The Worst of all Music

Ahem. Ahem. Everyone settle down. Please. Can we have some order? I've got a few things to say.

There's no worse music than the music your girlfriend likes. Even if you kinda like the music your girlfriend likes, you can't really like it. You can't fully like it. You certainly can't share a lot of the same feelings for her music because frankly... music is our strongest link to the past. And no matter what music your girlfriend listens to, it's music she discovered before she discovered you. It's the music that will always remind her of ex-boyfriends and summer time blues and youth gone wild and wee small hours of the morning.

Something happens to me when relationships start, I have the urge to pretend their pasts never existed. Like it was all pretend. This is an especially odd instinct because have you ever been with someone far too naive for their own good? It's bothersome to say the least.

It's hard to think that they've had great times - perhaps the best of times with someone else. It's not cheating, often times, they never knew you existed and you'd be upset if they begrudged you your own past experiences, but nevertheless, if I hear one more girl tell me she's not that into Springsteen because she once dated a dude who played Bruce all the time and she totally got sick of it and thinks of his crazy ass everytime she hears "Glory Days" I'm going to throw a conniption fit.

S'cuse me Adam, um... hi. Longtime reader, first-time commentor. Isn't it possible - more than possible that you've been the very boyfriend you're referring to? Haven't you played Springsteen for girls causing them to think of you everytime one of his songs come on the radio?

Ahem. Well, that' a fine question. I uh, I'm not sure how you got in here. This was supposed to be a private conference filled with people who would only ask me powder puff questions. But I'm game.

I'd hope that I have never been that guy. My intention has always been to introduce people to certain music without pimping on them.

Frankly, I'm scared to play any music truly important to me, for fear that I will ruin it for someone. Or God forbid, that someone ruin it for me.

Your girlfriend's music is also the worst because eventually you are going to mention a favorite song of yours and realize that someone has already come into her life and given it some sort of meaning. Like a dog aiming to pee on a tree only to sniff the scent of another. And God help you if it's not just a song, but an entire singer or band taken up by someone else. I've been with girlfriends in the past that had wonderful, beautiful music completely soured by some ex-boyfriend or some oppressive boss at work.

Nothing you can tell me will ever make me as mad as if you tell me one of my favorite artists was ruined for you because of some stupid sonuvabitch who probably shouldn't have been listening to that music in the first place.

But Adam, again, aren't you pompously writing about a girfriend's musical history as if you haven't any history of your own? Is it ridiculous to say you may very well have ruined songs and bands for someone else?

No. It's not reasonable. Next question.

As a matter of fact... security, can you remove the person that asked that question? I will not be taken to task at my own press conference.

Would anyone else like to smart off?

Good.

The fact is, music is more a symptom than the entire disease of people's pasts. I'll never be able to listen to a girlfriend's favorite band or favorite song and feel what she feels when she listens to it. It isn't from my time. It's leftovers. Part of me hates this because I hate being out of sync, I hate carrying with me the absolute inability to understand. But another part of me hates it because I know there are those out there who do share those feelings.

They were there.

They helped form her attachments.

I'd hate to think that I ruined Springsteen for someone. Or maybe The Killers. Or The Black Eyed Peas. Or perhaps Streisand. My God, they're all so talented.

Churchin'

"What do people do in this place?"
- Adam, age 8, standing inside a church exposing his guilt-ridden mother's failure at raising a non-heathen.

My mother always said her two biggest regrets in raising me were that she didn't take me to the eye doctor as often as she should have and that we rarely went to church as a family.

I don't have 20/20 vision, but I also don't need glasses. I'm constantly reading and my handwriting is smaller than this font. I'm not sure how often a mother is expected to take her son to the eye doctor, but by most accounts, she did just fine.

The church thing... well, that's another story.

I had blocked tear ducts as a kid that required

two separate surgeries. My mom (lower right) brought me

to see these two nuns who prayed I wouldn't die
I didn't die and my mom repaid the nuns by

never going to church again.

I don't understand church.

And when I say "church," I'd like to include temples, mosques, and all other houses of worship. For the sake of this blog however, I'm going to type "church" because it's easier than qualifying every possible religious facility.

