It Just Is

Again, not a review. Yesterday something strange happened. I deleted all of my music off of streaming because I decided I didn’t like it. It started off with making sure it wasn’t on Spotify for obvious reasons, but then I just said, “eh, this isn’t very good so I’m going to start from scratch.” Then I googled an old band name (Einstein’s Creation) and discovered that someone had played a song I wrote 20 years ago called “Richard The Dentist” about having a fear of going to the dentist. I’m not sure what it meant. I’m not even sure how he found it outside of being featured on an old WFMU blog post a long time ago. But I guess there was something special about being in a playlist that included Cheech & Chong and Weird Al. It sent me into this weird existential quandary this morning about what it means to have content out in the universe.

This is the 30th anniversary of when I entered high school and started writing anything worthwhile. Could’ve been a movie review, could’ve been a poem, could’ve been a song using a Casio keyboard that my dad bought me. The first song I wrote was with a classmate friend of mine. We thought it would be a fun way to prepare for an English examination on the book “To Kill A Mockingbird.” It’s a song I will never post on the Internet for a lot of reasons. It’s bad. It contains verbatim quotations from the book that also include the “n” word. But that’s really how it all started. The fear of getting a poor grade on an English test led me to recording a song with a friend.

Then later that year, I heard Nirvana, bought a guitar at Rubino’s Music in Merrillville, IN. I was also in high school concert band and met a drummer. I initially tried trumpet but couldn’t get into it so I switched to playing percussion. That’s how we met. Once my drummer friend and I started jamming in his basement, I knew things were going to change since I was coming out of my shell. Music was literally a savior in the same way movies were. 

What it all comes down to now is why make things when I feel they just simply get lost in a sea of content? We post photos and videos and things every day - very revealing, intimate thoughts sometimes - and yes Facebook has a thing called “memories” that reminds us of the past, but will they be remembered when we are inundated with so much? Are we just distracting ourselves from a difficult reality, especially these past two years? These are mere flashes of feelings, moments in time that probably curl into dust that aren’t always seen by the human eye. They just sit there in the cracks and crevices of our hardwood floor apartments and homes.

I don’t think there’s a clear universal answer that is applicable to everyone. I listened to the new Big Thief album and was overwhelmed by most of it. They’re the kind of band that I have no doubt are inspiring musicians to quit their day jobs and throw caution to the candle in the wind. “There is no reason to believe / No reason at all / Come together for a moment / Look around and dissolve / Like a feeling, like a flash / Like a fallen eyelash on your sweater / Threading future through the past.” I guess that about sums it up, doesn’t it? There is a kind of cynicism that runs through my bloodstream that wants to say “more music, more content, more movies, more content, more podcasts, more content, more books, more content.” It feels like food. 

Here is another meal to ensure that you keep getting nutrients in order to live. Read these words, hear my thoughts, listen to me sing, repeat. You’ll feel connected in some way. Before the inception of Facebook and social media, we would call each other or visit to ensure we wouldn’t be alone 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Not blaming technology or a pandemic at all. We still get together. Some of us even got married and had children as an expression of this celestial force called love. A cynic would say, “well we just got tired of being alone” so we said, “this person is someone I want to see every day” and decided to get married. But there are more layers to everything, I think. Unlikely will we be able to fully comprehend it all so why waste the energy? Oh, the things we create and say. A Facebook post (whether it’s a photo or a geyser of characters) is just another act of creation even if it’s just simple stories about the day and what we’re feeling and experiencing. Same with a tweet. I wish I got as much out of posting 140 characters as so many others do but there are still moments of connection in that context. 

I just struggle with it. Is it good enough? The words I write about a movie I watched. Or when I ramble into a microphone for a couple hours with a friend and call it a podcast. The music I put together in my bedroom, writing another song about longing. Does it matter? When my soft body turns into quiet compassionate ashes, people will still keep living and likely not looking back at what I thought or felt - whether it's this thing I’m writing now or a song I wrote 20 years ago about a guy named Richard, who happened to be a dentist. There is no way to know anything, even though we’d like to think we know a lot. There is mystery in the universe and in the shadow she makes when she stands in her living room as the sunshine makes its way towards the winter window. 

The money is going to go away one day. That student loan I can’t believe I let happen may in fact no longer be a part of my life. Same with fear I felt on the train ride to work. It’s all going to disappear. We want to live and share our lives and instill that into children who will hopefully continue the cycle of kindness. But even this planet or that giant star in the sky will die out. So that’s why we have to communicate and create - we are going to experience an ending. Not just us as individuals, but the entire planet and possibly the universe. Maybe it’ll experience some kind of big bang renewal. Maybe God will come down and say, “hey I did exist and there was purpose and meaning to all this chaos. It’s like math or something.” We just want to contribute our words, our hearts, our minds, our mystery to the mess.

These memoirs of joy, fear, loss are dedicated to the nomads, the lone wolves, the nightmares of the restless, the people who have felt that they would never really find a home or a consistent heart / mind of their own that they can manage. There’s panic about dying alone, but our thoughts and words are still out there in that busy silent sea. It’s a sea of content that I will never understand or even contribute greatly to. I can’t read every review, hear every song, watch every film, kiss every kiss, hold every human till they feel safe, or even make enough money to ensure I won’t become homeless. But I guess there’s beauty and majesty in gestures and creation. Love is a word to represent a feeling - but that feeling feels strong, real, messy and complicated in its many layers. It can even ebb and flow and be overwhelming one day and then calmly subdued the next.

So when we write a song, a review, record a podcast or channel our energy and words into something that can be lost in a livejournal or a facebook comment, we crackle with intensity and anxiety about getting it “right.” Especially since others might see it or hear it. That new Big Thief album is a pinata full of uncertainty and passion and I guess that’s how I’d even like to be remembered too. I know I’m supposed to be confident and assertive and full of fire, but I’m mostly just uncertain and passionate and quiet. I can’t explain why I love one thing, don’t love another, decide to write about one movie but have no interest in the next. Life is a glorious sea of something I’ll never fully be able to process on a first viewing. I’ll post this on my website, link to this on social media and there are no guarantees it will mean anything. And I also did this weird random song about a dentist and then it gets played on some comedy podcast and put on a playlist. It happened, there’s no “why” behind it. It just is.