Deadlines Approaching, Ambition Falling...

I have a disease involving reading too much Hunter S. Thompson and then firing off incoherent and slightly disturbing emails to old friends. The best way to avoid these sorts of things is to remain in touch with me regularly, otherwise you're liable to recieve a rambling email about the Brothers Karamazov. That or not inform me of email address changes, which is happening to me as people graduate from college. Blogging has been able to save my old friends a few unwelcome emails, but still, a bit of gonzo journalism and the right song will still send me in a keyboard clacking mania...

Yes, the right song makes me think of something I did in high school or my freshman year in college. Get's me thinking, "Hey, what is so and so doing now? I should tell him my exact feelings on this whole Iran-nuclear thing!" Then I read Hell's Angels and this seems like the only stand up thing to do. I usually do not recieve responses...which calls into question the "stand up" aspect of this activity.

I think I have a kindred spirit in Craig Finn of the Hold Steady, who I would imagine seems like the drunk dialing type. And my emails are written in an inebriated sort of state. My head full of a song that has my emotions going all flubba-flubba remembering some car drive. And in this state I write something like a strange mutation of the Good Doctor and Mr. Finn with all kinds of half truths, exagerations and manic excitement. Yes Mr. Finn, certain songs get so scratched into my soul.

What songs? Oh, what a ridiculously good segue into a list! Not forced one bit!

1) Radiohead - "Kid A": Not the album, the song...this has a connection with a road in Stevens Point, WI that has lots of woods and old Polish people living on it. I almost always took this road to a friend's house late at night. So it's inevitable that this song would make me think of this friend, and the paranoid, alien sound of the song pretty much ensures that the email will be of the rambling lunatic sort.

2) Wilco - "Jesus, ect" and "Ashes of American Flags": Wilco has always struck me as backward looking, trapped in the past. Therefore, it makes me wish I still talked to old friends. But not in the "hey, how are you doing" sort of manner, but in a meaningful way. Because Wilco is deep, man.

3) Pink Floyd - "Wish You Were Here": Oh my, how cliche is that one?

4) Eminem - "Way I Am": I used to listen to this before ultimate frisbee practices, where I met most of my old friends. Now there is no more dangerous combination than reminiscing about friends and ultimate frisbee. There once was a team I was involved in, and there's always the tug of the old comraderie from the team pulling me towards reconnecting with that feeling.

5) Green Day - "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)": Haha, just kidding...this isn't a long distance commercial...

Combine any of these songs and "The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved", and something awful will arrive in your inbox. You've been warned...