Something has changed within me, Something is not the same -- Stephen Schwartz, "Defy Gravity"
'Well , that's pretty good. (He smiles approvingly) But I hear the 31st year is the hardest.' -- Saint J.J. of Arizona
The assault by mediocre '80s music is ripping relentless today. No one ever in public circumstances -- when I'm in the room at least -- plays a palatable 1980s tune anymore (of which there are very very few, btw) -- like "Rock Me, Amadeus" or "Another One Bites the Dust" or the spectacular "Tainted Love," by Soft Cell, or an early Madonna dance-stomp or something, which @ least had a little humor, imagination, and oxygenated blood in their systems.
Lord help us,, it's '80s muzak now, like, everywhere, all 24/7. Simulating a low-grade bunsen burner, in a lab, flickering away inocuously. Flowing, like tepid water over cold stone, into every sinew of Western culture, every crack in the four walls, every stuffy elevator in every building that needs a lift, every suburban-ready auto that whizzes by, sluicing down and thru every city-street gutter, feeding all the street-side storm drains, and (of course) across almost every YouTube viral post that undulates on a PC, like a malicious hulk of a stranger creeping out of a dark copse of trees. -- So . . . . , that was a rapid-pulse rant: but, you get it. Clearly, this insufferable, infected stuff, from an other awful decade, is humming away freakin' everywhere nowadays.
Speaking of '80s tunes . . With real struggle, a while back, I was trying to swallow some very smokin' pepper chicken, with curry rice, which constituted my in-restaurant lunch of that day. The soundtrack of our lives cranked up. Oh no. Not again. Mercy. I was haunted by these things the last time I ate here. Life is . . . a total eclipse of the heart . . . and Life is . . . . 'a highway, I'm gonna ride it all night long' . . . and, forever, Life is an . . . . 'I can't fight the feeling any-more' . . . horror-show. But, But, But I like the night life, baby! -- Enough!, I whispered, sighing. Hey, now. Can't you invisible, '80s music CD-makeing fuckers see that I'm trying to stomach some midday nourishment here? Switch it. Off! I was in a local Double Dragon -- Wok 'n Roll Chinese Fare!, encircled by young and old alike of pure Asian descent, sweating over their styrofoamed food boxes and plastic forks, unable to speak any English. I wanted to lean over to ask, 'Pardon me, Lee Fong Yum, but how do you folks say 'total eclipse of the heart' in your mysterious, Asian dialect?' Oh, hmmm -- you say: c'est tu? -- Really? 'That's all folks? Toast time?' Well, that's cool and certainly not what I expected, Wok-Master Fong.
A stupid grin creased my face. Nobody looked up from their formica and styrofoam. A gentle two-word phrase began to float softly down on me. From above. Right onto me; a downward cascade of hallucino-whatever bytes. Feeling like an embrace of sorts, a kind of soothing and body-warming blanket, as in an O.R. prep, right before the real cutting-fun starts.
The first letter of that prophetic pair of words -- a big D -- swept over my left shoulder and rolled down my side. The last letter -- a big and basic Y -- slid over my right side, and cartwheeled down past the edge of my hard restaurant chair, down toward the slate floor. The fullsome words swooped around and over me, as if a hovering archangel had hushed down and around my indigestive limbs and torso. Crap! What is that? I felt some other reality with(in) me. F____. Is this it? Now?, I barely whispered, gasping, becoming afraid. -- Am I gone? (Of course, I had whispered these hot words to no one in particular. No one within earshot could grasp what I was huffing. Unless of course I had absurdly gasped instead, 'F____me. I think it's the Sesame Chicken.' Which might have at least elicited a furtive Asian grin or two. )
Over me. Floating down and around. Into me. Oof. A silent, bodiless message from someone or somewhere unseen. << Hug, hug >> DEFY GRAVITY.
What? (In my feeble mind: Elphaba, all green and glorified and uplifted, with perfect theatrical lighting and glittery effects, takes silent flight. Up. Up! A straight, vertical whoosh, like an arrow shot up into airy Emptiness. The raibow-hued cast of characters all around below her crane their necks. . . . up, up --
Too late to go back to sleep, It's time to trust my instincts
Close my eyes, And leap -- It's time to try defying gravity
Whoa. Wicked cool effect, y'all. Here come the tears. Images of transcendence always get tome, and melt the audience folk. Hey, how did that tall, green girl -- with the pointy black hat -- manage that? Hey now. Bravo!)
Defy gravity, I thought aimlessly again. And you can't, you won't, pull me down!
(Where did that come from?) Then, quickly, the illusion, a visceral magic trick that my mind had played on me, vanished.
(I should note this to you. Every afternoon, very tired, I drive home after work on a freeway. My car passes by the local city airport. About 5:00 on the dot -- a piercing, arrow-like Canadair commuter jet, crammed with living souls who feel aches and pains, and hopes and dreams, and fears, slices above my line of sight and across my freeway. It shoots in from the Western sky. I watch it powerlessly, in awe. It's heavier than air. Still it flies smoothly, violating every law of physics ever known by me. The sleek little thing darts in from the open, angles down a bit, and like a bullet on its ordained track races eastward fast, toward its landing spot. X marks the end, a journey completed. Then the plane is off my screen, and it's gone, and so am I down the highway.)
In my mind, red dark curtains closed up quickly, as as some hidden voice (all Wizard of Oz-ly) cried, And you won't pull me down . . . , then those stunning curtains swished slightly. Intermission now? In truth, I hadn't thought about the play Wicked in a hundred years. My gray-matter defy gravity fireworks began to fizzle, as I drove on, dropping down like sparks from an opaque sky.
80s music About the only song I get a decent, perceptible twinge of feeling from is a 1985 tune from Theater of Pain -- that's Motley Crue's "Home Sweet Home."
For 30 years, and now a few days more, I have longed to grasp sobriety. It's an illusive state. Always a bit out of reach and out of hand. Always hovering a bit above one's bony grasp. Defy. Refuse to lose. No, chemical illusion. How many times I have said in my defenseless cranium -- defiantly but always in fear -- And you won't pull me down!
My Hearts Like an Open Book, For the World To Read, Sometimes Nothing
Keeps Me Together, At The Seams -- I’m On My Way, I’m On My Way,
Home Sweet Home, Tonight, Tonight -- I’m On My Way,
Just Set Me Free -- Home Sweet Home
-- Nur Hidayah
Are you the Monster, or am I? Maybe the Monster is both of us. -- Anonymous
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