anima mundi

It’s a brisk Sunday night, and I have enjoyed the recent cool weather immensely. One thought of those humidity-induced doldrums of summer and I shiver – not from autumn‘s chill but from not-so-treasured memories of sweat and stagnance.

Today, after irritating computer complications, I accomplished a little writing, interspersed with research into competitions and festivals for my screenplay. Yes, it’s time to hop back on the screenplay horse and gallop it into the world like a celluloid Pony Express. Okay, yeah, that was a horrible analogy. Anyway, it was satisfying to be productive after a relatively lazy Saturday.

It was also a “minor blast from the past” weekend. I heard from my buddy Eugene on Friday. We’ve been out of touch for too long, and he called during my first Jim Beam and Coke (so I was still coherent). We caught up on recent events and plan on a poker game sometime soon. Then this evening I went into an e-mail account I check infrequently, and there was mail from my old childhood and high school pal Steve. The body of his message recalled a particularly disastrous party back in ’86. Ah, the fallacies and "trauma" of youth. I filled Steve in with my life on this side of the city - the abridged version. His mail brought back memories, and I realized that I am so far out of high school that it seems like it was another life, as if someone else’s dream - or nightmare. Nah, I’m being too harsh on high school. No, it wasn’t the best experience, but overall it could have been much worse. All those years behind me now – it will be two decades since graduation next year – and quite possibly dozens of years to go. I say “possibly” but I don’t want to seem pessimistic and such. However, I am aware of my own mortality. Oh, and am I considered an old man yet? To the kids, there's no doubt. But back in those teen years, to me, thirty years old or (gasp!) even older, was something that would never happen to me. How many people have asked, and how often, "Where did the time go?" I look back and see graduation, local college, supermarket jobs, WEOS and WSFW, the crushing angst of doomed teen amour, then moving out and moving on to Buffalo. From there came independence and self-reliance. Sure, I toiled in a couple of McJobs over the course of my twenties, but I made it on my own and I always managed to get the bills paid.

From the college dorms to Elmwood Avenue and then the corner of Grant and Forest in Buffalo, from the squalid Tenderloin to Post and Lyon Streets in San Francisco (with a brief foray into Salt Lake City inserted in there), and now the City of New York, I’ve blazed my own anomalous trail around the country. Scattered behind me is a crooked path dotted with a surfeit of people and places and incidents and events. It is littered with immeasurable ideas and countless conversations and late nights of intimacy and friendship. It is strewn with the triumphs, joys, gaffes, blunders and the simple heartache of life. I like where I have been - in both a literal and metaphorical sense - and there is little I regret. There are always some regrets, of course, and occasionally the past may dog my heels, but I know that somehow I will always move forward.

And remember that no matter where you go… there you are.

music

I always receive a small thrill to rediscover a song I'd enjoyed in the past, but for one reason or another, I haven't listened to in years. One reason could be the new music I purchase on a regular basis - the immediacy of fresh sounds takes precedence over older material. Or, it could be that a particular genre has not appealed to me as much as a different style for a certain period of time. Regardless, when I "find" a particular song again, it brings enjoyment renewed.

In recent months a few of the songs I have rediscovered include:

1) Barbarism Begins at Home by The Smiths from their Meat is Murder album (1985). A loping, repeated, and almost hypnotic extended riff from guitarist Johnny Marr. Superb and catchy bassline. Morrissey's always-plaintive vocals. Put this one on "repeat."

2) So What? by Ministry from The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste (1989). Wow. What can I say to impart the brilliance of this track? The Mind album overall is an industrial-metal classic without a weak song, but So What? is the scorching highlight. Why? For its brillaint use of sampling ("Assassin"). For its undeniably catchy chorus and blistering beat. For lead screamer Al Jourgensen's unbridled rage. For the song's unrepentant nihilism. Hell, it even had a San Francisco club night named after it back in the '90s.

3) Sick of Myself by Matthew Sweet from 100% Fun (1995). This is an addictive alt-rock nugget from the heyday of the alternative explosion of the 1990s. The guitar riff is impossible to erase from memory and Sweet's self-deprecating lyrics cause me to smile every time I hear it.

