The Blues On Two Levels

I listen to the blues in two different ways.

I noticed this at work just the other day. When I am alone in the box office cage I dial up the blues on YouTube. I used to do Pandora but they think they are smarter than me. They are always doing the "if you liked this song, maybe you will like this one" bullshit.

No. I don't work that way. I know what I like and I want it when I want it. I do not want to be listening to two or three Allman Brothers songs and then suddenly have a Lynyrd Skynyrd song thrown in the mix along with a Marshall Tucker Band song.

Now dig. I like both of those bands. I like them when I want to like them. Not when some marketing geek decides he's gonna expand my horizons for me. My horizons are already expanded. By me.

At least with YouTube they will keep playing whoever I pick for a bunch of songs in a row. And when they get off track I just click on my choice again and bingo bango bongo I am right back where I need to be.

And if I really want to veg out I got videos to watch. You want weirdness? Check out "Hell Broke Luce" by Tom Waits on YouTube. It will thrill you into another dimension. Or not.

I noticed that sometimes I listen to the blues superficially. I think to myself "I am so fucking cool. I am so smart to listen to this music; real music, music of the soul; I am highly evolved". Sometimes I wish for a fellow employee to walk into the box office and say "Who is that?" So I can puff out my chest proudly and say "Why that's John Lee Hooker".

Frankly I make myself mildly nauseous when I think that way. Because then it's all about me and not about the music.

Then there are times when I am one with the music. I noticed it one early morning when I was firing up the box office machinery. Had the blues cranking and it became aware to me how superficial everything I was doing was. Heating up two computers in case one failed, testing both printers in case one fucked up, checking emails.

I was in a fog. The things I was doing meant nothing to me. They were a bit of a joke. Superfluous to reality. The music was reality. I wasn't angry about what I had to do, was not looking at my job as stupid. I was just kind of aware of myself performing these menial tasks as if I was outside my body, disconnected from my essence, while the music had my emotions roaring.

The part of me that was responding to the music was alive. The part of me that was performing menial tasks was dead. It was as simple as that.

Of course I always want it to be that way when I listen to music. Because music is so much better than life. But it doesn't work that way. Sometimes the ego gets in the way, sometimes life gets in the way. It is difficult to experience anything good in purity.

OK that's it, crime stoppers. Another Joe rant about music.

You getting sick of this shit yet?