Unicorn Barber

Last week I decided to get a haircut. This wasn’t a choice made out of tact or preexisting conditions, more or less, it was an impulse purchase. I’d like to believe that I don’t often make impulse purchases, but a decent amount of reflection coupled with the decision to write tonight begs a different conclusion from my internal denial. Either way, my hair was getting long, greasy and wild. I love it when I have long hair though. I feel carefree and less self-conscious with a large bottle of gatorade. When my hair is longer, I also secretly hope that some random passer-by would think I skate board or are some sort of freelance slam poet, you know, much cooler. But I had some money that I shouldn’t be spending and needed a pick-me-up, so I did it. After careful research I decided to check out a barber shop that all my local friends raved and fawned over, the White Oak Barber on Dayton Boulevard. I am sort of like my Father in some instances, even though I knew the general direction and address I still mapped out how to get there from work because I had never been there before. After making a silly right turn I found myself circling the block like a broken wheel on a shopping cart to avoid nearby cops and a crowded Taco Bell drive-thru. My mind was pulsing full of nerves. I had already belayed several pro and cons as to why or as to why I shouldn't spend the thirty some odd dollars for a haircut that I was certain any ten dollar “sports accentuated” salon could do. These places are an odd fixture for today's progressive standards. These places revolved around appeasing to man’s basic desire to watch sports-ball, discuss the patriarchy of delicate lawn care and latest Garfield comic while getting a military crewcut from a heavy chest woman named Misti (with an ‘i’) that refuses to call you anything else besides, “Hun.” One of these venues is literally next door to where I work. It’s called “Great Clips”, and it’s also ten dollars.

As I parked, I realized I was about a block farther than I should have been and walked down the sidewalk in the blustery Tennessee air. When I’m making an impulse decision, I often approach as if I was going to go in the curtained off room in the back of a local mom and pop video rental store. I don’t tell anyone where I’m going, what I’m doing and why I’m doing it. I keep my head down and refuse to make eye contact with anyone that could possibly have similar facial features of my kin. As I walked into the barber shop, my social fears had been realized in an orange lit oaky room with large checker board tables; large southern white males were everywhere in baseball caps splaying local college football teams and gabbing about sports. I saw only one gentlemen with chewing tobacco in the lower pouch of his cheek, but statistically there were more, just being factual folks. He sat next to me. Had I made the wrong decision? Was it too late to get out? Well, if I hadn’t placed my name in the queue then yes, yes I could have escaped. The only thing that made sense and bonded with my social anxiety was that touch-pad screen that required my name and phone number, but it was also now the gatekeeper. It allowed me to request a specific barber of my choosing, but I had not clue who was beyond in the next room where the large checker board mats and professionals, so I selected, “ANY”. Its blue glow taunted me as I could see my name now, “BRADY — NEXT AVAILABLE — WAIT TIME — 15 MINUTES.” The large dude shifted in his cushion as I took the only seat available next to him. He flipped through the Motortrend magazine, which has no half-naked women in it, just engine stats, so I was certain he was just looking at the size of the trucks pondering how a nice set of “Truck Nuts” would look on the undercarriage. It’s okay to comment on how I was being incredibly judgmental and crude, I get that, but I can’t help but be transparent. Perhaps one day, you will be too. 

A husky voice called out, “Keith, come on hun.” The large burly man was Keith, and the redheaded heavily chested barber that had emerged gave him a firm motherly look as he grunted and feigned setting down his magazine as if he was really reading how the 2017 Volvo V90 Cross Country T6 AWD was “not just for pansies” anymore even though it’s technically a wagon and incurably spacious for a family of five. I call your bluff Keith. You wouldn’t be caught dead in that wagon even if you won it at The Price Is Right. For the sake of this piece though, the barber that Keith went with, her name is now Jewel. Keith waddled up to Jewel and exclaimed that he wants it “Not to much today, juh bored today ma’am.” Jewel folded her arms and scowled, “Your ole lady ridding that back of yours again?” Keith was caught. Sold out by Jewels natural cunning wit and peppery discernment. “Well, you know her, squallerin’” Jewel, that fiery minx. She wasn’t having it. “Just sit down Keith, I’ll do what I know she like. Okay hun.”  Keith had lost , “Ye’ ma’am.”

