Bad Music

Okay, so this is just plain funny.

There I am, typing away quietly at my computer, as I am wont to do, when all of a sudden my neighbours – nice quiet people that they are – suddenly decide to play some music. Loudly.

I have been known to do this myself, but mostly when I get loud I do so with my headphones on, ‘cause when I get loud I get Rammstein-loud. And that is … noisy.

So anyway, for a few seconds I just sit there grinning like a loon. This is just funny. It’s like bad elevator music, only slightly more upscale. So, the phone rings and I tell my friend that my neighbours are playing some craptastic sleazy elevator music that sounds vaguely like Julio Iglesias, only worse.

My friend thinks I’m taking it unusually well.

What can I say? Crap music tickles my funny bone sometimes. Especially at that volume. I can’t really picture why anyone would want to play it that loud unless they’re trying to cover over other sounds… and I’m not going there. I have to look this people in the eyes if I meet them on the stairs, okay?

Also I can always return fire.

And I can be loud with the best of them. Rammstein, remember. Orff’s Carmina Burana. Wagner. Disturbed. Nine Inch Nails.

That’s the equivalent of someone flicking a rubber band at you and you returning fire with a Stalin’s organ (you know, a Katyusha rocket launcher).

Anyway… there I sit, still sort of smirking and then it hits me.

Shit. Fuck. Damn.

It is Julio.

Load ‘em up. Time to return fire.

ROL

Gypsy music, drugs and philosophy

I don’t generally watch a lot of TV. I like watching movies, but I do a lot of controlled viewing so as to not get sucked into the pointless game shows and what not that’s on offer. It is more or less a question of discipline and shielding yourself from the kind of stupidity that makes you want to bang your head against the wall.

Yesterday I was just too washed out to do anything else. So I lay there on my couch, one foot on the floor, in that state of consciousness where you might as well be staring into the fire. I mean that’s what you can use the box for sometimes.

I watched a documentary about Jimmy Rosenberg, the gypsy guitarist. Fascinating stuff. Such talent – and such a waste. I mean the guy can do things with a guitar that are absolutely fascinating even if you don’t like this kind of music.

Seeing him at ten when he can hardly reach around the guitar is … well. Fucked up, but in an interesting way. Seeing him fucked-up on heroin and broken by the world about ten years later – not so much fun actually. But it’s one of those thing that you watch and you get a little angry on his behalf. That much talent, that much given to him and he fucks it all up. You can play connect the dots the whole way through the show. Abusive father, something interesting in family dynamic, too much drugs and success at an early age. If he gets his shit together he will have some awesome stuff to put into his music. But, sadly, it is too easy to see how he will slip and kill himself before his time.

The connection they make is with Django Reinheardt which makes sense, but I keep thinking of Chet Baker for some reason. Must be the heroin and the squandering of talent.

I think the thing that hooked me into the show was probably when Jimmy says something about making mistakes and how the only thing you learn from making mistakes is that you never want to do that again. Makes you angry and sad. And he’s absolutely right about that.

But it doesn’t really help and that’s the sad thing. You keep on making the same stupid mistakes over and over again if you can’t figure out why you’re making them.

I don’t normally give out advice, but the one thing I have found myself saying to various friends and acquaintances is that once you figure out why you’re doing something you can stop doing it.

Sound’s simple, huh?

It really isn’t.

Just think about it. It doesn’t matter if you’re choosing the wrong people or the wrong jobs or the wrong solutions to your problems. Patterns are hard to break. Pattern recognition is not something you are born with, it’s something you have to strive hard for. And then make sense of.

In the meantime all you can do is keep you head down.

And not do any hard drugs, because that is never the solution.

ROL