my life going to bring?

A Failed Life Experiment

If you've known me for a little bit, you know how lonely I can get sometimes.  I've been without a girlfriend for quite a while and I don't really socialize all that much.  For this reason, I decided a while back to implement an experiment.  For every weekend that I don't have something planned (going out on a date or going out with my friends), I would have to sit at home alone and force myself to watch a romantic comedy.  At first, I thought Yes!  This will motivate me more to go out and socialize and meet new people!  I was wrong.  My experiment backfired.

I now look forward to the nights on the weekends that I have nothing going on.  Why?  Because I get to forget about how crappy life is sometimes for average people.  I get to sit on my couch with a bag of popcorn and watch life happen for someone who deserves it.  For instance, the first time I decided to implement this rule, I watched the movie Sixteen Candles.  Side note: John Hughes must have been put in the friend zone like a million times in order to keep coming up with these stories.  So... Sixteen Candles: A struggles to get through the day on her 16th birthday, which her entire family has forgotten about because her older sister is getting married the next day. She is also plagued by infatuation with a popular and attractive boy at school.  Sounds like a total snooze-fest right?  Except you start to realize that she is similar to every other girl out there and it makes you think about how applicable everything in these movies are.  Although, I'll probably never get that cute, popular boy to ever go to the dance with me.  Not that I want to, but... you know what I mean.

It's the same every weekend, though.  It makes you forget about how stupid life is by watching how stupid life is.  I am excited about leaving for basic training, though.  Because now I don't have to justify my reasons for watching romantic comedies and not going out to "hook up with biddies."  I can just do what I'm supposed to do down there in the Georgia heat.

If you don't feel like watching a million rom-coms, you can bypass them all and just watch Not Another Teen Movie.  It's got every stereotype and combines the plots to all of the big movies out there (especially brat pack films).  And if you don't feel like going "full sad sap" you can always just pick Weird Science out and watch that instead.  Still, at its core, about some socially awkward kids trying to transition to socially awesome.  I still think the movie is applicable.  Everyone finds love in a John Hughes movie, except for the bullies.  ...And maybe Cameron Frye.  Poor Cameron.

For good measure, here's a song that appears to be in every single rom-com from the 90s:

A Job I Can Take Pride In

This past Friday, I took my final trip to MEPS in Springfield, Massachusetts to put the finishing touches on my contract and I took the oath to swear into the Connecticut National Guard.  This process took me a few months to complete due to my MOS (Military Occupational Specialty).  After taking the ASVAB test, filling out a long and tedious National Security questionnaire, being violated during a very thorough physical examination, writing a 4 page autobiography, and passing a final OCS review board, I have finally signed my papers guaranteeing me a spot in the Connecticut National Guard Officer Candidate School.

I leave for basic training in Fort Benning, Georgia in early April, so do not be surprised or discouraged if this ends up being my final blog post for a while.  It's kind of weird, but I'm actually excited about leaving the civilian world behind and seeing what army life has to offer.  It's hard to believe that in the fall of next year, I will (hopefully) be a commissioned second lieutenant.

It wasn't an easy step for me to take.  It took months of planning for me to get this far.  I graduated from Gettysburg College in May of 2012 and had been getting frustrated with the unemployment scene.  My cousin who didn't even go to college left for his basic training in August of the same year and came back from Missouri with a different sense of self about him.  It was refreshing to see this.  I thought that maybe the army could do the same thing for me, so I decided that I'd like to talk to someone about the kind of opportunities the National Guard had to offer.  My cousin gave me the business card of his recruiter and so the process began.

Contrary to what most people hear about, my recruiter didn't lie about anything and put everything right out on the table.  It was nice to be able to ask him about anything from life in the Guard to what kind of shoes they make you wear at basic.  After spending two and a half hours at the recruiting office with my notebook full of questions, I knew that joining would be the right fit for me.

I made three trips up to the MEPS in Springfield.  Each time I waited for a long time for something.  The first time I went up, it was to take the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery.  This is a test that measures ones aptitude in 10 different areas ranging from math to verbal to mechanical to electrical knowledge.  I waited after my test for a good 45 minutes for my recruiter to pick me up.  I finished the test in an hour and a half when it takes most people two to two and a half hours.  I was a little worried about that, but I scored really high and was able to qualify for what I wanted to do.

On the second trip up to MEPS, I stayed overnight in the Sheraton and had a great meal and went to bed at 9:30 p.m.  The next morning, I awoke at 4:30 and we were at the processing station by 6.  I felt thoroughly violated by 11.  I came out of my physical with a clean bill of health and was approved for service.  The whole ordeal ended at 1 p.m. for me and my recruiter said it's the longest he's ever had to wait for anyone to be done with a physical.  Crap happens when your the last one to be given your chart.

I stayed at the hotel again that final time I was sent up to MEPS.  Same deal... bed early, up early, sworn in at 11.  I enlisted as an E-4 (Specialist), and am already a higher rank than my cousin.  But he's been through Basic already, so it's all technical.

I am excited to finally have a job that I can take pride in and a position that my country can take pride in me having.  I leave for basic combat training soon and can't wait to come back a stronger, more dependable, and more capable man.

Americana Music Lifestyle

A while ago, my friend Ryan gave me some music files of a Daytrotter session from Josh Ritter.  I only listened to one song and then Josh Ritter got lost in the rest of my massive iTunes library.  Until I decided to get a free album download from NoiseTrade.  The website offered a free live album (22 tracks) from this artist, and I've been listening to it all morning.  As I usually do when I start to like an artist, I decided I'd check out Josh Ritter's wikipedia page.  I found some interesting facts about him.  He studied at Oberlin College in Ohio.  While that may not be super significant, I thought his course of study was particularly interesting.  He originally went to Oberlin to study neuroscience, but ended up creating his own major... "American History Through Narrative Folk Music."  Those who know of the artist know that his songwriting style is narrative based.  I would do almost anything to have a course of study similar to that, and actually have it mean something to my occupation.

