Tag Archives: nostalgia

Everywhere at the End of Time (by “The Caretaker”): this album broke me.

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Cover art for each of the 6 albums (each representing a different stage in the progression of Alzheimers/dementia) by artist Ivan Seal.

This is the first post of two.

I didn’t think the first post I’d write in more than two months would be about a six and a half hour long ambient album I stumbled across on Youtube because some Gen Z kids decided to challenge themselves to cry on Youtube after listening to it and thus made the original video (not their reactions, as interesting as they were) go nearly viral.   But here I am and that’s what I’m going to write about (the album, not the bored Gen Zers).  Life is weird, what can I say?

Actually, I have a lot to say.  I’m not exaggerating when I tell you this was the most profoundly emotional musical experience I’ve ever had.  It broke me, and then it changed me.  For now I’m just going to focus on the music (if it can be called that) and its immediate effects on me.

But first a little background.

Everywhere At the End of Time is an experimental/ambient musical art project (technically, “dark ambient”) by British musician and composer James Leyland Kirby (he bills himself as “The Caretaker,” after the Jack Nicholson character in the horror movie The Shining, which  was also the inspiration for the haunting 1930s ballroom music that opens this album and reappears in more distorted versions at intervals throughout).  The Caretaker wanted to convey, using music and later, degenerated music that can only be called noise, what it’s like to experience dementia from inside the deteriorating mind of a sufferer.

Everywhere at the End of Time is divided into six entire albums, each one roughly corresponding to the 7 medically recognized stages of Alzheimers Disease (or dementia due to other neurodegenerative diseases such as Lewy Body Dementia, a form of Parkinson’s that affects the brain rather than the body).  The six albums were released during a three year period, from 2016 to 2019.  Kirby felt that by releasing the albums over a long period of time, listeners would get more of the feel of the long slow decline of dementia, and also experience the sense of waiting the patients’ loved ones go through. Kirby said he became so fascinated with dementia, particularly Alzheimer’s dementia, that after studying its effects on the human mind and body, he was inspired to depict its ravages in musical form.

Kirby was kind enough to make his masterpiece available to everyone.  All six and a half hours of it can be found here:

https://thecaretaker.bandcamp.com/album/everywhere-at-the-end-of-time

If you prefer, the album in its entirety can also be found on Youtube:

Before I set out to describe each Stage and my reactions to them, I want to mention  some other reaction/review videos on Youtube.  Here is one of the best ones (this is in fact the one that sent me down the rabbit hole):

And another, which I really liked a lot:

Before I go into my reviews and reactions, let me explain why there are so many reaction videos, which seem to be mostly from geeky young men and gamer types.  Shortly after its release, it became a kind of meme to “challenge yourself” to listen to the entirety of Everywhere at the End of Time (because it’s not an easy listen and at times can be profoundly depressing or existentially terrifying) and then post your reaction to it.  The challenge started on Tik Tok and eventually moved to Youtube. 

Some critics of the reaction videos felt that these millennials and Gen Z’ers were making light of a serious album about a dark subject and turning it into a kind of game. They believed that cheapened what Kirby’s project was trying to convey.  But Kirby actually wasn’t bothered.  When he found out about the Everywhere at the End of Time “challenge,” he said that if his music was causing younger people to develop empathy toward (mostly older) people with dementia and Alzheimers (and since almost all of them cried, empathy could be assumed) and making a “challenge” out of it was the the avenue that inspired them to actually listen to the entirety of something so dark and serious, then it was a good thing.  This genre of music (dark ambient/drone) isn’t exactly catchy pop and would never get radio airplay, but because the Tik Tok/Youtube challenges made Kirby’s project go near viral, it’s getting a lot of attention it otherwise would never have achieved.  And that’s educating a lot of people about dementia and voluntarily experience, through the music, what it FEELS like to have this illness. It teaches empathy for people with this devastating disease. One woman I know who works with Alzheimers nursing home patients, says she has developed a level of empathy for these patients she never had before listening to Everywhere at the End of Time.    Even I, who was never very patient with my ex husband’s mother, who lived with us while suffering from early to mid stage Alzheimer’s, now feel sadness and regret that I wasn’t kinder to her while she was with us.  This disease must have been pure hell for her but she was unable to express her terror and grief coherently.  She passed away years ago; I wish there was a way I could tell her I’m sorry.

