I admit it, I text myself.
Nothing too personal. Okay it’s all personal, but nothing like “you are special. You will succeed in your endeavors. People like you.” That self-talk stuff. No, I text jokes to myself. Or thoughts, so I remember them.
The weird part is, I don’t receive these texts from myself. I don’t know where they go. To see what I texted to myself, I have to look at what I sent… to myself, because I never actually receive it. You know, there’s no notification that I got a text. It’s just out there.
I could use the note or memo app, but why? This is just as good and I already know how to use it. I just don’t know how to receive my text to myself.
Note to self: see if there is a way to receive texts from yourself.
One thing I texted was not funny. For most of my life, I’ve at least had this general sense that overall, things would work out. Not for me, necessarily, because I’m a hypochondriac and a pessimist, but for the world. We always seemed to be moving in the right direction. Not any more. Things are crazy right now, but that makes me think, they could get even crazier if we don’t stop it.
My note to self was: the world is so f*#@ed up that now I have to worry about the shit that’s going to happen after I’m dead.
See? That’s not fair. I always had this expectation that if our kids (collective) were out in the world on their own and knew how to take care of most things, they’d be fine or at least safe because the world has some kind of order to it.
Okay, that’s a white man thought, that the world is somehow ordered and fair, but I’m white, okay? That being said, my grandfather’s family was wiped out, except for three people, in WWII. I have photos of these people before then, sitting in their backyard having a meal and enjoying life, so I’m well aware that order and fairness are just one lunatic away from chaos and genocide. But I had stopped worrying about that happening again in my lifetime. No longer.
Now that I’ve depressed the hell out of you (welcome to my world), read on.
Music is the one thing that seems to restore order in my life, live music. Any kind, rock, jazz, classical, world, even hip-hop or rap or whatever it’s called now. But I’m old school. I like Snoop and Eminem, although Kendrick Lamar does it for me too. We went to a Snoop concert. He was great, as was his buddy Warren G (no relation to Kenny) from the LBC. That’s hip-hop for Long Beach, yo. The show was at the theater at LA Live, across from Staples. Needless to say, we stood out in this crowd. It was a lot of fun. The ambiance was not unlike being inside a bong, without the water.
Some rock bands produce a similar ambiance. The older guys are cleaning up their acts though. Keith Richards quit smoking. Roger Daltrey yells at people for smoking pot because he insists he’s allergic. Any of the old rockers still out there have cleaned up their acts or they’d be dead like many of the colleagues of their youth.
But the thing is, there’s no new rock that has generated the same excitement as those old bands, and that’s why they’re still out there. Yes, there are some very good younger bands, and maybe they will someday achieve the kind of gravitas that the old ones had, and still have for many people. But even the best “younger” bands aren’t young any more. Green Day anyone?
But most of the time, whether it’s old rockers that are still good (Kiki and I saw Hot Tuna last night. It’s fun to go to a show where you look around you and feel young. Very rare these days. For me, not her), or our friends who sing and play jazz, or going to Disney Hall for anything (chamber music one month, Patti Smith the next), is like going to temple or church.
There’s something about the way we sit and face them and revere them, and yes, if you have a spiritual side, it’s easy to see that these people, like rabbis, priests, mullahs, etc. are just channels for the divine, in this case, music. And people yell out stuff, in the Southern Baptist tradition!
And now, a short break for some pretty pictures. Watch and breathe in… breathe out…
The other thing that’s like religion (for some people) is TV. I’m not terribly addicted to any shows at the moment (I dabble in few), so let’s talk about commercials. I like commercials, especially the funny ones, but sometimes I just try to figure out what the hell the commercial producer is trying to accomplish here.
My favorite are drug commercials. There are so many! How is it that each one I see, no matter what channel or show I’m watching, is for a new medication that treats some terrible illness that I then convince myself that I have?
One commercial is for a drug that helps blind people cope with a sleep disorder caused by not being able to see light. It has a great name: Circadian Rhythm Disorder. The challenge for me is how I’m going to convince myself I have a disease that only affects blind people. But the thing that drives me a little nuts about this ad is the target audience: blind people who watch TV. Just think about that and get back to me.
The next one was a drug for female libido problems. As you may already know, some women lose libido with age. The ad says, if you’re frustrated by your low libido, this new drug can help. Great!
But here’s the thing. If they have low libido, that means they don’t want to have sex. And if they don’t want to have sex, that means they probably aren’t. So if you don’t want to have sex, and you aren’t having sex, how is that frustrating? You’re doing exactly what you want. When I do whatever I want, it’s never frustrating.
You know what’s frustrating? Writing this damn blog every week, especially when you have nothing prepared. But that’s what phones are for.
What have we learned? I can write depressing stuff too. The world is a mess but we can probably get back on track. Music is a good religion. And TV ads can present interesting topics for analysis and discussion.
Please, enjoy your week and thanks again for reading!