Gary and I both agree that 3rd Eye Blind’s popular breakup album from the late 90s was something of a musical miracle that holds up today better than almost anything else from that specific genre of pop music in that era. Sublime didn’t hold up. 311 definitely didn’t hold up. Gin Blossoms- ok, I retain a sweet spot for them. But not quite like 3rd Eye Blind.
Although I was always more of a God Of Wine, Motorcycle Drive By kind of broken hearted dork back in the day, recently I’ve been stuck listening to one of the radio favorites I really didn’t care for when it was popular: “How’s It Going To Be.”
Doubtless you’ve heard it. But it’s about that moment in a breakup just after you have decided that it’s over. Maybe mid conversation, maybe on your own somewhere- and you’re picturing how it’s going to go, and then what it might be like in this new future without them. A strange new future, to be gotten used to at least a little bit, from both parties.
It got me thinking back a bit on a long established pattern of mine of hating certain things in my life, or in the world, or in the culture- then chasing them off with pitchforks and torches, or seeing them chased off with pitchforks and torches. I would laugh in triumph, attempt to hold onto those high feelings, but then feel myself instead immersed in the sudden and unexpected silence of their absence. The awful realization that below the thin blades of hate I had for something, there were also hidden undercurrents of love to go with it.
I did it to my Grandma. Used to walk the entire single block to her house through the backyard every Christmas morning for a few hours, until we grew up, and the parties there died down. Eventually we would just stop in for a minute and a hug, and she’d give us a pair of socks with some change in it from her giant change jugs. She’d do this until she ran it all out. Then it was cards. Then I graduated and moved far away for a while. When I came back, she was weirdly rude to me for being such a stranger for so long, and as punishment for that- for some reason- I decided I didn’t need to be around her petty cranky self, and I hardly ever went to visit her for the last 10 years of her life. Not even on Christmas like I used to when I was a kid. I walked her home once, shortly before she died- which came as a surprise actually- and that was the last time I saw her. It was a nice little walk, no hard feelings. But her kitchen still haunts me. I can’t stop thinking about the smell of it, and looking out the window at the falling snow on her bird feeders at night. Her cozy little house was my escape. We were close.
But I decided I didn’t like her meanness and wanted her out of my life and I got my wish. Bully for me.
I did it with the sequel to A Prairie Home Companion, and other NPR programs. I demanded this slightly sub-par entertainment to what I had known previously be ejected from the air waves at once! To be replaced by something better, or at LEAST by something equal to that I had come to expect. And ejected it all was, replaced instead with just wall to wall political programming- something I can’t even passively listen to.
I keep getting what I want. And it always turns out to be despair. Like the Scooby Doo meme where they pull the mask off. It has made me question everything I’ve wanted, and everything I could want. It makes me doubt my ability to plot an appropriate course.
Gary and I were talking about that as well. He’s in much the same boat. Nothing turned out the way he expected- mostly for the good. He’s got it made, great job, solid partner- but the world is not the great one we left behind in the 90s, and all the success in the world isn’t enough to remove the kind of chip one gets in their shoulder from anger issues stemming deep into childhood, so he’s struggling too, on a morale level- particularly as it concerns our own ability to predict anything, or trust anything. Bad data running through woefully insufficient processors.
And we’re some of the smartest people we know! (in a 90s, street-smart kind of way of course)
Loading comments...