4) Disappointed by Public Image Ltd. from the album 9 (1992). Ah, for all of the Sex Pistols naysayers, those who claimed they were a low-talent gimmick (they weren't), John ("Johnny Rotten") Lydon made a return to the scene in a huge way with his subsequent band PiL. From one of the their final albums, Disappointed is a perfectly infectious and humorous alternative rock song. And you have to love when Lydon rolls the "r" off his tongue as he wails out the lyrics with his insolent high-pitched vocals.

5) Bruise Violet by Babes In Toyland from the album Fontanelle (1992). Kat Bjelland was one pissed off "riot grrl," and it shows on Babes In Toyland's best release. Kat snarls and spits over the relentless, "bruising" rhythm ("You were born with glue instead of spine!"). The first single was Bruise Violet, a full tilt blast of thrashing punk rage. Hailing from the Pacific Northwest, the band was vaguely associated with the grunge movement, but let there be no mistake - the Babes could whip the tar out of any grungester.

6) Wildflower by the Cult from Electric (1987). Ah, this is the breakthrough Cult album that put them near the top of the charts back in 1987. It's a muscular rock record, and features the impossibly catchy Wildflower, a riff-heavy boogie rock-metal ode to rapacious lust ("I'm the wolf child, baby, howlin' for you, Wildflower").

7) In the Evening by Led Zeppelin from In Through the Out Door (1979). No, this is not Zep's best album, but it features three classic songs, All My Love, Fool in the Rain, and of course, In the Evening. Sure, with this release, Zeppelin suddenly had synthesizers, which rattled the anti-disco rock 'n' roll purists of the day, but keyboards do nothing to diminish the swagger of the opening track, In the Evening. And swagger is what the track entails. Jimmy's Page's guitar is bluesy rock-metal braggadocio while Robert Plant's crooning seems to consist entirely of vowels. Your body can't not sway to this song.

8) I Sit on Acid by The Lords of Acid from Lust (1991). Unadulterated sensuous techno-sleaze tailored for the dimly lit club and black nail polish and fishnets crowd. Makes you want to writhe on the dance floor and do "bad stuff" - and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

9) Downtown Train by Tom Waits from Rain Dogs (1985). Unfortunately, most people tend to remember Rod Stewart's butchery of this track and are probably unaware that Tom Waits originally wrote and performed it. Forget Stewart and grab a copy of Rain Dogs, and not only for the urban-noir yearning of Downtown Train - it is one of Tom's finest albums.

And last but definitely not least:

10) Idiots Rule by Jane's Addiction from Nothing's Shocking (1988). The timeless Nothing's Shocking is one of the finest albums in music history, and sure, there might be better songs on the album, but Idiots Rule is the one to which I am constantly drawn back. Why? It's fun. It makes me smile. It's irresistible. It has a horn-driven, boisterous groove that reflects the sardonic humor of Perry Farrell's caustic lyrics. It almost makes me appreciate idiots. And idiots rule. Well... maybe not so much, but the song does rule.

There you have it. I'm sure, in a few months time, there will be a new list of "rediscovered" songs to post. Until then...

"Disappointed a few people
When friendship reared its ugly head
Disappointed a few people
Well, isn't that what friends are for?"
- PiL, Disappointed

season

With the season comes the rain, it drizzles across a dappled, cinereal city. Rain induces mood, sanguine but not somnolent, simultaneously inspiring and lulling, and here steeped in my thoughts engendered by its anodyne pattern and sound.

I've endured a summer of repressive, energy-sapping heat in wait for autumn. I lay down and wait like a forbearing animal for the equinox. In wait for the autumn breeze and the harvest moon. In wait for the trees to turn and nature to strip the branches bare. For the jacket across my frame, the chill across my neck, the damp on my face.

Now comes the turn of the season here in the city. The mood and the energy shifts. Gone is the lethargy of heat and the drone of the air conditioner and the sweat-sodden clothes. So ends sleeveless days and nights. Now as we wrap ourselves in layers we retreat inside, covered. We direct inward.

Cloudburst, haze from rain, pellets against the umbrella, and the waxy static gray sheet of sky over everything, above this cluster of millions and this city called home.