I have a soft spot for Americana music.  It's just a great way of feeling close to America's musical roots.  Don't get me wrong... it's nice to hear classical music and British Invasion type stuff every now and then.  But there is nothing like listening to songs dealing with traveling the open road, small town life, and leaving something or someone behind.  It's just very relatable for someone who grew up the way I did.  I live in a suburb and constantly travel my family's cabin in the middle of nowhere.  I love being on the road.  And I constantly feel like I'm leaving something behind.  The genre as a whole is almost like a metaphor for growing up and heading out on one's own.

I love driving, especially when I'm the only one in the car.  It's not that I don't enjoy company when I drive.  I do.  But driving somewhere on my own gives me time to think.  While many people agree that if you leave me alone with my thoughts, it can get kind of weird and sometimes dangerous, driving has always given me some of the best ideas and inspiration for certain events in my life.  I've gone to Bonnaroo Music Festival twice by myself.  From Watertown, CT to Manchester, TN is about a 16 hour drive.  It was awesome.  Nothing, but me, my iPod, my car and the open road.  The Band and Bruce Springsteen are always on my playlist for rides as long as that.

Americana music, in addition to facilitating my long drives, always accompany me up to the cabin on the little trips I take.  I'm starting to realize that I do a lot of things by myself.  It's not that I am a loner.  I just guess there are lots of times when I prefer to be by myself.  Unless it is hunting season or my dad doesn't have anything else better to do, I usually head up to the cabin on my own.  It's in the area where Music from Big Pink was recorded, so Americana definitely makes me think of the forests and town life in upstate New York.

I just feel a deep connection to that type of music, because it's almost like a soundtrack to my favorite things.

Leibster Blog Award

I would like to thank my peers for nominating me for this.  I was given two sets of questions by two different people: Karl's blog (Post-College Musings) and Xavier's blog (Working Title).  Both are excellent and worth checking out.  I will only do one set of 11 things about myself and will do both sets of questions.

11 Facts About Me:
- I used to work at a radio station in New York City
- My favorite food id my grandmother's chicken parmigiana
- I always have and still want a race car bed for my room
- No women are allowed at my family's hunting cabin during hunting season (Boy's Club)
- I almost transferred out of Gettysburg College in between my junior and senior years
- The face masks on batting helmets used for the Water-Oak Little League are named after me (Marzella Masks)
- I wear size 10.5 shoes
- I once bent the same wheel on my bicycle twice in one week
- I once drank Coke mixed with Tabasco sauce for $5
- I was the best man at my uncle's wedding and I lost his new wife's ring in the lining of my tuxedo
- I find football and baseball boring unless I'm actually at the game

Karl's Questions (Because he asked first, Xavier.  Sorry):

1. What artist/band has affected your life the most?
I would have to say The Who.  Simply because they were my first rock concert and I was obsessed with them for years.  I own every album they've ever released and still buy bootlegs of them all the time.

2. What is your dream job?
Easy.  I'd love to be a writer/performer on Saturday Night Live.  My second choice would be to write for Rolling Stone Magazine, and maybe restore it to its former glory.

3. What are two truths and a lie about you?
My favorite president is John F. Kennedy.  I wish my parents had signed me up for hockey as a kid.  I play the drums.

4. Why do you blog?
It's therapeutic for me.  I can write about my problems and triumphs.  I can write about what I'm passionate about.  It helps me deal with stress.

5. Until what age do you wanna live?
I just want to be old enough to see my grandchildren graduate college.  If I don't have grandchildren, just kill me when my health starts to deteriorate.

6. What does your dream home look like?
Two floors and a finished basement.  The basement would be divided in half.  One side would be my music studio and the other would be a den-type area.  I would have an office where I would keep all of my music memorabilia, as well as my records and sound equipment.  Those are the only two must haves in my dream home.  I'd let the wife take care of the rest.

7. What's your favorite sport and why?
Wrestling.  I wrestled in high school and miss it every day.

8. If you could visit one place for a day, what place would that be?London.  And I'd try to make the most of it.

9. What would you do if you had a million dollars?
Pay off my student loans, buy a 1969 Plymouth Road Runner, buy my dream house, and invest what was left.

10. What is your biggest weakness?
Kryptonite.

11. Why did the chicken cross the road?
To show the possum it could be done.


Xavier's Questions:
1. What was the first thing you thought about this morning?I hope my physical goes well.

2. How many times today did you look at your phone around company? Be honest
I wasn't allowed to have my phone on me for most of the day, so I'm going to say 4 times tops.

3. What did you do today that was of note?
I took my military physical and got my fingerprints scanned.

4.What were you up to this weekend? Where was my invite?
I went with my dad and sister on Saturday to the mall.  I didn't think you'd want to come.

5. How many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop?
252 licks according to Purdue University

6. Who are your biggest role models? Fictional or real?
My uncle Gene is a pretty big role model for me.  He has everything that I want in life: a great family, an nice house, a good job, and a great sense of humor.

7. If a tree falls and no one’s around to hear it, does it contribute to deforestation?
Yes.

8. (Stealing this from Karl) What’s your biggest weakness?
Same answer: Kryptonite.

9. What’s your deepest darkest secret that you’d never post online?
I have an ugly scar on my butt from a cyst removal.

10. Proudest moment?
When I won a third place trophy at the New Milford wrestling tournament.

11. Weirdest habit?
I talk too much.  That's a habit, right?


I'm also supposed to include 11 questions of my own for anyone reading this...
- Who's your favorite writer?
- What's your favorite movie and why?
- If you had two weeks to live, how would you spend them?
- Outie or Innie?
- Cake or Pie?
- Who's the one person that means the most to you?  If you can't pick just one, pick a few.
- What's something you do to cope with sadness?
- What's something you do when you're feeling happy?
- Where do/did you go to school and why did you pick there?  If you didn't go to school, why not?
- If you were offered a million dollars to kill someone, and it was guaranteed that no one but you would ever know, would you do it?
- It's 2013.  Where are the hoverboards?

I don't know any blogs other than those mentioned, so I'm sorry I can't contribute to that one.  But if you happen to come across this, please respond to the questions I posted.

Incriminating Tales of College Life, Part One

To my parents and children (if they should ever find this blog): I never did anything stupid in college and you should regard this post as fiction.