I'd better cool my jets here for a second and clarify that this is not going to be an anti-religion blog. This isn't 1940 and I'm not from Russia. I'm not calling spirituality, one's personal beliefs, or religion itself silly. I don't think those things are silly and even if I did, I'd be in the severe minority and it would be stupid for me to say so.

But the actual ritual of attending church seems silly.

And it isn't as if I've got no church background. Quite honestly, I might have a more well-rounded church background than the average person - I lived in a Catholic nunnery for 11 months for God's sake...!

Well, okay it wasn't for His sake necessarily, but I'm sure He didn't mind.

When I was 8-years-old, my best friend was a boy named Charles. When I'd sleep over at his house on Saturdays, his family would take me to their Baptist church services the following morning. They never really asked if I had any interest in going to their church and I never considered my own opinion on the matter. Frankly, I didn't care. At that point, I didn't really know what church was.

When I got inside the massive house of worship, it was a hullabaloo of excitement. I must have seen church services on old episodes of "Dallas" or "Who's the Boss?" or something because whatever my expectation of church at that point might have been, they were far exceeded that first day of Charles' Baptist church.*

I can't imagine church getting any better than this. Whooping, hollering, jumping, sweating (so much sweating). Isn't this the way church should be organized? Protestants and Catholics and Jews all over the world constantly fall asleep on Sunday mornings, but not the Baptists. The Baptists might pass out (which I believe is called "gettin' gripped" or perhaps "catchin' the Holy Ghost"), but that's different from falling asleep.

When I go to a rock concert, I tend to jump and clap and yell to high Heaven. When I was at Baptist Church, I tended to jump and clap and yell to high Heaven. I've always considered rock'n'roll more of a religion than anything else. Clearly, the Baptists are on the same page.

Many years later I found myself teaching in a Catholic school. I'm not Catholic. I don't have anything against Catholics. Some of my best friends are Catholic. So are some of my worst enemies. Every Monday, the students would begin their day in the school's modest chapel for an hour service. I never felt comfortable solemnly praying in a house of worship of which I was not a member.

I never know what to do when everyone gets up to eat the wafer and drink the wine. It's like a lazy witch-hunt. Those who go for a snack are fine, those standing in the aisle like schmucks with empty tummys are to be burned at the stake after our Godfaring is done.

But I can't just go up there and take the sacrament, can I? That's like, really bad, right? I picture my tongue burning for eternity. Like eating hot salsa every minute until I'm 90-years-old.

Anyway, one September Monday, I opted to sit in the back of the school's church, as I wasn't responsible for any students on this occasion and never felt comfortable demanding that my 6th and 7th graders pay attention to Scripture that I couldn't decipher myself.

Sister Margarita politely allowed me to sit in the rear but feared I'd be setting a bad example for the children. The children were unaware that I was even inside the church and I chalked Sister's words up to knee-jerk Catholic guilt.
The following was written in my journal on 29 September 2003. 9:15 a.m. from the back of St. Katharine's Church:

I'm planning on mapping out the next 40 minutes of church services. Here goes Catholic Mass:

Stand up. Sit down. Little guilt. Cross yourself. Stand up. Sing a song. Sit down. Praise this. Little guilt. Stand up. Sing two more songs. Sit down. Line up. Drink this. Cross yourself. Eat this. Cross yourself. Bow. Sit down. Stand up. Sing some more. Listen while standing. Shake hands. Sit down. Last bit of guilt.

Stand up.

Leave.

Church gives people a structured period of time to step back from the normal distractions of everyday living and focus on their beliefs. For some it's a necessary part of the week. I cannot be considered a part of the population that feels this way. Because when I sit in a church I find myself distracted by the artistic propaganda on the walls, the range of outfits the patrons of my church (and other churches) are wearing,** and the crying babies.

Also, when babies cry and struggle and fuss for an hour straight, I think the rest of us should listen. Think about all those movies and books where the child always tries to warn everyone of danger, but because they are children, the townsfolk just shrug it off and ignore them. Then pure evil comes and eradicates the town and all that is left are the innocent and wise babies.