Like many others, I was scared to listen to Everywhere at the End of Time at first.  It was the video I posted above called “This Album Will Break You” that first caught my interest.  The clips I heard in that were pretty damn unsettling.   I wanted to listen to all six and a half hours, but I was afraid to in that same way some people are afraid to take LSD or another psychedelic drug if they’ve never done so before.  They’re afraid they might lose their minds.  I sensed this album was going to take me mental and emotional places I wasn’t sure I wanted to confront, but at the same time, I knew that doing so could be potentially life changing.   In the comments under the videos, I saw I wasn’t alone in my trepidation.  Many people are literally afraid to listen to this album because they know how unsettling, upsetting, and even terrifying it can be.  One way around this is to make your first listen “with” someone else who is narrating it for you.   So my first listen was with PizzaManSteve, who plays the entire album and reacts and comments throughout.  His loud reactions and crying at the end are a bit distracting and makes it hard to hear the music, but it’s a genuine reaction that many people seem to share.  The first time you listen, you may want to listen to his video first, as you’ll feel less “alone” than listening to the full album posted above without any commentary at all.  I was afraid that would freak me out. Yes, it’s that intense.

Before I move on to my reactions, I want to mention the artwork by Ivan Seal.  The six paintings used to illustrate each stage of dementia are absolutely perfect in conveying exactly what the stages FEEL like.  The objects they depict are difficult or impossible to identify, but they still look and feel familiar, the way an Alzheimers patient might look at a person or an object, and not quite be able to place who or what it is, and yet know they have seen it before.  The feel of these paintings is similar to the “name one thing in this photo” viral AI photograph that shows a bunch of familiar looking objects that you just cannot identify.  This was supposed to depict what things look like to stroke victims.

The paintings look organic, disorganized, or decayed. Even the flower vase in Stage 2 is unsettling.   The woman’s masklike face in Stage 4 depicts loss of self awareness a patient with dementia experiences at that point in her illness.  It also may be how others start to appear to her, as she loses her ability to remember the names and faces of even her closest family members.

All the images are incredibly unsettling in ways that are hard to describe (much like the music itself), but for some unknown reason, the artwork for Stage 5 frightened me the most.  Stage 5 is advanced Alzheimer’s, nearing the end.  During this stage, the brain literally self destructs, destroying whatever memories still remain.  Its “songs” have  titles like “Advanced Plaque Entanglements,” “Synapse Retrogenesis,” and “Sudden Time Regression into Isolation.”

Holy hell, that sounds absolutely horrifying.

Back in the 1990s, an artist named William Untermohlen, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimers in 1995 at the age of 61, decided to paint himself at intervals throughout his illness. Each portrait here (except the first) roughly corresponds to the stages depicted in Everywhere at the End of Time.   As Untermohlen’s memory and sense of self declined, you can see these changes in this series of self portraits (the first was a self portrait from 1967, years before the onset of his illness).

 

End of Part 1.  

Go on to Part 2.

I just saw my teenage self on Youtube!

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That’s me in 1975 (on the right)

I’ve heard other people talk about stuff like this happening to them, but I never dreamed it would happen to me.   I always thought it would be the most surreal and cool experience, and last night I found out just how true that is.

As many of us are doing with so much free time, I’ve been browsing the internet a lot.   And as many other people probably do, sometimes I put names of people I know or used to know in my Google browser and see what comes up.