My First Beer
The story of my first beer isn't a very good one.  I wrestled in high school, and at the end of my rookie season, one of our captains had us over his parents' house for a wrestling "sleepover."  I had a Busch.  It tasted bad and I nursed it all night.  I didn't even get a buzz.

My First College Beer
Again, not a very good story.  Some friends from my dorm's floor and I decided to go to a party at Alpha Chi Rho one weekend and I had a few beers.  They were Natty Light from a keg.  Awful beer.  Again, I didn't get drunk and it was a boring night.

I was quite the lightweight until my 21st birthday.  I always pretended that I could drink more than I could, though.  Freshman year, I didn't drink all that much, except when we went out to fraternities on the weekend.  I never went out all that much, though.  Aside from the story about my first college beer, I'm pretty sure there won't be any stories from my freshman year.

Cops... Cops Everywhere
During what was supposed to be my junior year, I lived in a theme house on campus, and my buddy Ryan (who played guitar in my band) lived in one of the refurbished motels owned by the college.  One  night, we decided to hang out at his place.  So, I went over and was introduced to the mighty elixir known as bourbon.  He had a handle of Ezra Brooks on his dresser and we kept taking shots while goofing around on his guitars with the USA Network playing on the TV in the background.  The shot glass he used for me was easily like one and a half to two shots instead of a regular sized glass.  I must've had 6 shots in the first hour I was there.  We didn't go out to fraternities and preferred to hang out.  After a while of this, his roommate Rich comes back to the room, drunk off his ass from a party at the fraternity he was rushing, and I'm giddy as fuck rocking back and forth on the desk chair.  The two of us were hungry and Ryan says to us "I'm a much better driver when I'm drunk anyways."  Naturally, Rich and I believed him and we piled into Rich's car and Ryan drove us the few blocks to 7-11.  "Oh shit," I hear escape Ryan's mouth.  I looked out the windows and there were about 5 cop cars parked right in the parking lot of the 7-11.  Nothing bad happened, but it was funny to us that the one time we had Ryan drive us somewhere drunk is the time when we were all clearly drunk and the cops are everywhere.

Dehydration and Whiplash
I have a history of dehydration.  It all comes down to me not drinking enough water.  My mom has even had to call the ambulance after I've fainted from the condition.  Loving alcohol doesn't help the situation.  Alcohol dries you out.  In the spring semester of 2011, I was 21 and was able to purchase alcohol.  Having friends who go to a big party school, I get recipes that sound amazing.  The drink I'm talking about here I have retired and thrown away the recipe.  Red Scare (originally concocted by my friend Greg).  The recipe called for grain alcohol, which you could not purchase in the state of Pennsylvania by law.  But I bought some.  And I mixed that with red Monster energy drink and red sports drink.  You think the old recipe for Four Loko could knock you on your ass?  This is the only drink that has ever given me whiplash.  I broke out the Red Scare for Springfest (four days of nothing but drinking) that year.  It was all I drank.  Well... I also had some Jameson.  But it was the Red Scare that did me in.  On Sunday, since I didn't pace myself at all with my drinking or drink any water in between drinks, I found myself incredibly dehydrated.  I woke up nauseous and rushed to the men's room across the hall from my dorm room only to have the dry heaves.  Nothing was coming up.  Unfortunately, I heaved so much that I passed out and hit my shoulders on the window sill and snapped my neck back giving me the worst case of whiplash I had ever felt.  It lasted for the rest of the school year (about two or three weeks).

I Will Always Love You
Remember how I mentioned Jameson earlier?  Well, if you know me, you know that Jameson is my favorite hard alcohol.  Irish whiskey at its finest.  I had bought a brand new fifth of Jameson at the beginning of my final semester at Gettysburg.  After going to see The Woman in Black (February 2012) with some friends, we went back to their dorm (the only dry one aside from freshman dorms, actually) and I decided to have a little Jameson.  Apparently, a "little" turned into the whole bottle.  I blacked out and woke up in Gettysburg hospital to the sound of my cell phone.  My dad was calling me.  The college had apparently contacted him that morning to tell him that I went to the hospital with a .38 BAC.  I picked up the phone and the first thing my father said to me was "I heard you took Whitney Houston's death pretty hard, huh?"  It made me drunkenly crack a smile.  I say "drunkenly" because I was still drunk all day that day and hungover all day the next.  Did I get in trouble?  Not with my parents, but I got slapped with a Public Intoxication charge ($300 fine) and the college made me go home for a weekend.  Which I spent going to a UConn basketball game and out to a bar with my buddy Greg.  From what I was told, though, after I blacked out, I seemed fine enough to head back to my room across campus.  Only I didn't make it very far and passed out on the stoop of a different campus housing complex.  A student hit my head with the door as he attempted to exit the building and found me outside in the below freezing weather.  I just want to say... .38 BAC is very high and I could have died.  Did I learn my lesson?  Hell yes.  Do I still drink Jameson?  You betcha.

This seems like a good start to my College Confessions series.  They may not be funny stories, but they mean something to me.

Evolution of a Genre Specific to the White Man

I'm going to touch on a sensitive subject here, but just for a moment.  That subject is race.  The white man is a dirty dirty thief.  And I would know.  I've been white my entire life.  When we first came to this country, we pushed the Native Americans back and stole their land, forcing them to live on reservations.  We stole the Native Americans' farming techniques of using dead fish as fertilizer for corn crops.  As far back as time allows us to recall, the white man has done some dirty things to people of different races.  We even stole music.  You guys know a guy named Elvis Presley?  The only reason he was ever recorded was because he brought black music to a white audience.  He would listen to blues artists and mimic them in his bedroom mirror.  The song "That's All Right, Mama" was originally an Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup tune.  Rock and roll music stole from blues and jazz musicians, both genres dominated by black artists.  Even now, rock and roll still relies on those basic principles at its roots.

When it comes to sports, my African-American chums have always been better than me, would it be running, football, or basketball.  My friend Rich would constantly poke fun at this fact responding with, "At least you white guys have hockey."  This is true.  I don't think I've ever seen a black hockey player.  That doesn't mean they don't exist.  They're just like the narwhals of athletes.  We can also apply this concept to music as well, though.  White guys have country music.  The only black country singer I can think of off the top of my head is Darius Rucker.