Babies always cry in church. Why would God allow babies to constantly cry in church and disrupt such holy proceedings? God is totally trying to send us messages via baby tears. We're less than a week from Christmas, a day centered around the baby of all babies - and yet we're ignoring our own.

I bet when baby Jesus cried, someone listened.

There is supposed to be peace, harmony and safety inside the walls of a church but, I feel quite the opposite of safety, as if what I'm doing isn't wrong so much as it isn't right. Most of the time, while in someone else's church, I feel nervous, as if I may be smited at any moment. I just don't know the rules. I was in a Catholic church recently and sat down in a pew without crossing myself or kneeling. When I realized I didn't do it, I kinda half-stood up and slid back into the aisle. I hesitantly bent over like an elderly gentleman who just dropped a quarter, started bending to pick it up, then decided it wasn't worth it.

I forgot which shoulder to touch after I motioned to my forehead while crossing myself, then dejectedly sat down and prayed (really!) that no one saw my dumb ass attempt to fit in. I sat there for the next five minutes imagining God turning to his "Adam's Heaven or Hell Ledger" to tally mark one more in the Hell column.

I also don't know any of the words to any of the songs. I wasn't as worried about this as the kneeling and crossing thing, but it was still disconcerting to hear 15 songs and not know the words to any of them. The last time that happened I was at a Tori Amos concert. And believe me, I was equally uncomfortable and just as sure I was taking several steps closer to Hell by being there too.

And in church, sometimes they have their patrons sing while sitting down. You're not supposed to sing while sitting! It squishes the diaphragm and causes everyone to sing from the throat - which is the absolute worst thing to do to your voice. Hasn't anyone thought about this? Think of all the squished diaphragms, people. Don't sit and sing. This ain't a folk concert.

Let thine voice reach unto the heavens.

Then there's the old saying that describes events as being harder than not laughing in church. Like, "Passing that test was harder to do than not laughing in church." Sayings don't become sayings unless a lot of people sympathize with them. So if a lot of people find it difficult not to laugh in church - what is really being accomplished there that is so important I can't stay home? I don't laugh at home all the time.

And also, I read somewhere that almost 20 percent of married people met at or through their church. That's amazing. That doesn't even take into account the amount of failed relationships or time people spent sneaking peeks at other hot young churchgoers.

Essentially, church is nothing more than a den of lust.

So okay, we've established that my mom and I are going to hell. But I want it stated for the record that I'm not knocking spirituality or religion or anyone's belief in Allah, Kristna, Vitnu, Gozer the Gozerian, Jehovah, God or all those wacky idols freaking out the masses.

I say, pray on my friends.

But church is a total drag to go to and potentially bad for one's health. The kneeling cushions are not nearly as padded as God would have wanted. I'm 6'3" and it's harder than Hell to get up and down off of those things.

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* I say "first day of Charles' Baptist church" because I went several times until my parents found out that I was being taken to someone else's church without their permission. I'm not sure if my folks were upset that I was going to church processions seperate from our own, or if they were guilty that I was getting my religious infusion from someone other then them. Either way, once my parents found out about Baptist Church, I stopped going to it.

** I once saw a man in a purple suit sitting next to a woman wearing a halter top and cutoff shorts and I do believe I would have given everything from my left elbow downward to read what was going on in both of their minds sitting there at that moment.

Dogs and Diamonds

I was in Abercrombie & Fitch the other day. If you've ever met me, you know I have no business being in one of these stores and I assure you, I wasn't too happy being there.
I was doing some investigating for a paper I'm writing. I'm sure you won't believe that, but it's the truth nevertheless.
I mean c'mon, what other reason could I have for sifting through a store employing only the most attractive teenagers in the area, all of whom are at my every beck and call?
There. That explanation should assuage all doubt that I was only there for business.
But that business made me realize that I'm absolutely no longer part of the college quirk anymore.
I just can't fight it.
It's time to save money and invest it.
It's time to find a career and build it.
It's time to woo a girl and wed it... uh, her.

