To tell the truth, I didn't want to come into the office today. Amazing, I know. And it didn't have all to do with the rain and the wind and the unusually cool June air, though those were factors. Mostly, it had to do with
a hummingbird. I wanted to stay home and strum the guitar in tune with all those sounds that were happening outside. But I did the next best thing.
While sitting on that damp and dirty F train, on my way to work, I dug into my black bag and pulled out the
Shure SE310 earphones, plugged them into my little iPod, scrolled around for a bit, found what I was looking for, and twisted the 'phones into place.
Soon, I was gone.
I have to tell you a little bit about the new Dinosaur Jr. album,
Beyond.
Shit is awesome. And it occurred to me, somewhere during a long and heavenly solo — a long and heavenly solo that had me wanting to fly into the air and rise up against all the heavy rain — that I'll be thirty years old this September, and I've been listening to Dinosaur Jr. since I was a searching seventeen year old, and, for a moment, I wondered whether my love for
Beyond is tinged by nostalgia and my tendency to mourn my lost childhood.
But, no. It's really not. Shit is just awesome. The album begins, yes, in the middle of a solo, but it's not even that. I skipped the opener and got right to the enormously beautiful and dangerously powerful one-two combination of the album's third and fourth tracks, "Crumble" and "Pick Me Up." Soon, I was gone.
And I, normally an extraordinarily docile and introverted subway rider, had trouble keeping to myself. I sat there on the damp and dirty F train, not giving a shit, making funny faces (closing one eye and grimacing with the blatant, straight-ahead no-time-to-fuck-around rock and roll), stomping my foot who knows how hard [the Shures isolate very well] into the innocent train floor, slapping my hands against my thighs, and fighting all sorts of urges. Including air guitar. And I don't even like air guitar.
Mother, I wanted to start a fricking mosh pit on that unsuspecting Monday morning F train. I wanted to first become one with, then flatten, all of its drowsy passengers. Feel it with me, people. Yeah, take that! And, when J Mascis goes into one of his impossibly long and soaring solos, I wanted to leap from my seat and twist and twirl and throw my arms in the air like a delirious fool.
Did I mention I have an iPod now? Not one, but three. Maybe four even. They make life a little bit more enjoyable, I do declare.