This wasn’t the first time I’ve Google’d this particular ex boyfriend’s name, but this time certainly was the most fruitful!   I dated this guy, let’s call him Steven, for about a year and a half from 1974 to 1976.  That’s a really long time ago, long enough that memories of that time have a grainy, shadowy, almost dreamlike quality, like an old filmreel.  We also had a pretty long relationship for people in their midteens, long enough to make some vivid memories, although we never became “serious” or talked about marriage.  After all, I was only 15 and 16 years old!

Eventually we broke up and he went off to college and we went in very different directions.   I’m not here to tell you about what became of him, but let’s just say he made better choices than I did and has become fairly well known in his field.  I regret nothing that happened to me though, even the bad things, as I was able to take away some valuable life lessons from all those experiences.  I don’t believe I would be the person I am today had my life been “easy.”

So, back on topic, last night my Google search yielded quite a catch!  Of course the usual entries for Facebook and a lot of those horrible “people search” websites came up, and a few news articles about his accomplishments over the years.  And a Youtube channel.   Now that was something new.    I clicked on the link…

…and almost passed out from shock. I WAS IN the first two videos!  OMG!

Steven went to an exclusive private high school for high achieving boys.  It was a “special” school in that it offered courses that you’d normally only find in a college curriculum, such as Sociology or Filmmaking.  Steven was in the filmmaking class and had to make his own short movies to fulfill the course requirements.  So during the 1975/76 school year, when we were in “puppy love,” he made several films starring the two of us, and I helped a lot with the stop motion and animated parts.  In fact, in one of them, I actually did all the drawings.  I remember how grueling that was, having to draw all those paper cutouts in slightly different positions to make the frames seem to run together smoothly, like a real cartoon (think South Park).

My initial emotion on watching myself (and us together!) as I was 45 years ago was simply amazed disbelief.  If something like this has ever happened to you, you will know exactly how surreal and cool it is.  It’s like watching your own memories in real time, and with more clarity than you ever had before.  You suddenly see things and details that were forgotten long ago.  Because there were no smartphones or even camcorders back in those days, Steven used a home movie camera to make his films, with that old super 8 film.   The grainy quality and little black moving squiggles that appear in old filmreels were there, giving the whole experience of watching the footage an extra air of the surreal, even a kind of eerieness, like a dream.

I sat there watching in utter disbelief, with my mouth hanging open and my eyes bugged out.  I’m sure I must have drooled on the floor a little, lol.  I think I actually screeched when I saw my own young face staring back at me from the recesses of time.  It was a good feeling though, really good.

!

I’ve often complained (sometimes on this blog) that I have very few pictures of myself as a child and teenager.  Most of them got lost or thrown out during one of my many moves.  I really have no idea what happened to them all.  There used to be so many. I used to think my parents (particularly my mother) must have thrown them away, but I’m not so sure she did.  No one seems to know where they are.   I always wished I had more old photos, not to show others, or even to reminisce, but to help me remember parts of my distant past as part of therapy.   I never imagined I’d recover not just some old photos I hadn’t seen in decades, but myself actually moving, at times even in close up!  Unfortunately, the videos have no sound, as the audio part probably wasn’t able to be uploaded to Youtube, or maybe the sound got corrupted over the years. (They originally did have audio).   But I’m not complaining.

I debated posting the videos here, but decided against it because (a) there’s too much identifying information, such as my maiden name, etc.; and (b) while fun to watch (and certainly fun to make), these films are truly cringeworthy, haha!  And the fashions!  Oh. My. God!   But I still wanted to share them in some way.  I settled on taking some screenshots.   (The fortune teller screenshot is actually a sort of gypsy costume I put together; I didn’t actually dress like that!)

So, I know what you all are probably thinking.  Did I let Steven him know I saw his videos?  My answer to that is, no not really, but he could probably figure out it was me if he was so inclined.  Under one of the videos, I commented, “omg.”  He can always click on my Youtube icon from there, and figure out from my videos and the rabbit hole that will lead him down who I am.  He hasn’t forgotten about me or our time together, and these videos were only posted THREE WEEKS AGO!  How weird is that?  I felt awkward identifying myself, for several reasons. First, like I already mentioned, he’s very successful financially and professionally, and I’m not so much.  I’m not comparing myself to him; I just feel like we’re in way different leagues.  Second, it would just feel awkward after that long a time.  I can’t explain why, it just is.