I fear the ring.

Is there anything more immasculating than the thought of purchasing a wedding ring? Every rule has its exceptions but, by-and-large, those who get married are rarely financially secure. The thought of a large diamond purchase looms largely over my head like impending doom.
Most women say that the size of the ring doesn't matter. That the love represented by it is what matters. I've heard girls say this to fiancees before. On the flp side, I've heard many women, amongst themselves, away from the sensitive ears of their male counterparts, speak quite boastfully and gluttonously about the size of the diamond on their finger.
The ring means something. Maybe not everything, but way more than nothing.
Somewhere along the way, our culture of conspicuous consumption got the better of us - all of us.
It would be well within my style to write an entire blog about how silly and dumb the whole diamond ring phenomena is in our culture. I could do it, but I'm not going to. And I'm not going to because I am a consumer of this phenomena.
I completely buy into the bill of sale stipulating the importance of engagement, wedding and anniversary rings.
DeBeers tells me I don't love her unless I spend half-a-year's salary on something that fits her finger. Jared insists she deserves what eight years as a student and AmeriCorps volunteer (along with an impending career in the newsmedia) dictates I'm going to struggle to afford. And correct me if I'm wrong, but according to Kay Jewelers, I'm gonna have to offer up one of their products before I can even get a kiss from my wife! Why must every kiss begin with them?
That's hardly fair.

People are getting slaughtered in Africa over these damn things. Which is not only troubling moralistically, but translates into higher prices for something that isn't technically worth the price I'm paying.
More than a third of the cost to put a respectable ring on my wife's finger (assuming I get married before prices hop even higher) will be inflated by the death of diamond raiders.
What do corpses and the love I have for my wife have in common?
You guessed it. And they're a girl's best friend too.

Men get dogs.

Diamonds are a girls best friend and man's best friend is a damn dog? What does it cost to get a dog? Like $250 bucks? Maybe $300? I'm not talking a pure-bred showdog, I'm talkin' a mutt. I'm talking about a damn bassett hound.
The kind Elvis might sing to.
It doesn't take five months salary to buy a bassett hound. And I'm pretty sure no one overseas has ever been eradicated trying to procure a terrier.
But dogs have about a 10-20 year lifespan and Zales will be the first to remind us that "diamonds are forever."

I hear 'em.
Like I said, I'm not wagging my finger at anyone more than I'm wagging it at myself. Men buy Ferrarri's to make up for various shortcomings (although I believe that to be a myth), why shouldn't women carry their worth or their man's worth around on their second smallest finger? I want nothing less for my fiancee/wife than the very best. I would be embarrassed for myself and for her if she had anything less than exactly what she desired. Because even if she didn't care, many others out there would.

I was nine-years-old when Nike Air Jordan's became extremely popular. So popular in fact, that a size 6.5 shoe yielded a $100 price tag. My mom, up until that point, hadn't spent more than $25 on shoes for me.
But everyone had a version of these shoes (especially in Chicago, where Michael Jordan was more recognizable than the President of the United States) and I got made fun of for wearing L.A. Gears.
Do you remember L.A. Gears? Maybe, in an ironic sort of way.
Do you remember Air Jordans? Hell yes you do.
I begged and I begged and I begged, and in a rare instance of my mother caving in to constant griping, I got my first pair of Air Jordans.
Now, if this were some bullshitter's blog you were reading, you'd probably read that they didn't improve anyone's basketball skills or that Air Jordans were no more comfortable than a pair of $15 Chuck Taylor's and that the Nikes only lasted two months before falling apart.
But I'm not that bullshitter.
I got picked for the schoolyard teams because I had the Jordans. Touching the ball was better than not touching the ball and by that rationale, yeah... those Goddamn shoes made me a better basketball player. And Chuck Taylors hurt my feet as a little kid; gave me awful blisters. And I wore those black and red Nikes for damn near three years, an unheard of amount of time for a growing child to cling to a pair of sneakers.
I loved those shoes and they made my life better.
Not because the shoes themselves were better, but because the people around me afforded me a better life because I wore them.

