TwoBusy

iMirror, iMirror 3-D

In which I continue to continue to waste your time...

ZEBRA: Who's Behind The Door
A gently strummed acoustic guitar. Lyrics echoing a different place and time. Vocals slowly climbing from a quiet croon to an almost inhumanly pitched howl. The music, slowly growing and building on itself, from a humble beginning to a breathtaking crescendo over the course of many long, intricate minutes. A song of epic vision and proportions.

Stairway to Heaven? Close: it's Zebra! That's right... Zebra! With the big hit single from their creatively titled debut album Zebra! It's just like Stairway to Heaven, except it's got synths! And a kickass video with computers and spaceships! And a singer/guitarist named Randy Jackson who's not, in fact, that Randy Jackson! And he's wearing a very open-necked, very pink shirt! And the video's got twins! For God's sake... twins! And flowers! And crowds of people staring at the sky! It's like Close Encounters of the Third Kind meets Stairway to Heaven!

In short, it's very nearly the coolest thing of all time. On the awesome scale of 1-10, with The Darkness scoring a 47? This is a 35.

The end.

SYSTEM OF A DOWN: Chop Suey!
I can't quite figure out how I feel about System of a Down. On the one hand, I'm entirely clear on the fact that I respect the hell out of their musical chops... their time changes are just insane, as this song illustrates adeptly. At the same time, there's somethings about Serj Tankanian's vocals that, on occasion, rubs me completely the wrong way. Not always, but sometimes — see Sugar for an example of what drives me up a wall.

That being said, Chop Suey! - so named because their record company would, allegedly, not allow them to title the song Suicide - rubs me the right way, primarily because it blends a very solid sense of thrash and outrage with little snippets of melody to create something that shifts rapidly (and expertly) from crunchy to sweet and then back again in a heartbeat. Plus, it cribs the opening guitar strum from Pinball Wizard, which is always fun.

THE CURE: Underneath the Stars
It's been a long time since Kyle of South Park declared, not incorrectly, that Disintegration was the greatest album ever. And since that time, The Cure has produced an awful lot of music... but it's been a long time since they've really been a "Gotta get the new album" band. I mean, Wish is a very solid effort - look beyond the deliciously candy-sweet "Friday I'm in Love" and you'll find plenty to like, including "From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea," which is easily one of the three or four best things they ever did - but once you get past that entry in their catalogue, things get real dicey, real fast.

Seriously: name me one truly great song they've produced since then. Yeah, there've been a couple of bright points - Bloodflowers was half-decent, and Robert Smith's collaboration with Blink-182 on "All of This" was pretty cool - but by and large, the output has been pretty dire. And unfortunately, each new release has been greeted with review after review acclaiming that this is their best album since Disintegration... until the next one, which gets an identical review. It's disheartening.

Their new release 4:13 Dream appears to be little different... but this song, the album's opener, is an exhilarating exception. This is vintage Cure: achingly sad, saturated with tragedy and drama, overwhelmed with echo and atmosphere, and a great, long, slow build up to the moment of final, epic heartbreak.

I don't know about you, but I need music like this in my life.

Magenta is no longer a part of my life

In case you were curious, I finished the living room:

Of course, my hand is now permanently curled into a crow-like claw as a result of countless hours spent clutching my paintbrush... but if TheWife is happy, then a lifelong crippling is a small price to pay.

(And yes, I've purposely fuzzed out all the photos on the mantle. So there.)

Bottleneck

There's no easy way to feel about this. On the one hand, you have anger and outrage and a tremendous, nearly-overwhelming sense of disappointment. On the other... you have sympathy, and a very real desire to understand, to help. And then you remember that at the center of this maelstrom, there is a sad and utterly troubled woman who keeps making awful choices.

For the sake of continuity, we'll call her ElF — and before you read any further, you need to read this first (the second half, at least).

When last we left her, ElF - who is, by the way, an extremely intelligent, highly educated and well-connected professional - had been unveiled as a profound and deeply closeted alcoholic. Following her hospitalization, she spent five weeks at home, during which time she fell off the wagon repeatedly and made life incredibly difficult for her husband and young son. Finally, her husband (and everyone else) pushed her resistance aside and enrolled her in an inpatient substance abuse program.

