Can I get a goddam timpany roll? To start this goddam post?

Sometimes having a good chunk of your music library can be a tricky, dangerous, weird thing. On the drive home I went from the exhalation of being 16 and discovering the light underbelly of the pop world - anything on Sub Pop, really - via Throwing Muses. Then somehow, quickly I was dragged into a slurry of conflicting emotions by the multi-topical and compelling "Let's Not Shit Ourselves (To Love And Be Loved)" by Bright Eyes.

I haven't listened to Bright Eyes in a really long time. It's not because it's "emo" (please) or depressing, I just think I sort of grew out of it.

Anyway, it made me want to write about a lot of different things - how politics had almost driven me crazy. artistic frustration, suicide, driving drunk... but I think instead of that, I'll talk about Sergio.

Sergio is this guy I worked with for a while, when I worked night shifts at a quasi-porn company, doing sysadmin work. It was boring and stressful at the same time. Even though I didn't smoke, I took up smoking just to get out of the place a few times a night, and soon enough we were all hanging out across the street from the place most of the night, smoking or listening to music from a car stereo.

There was also drinking. But I'll get back to that.

Anyway, somehow Sergio and I found we both liked Bright Eyes, and we both mocked ourselves for it. We'd mime wrist-slashing movements while singing along. "Red blooded, White skinned oh and the Blues. Oh and the Blues, I got the Blues! That's me! That's me!

We figured out after a short while that having a drink or two before work at the dive bar across the way helped ease the night along. Soon we developed that knowledge into a certainty that staying there until closing was the only way to survive.

I don't really even remember what we'd talk about. I just remember drinking a lot of beers, a lot of whiskey and coke, and laughing a lot. We were comrades-in-arms - drunk, sleep-deprived, depressed and laughing.

So now I try to keep up, I've been exchanging my currency.
While a million objects pass through my periphery.
Now I'm rubbing my eyes 'cause they're starting to bother me.
I've been staring too long at the screen.
But where was it when I first heard a sweet sound of humility?
It came to my ears in the goddamn loveliest melody.
How grateful I was then to be part of the mystery,
to love and to be loved. Let's just hope that is enough.