Everybody's Got One

I figure everyone has a mostly terrible positive influence in their life. Someone that they attach an unfair amount of significance to. Build some imaginary connection with. Subconsciously make the same mistakes as. 

Maybe it's your alcoholic but-he-saw-us-sometimes father.

Maybe it's some tortured celebrity soul.

Maybe it's the neighbor's dog suggesting you start killing pretty girls.

 

Well. Hopefully not that last one.

 

You've got someone in mind hopefully. Well.

Mine is Elliott Smith.

 

How can someone be a mostly terrible positive influence?

Easy!

Elliott was a drug addict, but he was also an outfuckingstanding musician.

And a pure one, I mean,

a musician with an intimate understanding of the language.

A multilinguist. A goddamned natural. 

 

Motherfucker didn't even overdose. The details of his death are kind of shady, actually. Nevertheless, I have attached my key to the bottom of his kite and am now waiting for the lightning strike.

 

Am I doing drugs? Of course not.

I'm too old and young people don't offer me cool things anymore. 

 

Am I losing my grip on what is worth it? I'm trying not to.

Herb is about the most sobering thing that has ever happened to me.

That continues to happen to me.

Every

New

Day.

 

It's been suggested that therapy might help me sort through this complex web of self-doubt and self-sniffing, believing I have all the answers to questions I'm only halfway certain no one is asking. 

 

But nah, I don't think therapy and I can ever go back to seeing each other.

Not that way I was left high and dry last time.

I've had one-night stands dump me more politely.

 

So in what way do I feel I'm doing myself a disservice and what does it have to do with Mr. Smith?

 

These days, I listen to almost nothing else.

I have a Spotify playlist that I listen to

daily

repeating certain tunes

feeling less and less like a mother

and more and more like a fucker. 

 

I hate how significant my decisions are now.

I hate that Every Thing I Do directly impacts my son.

Everything.

Sitting here in the bar across the street,

earbuds blaring, Elliott crooning,

nachos and margaritas arranged like offerings to a false god.

All these things affect my son.

And I am uneasy with the unyielding nature of his needs.

 

And I put myself in a real funk the more I listen to these songs.

This man.

I feel like a real piece of inanimate work after a while.

But I do it and I drink and I do it and I drink

and it's a bad combination that I can't stop repeating. 

 

So where's the positive influence?

Well. I certainly write more, haha.

There's an excellent quote of his concerning how he sees music

and I connected with it instantly.

Let me see if I can find it....

 

"The way I think about it is... I don't really think about it in terms of language, I think about it more like shapes. That's an interesting thing to talk about but it's difficult. I'm really into chord changes. That was the thing that I liked when I was a kid. So, I'm not like a... I don't make up "a riff" really. It's usually like... that sequence that has some implied melody in it or something like that."

 

I've talked a little about how metamorphic sound is for me. 

How I see things when people talk.

I can see sounds and smell colors and taste words.

And it's something I've never really felt comfortable talking about at length

because I feel like I come off as a pretentious fucking asshat. 

 

But the more I listen to his voice. The more I hone in on his words.

The more I realize that I'm not insane.

And if I am, then I'm in good company.

 

This is an awfully long rambling post, I know.

But if my only aim is to be better understood,

then you must take these pizza-on-the-ground moments

along with the eurekas, you know?