She ended up spending nearly two full months there — not only detoxifying her system, but undergoing tons of therapy and behavior modification work. As she e-mailed TheWife and I about halfway through her stay,

It means the world to me that you have stuck by me while I have battled a humiliating, scary, and often deadly disease.  One of the biggest things I have learned this past month is that there is a lot more to substance abuse than substance abuse, and that I have charged through life for the past several years earning degrees and working hard while avoiding some of the hardest but most important parts of being human — past traumas, stressors, and feelings that I just wanted to go away without acknowledging them.  Well, that just does not happen, and instead self-destruction can result from chronic repression.

As is usually the case in cases like hers, there was a lot of pain, confusion and wrong-headed stupidity lying beneath her drinking... and it turned out that she wasn't alone in this ordeal: a week after she entered her program, her mother (living 3000 miles away) went into a similar program after a drinking-induced bout of suicidal depression.

But. She stayed the course. She stayed long enough to repeat the course, actually — the program was supposed to be a single month, but her progress (along with, presumably, her needs) was such that she stayed a full two... ultimately arriving home just before Christmas. No doubt, it had been a difficult season for her and her family - her son, a friend of my own, was clearly very troubled by his mother's absence - but when she returned it was with a wish to quietly rebuild her life on her own time, in her own terms. So we exchanged Christmas cards, and brief e-mails, but left the ball in her court as to when, where and how to resume our friendship.

I saw her, actually, about a week and a half ago. I was picking up TheHurricane at his afterschool program, and was surprised and happy to see her doing the same with her son. She looked terrific. And I have to clarify: unlike the ElF I'd grown used to seeing over the previous year, who was always strangely disheveled and unkempt for someone of her station, this woman looked healthy. Bright eyed. Warm, and somewhat whole. When she saw me, without a word she came across the crowded room and then gave me a great, honest hug. Her expression was bashful, and I didn't really know what to say, so I just hugged her back and smiled. I think it was clear: I was happy to see her.

Then we stepped back, and looked at each other for a minute. "We should, uh... get together sometime" she said. She sounded a little uncertain as she said it. I hope my broad smile offered some relief, as I replied, "Yes. Yes, we should."

It was a strange and slightly awkward little meeting, but to be honest I was really happy to have her back. As I shared the story with TheWife that evening, I said, "She looked good. Y'know what I mean? Really, really good." And we decided we'd follow up with a dinner invitation in a week or two.

It seemed like a great way to start the new year.

Which brings us to last night. It was about 6:30 in the evening, and I'd just returned from picking up our three demonic offspring. I was starting to set the table - as TheWife was in the process of getting off her commuter train and heading over to pick up some Chinese takeout for dinner - when the phone rang. I anticipated it was her when I picked up and said hello.

It was, instead, my friend JiF. (alarms going off) He said, "I hate to bother you, but I just got a call from the afterschool program. (My son) is still there... no one's picked him up. I've tried calling ElF, but she's not answering, and I just don't know what's going on. I'm still downtown, but I was wondering..."

The afterschool program closed at 6pm.

"No problem, dude" I replied. "We'll pick him up in about 10 minutes. You can come get him whenever your train gets in."

"Thanks," he said. "I'll call the program and let them know."

I hung up the phone, then immediately called TheWife. She was on her way home, but I gave her the quick version of the story — she instantly agreed, no problem, to swing over and pick up their son.

Then I tried calling ElF. Home: no answer. Cell: no answer. Wondering. Weighing possibilities. None of them, really, any good. This wasn't going to be a happy night.

Ten minutes later, the phone rang again. TheWife: "I'm just leaving the school. And ElF showed up at the same time I did. And she there's something really... off. About her."

Oh, God.

"I tried to get her to come with me, but she insisted on driving. All the teachers were looking at us. But she's following me home. I'm driving about two miles an hour... I didn't know what else to do."

"Okay. I'll see you in a minute."

I went to the window, and watched the traffic. A minute later, TheWife's car cleanly pulled around the snowdrifts at the edge of our driveway, then moved down toward the garage. And a moment after that, a green sedan I hadn't seen in months slowly took the same turn - too wide, grazing the snowbank -  before pulling to an unsteady stop. I ran out the back door.

Their son opened the door and let himself out of the back seat of the car. "Hey, dude!" I said to him in my too-happy host voice. "Glad you're having dinner with us! C'mon in!" I led him inside - TheHurricane was waiting for him, thrilled that his friend was coming over for dinner - then stepped back out. TheWife walked past me, her arms loaded with her laptop and a large bag of Chinese food, her expression somewhere between horrified and "what the fuck do we do now?"

