Page From My Notebook: I Love Jesus (Lizard), and America too.

This is a new "feature" of this blog (if you will humor me enough to allow for such a concept) where I type up a page from the "paper blog" I carry around with me everywhere I go in my dorky L-Magazine messenger bag.

July 4th, 2009

I did not bring my Ipod to The Shore. Sometimes it's refreshing to hear the world, especially when the world sounds like waves crashing against a boat and hair whipping against my face. That is not to say that music takes away from experiencing the world. In fact, I believe that music can only enhance experience, which is why I normally choose to listen to it nearly every second of the day.  

My beloved ITouch, which I lost in a cab on my last night abroad, walked with me along The Seine to peruse the book stands of nude postcards, toured East London looking for Space Invaders, and orchestrated the chaos that is Amsterdam after a "special" cupcake.  Some people, like my mother, I think, believe that this takes away from the organic experience of encountering theses places, but I disagree.  Music makes my insides bleed out into my surroundings. I feel like I become what I am seeing, whether it is a painting of a beautiful woman or a littered street in a pseudo-ghetto of Paris. Also, I sometimes feel like a disconnected alien/robot viewing the world from afar when there is no music playing.

Music also facilitates human connection at a level we can't even describe. I friend I met in Amsterdam understood this completely. After laughing at the tourists who traveled from painting to painting with their art museum audio tours, we created our own synchronized Audio Tour Playlist from songs we both had on our Ipods (mostly Radiohead and String Cheese Incident, strangely--even stranger that this combination turned out to be brilliant). It was one of the most intensely connected series of moments I have ever had with a stranger I will (in all probability) never see again. And, yeah, we were ridiculously and appropriately stoned, because weed and music, and beer and music, and art museums and music, and every human emotion and music, combine well.

If I did bring my Ipod, my Independence Day Playlist would sound something like this:

1. "She grew up in an Indiana town, had a good lookin' mom that never was around"

2. "Got your mother in a whirl, She's not sure if you're a boy or a girl"

3. " I saw her today at the reception..."

4. "Where are you going, I don't mind, I've killed my world and I've killed my time"

5. "Let us be lovers, we'll marry our fortunes together"

6. "I listen to the wind, to the wind of my soul"

7. "Clouds so swift, the rain falling in..." 

8. "Busted flat in Baton Rouge..."

9. "Love is a burning thing, and it makes a fiery ring"

10. "Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene..." (DP version)

I'm apparently very cliche about my Patriotism. This list lacks Weezer though. Weezer makes me feel insanely patriotic. 

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Jessica took this last night. I realize I like the beach the best at 7-10 p.m.

It must be said that after drinking Bourbon at the racetrack, listening to Springsteen in the car, and eating pie with ice cream, I feel exponentially more American. Also, as Jessica noted when we left the racetrack, we are exponentially closer to our dream of becoming Hemingway. The next logical step is obviously to replace our X-chromosomes with whiskey. Happy Independence Day, America (you slut).