I was on the edge of my seat, feeling around 50/50 about the current situation. As much as I was loving this rustic medley, I couldn’t help but feel as though I was about to be “sat in one dem seats” under the same scrutiny. I have no ole lady, nor do I have the social reservations to not say something incredibly dumb. If you’ve met me then you know, I’m a twat. But then it came, my name. As if a jester or Pierrot had been hiding behind my seat had jumped up and turned to the audience to mime my discomfort for an invisible audience, My stomach grumbled and my face scrunched as a Unicorn rounded the corner and became the face to the voice behind my name. 

She. 

Was. 

Fucking. 

Stunning. 

Years ago, during my first unicorn encounter, one of my closest friends made an incredibly astute comment. “You never go out looking for a unicorn, you always stumble into them while walking sideways.” And one that very day, I was zig-zagging like a lost girlfriend in the circle pit of a Bane concert. “Brady?” She said radiantly, “Are you ready?” No, no I am not. 

“Buhhhh, yeah, I guess,” that was my prototypical squat response. “Well,” she waved her hand towards her station, “come on then.” Now would be a fantastic time two interrupt this story and comment on two things that you believe had ANY context to this story. Number one, I have been incredibly depressed for the past four months, Secondly, I have had Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Games” stuck in my head for the better part of nine days. I don’t know about you, but I am now getting to the point in my life where melancholy songs about the loss of love or the forbidden nature of love are permeating my emotional disposition like the richness of grandmas chocolate cake that hasn’t been fully digested. These songs are pushing me farther and farther into an emotional coma. 

As I treaded towards her station I fumbled around my pockets hoping to find my phone so I could conveniently distract myself and hopefully seem aloof and cute. Looking to my right Keith was still getting a talking to by Jewel. Something about listening or paying attention a woman needs like a bubbling crock-pot. “Now that crock-pot, it ain’t supposed to boil Keith.” God I wish I was Keith, because then at least I’d already have my narrative ready and not feel like Robin Williams in the movie Jack. I sat down. She fringed the barbers bib over my like a blanket upon fresh grass. 

“My names Lleana by the way.”

“My names Bra…”

“So what are we doing today Brady?”

“I.. I’m tired of looking like,” I couldn’t think, “tired of looking like…” she stared at me. “ …a troll.” And there it was, the start of my social skills beginning to deplete. I’m just proud of myself that I sat down correctly. I almost thought it appropriate to sit ‘Indian Style” but no one, no one ever does that in a barber shop.

“A… Troll?”

I bit my lip, “Yeah… or I mean. Like, normal again? I don’t know. You’re the professional. I just don’t want to have long hair anymore. Going for a drug test soon.” 

Long ass pause.

“Just kidding.”

She took a step back and rubbed her hands through my greasy hair as my thoughts screamed bloody murder. I should have fucking showered before I came in, or at the very least wore some cosmic cologne. 

“Well, you don’t look like a troll to me,” Lleana said smiling, “and I rather like long hair.” 

Was she saying I shouldn’t be here?

“But we can do whatever you want,” Lleana continued with in a bright cadence,

Shifting in my seat I replied, “Well, how about a little off the top.” Lleana buttoned the back of my barber’s bib and let out an inquisitive tone, “Oh, that’s a cool shirt you have on. What is that?”

“Oh, it’s a Skyrim shirt… it’s about dragons…”

“I know what Skyrim is.”

“Oh.”

“So just a little off the top,” she came around and examined me from the front. Lleana had long dark hair that rolled down her back like a silk tapestry. Her eyes burned with notes of hazel from freshly roasted coffee and orange hue from a setting sun. Lleana’s eyes were complimented by her diamond pierced victorian nose, guarded by balanced and gently placed freckles that sparsely pollinated her skin. Lleana rolled up her sleeves on her well worn cotton blue shirt as she ran her hands through my hair. Wind, wind through November leaves. Her brow sighed into as relaxed state as she examined me. “Mmm, actually lets just do more on the sides.” Both arms were heavily tattooed, some old school sailor jerry style, others, unique and dressed in pixel dots and symmetrical designs. My body began to relax, and my mind began to soften with each passing glance as she studied the grooves of my hair. Stepping back from me, Lleana folded her hands together, “How long have you gone without a hair Brady?” 

“It’s been months.”

“I can tell.”

“Last time I got my hair cut, it was done by a turkish man with only sheers and refused to call me anything but lad”

She giggled with curiosity and stepped back behind me. I could hear her rummage through her scissors and other utensils. Her voice changed from nurse to friend; the ending syllables proceeding down in pitch,"A turkish man? Where was this?”