And then I saw ElF. She came up to me, and gave me a hug. Her expression was again something approaching sheepish, but her eyes were not bright. Her hair was tangled, as if she'd just risen from a long night's sleep. As I gave her a quick hug, I smelled... something. Something faint. But there.

As our embrace broke, I looked at her hard. "Why don't you come in for a while." It wasn't a question.

She stepped inside, and for the next several minutes I played the busy, too-happy host. The kids - ours and hers - were excited and having fun. They all got big glasses of juice, and plates full of beef & broccoli, vegetarian spring rolls, General Gao's chicken, brown & white rice... a feast. I ran around getting everyone served. TheWife efficiently and silently carved the entrees into kid-friendly bite-sized portions. ElF sat quietly at one end of the table, looking around at the frenzy of activity. Not quite tracking it in real time. "Let me get you some water," I said. "No, I don't..." I cut her off: "Let me get you some water."

She looked nervous. About this whole thing. Unsure, or - more accurately - unable to read the situation accurately. Wondering if she could still get away with it.

I stepped back into the kitchen and quickly, quietly called JiF. "She's here. She showed up at the school at the same time as TheWife, and now she's here with (your son)."

He asked, "Is she drunk?"

I paused, then said, "I'm not sure. I think so."

We agreed that he would come straight to our house from the next train. I hung up the phone, then went over to her hanging jacket. Rifled her pockets for keys: no luck. Then I stepped back into the dining room. She was pulling her son to her. "We have to go," she said. "We need to get home."

"No, you're staying here," I said. She looked up at me and saw my expression. This was not going to be discussed. "I just called JiF. He's going to come straight over here from his train. Why don't you sit back and have a little dinner, and we'll all wait for him."

A look of... something, on her face. Fear, I guess. And realization. "No, but..." I stopped her cold. "You're staying here" I said, for the final time. My eyes pinned her in place, like a dragonfly to a specimen board. The message crystalline.

You are not going to hide this.

She sat quietly for a few minutes, before her anxiety flowed away (liquid metaphors. it was all liquid metaphors.) and she asked our daughters about their Cinderella doll. As the girls launched into a twisted re-telling of the story, with my son and hers chiming in with random and occasionally pertinent commentary, she clearly lost her ability to follow the conversation. So she said, "Awesome, Butterfly! Gimme a high five!" And then Rabbit, overlooking the fact that she'd been called the wrong name, gave her a high five.

It was probably almost 40 minutes later with JiF finally arrived. During that time, ElF tried and failed to follow conversations. She repeatedly high-fived children. A few words were slurred. She repeatedly refused offers for solid food, demurring to gingerly sip her water. At one point, her car key was left on the dining room table. I pocketed it.

When JiF arrived, I wasn't sure what to expect. ElF and TheWife were sitting in our front foyer (yes, we have a foyer. Don't ask me why.), watching the kids wrestle each other, when I saw his car pull in and him walk up to our front steps. I called out, "Hey, everyone... JiF is here!" and glanced over quickly to see the look of growing horror and embarrassment on ElF's face... then I opened the door. JiF shook my hand, then I left toward the kitchen - ostensibly to clean up - while TheWife shooed the kids toward our living room. Leaving the two of them alone.

ElF had been sitting on her knees when JiF came in. So he sat down in front of her, sought out her eyes, and began speaking to her. Softly. So gently. I went back and forth from the sink to the doorway... not wanting to intrude, but wanted to be there if he needed a hand, and to let him know that I had her key. But his eyes stayed steady on hers. And for something like ten minutes, they quietly spoke. I was surprised, and impressed, by how gentle his manner was. I imagined myself in a similar situation, struggling to control my anger. But he stayed soft. Quiet. Gentle.

Eventually, he looked up and I caught his eye. With a nod of my head gestured that I needed a minute with him. He joined me in the kitchen, and with voices low we spoke.

"I have her key."

"Thanks. We're going to head back. I..."

"I can drive her car back to your house."

"Do you think? I'm not sure."

"I'm sure." I briefed him on what we'd seen, heard, smelled.

"Thanks," he said.