Country music isn't what it used to be.  Sure, it still reaches out to the same demographic (white, southern folks occasionally living in trailer parks who love hearing songs about a truck, a dog, or a woman), but the sound has changed so much over the years.

My family owns a small piece of property in central New York for hunting, and I go up there quite a bit (sometimes to hunt and other times to just get away).  It's actually pretty rural up there if you can believe it, so country music is pretty popular.  People there even have a certain backwoods bumpkin accent (which part of my "accent" comes from).  On my drives up to the hunting cabin, I usually play some music in the car.  This music ranges from southern rock to classic country to bluegrass.  Tonight, just listening to Willie Nelson made me wish I was up in New York, sitting by a crackling fire with a glass of whiskey in my hand, and the sweet sound of no cell reception to calm my nerves.

Listening also got me thinking.  Has anyone ever noticed how much of a difference there is between country music of the 60s and 70s and the country music of today?  For instance, it's really hard to compare Johnny Cash to Luke Bryan.  It's like comparing apples to oranges.  They're just too different. How did we get from a three/four piece band to artists like Brad Paisley that take seven people on the road with them?

The most basic form of country music is probably bluegrass.  It's also the most consistent for of country music.  Look at Old Crow Medicine Show for example.  They have a fiddle, double bass, acoustic guitar, and banjo.  The format and sound of bluegrass hasn't changed since it started.  In my opinion, this is what country music should sound like.

The genre has pulled itself away from its roots in this and its roots in gospel music.  There is a fine line between southern rock of the 1970s and the country music of today.  It's hard to me to distinguish one from the other.  If I was listening to two analog recordings with the same production value (one a southern rock song from the 1970s and the other a country song from today), I would not be able to tell you which was from which era.  I feel like today's country music has lost touch with its roots.

Now, I'm not trying to say it's bad.  Hell, I love a good Toby Keith song!  I'm just saying that, much like everything else, the sound has evolved with the time.  Each new thing takes a few ideas from the preceding era with it, until the product barely resembles the original.  For instance, take a look at hip hop music.  If you listen to a Jay-Z song back to back with the Sugarhill Gang, there's not much the two have in common.  Sound has evolved.

Willie Nelson is a good example of how the sound of country has evolved.  In 1975, he released an amazing album called Red Headed Stranger.  This was a straight up country album.  The idea was original, the sound was unique, and the production was amazing.  Once music moved into the 1980s, and we had the rising popularity of the synthesizer and new over-the-top production techniques, country moved almost as downhill as rock music did (hair metal or new wave, anyone?).  Nelson's Always On My Mind is a good example of how downhill it had become.  The album seemed too poppy to be called country.  Aside from the title track and maybe one or two other songs, it wan't that good of an album.  The early 90s didn't bring much better production or good songs (I mean... Billy Ray Cyrus and "Achy Breaky Heart" happened.  Need I say more?).  But in the mid to late 90s, production and writing came back to where it should have been all along, and we got the current sound that is played on country stations everywhere.  I'm going to cite "Beer for My Horses," a duet between Toby Keith and Willie Nelson as an example of genius in current country.

I understand that things change and evolve, but I wanted to share my exploration and insight of the progressing sound of country music (almost the whitest music there is).

Side note: Aside from Eminem, I haven't seen a good white hip hop artist.  Personally, I think it is because of the same reason there aren't too many white blues artists.  What do white people have to be blue about?  As Chris Rock once said, "Smile!  You're white."

P.S.

I didn't even want to touch on the evolution of country rock.  That went from straight up country music to bar band music.  That's for another post another day.  Here's what I mean by bar music...

...And I Wouldn't Change Anything About It

I have often said that I went to the wrong school.  Gettysburg College definitely wasn't the right fit for me.  In high school, I had tunnel vision about what I thought I wanted and I went with it.  The Civil War was an intense interest for me as was the sport of wrestling, and Gettysburg College had both.  Bad things happen when you don't focus on the complete picture.  You lose sight of the things that actually matter to your personality when it comes to school.  Sure Gettysburg had a Civil War Era Studies minor.  In fact, I'm pretty sure it's the only school that offers one.  The college even had a wrestling team that I was part of for two whole weeks.  Academically, it wasn't the right fit for me, though, and I didn't learn that until too late.

In my first semester at the school I had a 1.83 GPA. I thought I wanted to be a Chemistry major.  Boy, was I wrong.  I did alright in high school chemistry, but it didn't prepare me at all for what we would be doing at the college level.  That class, single-handedly, ruined my college career.  It's hard for your GPA and self-esteen to come back from getting a D- in your first semester at college.  It also didn't help that my attempt to major in music didn't pan out either.  It's not that I didn't do well in my music class.  I did.  My professor accused me of plagiarism and my self-esteem took another body shot.  It's hard when a professor doesn't think that something like picking my own topic for my final project could inspire we to write at great length and detail on my own.  Luckily, I found a new interest that semester: Political Science.

That interest lasted me up until my final semester of what should have been my junior year.  I was forced to take a class that I didn't want to, because there was nothing else to take.  I ended up suffering from a severe depression that caused me to withdraw from 2 classes and flunk one other.  This may have been partially due to my lack of motivation that year.  I had no desire to be at school and was considering the option of dropping out.  I was in love with the pay I received from my manual labor job over the summer.  I loved the work I did and was proud of it, which wasn't something I could really say about Gettysburg.

Everyone out there who has left their entire world far away knows how hard it can be to adjust to the new world they encounter.  It was definitely hard for me to adjust to life at Gettysburg.  No one from my high school decided to attend there with me, my family (with whom I am really close) were all at least 5 hours away, my dog that I had gotten for my 6th birthday died just a few weeks into the semester, and I had only a handful of friends.  I really missed everything about Connecticut.  Most of my close friends attended the University of Connecticut, which I had thoroughly dismissed as an option of a college education.  One thing I learned quickly about college is that drinking was a good time, but only if you had the right people to do it with and the right setting to do it in.  Unfortunately, I didn't realize this until the first time I decided to visit my friends up at UConn.

