Scum

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Lean back and stare at the blank for a bit. Casting into the void, then reeling back. It’s a miasma today; things are swirling, but I’m not hooking anything, so I look at my array of post-it notes on the left. There’s a killer line there, but it needs the right place to have the impact that I want to deliver with it, and that can’t be made to happen today. Sartorial is still there, but it’s been there a long time for a reason, so I check the notes on my phone. There’s a poem in the offing, but I’m not feeling very poetic. Weirdly, country music often triggers a poetic urge, but I despise country music with a deep and abiding passion, so I never listen to it except by accident.
It’s not the fact that it’s country music. There is tons of shite music out there, and not all of it’s country. Every music genre has plenty of cruddy representation, and a lot of people think death metal is unlistenable as well.

That’s fair enough, it’s intense. It’s noisy and angry sounding, people are screaming, weird feats of technical skill and endurance are being performed by strange looking, sweaty people who are doing their best to effect a monstrous aspect, and they’re doing a great job. I love it. I love it so much, but it’s not for everybody, so I don’t push it on people anymore.

I used to. I was well known, for a time, for hijacking stereos at parties and cranking Sore Throat, or Napalm Death, or Carcass. Sore Throat, and the early albums of Napalm Death had songs so short that 2 or three of them would get play before someone could get me out of the way so they could change the music back to something more socially acceptable like AC/DC, or Van Halen, or maybe Motley Crue. If there weren’t too many chicks around they could play Girls, Girls, Girls, or Smokin’ in the Boys Room, or country.

I once played Napalm Death ‘Scum’ for a fellow named Conroy. Conroy was a very square individual, pleasant, placid, and polite. He was a friend of the family, and we got along quite well, well enough that we used to hang out. He was several years older than I, but friends of that age were normal for me as there weren’t many kids in church that were my age when I was growing up, and lots of my older brother’s friends would take me along when they went fishing, or dirt biking, or whatever. I can’t recall what type of music Conroy listened to, but it was certainly not 80’s grindcore. He was, quite simply, flummoxed. He didn’t know what he was listening to, and by the time I got around to trying to explain, several songs had already played, because, remember, some of them were only 3 seconds long. He was literally driving along with his mouth agape, trying to comprehend. He asked me, “Is this real? Are these guys actually TRYING to sound this way?” I assured him that this is EXACTLY how they wanted to sound, and wasn’t it.....wasn’t it what, exactly?

It’s a mess is what it is. Grindcore is a calculated blur of intensity too fast for articulation. But what is it’s purpose? It certainly isn’t to make money, grindcore guys are broke. I guess it’s just their language, and I thought I understood it. Maybe I did, but the appreciation of art is like that, you like what you like, and that’s enough, or at least I think it should be.

I don’t listen to grind anymore. I like clarity and precision, and at least some identifiable notes and structure in my music. I listen to the Grindcrusher compilation once in a while for nostalgia, but I generally leave it at that. Napalm Death is still my favourite band of all time, though. After well over thirty years, I think they’ve finally split up, and I think that’s good too. Good for them, and thanks for all the noise.

That last word was the 666th of the rough draft! BY ACCIDENT! That’s....well, if you know, you know. Epic, and I’m so happy right now. It’s like one of those signs from god that people see on their toast, or in a free parking spot, but actually awesome.

Speaking of nostalgia, have you ever listened to Fire Woman by The Cult? I really liked that song when it came out. It had something that most of the other releases of the time didn’t besides Ian Astbury’s voice. I’m not sure what it was, but I liked it, and even admitted it. Anyway, I listened to it again recently, and was kind of appalled. Yes, Ian’s voice is great, and that riff definitely has a hook in it, but they use it too much for my interest, and what is he saying? I read the lyric sheet and found out that he was saying nothing, nothing good, anyway. Well, nothing that I liked, but I guess I’m picky when it comes to lyrics once I can understand them. I’m a writer. It’s what I do.

The Melvins write a lot of gibberish for lyrics. It’s funny to read them because of how hard it is. We want sentences to have all the parts that make them make sense, and when they’re not there, but they’re almost there, it’s very discombobulating. I think it’s fantastic. I don’t even know how they can write that stuff. Some people write gibberish when they’re TRYING to make sense; to intentionally write stuff that makes no sense at all, but looks like it should is a different level of devious genius in my books.

My girlfriend listens to country music. In fact, she loves it. LOVES IT! She loves me too. So when I sit in her car, and she says, “Oh, you probably hate this music. I’ll turn it off.”, I tell her to leave it on. I don’t hate the music because it makes her happy, so how could I? I don’t listen to it when I’m in my vehicle, but I don’t hate it. I just try to comprehend what it is about the music that makes her happy so that I can too. I’m in no danger of ‘going country’, I just had to reaffirm that to y’all as well as myself. How could I be a dick about her music tastes when she watches me get goosebumps and cry while trying to whistle along to Kalmah when we’re driving in my van? I nerd out so hard when I’m listening to metal with someone else; it actually brings me joy, and for me, sadly, that’s often hard to come by.
People with brains like mine struggle with getting enough dopamine, that’s why we’re so prone to addictions of all sorts. It’s difficult to feel happy, and it’s hard to not focus on the problems, or create them if there’s none laying around, but that’s not the way to be happy, or sane, if you’re asking me.

So take your joys whenever you can, and apply that favourite, disgusting sounding emotional condiment. Relish it, relish your stupid little joys, slather it on. Don’t turn your life hot-dog into a shit sandwich by being a dickhead because your opinion is more important to you than someone else’s freedom to get goosbumps over something that you don’t understand. You’re allowed to be free, in fact, it’s your responsibility to be free, and it’s their’s too. You don’t have to agree, and you don’t have to understand anything but this, that’s their business.

Take care of your own.

Don’t be a dick.