He walked back to the foyer, and told her that I'd be driving her car back to their home. She protested, but he (very gently) made it clear that this was what would happen. We could see it: the anger, the embarrassment, splashing up and out from behind her facade.

Fuck it. I didn't care if she was pissed off, or her feelings were hurt. I did not look away.

She grabbed her jacket and stormed outside. JiF took off after her. So TheWife and I got their son ready — put his shoes and jacket on, and then I led him outside. As I walked to JiF's car, he stepped out to help his son into place. I glanced quickly at the passenger seat. ElF was staring out. At the darkness; at her reflection in the glass. Her expression unreadable.

They pulled out of the driveway, then I pulled out behind them and followed them home.

When we arrived, ElF quickly opened her door and walked inside without looking in my direction.

(Maybe she felt humiliated. Maybe she felt angry. Honestly, it wasn't going to fucking bother me in the least. I wasn't the problem.)

JiF motioned me to drive her car into the garage, then opened the passenger door in his for me. "Where's Mommy?" their son asked from the back seat. "She's going to stay home while we drop (TwoBusy) off," he replied. Then he looked at me. His expression was apologetic, and surprised, and at the same time not terribly surprised. One of those, "I can't figure out quite what to say" expressions.

I relieved him with a big smile. "So... what else is new?" I asked happily. (nothing like subverting the tension of the moment with a laugh. Which we did. Nice feeling.)

As he drove me back, he explained a little bit. "Since she came back, she's had a lot of good days, and a couple of bad days. This is a really bad day." I nodded my assent. It felt strange to talk about this so straightforwardly with their young son in the back seat, but then I thought that none of this was probably news to him. So I let him talk.

It turned out that this was not a random slip. There had been a call, over the weekend, from her mother. Talking about her health, and the problems she was having. Which was followed up with another phone call to ElF this morning, where the situation became clear: her mother had cirrhosis of the liver. To the point where the liver was no longer processing blood. So it was backing up, and causing charming side-effects like portal hypertension and esophageal varices — which is basically when blood vessels in the esophagus ulcerate and burst, causing blood to come spurting up out of one's mouth. Basically, the liver was damaged to the point where transplant was the only option... only it wasn't an option, because of her alcoholism.

She'd found out her mother was dying. From a lifetime of drinking.

So she started drinking. And drinking. And drinking. And then decided to get in her car and pick up her son. And then got caught, red-handed. By her friend. And then her friend's husband. And, ultimately, by her own husband.

We pulled into my driveway, and JiF put the car in park. His son was in the back seat, poring through the road maps that are his obsession and greatest love. I looked over at him, and spoke. Quietly. "We're here. Hell, I'm here all the time. We're here to help you, and (your son). And ElF. Tell her to call if she needs anything. If she has another bad day. If she needs someone to talk to, or clear her head with. Or pick up (your son). We're here. Because we'll do it. And because, honestly, if she does this again, I'm going to have to break her fucking hands."

He nodded. Said he'd tell her. Thanked me. And then he took his son, and went home.

    *    *    *

(NOTE: as I was finishing this, my doorbell rang. Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be... ElF. An extremely apologetic and grateful ElF. Who realized that we saved her ass last night. Who appreciated it when I offered help, and understood when I repeated, very gently, that if she ever drinks and drives again that I will - I swear - break her fucking hands. Then we talked for a couple of minutes, about her mother and family, about our kids, about her. As she left, I told her, "Don't be a stranger. Call."

I hope she will.)

The Magenta Terror

Do not adjust your screens. This is indeed my living room.

 
Did you know that when you use a tinted primer in preparation for painting a room red, it turns your walls an extremely unnerving shade of magenta/pomegranate?

Neither did I.

But I digress

1. Thanks to Mark for the heads-up that our good friends at Ashmont Records are putting just about everything related to the sad and wonderful world of the Pernice Brothers on sale — click here for details. If you've never actually checked any of my many previous links to the works of Joe Pernice - either solo or as a part of the Scud Mountain Boys, Chappaquiddick Skyline and, finally, the much-acclaimed Pernice Brothers - this is the perfect opportunity to get started. He's easily one of the best singer-songwriter types around today, and the winner of the much-coveted award for "The Most Exquisitely Sad Song in the Whole World." Want a taste? Of course you do:

Now go get yourself some Pernice. It's super-cheap, and I promise: you won't regret it.