And my wife might not care about rings or diamonds, but a large majority of the people she will come in contact with are going to care. They're also going to judge both her and me after they do what every single woman on earth does after someone announces that they're getting married. They say...
(Say it with me folks) "Let me see that rock!"
And no one wants to hold out their finger for a gaggle full of jealous, judgmental women to stand around commenting that the ring is "quaint" or "darling".
"Quaint" is the same as a woman saying, "Oh, your husband must not be very good in bed." "Darling" is the verbal equivalent to "Poor girl, must be settling for fear of dying alone."
I don't want that for my wife.

I've been utterly propagandized. I admit it. And I'm not alone.
Show me a petition to outlaw diamond purchases for wedding rings, I'll sign it. Create a mandate enforcing the exchange of awesome t-shirts instead of rings on wedding days and I'll vocally support the cause. Until then... I'm saving for a ring despite having neither a fiancee nor a wedding date in my immediate future.

But there is an out. There's one escape I've concocted and I pray it works in my favor.
Tradition: the great equalizer.
If I can inherit an antique ring from my grandmother - or better yet, a great grandmother - then I can forgo the ring dilemma.
If it's passed down from generation to generation, it holds just as much cache as a muti-karat* diamond ring. And when those fictionalized, manipulative bitches stare at my make-believe fiancee's wedding ring someday, she can proudly hold her head high and tell them she's wearing an antique ring from the Mesazoic Era (or whenever).
The fictional shrews won't know what to make of that. It'll be great. I won't have to start a drug cartel in order to finance a symbol of the devotion to my wife and she can have a kickass vintage ring.
And although I'm not as educated on wedding rings as I am on t-shirts, I can tell you that I'd take a vintage tee over an expensive brand-name shirt any day of the week, no matter what the Solomon Bros., Tiffany and Co., or Abercrombie & Fitch try to tell me**.


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* Do you like how I used the term "multi-karat"? Can you tell I haven't got a firm grasp on how many karats is exceptional? I'm just happy I spelled karat correctly.

** Okay, I understand that Abercrombie & Fitch don't really have anything to do with the diamond trade, but I really hate them and wanted to take them out one last time before I ended this blog.

Covering the Ugliness

Well, we're in the full flush of the holiday season, and despite my love for tinsel and merriment, I'm nevertheless upset.
Which can only mean that I've been forced to go into a department store recently.

I hate department stores in March. Hate them in August.
I loathe them in December.

My girlfriend asked me to pick her up a particular product line of blush that she can't find where she lives and of course, I agreed to do it.
I thought I was a good guy to agree to this - turns out I'm a saint.

Nordstrom. High noon. 20 days before Christmas.

I decided before I left to put on a blazer and a pair of shiny shoes. I was fully aware that I hadn't a clue where to look for makeup and that I would end up doing something stupid before I was through. Because of this, I wanted to at least look as if I was respectable in some other facet - outside of shopping for products I never use.
And yes all you smartasses, I am aware that I'm not respectable in any other facet of my life, but the girl spritzing me with gay-smell doesn't need to know that.

And so there I was, wearily traipsing up and down the aisles unsure what a Smashbox is, but positive that it is the brandname of the (Perfume? Lipstick? Eh, we'll go with "stuff") stuff that my girlie wanted.
I had to admit to being fairly proud of her request. She could have asked me to buy Clinique or Estee Lauder which would have required I practice my broken French. And that would have added insult to injury, so I was thankful that she put Smashbox on her face instead of Estee Lauder. I was a little confused though because I was under the impression that Smashbox was a band from my senior year in high school.*
I'm a man, okay? At least I enjoy pretending I am, so you should understand that I'm not just going to walk up to the first person I see and blindly ask for help. No, no, no. I'm much too smartly dressed for that lollygaggery.
No. I'm going to walk up one aisle looking at all the multi-colored displays of meaningless goop and then down the other aisle doing the exact same thing. And because I'm an idiot, I'm going to do this seven or eight times without gaining any new information before I cave in and do what I should have done in the first place.

Ask for help.

