"Yeah well your old gramps has a secret that nobody ever found out about. I taught the iPod to think! It sensed people's moods…it made measure of political climates…it even reacted to the weather! THEN it would play the perfect song for such circumstances! It was unheard of…and I made it happen all without anyone knowing! It was genius I tell you!"
"Yeah, yeah gramps…whatevs."
And while the kids of 2043 may not believe it, I'm thoroughly convinced. I've often noticed that my iPod goes into a subdued melancholy mood when it's raining. It kicks in to an excited frenzy en route to happy events. Other times it almost seems to serve up commentary on current events as if it were tuned to news radio.
Case-in-point, during last Monday's nasty rain storm with the war and the economy and the general fuckedupness of everything on my mind—the Pod conjured Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On." This is one of the great anti-war-what-the-hell-is-up-with-society songs of all time, the album cover of which features Mr. Gaye standing in what appears to be a downpour wearing a rain coat! The band Lucero followed with "Here at the Starlight," a song so desolately heartbroken and lonely you feel hallow by osmosis. Next was the Weakerthans ode to urban decline amidst the grey of winter called "One Great City," a tale about the slow death of Winnipeg, a Canadian metropolis struggling with long-term economic and social depression.
Conversely, on Saturday's drive up to ride mountain bikes at Demo—a genuinely cheery occasion—it was Parts and Labor's upbeat and sunny "Nowhere Nigh" followed by the Talking Heads' undeniably comfortable "Naïve Melody," finished up by Buffalo Tom's "Tangerine," a song that actually produces delicious, easy-to-peel citrus fruit!
A couple weeks ago I happened to turn on the local news radio station to hear a grim report about storms and landslides in Southern California. When they rolled in to an extended commercial break of mattress stores, jewelry shops and medicated powders, I pre-empted with the iPod. The first song to shuffle up—Peter Gabriel's "Here Comes the Flood."
I know what you're thinking…that I'm just selectively remembering the tracks that fit the situation. Or that it's all just coincidental. But something so specific happened on Tuesday night that I'm absolutely sure of the iPods predictive powers. As I rearranged things in the yard to start work on a garage project, a freaky little sprint of a storm pelted me with freezing rain/hail. It was the kind of precip that was ice cold yet burnt the skin at the same time. The wind kicked up and got bitter and cutting…almost Midwestern. It felt a bit painful, yes, but real too…like winter should, I thought.
The sting still on my face as I entered the shelter of the garage, I pondered what might be the musical match for such conditions. I powered up the stereo and hit 'Shuffle Songs' on the iPod for the answer.
The best "Rid of Me" I could find online doesn't match the intensity of the original recording, but you get the idea.
The slow guitar build of PJ Harvey's "Rid of Me" started drizzling from the speakers, slowly turning into a steady, cold rain as the rhythm increased to meet Polly Jean's subdued voice. The pleading backing vocals kick-in quiet-but-cold at first—"Lick my legs, I'm on fire; Lick my legs, I'm on fire"—giving way to a few more angry lines from Polly until the chorus rips in, guitars and drums and vocals blasting in an angry, cold, biting hail that burns like frozen rain on the face—"DON'T YOU, DON'T YOU WISH YOU, NEVER, NEVER MET HER," she screams. Her voice re-quiets then shifts to a wicked shrill the way a gust of cold wind runs through the formality of clothing until building it all up for another round of chorus that dies with an anguished reprise of "Lick my legs." After which, I assume, an exhausted and near-frozen PJ retreats to the relative shelter of her garage.
Though I like old stuff, I've never particularly embraced the concept of 'antiquing.' The word itself grates me on a number of levels as well as conjures visions of sneezing, wheezing and expectorating wildly as I have an allergic reaction to the prerequisite fog of potpourri as we go from quaint overpriced store to quaint overpriced store. They also tend to have lots of doilies and I hate those things.
As Antiques by the Bay is so large that it's actually held on the runway of a former US Naval Air Station, indoor allergens aren't so much of a problem…though blustery weather can be. The upside of which is that if there were any doilies they'd been blown away by the time I got there.
I managed to coerce Troy—aka friend with a big pickup truck—to accompany Stacy, Shannan, Brock (Shannan's 16-month-old) and I to the sale under the ruse that it would be a Moab trip reunion and that there are really cool old hand tools there.
Running late because of errant power lines across the freeway, Shannan and Brock ended up driving separately and meeting us there. Troy, Stacy and I had been looking around for about 20 minutes—and actually already split off in different directions—when I got a call from Shannan saying they had just parked and could I watch the Brocster as soon as they got inside because she had to pee. I agreed, of course, but began to wonder if the little man would put up a fuss…I see Shannan every day at work, but I'd only 'met' Brock once when he was like a month old…wouldn't he cry or scream when he had to hang out with this stranger?
Brock eyes me with a contemptuous "Whatchu talkin 'bout Willis?" stare as he sizes me up.
As you can see above, 'lil' Brock (actually BIG Brock…at 16 months, he's the size of a two-year-old) looked a little perturbed with the situation but in a manner far beyond his years…er months…he made the most of a strange situation and found common ground—Look! A naked lady!
After the adrenaline wore off, we loaded the behemoth of a cart (it must weigh 150 pounds) into Troy's truck…the truck where Troy had retreated to earlier to warm himself. We all regrouped and Shannan hit Brock in the head with a picture frame (accidentally). He cried for about a minute then forgot about it and went back to being his smiley happy little kid self.
We then retreated to the mainland—Oakland—where I treated to Zachary's Chicago Style Pizza which could have used a little more sausage, but was—all-in-all—a pretty good end to a pretty good day.
Brockman prefers PB&J and applesauce to pizza now...but he'll learn.