2. In a move that will no doubt anger some, I got a new computer. Not a move I wanted to make - by any stretch of the imagination - but a necessary evil. My once-vibrant, 5yr-old iMac had been reduced to a twisted, limping shadow of its former self, and my recent attempts to upgrade it to an OS that didn't go obsolete about 2 years ago was met by an apparent iMeltdown, followed by several hours on the phone talking to the Apple help desk, and then finally a visit to one of my local Apple Genius Bars... whereupon they opened my baby up and discovered that her logic board was on the verge of frying. Now, I'm no computer scientist, but from what I understand that's a "bad" thing. As in, "you might as well take it out back and shoot it" bad.

So. Given the choice between a $600+ fix (that still might only be a temporary resolution) or throwing myself into debt - albeit tax-deductable debt (one of the many joys of being unemployed a freelance seal-clubbing professional: this becomes a business expense!) - we chose to leap headlong into a bright, beautiful, wonderful new world of apple-flavored servitude. Who knows: maybe I'll even pay it off someday.

All that being said... 24" is a hell of a lot of beautiful screen.

3. Yesterday TheWife got to go through her second corporate layoff experience since she took her new job back in July. Fortunately, she's still employed (thank god)... but to say that we're feeling a bit unsettled right now would be a supreme understatement. Plus, it's clear that her employer is on somewhat uncertain ground these days — witness this e-mail she sent me from work just after 7am yesterday:

To: TwoBusy

From: TheWife

Subject: My glamorous life as a VP

Our cutbacks mean we have no real copier in the office anymore.

Hence: I had to truck it over to Fedex Kinkos in freezing weather to make copies at 6:30 in the morning. Good times.

Wish me luck today! With all the firings!

In a not-unrelated story... TheWife is job hunting again. We've got dueling Monster profiles and everything. It's quite romantic, really.

(slamming head against desk)

4. Oh! I almost forgot to mention: we're continuing to see more and more horrible movies. I don't know how this is even possible, but we've been on a remarkable streak for months now... I think our Netflix fail rate is somewhere close to 70%. With that in mind, I implore you to avoid like the plague the following:

• Hancock - You know what the best part of this movie was? When it fucking ended.
• The Foot Fist Way - Rolling Stone said it was hilarious, and I - like a complete tool - believed them. Thanks, Peter Travers. You suck.
• Step Brothers - I met with a headhunter in early December, and somehow our conversation turned to this movie... and she spent a full ten minutes describing scenes from the movie that she claimed were so funny that she was left gasping for breath with tears streaming down her face. So, we rented and watched it. Lesson learned: don't trust headhunters. (And by the way: how long has it been since Will Ferrell did something that didn't suck like a lamprey? I mean, I'll grant you that Blades of Glory had a couple of funny moments, but really... since Anchorman in 2004, he's released nothing but a steady stream of steaming piles of something unsavory. At what point do we lose faith? I say: right here, right now. I'm taking a stand.)
• Tropic Thunder - Clearly, I'm in the minority here. But in all honesty, I can say two things about this movie: 1) I don't think I laughed once after the director exploded. That was funny. The rest of it? Not so much. 2) Not to get too sensitive or PC, but I had real problems with the repeated, repugnant "retard" jokes. Look, I'm not reacting in knee-jerk fashion by any stretch of the imagination — but when a film repeatedly has long, painful stretches where the funny is supposed to be found by belittling people with intellectual disabilities... well, that's a problem for me. And it's not that I don't get that, to an extent, the entire "Simple Jack" thing is supposed to be a comment on actors and award-winning performances rather than on the subject of those films. But there's no mistaking the grotesquery of "Simple Jack"... and while that's meant to be comedic, I found it grossly offensive. (As I did the sequence with Matthew McConaughey talking about adopting a kid while looking at a photo of himself and his Down Syndrome son, and saying "At least you still have a choice. I'm stuck with mine.") Not funny, and not even remotely cool.

5. Finally, on a much more enjoyable note, I'll share that I had lunch with my friends and ex-colleagues Koko and Swoosh yesterday. Why do you care? Well, first off, clearly because you're aware that I'm desperately in need of opportunities to socialize with people outside of my family. And I thank you for your concern. But more pertinently, you care because Koko - who was celebrating his first day off crutches since he broke his heel the night after we saw Sigur Ros in September - shared a great story.