I sighed “Oh, well, it was in…”

“Brady could you take off your glasses for me?”

I immediately fumbled for my face, making the barbers bib flutter like a parachute, “Oh, yeah, sorry.”

“You’re fine dude,” she said sternly. “But where was it you said you had it done last?”

“Um, England.”

Each syllable now in a fluttered pitch,"In England? Wow, why were you there?”

For the next fifteen minutes I gave Lleana the highlights over my overseas adventures. It was like the beginning of the song “Pretty Pathetic” by The Smoking Popes. A melody, sung grotesquely cute by a nasally Chicago pop-punk icon; I felt a thousand feet high. With each new chapter Lleane would stop cutting my hair, “Wait, so this one girl, who wanted to sleep with you threw up all over your bar while you were working and said, ‘sorry about the mess’ on her way out?!” 

“If you can believe it, yes!” I almost screamed. She stepped back and lifter her arms in the air, “Dude that’s fucked up. Okay, okay, so what happened next?”

My mouth raced to keep up with my endorphins, “Well, I have a terrible gag reflex…”

“Nooo!”

Admittedly I peppered in some ‘flexible details’, but for the most part I stayed true to actually events. Near the end of the hair cut she meekly asked me why I came back to the United States. I really had no answer for her, so I made something up. I told her that my parents needed me to come back home and I felt obliged to be back in the states. I even went on to say that I was getting bored, and homesick. I tried to convince her that I was some sort of philosophical entrepreneur who could shape his life however he wanted, but in reality, I’m just a depressed dude with Wicked Games stuck in his head who thinks he’s getting his hair cut by a unicorn. Needless to say, my hair cut was fantastic. As I got out of my hair I gave her an eight dollar tip and told her that I’d be back as soon as body would allow it. She thanked me and smiled I walked past a folded up Motortrend on the bench where Keith was earlier. He was gone and now Jewel was giving another regular their usual. 

Walking out of the barber shop I felt indifferent though. My thoughts were scrambled and my body was shivering. All I could think about was that I haven’t had a weird and genuine conversation with a stranger that knew nothing of me or my past ever since I left the UK. I recalled the first few days of being back. Not being able to fully answer or be honest with my friends as to how I was doing, or where I was going. I borrowed money and ungratefully returned the favor with pop-tarts and social quips about how “that’s not how they do it over there.” I’ve lost that magical charm I used in stand up comedy to make crowds giggle and calm my own personal anxiety. I’ve been unmotivated to reach out to those who once truly required my humor and spontaneous gimmicks. I have even completely lost touch with one of my closest friends from my college days. He was able to cheer me up no matter what,  even when I had cancer.  Nothing is the same here, and neither am I. I have been living in my sister's new house with her boyfriend, working a shit retail job which feels like being behind on the bills of “life”. Leaving England has taken a quantum toll upon my expectations, and I don’t believe I am living up to any sort of “passable” or “enjoyable” standard.

As Lemuria’s emo power-pop hit, Hawaiian T-Shirt goes, “Every funny guy has a serious side,” my serious side has gone beyond a simple cold chill and to full blown ammonia. I’m asking myself, why am I writing about a fucking hair cut? Why am I nit-picking large southern men, or failing at basic human communication? Perhaps because I’m going through the sharpest growing pain of my life, what to do next. 

Believe me when I say that I have no earthly idea on what to do. But so far, the only thing that makes sense is pick up right where I left off with these blog entries, what happened after Scully? Well my friends, that’s the epic of Edge Hill University and the songs that accompanied me during one of the strangest, but yet most gratifying parts of my life. Perhaps I’ll start with Halloween Night at Odyssey.

October 31st, 2015…

I didn’t have a costume…

[Bands/Artists Mentioned: Chris Isaak, The Smoking Popes and Lemuria]

P.S. Found out two days ago that she's engaged. 
R.I.P. Unicorn Sighting 2017-2017

Your Own Ending.

