Times change - but the standards remain

I pedal and pedal
To ride past the devil
Past the boogeyman
And around the hedges
And as the temp goes up
I feel my sweat
Drip down my back
And across my crack
Break my momma’s back
With sweat on my balls
As darkness falls
I pedal and pedal
To beat that devil
I ride into the sun
And into the sun
Gonna have me some fun
On into the sun
And Into the sun

-Old Boys Bike
 - Seth Cooper

A couple of things happened tonight.  They’ve happened before - but i’m always so thankful when I can be a part of this grand event.  Sometimes, I doubt and I deny.  We’ll get back to this.

A couple of years ago, I jumped on the satelite radio craze.  I remember taking the long way home - I remember sitting in my car in the driveway - I remember staying up until 3am just listening.  See, for me, music is a sacred thing.  I can’t read music, play an instrument, or carry a tune.  I don’t know a C from an A unless i’m looking at a 2nd grade spelling book.  But - for me - someone who is so lost all the time, music is the path that leads me home, or back to my sane mind, or back to something omnipotent.

I am a Pearl Jam fan.  When it’s not cool - when I’m told to get out of the ’90s - when I’m told he mumbles - and when i’m told to change the ring-tone on my cell phone - I’m still a fan.  365 days a year - rain, sleet, diarrhea and snow - I am a fan.  And what I can say is this….

Songs like “Footsteps” or “Elderly Woman Behind a Counter in a Small Town” or “Black” or “Porch” and so many others have helped to fill holes in me…they are proof to me that when someone is at the top of their game, they can use the power of creation, and make something beautiful out of nothing at all.

Is that dramatic? Sure! Is it wholly accurate from where I stand? You bet your ass it is.  No one has any issues when people weep at an Opera.  I fully accept that we can all find meaning in different things.  For some, it’s trees, for others, it’s stained-glass buildings that bring them closer to their own universal truths.  Well, today - I found another catalyst for healing and truth and beauty.

Eddie Vedder (Pearl Jam’s front man) wrote all the music and plays all the instruments on the soundtrack to “Into the Wild,” a movie, written and directed by Sean Penn, based on the tragic book by outdoorsman John Krakauer.  Not since Copper Blue by Sugar,  (early ’90s) have I heard or gone through a more complete musical experience.  

From start-to-finish, this is truly a brilliant CD.  There is musical progression that takes you for a long ride on a winding road with the top down on a crystal-blue day when the air is almost - but not quite -  too chilly.  I have somewhere in the neighborhood of  (own, not “have stolen or ripped from the web”)  10,000 mp3s - most ripped from the full CD -   and I know music.  I know what I like, and I know what I don’t.  And I can state with great certainty that this entire CD from start to finish is just pure musical genius. 

You see, for me, a great song is like a wrong turn on a beautiful day.  In the end, you still wind up exactly where you expected, but those bumps in the road…and those hills and  grassy fields and hay bales and open barn doors and covered bridges, with rusted steel and statue-of-liberty-green colored bolts become the best surprises…they become the reason that your trip was special.  That wrong turn is what makes the ride memorable.  More than that - it makes it a part of you. 

After listening to this CD, it’s becomes clear to me, again, that just like that car ride,  there is merit in the journey…and how you go about getting somewhere is so much more important than just getting there at all.  This CD is absolute brilliance.  Listening to it made me happy, sad, shiver, and get a little misty.  More than that, it reminded me exactly why I went to a beautiful cloistered school, so far removed from anyplace I thought I’d ever wind up, just to learn how to write a little better than I did before I arrived. 

It made me realize that there erally can be a a soundtrack to your life.  I urge you to buy it and listen to it in one sitting.  Start to finish, beginning to end.  If you can, start driving, anywhere - and when ”Society” (track 8 ) begins to play, just turn off the road - anywhere.  Leave the road you know - and keep driving.  I’ll see you somewhere around the hills and grassy fields.

Hoping we cross paths, somewhere else tonight…
-The Stranger