About a month ago, he was getting dressed in the morning in preparation for a big meeting with a potential seal-clubbing client — so unlike most days, when he looks like a vagrant, he was wearing a full-on suit and tie. At this stage in his long healing process, he'd moved beyond a hard cast and was now wearing some kind of velcro-secured soft cast over his whole lower leg... designed to hold his foot/ankle in place, I guess. So on this morning, unlike most days, he had to get himself all clean and spiffy before securing the soft cast in place over his suit. What he failed to realize, however, is that as he sat and leaned over to slip on the soft cast and then seal it up... his tie got caught in the velcro.

Which means that when he tried to stand up, his tie instantly tightened around his neck like a noose — and instead of rising to a standing position, he ended up literally flipping himself ass over teakettle across the floor of his apartment. And it was there, lying on the floor in the fetal position, sucking air into his lungs as he frantically loosened his tie, that he realized that he just came thisclose to qualifying for the Darwin Awards.

(I miss my stupid friends.)

iMirror, iMirror Part II: The Quickening

In which I continue to waste your time.

ABC: That Was Then But This Is Now
And sometimes, your memories just don't stand up to the light of day. ABC was a band that I absolutely hated back when they were relevant — the new romantic stylings of radio-saturated hits like Poison Arrow and The Look of Love came off as the kind of lounge-quality cheese that just made my skin crawl. In retrospect, I can see and understand that they were trying to work some kind of Roxy Music update... but that doesn't change the fact that, unlike Roxy Music, everything they did pretty much sucked.

All of which helps to explain why I was so surprised when they released That Was Then But This Is Now as a single... and I liked it. I mean, honestly: it was confusing to me how a band I hated so much could produce a song I liked so much. I was comfortable hating them. It worked for them; it worked for me. This song just... confused the issue. And in the early-mid 80s, as I tried to navigate my way through multiple rings of middle school hell, if there was one thing I didn't need it was extra things to feel confused about.

But there it was: a drama-soaked chorus punctuated with clean, clear piano strikes, slashing through the rest of the song's quasi-political lyrical cheese like a samurai sword through a rotten watermelon (can we pause here for a moment to appreciate the stunning beauty of that metaphor? Thank you.). Let's face it: when you're a seventh-grade boy trying to figure the world out, you're easy prey for that kind of a hook. And I was hooked, albeit much against my will. Even at that tender age, however, I was cognizant enough to realize that one song I liked was not enough to countermand my profound dislike of everything else I'd ever heard by the band... and so, in the end, ABC's Beauty Stab did not become a part of my then-nascent collection of cassettes.

Despite that, the chorus (or, at least, the part of it containing the song title and those clean, clear piano strikes) stayed in my head for decades... until last week, when I finally took the plunge and downloaded the song. And you know what? I still like the chorus. And the rest of the song is just horrible. Seriously. The lyrics? "Can't complain, musn't grumble/Help yourself to another piece of apple crumble"... I mean, there's a special place in hell for people who write like that. That thing they do in Singapore? Caning? Yeah, that seems about right to me. Whoever wrote those lyrics should be caned. A lot.

THE WHO: One Life's Enough
It's strange to think of it now, but my introduction to The Who was their inglorious swan song, 1982's It's Hard. The cover shot - the band dressed in skinny ties and black suits, looking awkwardly at the camera while they stand around a teenaged boy playing a video game (Asteroids? Centipede? Ms. Pac-Man?) in what can only be construed as a half-assed attempt at echoing the narrative core of Tommy - gives you a pretty good idea of how successful the album as a whole turned out to be.

Not that I was aware of any of this when I first bought the album (pardon me: cassette) back in '83. All I knew is that this was the band that used to smash all their instruments and they were just as important in the pantheon of rock as the Stones and the Beatles and they had a cool logo with an arrow that I could try to emulate on the inside of my Trapper Keeper (before I moved on to attempting to recreate the Def Leppard font) and they had a crazy drummer (who, uh, I didn't realize died several years before this album was ever released) and, well, all of that was more than enough justification for me to consider it a pretty cool addition to my life. For a little while, at least.

But while the bulk of this album eventually receded back into the dustiest corners of my memory (and rightfully so), one song stayed with me. A tiny sliver of a song, only 2:21. Barely even a song; a sketch set to music. But it stayed with me.