Your Own Ending

When I was a child I read these teen horror fiction novels called Goosebumps written by R.L. Stine back in the mid to late 90’s. My grandfather, Poppy, would take me to the book store every once in a while. Poppy liked to balance out my intake of action figures with literature, and since I wasn’t really apt to read Byron at the age of eight, I bought Goosebumps. As I look back on it now I don’t know how my 70 year old grandfather thought a child's novel about people being stripped of life due to a haunted camera would be healthy for a kid that simultaneously  thanked God for boogers and farts in Sunday school. But he just wanted me to be happy. Either way, Stine is famous for books like, The Night Of The Living Dummy and Say Cheese and Die. These novels were creatively fun, slightly scary and also a rich environment for a child's imagination, and my imagination grew like fractals.

 Eventually I wrote my own little sadistic stories. I wasn’t concerned with being published since I still couldn't spell “library” to save my life. Was it liberry or Liebary? I didn’t show anyone these tales, and they are probably deep in an underground ashes pile below my old tree fort in Healdsburg California right now. Either way, in one of my stories the main characters were swallowed up by an evil vacuum and the only way to destroy it was to lure the neighbors robotic cat into a confrontation with the usurper. The robo-cat would hack up its fur-vomit and the vacuum would be sent back to the fiery depths of hell... where chores came from. There was also one where the chevalier of the story was sentenced to pick weeds out of his mothers garden for the rest of eternity as punishment for letting the princess kiss the big baddy. I was a fairly melodramatic child. Eventually the hero picked enough weeds, and the watcher of the eternity took pity on him, had a change of heart and allowed him to play video games with his lady love. Either way, I liked creative endings where I won, but only because of the presence of heart, not for my actions.

As I got older and read more Goosebumps, Stine started writing novels that had a “choose your own ending” portion or scenario. In these books your heroes would come to a gritty and macabre scenario, then Stine would offer you what felt like an ethereal option. In bold blood black letters it boomed, “Turn to page 83 to find your heroes in peril” or “Turn to page 120 for your heroes to meet someone they never expected…” Now naturally, being the young little gremlin that I was, I would turn and read the first page of both endings in order to make my assessment on how my heroes would continue. I started this habit because I learned the hard way by unknowingly picking the tragic ending, and my little heart couldn’t take it. THEY ALL DIED AND IT WAS MY FAULT.
I never reread the novel.

I couldn’t even go back and cognitively apply the happier ending either, for in my mind, once they died, they were dead. The sorrow that I felt for their peril suddenly felt incredibly close and personal. It was as if I dragged them to the foggy quagmire  myself to have their eyes balls sucked out by the Werewolf janitor to be turned into ice cream for the local treat truck. I don’t know if I realized it, but I was becoming acutely self aware. Choices matter, and everything in life is oddly interconnected. We could always be forty pages away from becoming revolting goop. What was ironic though was that the section where the heroes encounter peril, they made it out safely because in a pinch the marginalized kid developed the ultra secret weapon to defeat darkness, whereas what appeared to be the safer option of the two, “Meeting someone they did not expect," that turned out to be some zombified hero from the past that ended their journey in a real desolate manner. Talk about Psych 101 for the age group terrorized by whats happening to their penis as they stare at the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated in the line at Safeway.


Either way, as I got older I thought about these… duel endings. I thought about them a lot. The potential duality of life afflicted my decisions on whether or not to put The Offspring on the mix cd for my senior year crush or if I should take the long drive home after being diagnosed with cancer. Whenever I felt that there was a decision approaching I begged the heavens to at least let me see the few seconds of the beginning of each choice, or at least still have my grandfather present at the check out counter; I don’t want to pay for these decisions myself. I’m sure the spirit of R.L. Stine is chuckling somewhere in a foreboding oak tree, or he’s proud that the creation of garden gnomes anthropomorphizing Leatherface made a preteen think about hyper-realities. I’d like to think that Stine prepared me for these, these… choices. But in the end, these are choices without an alternative page to turn to. So I would say fuck it; I replaced The Offspring with Alkaline Trio’s “Every Thug Needs a Lady” and took the long drive home that night so if I felt the need to cry, my tears would dry up long before I saw another human being. Its safe to say that I felt fucked each and every time I saw my life potentially diverting. My mind goes haywire, like, what if I accidentally picked the wrong ending? There’s no going back. And if I pick the “good” ending, how do I even know that this is the good ending, for how do we understand the light without the dark. Oh, my god… so this is what drove Schrödinger crazy. Each choice creates a new road of memories within my mind. And each choice that closes one road and then continues me down the other. So, by the age of 28 I now have thousands upon thousands of abandoned roads of memories and thoughts.