It was Easter weekend my sophomore year at Gettysburg, and I was feeling utterly homesick.  My friend Greg and I decided that since I got some time off for Easter, I would visit him up at UConn on Holy Thursday and bring him home to Naugatuck on Good Friday for the weekend.  I got up there some time in the evening after borrowing my grandmother's Subaru for the weekend.  This was my first encounter with UConn culture and the dorm lifestyle they had there, which was actually quite different than what I was used to in Pennsylvania.  The first new person I met was Greg's roommate Steve, who I didn't really see much of that night because it ended up with me sleeping in a chair, covered in my own puke.  I also met Brett, who convinced me to eat dinner with them because he was so excited it was "Baseball Night" at the dining hall.  Corn dogs, chicken fingers, hot dogs, anything associated with what you might buy at a baseball game to eat.  Who could have said no to that?

It was a very different culture that what it was at Gettysburg.  At UConn, all of your friends lived nearby.  This is not so at Gettysburg, especially after all of your friends get bids into fraternities and are spread out all over campus.  There's no way to hang out as much.  Not at UConn.  It seemed like any time you wanted to chill or do work with someone, they were right around the corner or across the hall.  My friend Joe lived right across the hall from Greg, and even came and hung out and drank with us.  Drinking was more done with friends at UConn, instead of going out and being rejected at the door of some fraternity, drinking at the first place that let you in, standing off to the side while the brothers danced with the only girls there.  It was awful.

It was just nice to experience something different when I visited my friends.  Even though the night ended up in black out and embarrassment for me (I got an honorary "Trainwreck of the Week award that night), I was still invited to come back and visit.  Good Guy Greg.

After the year of class withdraws I decided to take a semester off and reassess what I wanted to do with my career and life.  That summer, I interned at a radio station and rekindled my love for music and broadcast.  I really wanted to do that as a career and make that my major.  I had lost interest in politics and radio had kept my interest for years.  I had been involved in the station on campus since my freshman year and was even on the exec board for it.  Because of this, I decided that I might want to transfer to a school that had a communications program.  Gettysburg didn't offer communications as an area of study.  Naturally, I gravitated toward UConn as where I wanted to spend the rest of my college days, but my GPA wasn't high enough to get in.  I tried other schools, as well.  Ultimately, I ended up returning to Gettysburg with my tail between my legs.

I was considered a weekend warrior by one of my UConn friends during that semester off.  I spent it working for my uncle doing hardwood floors, but on the weekends, I would take my Honda Civic and drive up to Storrs and go to all of the home football games.  It seemed as if I was up there every weekend just to hang out.  It was the most connected I had ever felt to a university, and I didn't even go there.

I went back to Gettysburg, but my first semester back had left me feeling as if the few friends I had there had forgotten my existence and was left to do things on my own.  I even drove the seven hours up the east coast to visit my friends just because I felt Gettysburg had nothing to offer me.  On weekends where I didn't do that, I would go visit my uncle Gene down in Virginia.  Just a 2 hour drive.  It was hard for me to deal with a school that I cared nothing about.  I did extremely well in my classes that semester, but I think it was mostly due to my friends at UConn and my uncle.  I was finally responsibly enjoying my time at school and getting my work done.  It was also that semester that I discovered the wonder that was my Writing minor.  It helped relieve a lot of the stress I had about going back to school in a creative outlet.  I loved it.  Perhaps it was that connection to the college that improved my morale there.

Spring Break for Gettysburg and UConn usually coincided, but not that year.  I was pretty upset about that.  The whole week, though, I was glued to my internet and TV because of the Big East basketball tournament.  The UConn Men's team kept winning.  My Honda died in the Gettysburg College parking lot, so I ended up taking a train home that Friday.  Session seven of the tournament was that night and I knew Steve (with whom I have become friends since the fateful night of the puke) and Greg were going to be in New York City.  The train went from Harrisburg to New York City, and I waited in Penn Station for them.  For whatever reason, they convinced me to buy a ticket to that night's game and we ended up in attendance.  A win that night guaranteed them to play in the championships.  So Greg and Steve again convinced me to buy a ticket for the next night, when UConn made HI5TORY.  This was an incredible win streak that ended up in a NCAA Championship.

This was a big deal that I would never experience going to a Division III school.  Or so I thought.

Because I took time off from Gettysburg, I was a year behind all of the friends with which I had entered college.  This worried me because I needed to find some new friends and something to occupy my time.  I found rugby.  Fraternities are huge on the Gettysburg College campus.  About 90% of upperclassmen are involved in Greek Life.  I was never in one, but I did join the fraternal order of the rugby player.  These guys would be some of the best guys that I would ever know.  Both on and off the field.  I quickly made new friends some of whom I still see on a regular basis.  One of the Gettysburg captains and I play for the same rugby team back up here in Connecticut.

Big Don, as we affectionately called him because of his height and muscularness, and I became solid friends and were constantly hanging out on the weekends at his fraternity house (shout out to my friends at Phi Kappa Psi).  He became one of my best friends and was one of the main reasons why my senior year at Gettysburg was possibly my most socially successful.  I had great friends to hang out with all the time.

Quick digression: Don broke his ankle early in the spring semester, so he couldn't play rugby, but we still hung out all the time.  We would watch movies a lot.  I remember when Don, Allan and his abs, and I watched this movie Rubber one night and it was ridiculous.  I really should include some of our shenanigans in another blog post.

Everything that happened during my final year at Gettysburg made all the crap I dealt with up until that point... well... It made everything worth it.  While I may have said that I picked the wrong school, I'm kind of glad I did.  I would never had met some of my best friends.  I would never have played a sport that I have grown to love so much.  And I would have never experienced what it was like to feel pride in work that I actually cared about.

Top Row: Brad, Don, Karl

Wrestlers: Me (white), Tim (pink)

How Long Can a Band Stay Your Favorite?

For years, my favorite band was The Who.  I have every book written about the band, every album (including Keith Moon's crappy solo album), every concert DVD released, everything pertaining to them.  After a brief stint of having terrible taste in music (I blame society for imposing pop groups and boy bands on impressionable young minds), my uncle Fred introduced me to the Kinks and the Who.  I remember taping the CDs so I could listen to them on my Walkman.  I don't think I really fell in love with those blokes from Shepherd's Bush until I saw the band perform live.

