When did it all become a journey? Not just life in general but experiences. “This _____ experience has been a real journey…”  What does this mean?  “I’ve really grown during this journey…”   Was it a cruise?  “It’s not the destination, it’s the journey”.  But the definition of journey is a trip between two points – so there actually is no journey without a destination.

Clearly, much of this is convenience-speak. Shit you can feel and spew without actually having to think very hard. Life is a Journey is just short hand for I’m too lazy and lacking in creativity to speak for myself. So I’m just going to repeat some shit I heard someone else say. No wonder so many people think life is a journey. There are so many lazy bastards out there.

What typically follows “life is a journey” convenience speak are the lulling platitudes that are like add-on sauces for this already quite lazy and uncreative diet. It could include remarks like “the universe was telling me” this or “everything happens for a reason” that. The reality is none of this would be falsehood. It’s a bit like me saying “rocks are hard and they don’t usually blow away in the wind.” It just doesn’t bring much to the table. Actually, it doesn’t bring anything to the table. And that is perhaps why it strikes me as crazy that people believe they are actually thinking and communicating when they could just as well be wrapping themselves up with masking tape and drawing on their faces with a Sharpie.  But instead, in this world of “not really thinking”, you sit around and nod your head and say “yes, sometimes it does feel like God gets you parking spaces”…(now if he could only get me a fifth of vodka).

Perhaps for us in the age of  small luxuries and the priority of ease of use over usefulness, we are trying to make difficult, painful concepts easier to grasp – so we don’t have to work too hard – like when we had to roll down our own windows or actually use an oven to heat up a cold slice of pizza (it was tough in the old days). “Life is a journey” can literally mean anything. It can mean “I’m thirty and still wet the bed”. It can mean “babies are cute and fat”. It can mean “my leg has fallen asleep”. Thus, when you are talking about your life, a complicated entangled snare of physiology, psychology, primordial urges and instincts, you no longer really need to break out in a sweat. We now have spell check for our thoughts.

As we have been reduced  to the “ooos” and “ahhhs” of experience  with no actual  ability to formulate our own ideas, understand our own experience, or god forbid, communicate with our fellow creatures, perhaps it is easier to connect. Sadly, the connection is not with one another but with our love of reducing steps from the process. Typically we are willing to pay the price for this convenience. In this instance however the cost would be meaning itself. Somehow, we still don’t seem to mind.

 

 

I’m not sure what to make of my most recent “outrage” given that it follows along a rather threadbare thesis that has been traveled by many before me. It tends to be true that those who “get it”, get it,  and they don’t typically go out and promote the fact that they “get it”. Those that don’t get it have no other vehicle but to promote “their view” of what they don’t get, if they want to pretend they are involved in an artistic medium – for our purposes, let’s say music.

 

But I think it goes a step further in this totally self-absorbed-self-referential-wirelessly communicating-incessantly time and space. There is a blurring between what’s real and happening in the concrete world versus what we are coming to believe is real, (communication/interaction via devices) that occurs in the ether and is in truth, faux reality.

 

Combine these two phenomenon and you have a potential for trouble. There’s been much speculation about the “problem with music” these days. As is pretty obvious, the problem isn’t with music but with the people’s perception of music, their exposure to music, and ultimately, their connection or disconnection to music.

 

I guess I do think this. We live in a time where it is harder to connect to music as we have in our recent history. There very well may be much more exposure to music and now with the ipod, more time actually listening to music. But does this equal connection? I don’t think it is necessarily yes or no. But what I do think is that there is a huge space for “faux connection” or what might be called a “passenger” mentality to music. It is the scenery, I see it and enjoy it but it changes quickly. It’s not disinterest. The music is valued to a degree. I just wonder how much is digested by the listener.

 

I come back to the fact that music, for me, is a part of the physical world. The sound of a hand on the skin of a drum doesn’t leave much room for interpretation. It is. And it has “been” for ten’s of thousands of years. I would be careful before I began to fuck around with our connection with that. This is a lifeline – an ancient coping mechanism and a means of connecting, meditating, communicating, perhaps even praying.

 

I get heavy here because sometimes when I feel passionate about music, it feels like an enormous “spin-out”. There’s so much noise, confusion, voices – in the end it begins to feel like “music” has been degraded. But instead, of course, it is us who have been degraded. We have slowly devalued what makes us actually interesting beings – or perhaps we have disconnected from it. And we have commoditized music to such an extent that, like in Wal-Mart, the massive collection of stuff will ultimately force you to shut down – yet you still fill the cart.

 

When I listened to the new Kathleen Edwards album (Voyageur) and then mistakenly read what entertainment/music “personnel” wrote about it, I began my spin out. Look, it wouldn’t be the first time the “critics” were missing the boat. My outrage and desire to shake folks by the lapels felt wrong-headed and counter productive.

 

But the true outrage is far more subtle. A dog meets another dog and at least their sense of smell provides some understanding of one another (however that works for dogs). This is a touchstone of reality and at least “dog” understanding. Music, like smell, is visceral and has in some ways an infinite depth. What happens when we become immune or deny this depth – even when overtly apparent? How does one interpret this?

 

Despite being slightly melodramatic, this is what I felt after I made the mistake of searching for the rave reviews that were not. Apparently, among this crowd, I am an outlier. At first, it’s like you are standing up for your sister. Hey, take a step back! No one talks to Kathleen like that. But then I just kept hearing these stupid assed comments as I listened repeatedly to the album and I eventually became outraged.

 

How did they miss it? How did they miss what is so good here? Why did they choose to miss it? Do they like music? Do they listen to music? How did the wavelength not reach this slew of media douche bags?

 

I could probably stand up for every criticism that they threw at this record but that’s a total waste of time. I am not saying this is a masterpiece. But I think it is an interesting, expressive album. I doubt I would be able to find a fellow musician that wouldn’t find it evocative in some way. That my friends is a good work of art. That is the whole friggin point and when you focus instead on a lyric that falls flat (for you) or a song that doesn’t work (for you), you reveal another truth. The music is playing and you can’t hear it.

 

The music is playing everywhere, everyday. Music is alive and well as it always has been and always will be. But our wavering ability to hear it and keep it as part of our daily lives is a serious problem. Music isn’t a commodity. It isn’t an accessory at a party. It isn’t entertainment. That may be the perception, but it isn’t the case. We’ve been listening to the sound of a hand hitting the skin tied over the head of a drum for a long time. It serves another purpose that is felt and not spoken, heard without thinking. Toying with this we are out of our depth. Choking the flow, like with an airway, eventually will stop the heart.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This picture (which I hunted down) is being used for an organization that I probably don’t want to know more about. But the photo caught my eye.  Don’t have words at present to do it justice, so here’s to the bike shop, the garage, the studio, the basement. Where it all begins…