I walk up to some girl and immediately fall back on my usual "I'm-a-stranger-in-a-strange-land-please-don't-make-me-beg"-schtick. Luckily, I was given explicit instructions as to what to purchase. In my hand I held a typewritten note instructing me to look for a Smashbox product in the "Soft Lights" line, the shade of which was "Highlight".
None of this meant anything to me, but I was thankful the information existed. Without it, I'd be sunk.
I read the piece of paper verbatium like the dunce in english class reciting a copied version of the plot synopsis on the back book jacket instead of doing a proper book report like everyone else.
The cashier knew where to look and I was relieved, but only a little. See, I 've done these kinds of things before. No matter how much I prepare, something goes wrong.
Have you ever offered to get someone coffee?
I don't drink coffee, but if I did and someone offered to get me one, I'd say, "Thanks," and then that's it. No cream or Splenda or whatever - because that would be too complicated. But people don't mind being complicated when I'm taking coffee orders. I always get a 37-syllable order that I don't understand because half of the request seemed to be in Russian. I write it down, but because I don't know what the Hell I'm talking about, I can't answer the curveballs those tricky coffee baristas inevitably throw.
So yeah. Something's gonna go wrong.

The product's in my hands now. I'm looking at it, it looks familiar - like the version my girlfriend showed me before, so I buy it. The blush (it's blush, right? It was either blush or colorful tobacco snuff. I'm not really sure how to use either) was no bigger than a yo-yo, and I realize that I haven't any idea how much a disk of blush costs.
My first mistake was taking its physical size into consideration. Those shenanigans might work with guys, 'cause when guys buy something big it takes up a lot of space. If I spend $10,000 dollars on something, that something is going to need its own house. When girls spend $10,000 on something, they can wear it or hide it in a handbag (which probably cost $40,000).
The cashier printed up the receipt and wrapped the pint-sized product in the crappy little Nordy's tissue paper. After putting the blush in the bag** she hands me the receipt. I looked at the price and was immediately compelled to glance back into the Nordstrom bag in hopes that the cashier accidentally sold me four or five of these damn things.
Sonuvabitch.
Do you have any idea how many Jr. Bacon Cheesburgers I coulda bought for the price of this... this... stuff that I don't even know the purpose of?
What is blush anyway? Is it supposed to hide the fact that you're blushing or make it look like you're blushing all the time? Does it hide blemishes?
Is blushing considered a blemish?
Did I really just forgo my kid's college education to help my already attractive girlfriend cover a little ugliness?
'Cause that seems like a Goddamned ripoff.

So ah-ha-ha. I live and I learn, right?
But wait. I'm not done yet, 'cause remember what I said? No matter how much I prepare for buying someone something, the purchase always gets messed up.
I'm in my car and I'm calling a loan agency to help me pay for this blush I just purchased when I actually take a close look at the stuff.
It is Smashbox.
It is from the Soft Light line of Smashbox's products, but the color on the box doesn't say Highlight, it says Smashing Highlight.

Smashing highlight?! What the hell...? Is that the same thing? Is it like Highlight only more smashing?
I don't know.
The term "highlight" when describing a color doesn't mean anything to me.
When I look into a crayon box and it says "Grey Oyster", that's okay. I can visualize the grey of an oyster. But what color is a highlight? And is that color different from a Goddamned smashing highlight? Is it like the difference between the green/blue and the blue/green colored pencils?
I don't know.
Smashing highlight.
Christ. So now, if it's the wrong color, I'm gonna look like a typical worthless male because I don't know shit about skin tones.
There. You caught me. I don't know shit about skin tones.
I also don't know if I'm an "autumn" or a "winter" or what.

I'm going to give her the Smashbox-Soft Lights-Smashing-friggin'-Highlight disk of blush and immediately after doing so, I'm going to find the person responsible for naming all these products and I'm gonna lock myself in a room with this fool until one of us is dead.
But I'M bringing a sock full of nickels.

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* Nope. That's Smashmouth.
** I didn't want a bag. It was shiny and had little string handles. I hate carrying less than five pounds of material in a bag with handles.