Friday, 09 October 2009

• Currently The Lost Symbol By Dan Brown see related

  Solstice Reintroduction

  I work in an industry that allows me to have a relatively easy lifestyle.  Unfortunately, my job is over fifty miles away from my home, which means that every morning I’m faced with a lonely, hour-long, and congested commute through the meat of the Ventura Freeway.  Coupled with the return commute home, I spend at least 120 minutes each day alone in my car.  During these hours the world seems unreal to me, as my entire existence is contextualized by gridlock and FM radio.  And sometimes it’s not even good radio, and that’s partially because someone at Clear Channel Communications has allowed Ryan Seacrest to squawk into a microphone every work day for four hours.  Now, you’re probably going to say that I shouldn’t listen to that Haircut if I don’t think he constitutes good radio.  However, he works for the only hit music station in town.  I need to listen to KIIS-FM if I want my daily dose of popular music.  Where else am I going to get to hear country music by Taylor Swift followed by hiphop by someone called “T-Pain”?  This station might play shitty pop music, but at least it’s diverse, shitty pop music.  God bless America.

  Even though the car radio is always on, most times I’m not listening to it at all.  Most times I’m just listening to me talk to myself.  I find myself pondering inconsequential things like why Blue Scholars’ Solstice Reintroduction is the best lead track of any rap album.   I make vain attempts to explain why I feel impending doom whenever KROQ-FM plays Guns-N-Roses and Nirvana back-to-back.  I wonder out loud if it’s possible to jump off the roof of the Forum and walk away uninjured, despite what Mack-10 says.  I wonder what Barack Obama thinks of Lady Gaga, and whether Lady Gaga thinks at all.  I futilely attempt to decipher what the hell Modest Mouse sings about in 80% of their songs.  All of these are absurd thoughts, but we live in an absurd world.  How else can I explain why a guy like me has a girlfriend like mine?  She has outrageously good-looks.  I have big teeth. 

  The world is unreal.

  In an ideal world, a weirdo like myself wouldn’t be allowed to spend this much time alone trapped within the confines of his own mind.  But we don’t live in an ideal world.  I live in the San Fernando Valley:  The most debaucherous neighborhood in the most reprehensible city in the most decadent country on this godforsaken rock.  We live in a world where our minds wander when we’re stuck in the gridlock of traffic.  We’re all either going somewhere or nowhere at all.  The world is perfect, even though it is not.

  I’ll talk about nothing, but it might be what you’re looking for.

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