It was the summer of 2000.  Entwistle was still alive.  Ringo's son, Zak, on the drum kit.  My first rock concert.  It was just an amazing experience all around.  Madison Square Garden.  The Wallflowers opened the show.  Just... the whole experience was nothing less than magical.

The Who remained my favorite band for about 13 years.  Of course, I listened to other bands.  In an attempt to find a common bond with my other uncle Frank, I started listening to Steely Dan.  Don't get me wrong, Steely Dan is great.  But I actually had to force myself to listen to them at first.  They really are an acquired taste.

Uncle Frank actually got me started on Bob Dylan.  It wasn't until high school that I actually heard Bob Dylan.  I feel like that's weird.  His songs were never really played on the radio station that my parents listened to.  Not to mention, the first album of Dylan's that I actually bought/listened to was Nashville Skyline.  When someone mentions Dylan, most people think Blood on the Tracks or Highway 61 Revisited.  Nope.  Not me.  I bought Nashville Skyline for 12.99 at Costco.  That was my first Dylan album.

When you start listening to Bob Dylan, though, there's another group that's hard to avoid mentioning.  The Band.  Four Canadians and an Arkansan playing some of the best Americana rock and roll one would ever hear.  I bought Music from Big Pink and the brown album when I was in high school as well.  One day in college, I thought to myself "I should finish my collection of albums by The Band."  And I went on Amazon and bought all the rest of their studio albums (I'm regret the purchase of Islands, though.  Yikes!).

As my tastes changed, I started developing an intense liking for the harmonies, the piano, and a certain kind of guitar work.  The Band had 3 lead singers, which is a concept that's unheard of in rock and roll.  Sure, everyone in the Who sang a song every now and then, but most of the time, they left that job to Roger Daltrey.  The Band, however, had three lead singers.  And when they combined their voices, they made some sweet sweet harmony.  The piano in the songs is subtle enough to not take away from the song, but powerful enough to hear as a separate part in each song.  Not only that, but The Band had a piano AND organ playing at the same time, making the sound even more unique.  And the guitar work.  Robbie Robertson's guitar work was so simplistic, it made me feel like I could play anything.

It's things like these that helped me make the change from the hard rock of The Who to the softer side of rock and roll.  It helped me get in touch with my inner backwoods bumpkin.  I mean... my family does own a hunting cabin not too far from Saugerties, NY (where Dylan and The Band wrote a lot of their material).  It's weird, though, because I feel like I can relate to most of the songs a little bit better than I can relate to songs performed by a working class band from England.  Give me a song about an old man telling stories from a rocking chair instead of a song about hoping I die before I get old.  Only one of those ideas makes complete sense to me.

Today's Music Ain't Got the Same Soul

I don't know what it is about soul music, but it always puts me in a better mood.  It makes me feel like I should be wearing black Wayfarers and a fedora, maybe have a cigarette just resting on my lips.  It's almost like it's the cool thing for me to do.  Just thinking about soul music puts me in a good mood.  In fact, I'm listening to Wilson Pickett's "I'm a Midnight Mover" as I type this.

I'm not sure how I came to like soul music.  If anything, I'd have to say my dad introduced me to it.  He introduced me to a lot of different kinds of music when I was younger.  He's the reason I'm such a big fan of music in general.  He's kind of like me with the way he likes a certain band or style of music.  He'll listen to it in waves.  He'll get really interested in one specific thing for a while, and then he'll find another thing to peak his interest and then move on.  But soul music was always something I could get down with.

First of all, soul music is one of the founding genres that rock music is based from.  Rock is a mixture of a lot of different things: blues, country, rhythm & blues (which includes soul), and jazz.  But there's something different about soul music that makes it appealing to me.  Maybe it's the raw emotion that is conveyed in some of the songs.  Seriously, if you want to talk about some raw emotion in the way an artist sings a song, the perfect example is Otis Redding's "Try a Little Tenderness."  Give Otis three minutes of your time and he could make you feel exactly what he's feeling just by singing to you.  The man was a wonder on the mic and he knew how to work a stage.  He's the original Soul Man (actually a song by Sam & Dave).

The Blues Brothers had nothing on the pioneers of soul music.  Sure they'd perform a pretty damn good rendition of some of the older stuff, but much like covers nowadays, nothing can hold a candle to the originals.  I don't even know why they called themselves the Blues Brothers.  They rarely played any blues.  At least not how I know blues.  I know Smokestack Lightnin' and Howlin' Wolf.  They were playing songs from King Floyd, Johnnie Taylor, Willie Mabon, and Sam & Dave.  These are all soul singers.  They're not blues.

There's just something about soul music that gets to me and I don't know what it is.  I feel like it's got a song or artist for every occasion:

Feeling sad?  "If You Don't Know Me by Now" by Harold Melvin & the Bluenotes
Feeling lonely?  "These Arms of Mine" by Otis Redding.
Feeling empowered?  "Hold On! I'm Coming" by Sam and Dave.
Feel like partying?  "Soul Finger" by the Bar-Kays.
Feel like dancing?  "Get Up Offa That Thing (Release the Pressure)" by James Brown
And my personal favorite...
Feel like a little sexy time?  "Here I Am (Come and Take Me)" by the Reverend Al Green

Won't you let Al Green "Explore Your Mind?"

Unfortunately, we live in an era where "fucking bitches" has more relevance than "making love to your woman."  It's about what they say and how they say it.  Soul musicians say it with conviction.  Like they actually mean it.  It puts a bit of themselves into the songs.  Rappers who "fuck bitches" just perpetuate the idea that our culture is dumbing itself down, emotionally as well as intellectually.  Maybe I'm an old-fashioned twenty-something.  Maybe old fashioned twenty-somethings don't exist.  But there's something to be said about raw emotion in music, and I don't see that much anymore.  That's why I turn to the roots of my favorite songs and artists at times and feed the soul.