One Life's Enough is a piano ballad, and to be honest it may have been one of the first piano ballads I ever heard and responded to. Listening to it now, I see how that simple, gentle piano figure is almost completely overwhelmed by the then-cutting edge synths that Townsend & Co brought into the song. But the synths are completely beside the point: this song is all about the piano, and Roger's Daltrey's unusually restrained and gentle vocals, and a brief and unexpectedly poignant set of lyrics that capture in lovely and almost haunting form that moment of first love, first contact, first time. But it's not the eroticism of the lyrics ("Throw back your head/let your body curve into the long grass of the bay") that resonates for me as much as the sense of nostalgia — of being unable to stop yearning for that one perfect moment long ago when life overflowed with passion and the infinite excitement of the unknown becoming known. "That was a life enough for me," Daltrey sings as the piano flutters beneath him, and then he and we are lost and helpless before the memory of a time gone by, a place we can no longer see, the people we no longer are.

Then, too soon, it is over.

iMirror, iMirror, on the wall...

Santa did indeed visit Castle TwoBusy this year, and while he may not have rained down treasures on my pointy little head as he did back in the days when I was a wee little pessimist, the truth is that this year he didn't really need to (my fervent wishes for a shiny new job under the tree notwithstanding). Why? Because, about a week and a half before Christmas, I took myself out retailing and returned home with a shiny new iPhone.

Now, TheWife has had a BlackBerry (or a variation thereof) for years now, and for years I've been teasing her about her profound and passionate devotion to said CrackBerry. Not that I haven't taken advantage of its remote web/e-mail access functionality a few times, but really... the habit has been hers and hers alone, while in the meantime I've been left with phones that were barely functional as phones.

All that changed this year. What with me getting laid off and all, I felt that it was time to finally ensure that I had access not only to all the phone calls with job offers I'd inevitably be buried with, but also full, complete and unfettered access to the hundreds of e-mails with similar offers. So, you know... I had legitimate business purposes for upgrading.

Plus, you know: it's cool as hell.

Anyhow, as an unrelated byproduct of this purchase, I suddenly found myself with a brand new and totally compelling rationale to finally put to good use the $50 in iTunes Gift Cards I'd accumulated over the past year.

Let's be clear: I'm a CD guy. I'm a late technology adapter in serial fashion, but my ongoing love of and devotion to the CD format is more than that: it's an expression of the fact that I know for a fact that many of my favorite songs - the ones that grab my heart and make it twist and ache and yearn in all kinds of compelling ways - are, more often than not, tracks that I never, ever, ever would have found if my music was limited to what I hunted down and purchased online on a song-by-song basis. I love the way that a full CD allows me to get a better feel for the artist than any single-song sample might allow: the way it allows you to peer into the influences (conscious or not) that influenced the artist, to link together themes that recur and echo from song to song, to lose yourself for 40+ minutes in whatever world the artist has created and nourished and carefully pieced together, here, for you.

That being said, I also understand the appeal of the whole "buy just one song" thing. I mean, I'm a compulsive CD shopper, as apt to buy an entire album on the basis of a single song or even just something I read or heard as I am to breathe. (It's something of a problem.) And while my hit-to-miss ratio has been pretty good over the years, there are certainly more than a few CDs in my collection I can point to where I clearly would have been much better off downloading a single song than buying another shiny coaster that realistically does little more than gather dust in my living room.

So: with all that in mind, I decided to look at my shiny new iPhone - and it's shiny embedded iPod and iTunes, and my two shiny $25 Gift Cards - as a musical challenge. What songs did I want to have access to, with full knowledge and confidence that I'd never actually want to own an entire CD of the same? In many senses, this was an opportunity to indulge guilty pleasures... songs I'd always secretly grooved to on the radio, but I'd never in a million years find the motivation or deep-seated need to hunt down, pay for, and bring home in a nifty little plastic bag.

And thus, with the help of TheWife (to a degree: her pleas for more songs by Asia and White Lion have fallen on deaf ears), I began to download. Thus far, I've added 21 songs to my life — and as I now listen to this new mix while I cook each evening, I find myself surprised (and occasionally taken aback) by what I hear. For example:

JOURNEY: Separate Ways, Faithfully, Don't Stop Believin'
When I first said the words "guilty pleasure" to TheWife, I'd barely finished the second syllable of the second word before she started clamoring for Journey! We need Journey! We totally need Journey! She was, of course, completely right. Within a few minutes, I'd located and downloaded these three classiques de fromage (as well as their unavoidable companion piece, Steve Perry's solo Oh, Sherrie). All of which made TheWife jump up and start dancing in exquisitely goofball fashion with our young'uns, hands and hair shooting off in odd directions in tiny paroxysms of something approximating joy... which, I'll admit, was fun to watch.

