One Night, Eight Albums

My hand still twitches; I've begun to twirl a pen in between my fingers just to occupy Mr. Lefty while Mr. Righty operates the mouse. The kid's in the next room with a treasure trove of mediocre video games-the kind that are only good when you're ten years old-and Raiders of the Lost Ark on cassette, all of which are incentive enough to keep him from bothering me for at least eight hours. Good. Just enough time.

Coffee's done or not, can't tell. The machine doesn't buzz like it should; some fat cat thought that spider-sense was enough to tell when the coffee's brewed. I'm no Peter Parker. I'm not dodging robot arms or sexual advances from redheads while I run off to wonder why no one likes me; I just want my goddamn coffee. And I'm thinking some goddamn Liars would go well with my goddamn coffee. And it does. Drum and Mt. Heartattack are the soundtrack to the tribes of hell, demanding a sacrifice of time and mental energy that could be used to discern baseball stats or whatever normal people obsess with. No normal person obsesses with Liars. Hell, it's all too freaky for the freaks to obsess over. Goddamned coffee and cabin fever have made me freakier than usual, though. How about Bowie? Bowie's freaky. Low's really freaky. Heroes is just freaky enough; enough to be comforting. But what comfort is there in star-crossed lovers held back by oppression from lions, Arabs and whatever Warzawasa is? Okay, now the coffee's done.

Everyone assumes that God yells from the tops of mountains and that his voice can make heads explode with its sheer grandiosity. Right now, as the comic pages turn and fade and as the coffee cools and sweetens, I hear God's voice in a low, aching whisper, buried under reverb and distortion that obscure whatever He tries to say to me. Religion? No, merely Loveless. A record that stands to prove that you can name your song anything at all and it will have no bearing on the actual music. A record that seems to come from above; a communication between a deity and its people, via Kevin Shields. Naturally, no one gets it, even the shmucks who say they do. I don't get it. How can I? I cannot relate to a God, especially one who finds it so hard to raise his voice amidst all the chaos. But what is chaos without spirits to accompany it? The world gone to hell; might as well have a few and get dizzy so that things start to make sense. Craig Finn makes sense. A documentarian and a barkeep with little use for guitar noise and drones. It's all about the solos and the tugged heartstrings. It's enough to warm one's heart as it explodes. I have to pause, take it all in, wonder if beauty can be purchased in a glass bottle.


Part 2 on Monday.