Random Mind Wanderings of a Not-So-Tortured Soul

You ever just let your mind wander?  I do.  It's unfortunate when it decides to wander independently.  When my mind has wandered too far for me to control and I have no idea where it's going.  It wanders as if it's controlled by someone who isn't me.  I am no longer in control of where my mind wanders.  After a while it fixes itself to something, and won't let go.  It's almost as if it's trying to tell me something that I'm not exactly getting.

Tonight it did just this.  I sat in my bed, trying to get some sleep before my big job interview tomorrow afternoon, and my mind wandered.  Whenever it wanders like it did, I can't sleep.  My brain is just too active and I can't seem to calm down.  First, I tried to concentrate on the music I had playing from my stereo, but that reminded me of a girl from college that I had a thing for.  I tried to think of something else, but I couldn't.  My mind kept coming back to her.  She was/is a writer.  So that got me thinking about my interview, which is for a position as a reporter for a local newspaper.  If I get the job, I won't be able to play rugby as much as I used to.  This fact made me think about how I've recently wanted to start a rugby club at my old high school.

After about 20 minutes of my mind wandering, I thought I'd flip through my high school yearbook.  I flipped through, and it only depressed me.  I realized that my high school career was a miserable one for me.  I had bad hygiene, I was fat, I had few friends, and I never did anything on the weekends.  Sports... I wrestled in high school.  Looking back, though, just reminded me of what a douchebag I used to be and how I wasn't well liked.

Speaking of health and bad hygiene, I used to weigh 270 pounds.  I love to eat.  That's no crime, but after a while of looking at myself in the mirror, I got disgusted by how I looked.  Not only that, but diabetes runs in my family, and I wanted no part of that.  I was heavy for a good portion of my life.  I'm still a bit heavy, but I frequent the gym now.  Not just for myself, but for my teammates.  I have to bulk up, otherwise, I'm no use on the rugby pitch.  But I digress.  I had bad hygiene, too.  I never brushed my teeth, I showered like twice a week, and I finally got disgusted with myself.  When I lost the first 40 pounds, I found myself dressing better, showering more, just all around caring about myself a little more.

That was a big transition for me.  Getting down to less than 200 pounds.  I'm not skinny, but at least my risk for heart disease and diabetes went down exponentially.

I that with being thinner and not being a douchebag anymore, I'd have a little more luck with the ladies.  That thought just makes me laugh now.  It's not really about looks, I'm starting to realize.  It's how you conduct yourself around them.  Being heavy for so long has fucked with my confidence.  And confidence is important in everything I do.  In rugby, I need to be more confident that I can catch a pass instead of worrying about dropping it.  In songwriting, I need to be more confident that my songs are well-written (well... some of them).  Mostly, I need to stop thinking I'm never good enough, which, unfortunately is what I've been told many times).  And I need to stay confident about this job interview.  I deserve this position and I need to let these people know it.

These things plague my mind and I just think about some of the most random things.  Some of my friends say I'm an overthinker, and I try to analyze some things a little too much.  This would be an understatement.  I try to analyze EVERYTHING.  This is probably why I can't get to sleep right now.  Three in the fucking morning.  Ugh!

Job interview... What do I wear?... Navy suit... The navy... My grandfather was in the navy... I wonder how grandma is doing... Uncle Frank lives next door to her... I wonder how he's doing... That time we saw Steely Dan at the Beacon... I love New York City... I miss New York City... The Walk the Moon concert last month... And there it is.  Everything comes back to a woman.  I can't even move on from there.  My mind wanders until it settles on that.  Then I can't control it and it wanders for more.

We've Got No Money, But We've Got Heart

Every now and then, I'll grab a random band t-shirt from my closet, put on a nice pair of jeans, dust of my Sambas, and catch a train into New York City.  Sometimes I go without any reason.  I go in, I explore, I find a cool bar, I make a new friend, I go home.  Most times I venture into "the City," though, there is a mission at hand that I am looking to accomplish.  This usually means that I have bought tickets to some kind of event and have been planning something for a few months.  (A few times, I've gotten tickets to shows the day that the band was playing.  I love those moments when I decide to go to a show on a whim.)

I had been hearing great things about this band called Walk the Moon for a few weeks and decided to check them out.  At first listen, I didn't think there was anything special about them.  But with some albums, you need to give them more than one listen.  It took me about three or four before I started catching onto the rhythms and interesting instrumentation.  After that fourth listen, I was hooked.  Naturally, I was compelled to look up when they were coming around my area next on a tour.  I waited another few weeks for them to announce a tour of the Northeastern United States.  Finally, they announced the tour and I took note of the date and time the tickets went on sale.  Unfortunately, when I went to buy tickets, the show was sold out in 2 minutes.  Fortunately, they added an extra date in New York.  The tickets were bought.

Sometimes, I'm an optimist.  This was one of those cases.  I bought two tickets in the hopes that I'd have been dating someone by the time the show rolled around.  I bought the tickets in early October and the concert was in late January, giving me about 3 and a half months to find someone with whom to go to the show.

My friend, Greg, invited me to a Halloween party at his apartment in Springfield, Massachusetts.  (I swear this relates.)  As I stood there among a couple of people I knew and a whole hell of a lot that I didn't, dressed in a stupid costume and sipping on a crappy Bud Light, I was tapped on the shoulder by an old friend that I hadn't seen in a while.  It was nice to see Jenna and catch up.  I ended up spending the night on a very comfortable convertible sofa-bed, and the next morning, while all of my friends were sitting on the porch and talking about days past, she mentioned a band I'd never heard of before and told me that I should check them out.  Well, I did.  And they were good.  (The band was I Fight Dragons, if you're interested.)  After listening to the band for a week, I sent her a message on Facebook to tell her they would be playing in the area.  Long story short, she, a couple of her friends, and I went to see them play at the end of November.

It was getting closer and closer to the day of the concert and I still didn't have anyone I wanted to take.  ...until I thought of her.  She'd never really listened to Walk the Moon, but after a few tracks, she was hooked on the band as well and decided to accept the invitation to see the show with me.

