Mood Music - A Musical Bender

OK, I am just really distracted this week, my mind is drifting. For starters, my allergies are going nuts. It is insane, but as I get older, they seem to be getting worse. Isn't that the opposite way it is supposed to happen? My sinuses are like some crazed, phlegm-making machine, causing me to wake up with crusty eyes every morning. It is putting me on quite an odd [non]sleep pattern. This needs to stop. So I am identifying with Jackson Browne, singing Doctor My Eyes.



Yesterday afternoon, heard some rather big news from a friend. He came out of the closet, and announced he recently learned he was HIV Positive. Now, when a man of my age hears that news, it just ain't pretty for a bit. I moved to NYC in the Spring of 1983, when coverage of the condition was garnering attention. I had several friends during my time in the city who were diagnosed, and in those days, it was, in many ways, a death sentence. Thankfully, that is no longer the case, but my mind instantly flashes back to the far too many funerals I attended for a man in his 20s. I think of Kevin, Derry, Terry, Roseanne, Patrick, and really, far too many to start listing. The first reaction, almost involuntary, is to panic. It reminds me of putting on The Communards album and playing For A Friend far too often, crying way too much. It just really touched me so much. It is still my 'go-to' song, at least in this situation.



Another friend is having trouble in her relationship, and while I am glad to be a shoulder to cry on, there are just so many times I just want to tell her that Linda Ronstadt said it best when she sang to that man, You're No Good.



How all these things seem to be hitting for me at the moment, I can't say. To be fair, two of the three events aren't about me, save for the emotional baggage I bring to the process of listening. No man is being an jerk, and my health, save the allergies, is good. But just as the above brought out my emotions and made me express them through songs, the culmination of all this brought me to another place, the one where I go all hippie-commune on my own ass, and start channeling Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians, hearing Mrs. Paul Simon singing What I Am, with that Boho-chic style that was prevalent in 1988.



So, if you made it all the way to here, I hope you figured out I am good, happy with my life, and hoping to be able to be there for my friends. And it reminds me that indeed, the iPod in my head keeps feeding songs into my ears. You see, what I post on hear is really the Soundtrack to my Day.