Which brings us to today.


Floating deep within the human ether my subconscious dashes like a fox on these abandoned roads. It clutches my happiest memories in it’s retracted toothy muzzle with a sly grin as it scampers from my grasp. I’d like to argue that every once in a while I get close enough to catching him; fingers teased by a single bristle or two from it’s fleeting tail. The foxes bristles prick my skin as a needle would if they drifted like leaves in the wind. Alas though, I get slightly distracted by these metaphorical dead ends on a daily basis, and I am confronted and reminded about the choices that I made and those that I left behind. As I pondered this in the shower two distinct memories emerged from the mire to the tip of my tongue. About eight years ago I stood amongst broken picture frames and in front of a very exasperated, but newly birthed ex-fiancé in Cleveland, Tennessee. Eight years later, and almost 28 days ago I slept on a stiff empty bench in an uninhabited airport in Copenhagen. Each of these memories aren’t what the fox keeps from me, in fact, these memories would be the dirt that it has kicked up as it disappears in a cloud of dust.

These memories were the result of bold choices. The first was to finally say, “No” to an abusive relationship and the second was because I said, “Yes” to an experience of a life time. And sometimes I wonder what life would be life if I had reversed those decisions. Where would I be in life right now? If I had said, “Yes” to the engagement, would I have gone to England for a masters degree? And if I said, “No” to getting my masters would I be here right now writing this awkward diagnostic of my life? And because of these “major” choices that I’ve made, there have been a slew of other roads that were created and also more that were abandoned. And as of right now I am reflecting on the choices that I made that has lead me to what appears to be irreversibly depressed, broke and wishing that I was back in the hospital. I mean, if I was back in the hospital right now, I wouldn’t have to worry about getting fed, what excuse I would tell my friends on a Friday night that I can’t go out because I can’t afford a PBR. Or I wouldn’t be focused on why I haven’t been able maintain an intimate relationship longer than a few months. When I was in the hospital before, it allowed me to have the ultimate “get out of jail free” card for social interactions. People had to come to me. I was stationary. I was a beacon. I was a thought, an idea and an icon rather than an adult with a name and tainted past who cries at night because he has no clue who he is anymore. Perhaps it’s unhealthy to drag the past to the surface, but when everything in this world seems to be interconnected, it’s hard to ignore what I’ve gone through.

Years ago I heard this metaphor that attempted to described the difference between how men and women think. The metaphor goes like this:  A man is like an Ego Waffle. The waffle has tiny square divots that catch and compartmentalize the flowing butter and maple syrup. Each thought, or in this case, sugary goodness, finds its proper place in little chambers. If one so chose, they could eat each square individually. Whereas, a woman, she is more akin to a plate of spaghetti. Everything is interconnected, and it’s hard to single out a single noodle or thought without having catching others in the fray. So, to put it simply: Men can focus on the bite size pieces of life, whereas women see the bigger picture. Each have their strengths and weaknesses. I don’t believe this metaphor applies to continuing the binary divide between genders though. In fact, after some focus in the shower, my experience opinion causes me to believe that this is the difference between the uplifted and the depressed when analyzing life choices. I am currently looking through my leatherback journal that I took with me to England, and each page is littered with someone who is lost and trying to figure out who they are by assessing their past choices. My journal, my life, it is a plate of spaghetti, but it’s the plate of spaghetti that I chose.

Earlier in this blog I wrote about a girl name Scully, and how she changed my life when it came to looking at love. As much as I would like to continue the story of her, it is over and I have drained that cow of its milk. So what is there to assess now? Perhaps the beginning of England; the beginning of the new narrative that has lead me here. So, if you are reading this, please give me time because I do have a story to tell. There were faces that I’ll never forget, and names that still cause my hands to shake as they exit the bullet chamber of my mouth. And yet, after everything, I still don’t know where I belong. While I was there I dated a girl much younger than I due to heartbreak,  preoccupied my drinking habits by taking money under the table a local pub, I bloodied my eyes with literature, lost friends as fast I gained them, and finally, finished the dying promise I made, get a masters degree in England.

So let’s begin with day one…

Day One: Cool.

Standing in my eight by ten cell of a room I held the phone in my hand as if to take a selfie. My hand trembled. This is new, I thought. Why are my hands shaking? Probably because I haven’t eaten for 8 hours. I just need to hold the phone still long enough to record my self for Scully.