But a few days later, with her back at work and me in the kitchen grinding out a big batch of chicken tikka masala, as I found myself listening to three different Journey songs in less than half an hour and unconsciously singing along with them, I'll have to admit that I suddenly felt extremely self-conscious and dorky. (Clarification: extra-dorky.) Not in the sense that liking Journey wasn't cool even back in the day, but more in the sense that in my adult life, Journey fandom has generally been associated with people I prefer to avoid — specifically, a satanic, evil pig of an ex-boss from about a decade ago who spent an entire year on the phone (with me sitting helplessly in a cube directly outside her office, unable to do anything) screeching in her unique glass-cutting voice about her engagement to Russell... bitching about Russell (and I have to interject here that to picture this woman and her voice, you have to think of Melanie Griffith in "Working Girl," then make her really, really loud and mean) to her mother, bitching about the wedding to her mother, bitching about her mother and the wedding to her presumably horrifying friends, bitching about everything to her wedding planner, and then - finally - planning and executing her wedding gift to her equally satanic and piggish betrothed: the Journey box set and two front-row tickets to a Journey reunion concert.

(shudder)

Granted, calling them dorks is, really, an insult to dorks. But nevertheless, it's what went through my head. And then, suddenly, as all this flowed through my skull Steve Perry launched into Faithfully's "whoa-oo whoa-oo whoa-ooooo" section... and without a second thought, I left all cares behind and allowed myself to finally, at last, fall into the warm embrace of the cheese. And it felt wonderful.

THE DARKNESS: I Believe In A Thing Called Love
On an awesomeness scale of 1-10, this song ranks a 47. Even without the video - which is, granted, hysterically funny - this song is everything you could hope for in 4:21. Crazy falsetto quasi-cheese metal vocals and sing-along chorus, cool guitars (and lots of 'em), plus an album cover that allows my kids to look at a naked butt every time the song comes on my iPhone. It's a win-win-win, and I am completely unrepentant about my love for it. Tell me I'm wrong. Go ahead: I defy you.

THE ALAN PARSONS PROJECT: Don't Answer Me
Why has everyone forgotten this song? Yeah, anyone can hum you a few bars of Eye in the Sky, but this was a waaaaay more interesting piece of work: a wonder of instant nostalgia and broken hearts, fusing together Phil Spector's Wall of Sound with the spirit (if not the voice) of Roy Orbison to create something timeless. And that's not even counting the video, which (for my money) is just as fascinating and visually innovative as a-ha's much more famous Take On Me. But I didn't buy this song for the video... I bought it for the song. I remember being moved by its almost cinematic take on romance falling apart - "Don't answer me... don't break the silence, don't let me win..." - and I'll be damned if all these years later, it doesn't still work small miracles. Wow.

QUEENSRYCHE: Silent Lucidity
Still, easily, the all-time winner of the coveted "Best Usage of the Word Lucidity in a Song Title" award. What can I say? Yeah, I realize that it's an update of Comfortably Numb much in the same way that Take A Picture is a kind of updated Solsbury Hill... but I can't help it: I get sucked in every time. And more than that, Silent Lucidity has one of those snippits of song that's remained stuck and resonant in my head forever. Do you have any idea of what I'm talking about? Maybe it's just me, but I find that above and beyond my normal (sorry: I realize my definition of "normal" may differ from, uh, everybody's) obsession with music and memory for songs, lyrics, melodies... it's like there's also a Twitter version of that memory — one that seizes a five- or ten-second snippit of a song and lodges it in my brain, where from time to time it becomes dislodged unexpectedly and swims to the forefront of my consciousness, at which point it starts playing over and over and over again and begins to move and/or motivate me in strange and wonderful ways.

Anyhow, Silent Lucidity is one of those songs that's become Twitterized and lodged in my brain for... what, 15+ years now? Specifically, the part where Geoff Tate's voice momentarily grows a little more gentle and he sings, "A soul set free to fly..."

I don't know why that's stuck with me for so long, but it has.

Anyhow. More to follow. Eventually.