What a damn good show!  We arrived at the Bowery Ballroom after desert at Serendipity 3 just a few minutes before the doors opened and waited in the bar downstairs.  Jenna stepped into the bathroom and they announced that another door (closer to the stage) would open in addition to the main door, so I jumped in that line.  Luckily for her, my position in line was right next to the ladies' room, so she found me with ease.  Our position in front of the stage was prime, although it was behind a couple of tall girls (Jenna and I are a little on the short side).  Jenna saved my spot in the crowd while I went down to the restroom and painted my face like some kind of white urban Native American ready to wage war on the crowd.  Just a streak of light blue over a streak of white on my face.  Not much.  I didn't want it to be overkill.

After a quick set by Pacific Air, who was actually a pretty good band from Southern California, Walk the Moon took to the stage and played with some of the most energy I have ever seen radiate from a band.  While it was great to hear all of their songs played in a live setting, the thing that I enjoyed most about the band wasn't the music (Well, it was partially the music), or their wardrobe, or even their connection with the fans (which was also nice).  It was the fact that with every song they played, they looked as if they were having an insanely good time on stage.  Almost as if there was some kind of inside joke amongst all four of them that never got old.  In fact, it was like the joke gained more momentum as the show went on.

Also, there was a keytar...

I was notified via her twitter feed that the sold out Walk the Moon concert was enough to leave a great impression on Jenna.  It definitely left one on me.  I wish I could play music like that night after night and still have that kind of energy and fun on stage.  It definitely makes life a little more fun and bearable when things aren't going the way you planned.  I needed that night for myself.

Emotional Context

Tonight I decided to watch a film that I hadn't seen since I went to see it in theaters.  It was called It's Kind of a Funny Story.  The movie is about a boy who feels depressed and suicidal and how he checks himself into a mental hospital for five days.  While there, he learns about himself through the people that he meets, and ultimately learns how to deal with his problems.  For those of us who live in the world that is less fictional, this is a hard thing to accomplish.

I'm not afraid to say it.  I have had suicidal thoughts in the past.  Things have been to the point where I thought I'd hit rock bottom and there would be no way to bounce back from all of the world's pressures.  It took my a long time to realize that this is not the case.  Actually, it's far from the case.  I have a family that loves me, friends that like to hang out with me, and while I may be in a very considerable amount of debt, it seems like things could be a hell of a lot worse for me.  It's just that I feel overwhelmed easily and there's not much I can do about it except to tell myself that it will all work out in the end.

One of the things that has helped me through my many bouts of depression over the years has always been my love for music and song.  The kind of music I listen to always depends on what emotion I am experiencing at that point in time.  Sometimes I pick a song or a group and listen to them constantly to help make myself feel better.  Unfortunately, I usually end up picking songs that convey what I'm feeling at that moment in time instead of how I want to feel.  For instance, I'll be feeling very sad and decide to put on "The Drugs Don't Work" by the Verve.  Not in my top ten songs to make someone feel better when they're depressed.  And If I'm listening to strictly Townes Van Zandt and Lightnin' Hopkins, forget it.  You've lost me, and I won't be back to my chipper self any time soon.

One thing I noticed throughout the film I was watching today was that the songs that the filmmakers chose to include during the different scenes fit the mood of the film perfectly.  They conveyed which emotions it seemed Craig (the main character) was feeling at that point in the movie.  The scene that most vividly comes to mind is when Craig takes Noelle (another patient around the same age as Craig, who becomes his girlfriend) on a "tour" of the hospital.  They're running about trying not to get caught by the various doctors on staff in a scene that reminds me of The Breakfast Club when the students run about the school and try to avoid the principal.  Eventually Craig and Noelle end up on the roof and look out into a beautiful panoramic view of Brooklyn in New York City.  The song that plays during this scene is called "Blood."  It happens to be one of my favorite songs and is performed by this band called The Middle East.  The song's tune is light and happy and evokes a happy emotion in me (the listener).

While songs like this can instill happy emotions, there are just some songs and artists that I, personally, cannot stand because they instill bad memories.  While Neil Young's tune "Old King" is a happy tune about a man's dog ("the best old hound dog I ever did know"), I played it on repeat when my dog, Tornado, died.  I haven't been able to listen to the song the way I used to ever since that event in my life.

You ever have one of your favorite songs ruined?  It really sucks.  I've had a few of mine absolutely ruined.  Fortunately, the feeling isn't permanent and I got over it, but as I have stated, certain songs evoke certain feelings and memories.  One of my all-time favorite songs happens to be "Thunder Road," which is the lead off track to Bruce Springsteen's seminal album Born to Run.  While the luster of the song has returned, there was a time when it just reminded me of a girl.  I know.  Doesn't it always come down to a member of the opposite sex?

It was the memory of a certain event that made me just not want to listen to that song anymore.  There was a girl whose company I had grown to enjoy quite a bit over a few months.  We were sharing a late night subway ride from Coney Island, and if anyone has ever taken the subway from Coney Island back to Manhattan, you know it's a loooooong one.  We were the only one's on the train, which isn't surprising for a 2:38 am train ride.  All I had to occupy our minds was my iPhone, and the music on it.  We must have listened to and talked about "Thunder Road" for the whole train ride.  I'll never forget the bright idea she had... "Oh my god!  We should get tattoos.  Mine could say 'Roll down the windows and let the breeze blow back your hair' and yours could say 'The night's busted open.  These two lanes'll take us anywhere."  The thoughts that pop into someone's head that early in the morning.

I know what you're thinking... why would this memory be bad.  It sounds sweet.  I'll agree.  It is a sweet memory.  At least when I tell the story it is.  For me it was bittersweet, because I knew that I wanted more out of her than she wanted out of me.  It was hard for me to take, but things happen.  I'm in a better place now than I was then.  I took that news hard and broke out the Townes and Lightnin' playlist.  For about a straight month.  Eventually, I was able to put on Born to Run without problems.  Hell... now that album just makes me want to be a better songwriter.

But it's funny how some music just fits our emotions.  And it's funny how we tend to pick songs in which to listen to reflect the moods we feel.  This may not apply to everyone, but it certainly applies to me.  Lately, I've been listening to a lot of Imagine Dragons and Walk the Moon.  What does this mean?  That might be a good topic for a later blog post.