 “Hey, so I made it…”, my voice cracked… fuck.
I looked down at my shirt in embarrassment.
It still smelled funky fresh from the 9 hour flight and hour-an-a-half cab drive to campus.
“I’m finally here, In England.”
My lips curled, and my nose twitched. 4000 thousand miles, a five hour time difference and a shitty wi-fi signal was all we had. It was all I had. I looked back at my self in the phone’s video. It was still recording, say something.

“And, uh… I smell like shit…”

My hand shook. I was becoming blurry in the video message. Maybe that’s what I’ll be, a blur.

“…I miss you.”



To be continued.

Keeping Track of History Pt. 3: In the presence of the "Secular".

 

Put down... All your weapons.
Let me in through Your open wounds...
Finding God through secular Music.

"The road to the sacred leads through the secular."  

-- Abraham Joshua Heschel

  Son Lux

Secular music verse the none secular; could that really be a... thing? Is one bad for you and the other good? What makes music sacred and what makes it secular? Or better yet, why the fuck should you care?
Through out my years as a child I grew up under a christian roof, and no the roof wasn't on fire. The patriarch was a pastor and the matriarch was his guide, following quietly in the shadowed footsteps of God.  My father used to be drummer and my grandfather played the organ like a saint, but I was never captured by the evangelical argument that music was either secular or sacred. The halls of my household echoed scores of famous composers and 60's surf swag from the Beach Boys. I was surrounded by tapes and Cd's from all walks off life. My first two cassette tapes were the Top Gun soundtrack and the Mortal Kombat soundtrack. It was very much a "wax on -- wax off" method in my room. I took it to the danger zone with  Kenny Logins, and then once Take My Breath Away by Berlin started to play I switched tape. I did my usual cool down/post work-out by destroying Lego's with the classic Liu Kang bicycle kick. It was an art. (No need to argue about that.)
During the summer months with my cousin and I blasted Metallica, Godsmack and Incubus (post Fungus Amongus) while fantasizing about what it would be like to "do" Rouge from X-Men. At the dawn of my teenage years my parents gifted me the album 13 Ways to Bleed on Stage by Cold before my open heart surgery. Their hit song was "Just Got Wicked". I'm pretty sure B-rated wrestlers from the WWE made that their intro song... I don't know what my parents were thinking, but I'm pretty sure the only reason I got away with it was because there was a small percentile that I might die the next day. 
(Prayer quickly followed).

"I can taste your innocence 

Young and sweet like mother made you 

Everything froze in to ask

These motherfuckers just got wicked..."

I'm not here to argue that Cold is more or less sacred then bands like DC Talk but I am hinting that there could be the minuet possibility. There was a moment on my hospital bed when that nurse who looked like Mr. Cleans gay father took away my Walkman. (One of those "From my cold dead hands!" moments.) He told me to count to ten backwards as I laid there in my hospital gown, wondering if I'd ever wake up after this was done. The last song I had in my head was the butt-metal anthem, Send in the Clowns, and I didn't feel afraid. Divine or not, I was comforted. 
I still like that song.

“After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.”

― Aldous Huxley, Music at Night and Other Essays

Angus & Julia Stone

I had a conversation with a dear friend of mine long ago. Let's just call her Miranda. The subject of personal failure arose, and like an ugly head it glared back at us as if it lived in the bathroom mirror. Like Miranda, I struggled daily with the thought that I have not been living up to my fullest potential. I tended to loath my self more than the actual instances that had occurred in my life that formed and shaped me into who I am today. Miranda saw this, and she could read me like a book. But this evening she she sat in my wicker chair on my front porch like a blank page, frizzled and smoking a single cigarette. She was like an Eels song, just a beautiful freak with a lo-fi smile. 
Earlier that week she was crippled by some "holier-than-thou" boy. He spoke over her words of affliction concerning her attire and constitution. Some, or rather those with a single original thought, would find her beautiful for things like her affectionate twitch and distinctive pitter-patter of trailing thoughts, but this boy did not understand -- thus was prejudice. Make matters worse, she actually like this prick.
  
Within our culture today, maybe even in particular for women, there is the problem of self-deprecation that is brought on by the trivia of others. These moments often lead to intrusive thoughts mostly about our relationship with others. We tell our selves that we are ashamed for feeling different, third wheeling relationships, not having the prettiest husband/wife or none at all. There is this constant sense that we need to prove our selves because we were born unworthy, born without reason. We struggle to make up our dreams, goals and/or our "calling" on the spot as if to sing karaoke in front of thousands. We claim it as our own. And if we don't have nail the song in front of them, then we are fucked. 
If there is anything I've noticed from being around the block, it is this: More kids, teenagers, and adults are finding their peace through "secular" music than a sacred workshop that teaches them to clap.

"Tell me anything you want to tell me.

I have nothing to say.I have nothing to say to you,

But you have everything to say to me.

You have everything to say to me."

Son Lux

As Miranda and I sat there in the humidity of the lowering Tennessee sun, I decided to put on some music. I guess that's my calling card, but hey, it works for me. I picked the self-titled album by Son Lux and set my laptop on the ground littered with cigarette ash. My favorite song, Break, came on and I explained to her what it was about, or at least... what I assumed it was about, which lead to me saying this to her:

(Journal entry from May of 2009) The war we fight is a war for uniqueness, made by television, magazines and sexual predators. But have we lost the war if we chose to even recognize the battle? A battle that has strung us like a marionette puppet. A temperamental brand of barbed chords hiding the snare that violently adulterates and perverts it's self like a parasite into our chest. Are we really who we are or even want to be?

 
Miranda asked me to repeat the song again, and again. And each time the song repeated she had something new to say. She would comment on the bizarre opening break down, relating it to opening moments of a car crash. As she talked about the song she painted the horrific image of standing in the middle of freeway while it rained both water and ash, "searching for your friend within the twisted metal" she said. "But there's always something beautiful waiting,"

She asked me how peaceful could death really be. 
"Would it be as smooth as the piano once the drums are done fighting?", she said. 
I don't remember my exact response, but looking back on it, I can only imagine that it would be that smooth. Pain dribbling off a window like water as we sleepily count backwards from ten.

Now that I look back on it I feel like I could have put on a number of records, but it was that one and it was devine. 
It's not the genre or the classification of music that makes it bad or good, secular or sacred, but it is what is at the core of the moment. 
So when does music really mean impact us?
I believe that music means the most when we don't do anything about it. It's an apocalyptic revelation, an occurrence that brews from the soul of your gut, and you never knew it was there. Music means the most when the story of your life collides with the sincerity of the present emotion. Miranda spilled her heart out that night, but I didn't catch her nor did I even dry her tears, the music did. 

Several smokes and bathroom breaks later we started to play "pass the laptop". Miranda would typically pick something like The Ataris or Sugarcult. She would reminded me about how she saw them live, or she'd tell me again about the guy she used to date who tried to swoon her by covering "Punk Rock Princess" by Something Corporate. My insides would hurt with laughter because her ex was no garage band king, more like a prepubescent Rob Lowe.

Miranda tied her untamed hair into a topknot, patted me on the arm (to sweaty to hug) and hopped into her Honda blasting The Authority Song by Jimmy Eat World, which was a vast improvement from when she pulled up two hours before to quiet drone of Damien Rice. 
When Miranda left my front porch, she stunk of off-brand smokes and smiles, 
but more importantly

"She was back." 
As she drove home that night,  I could feel her energy for five blocks. 


Jimmy Eat World.

Yes, we did have a meaningful "bro-down" but it was more than that, it was the moment of what was playing in our hearts. It was the music that carried us both home. We didn't find it in a hymnal or a Newsboys anthem, we found the sacred meaning of love and compassion in "secular" music. I think the true argument is this: are you listening to music that is keeping you together or tearing you apart? Are you listening to music that places you in a box or music that re frames the box? 

We are a generation that is hungry for the spiritual, not a church service, but a revelation of the soul and it's painfully obvious that we can find that through the music we choose to listen to. So next time you listen to a record, break out the lyrics, figure out the chords, or paint a picture and you may be surprise by what you see and feel.

Also, here's a small challenge. Make your self a mix. Give it a name and make it important.

Shaky Graves 


My name is Brady Effler and I am currently unemployed because I am going through chemo treatments. I was diagnosed with Multiple Meyloma at the end of July 2013, and fighting the good fight. If you liked what you read, please feel free to donate. I am currently trying to pay off my student loans and other bills (pills, hospital visits, etc...). Anything you give is awesome. Thanks again for reading. I'm not begging, or trying to pull the wool over anyone, just being honest.