The internet (and Youtube) is an amazing, incredible invention.

Sorry, I couldn’t make the screenshots larger, but you can click them on and they will appear bigger in a separate window.

“Learning to Fly” (Tom Petty)

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Tom Petty was one of my favorite musicians.  I loved almost every song he released during his long career.   I owned several of his albums, spanning from the late 1970s to the early 1990s.

I heard “Learning to Fly”  in the car this morning and was overcome with bittersweet nostalgia that stayed with me all day.  1991 (the year this song was released) was a year that had a lot of personal meaning to me, and this was one of my favorite Tom Petty songs.  It’s absolutely surreal to me that 1991 was 27 years ago.   It’s sad and a little scary  how much faster time passes by as we age.

Tom Petty’s premature death in October 2017 was a great shock.   Music like his will never be made again.   But he finally got his wings and learned to fly.

Why did decades stop having personalities?

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decades

I saw this quote today and it made me think.

The 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s seem to have all separate, unique personalities, but these last 18 years seem to just be one big chunk of time that has no significant meaning.

Personally, I think decade “personalities” reach back all the way to at least the 1920s.  Although I have no real point of reference for chunks of time earlier than that,  I suspect the growth of mass popular culture (movies, radio, mass produced clothing, magazines, etc.) due to the advance of technology during the early to mid-20th century had a lot to do with the decades developing their own unique “feel.”

It wasn’t just music, entertainment and fashion that defined decades from each other; decades even had their own unique fonts.  You can pretty much tell the vintage of a magazine or paperback book heading or a movie poster by its font.  Colors (and color combinations) and patterns are also telling:  1940s: dark jewel colors; 1950s: aqua and pastels, gingham and boomerang patterns; 1960s: DayGlo colors, paisley, and psychedelic patterns; 1970s: earth colors (specifically, all shades of brown, harvest gold, avocado, and rust); 1980s: mismatched DayGlo colors and clashing abstract patterns, and of course, mauve and hunter green (for home decor); 1990s: the “distressed” look for furniture,  plain white walls, black clothing, tiny floral prints on black backgrounds, heather gray, brown, and lots of plaid flannel.  The 2010s do seem to be defined by the popular “lattice” and oversize houndstooth patterns you find on everything from throw pillows to blankets,  but I can’t think of much else that defines it, other than political statements like MAGA caps or pink pussy hats.

The decades as we think of them don’t generally (or ever) start on January 1 of a new decade.  They could start early, or it could take several years for the next decade to really get underway.  It also isn’t until some years after it began that we actually notice that things changed (that’s why the decade you’re currently in doesn’t seem to have its own personality).

For example, the “sixties” didn’t start until about 1964, with the rise of the Beatles (or possibly, in late 1963, with the assassination of JFK); the “seventies” didn’t begin until sometime in 1974, when early Disco/Philly sound emerged out of earlier funk and R&B; and bell bottoms, Earth shoes and sandals, long straight center parted hair, and long peasant dresses (all more associated with the sixties) suddenly gave way to platform shoes, polyester leisure suits, and sexy Lycra  “disco dresses” in jewel colors.    But it wasn’t until the end of the ’70s, or even the early ’80s, that we realized exactly when the “seventies” started and the “sixties” ended.

The “eighties” started more or less on time (or even early), because disco and its culture had a short run and was replaced with New Wave and power pop music as early as 1978 or 1979.  The eighties ran until the fall of 1991.  The rise of Nirvana and other grunge bands from Seattle commenced the nineties.  Overnight, Generation X was cool and Boomers were just old.  I remember the switch to the nineties well, since I gave birth to my son the very same month “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was released, and I remember telling my husband on first seeing the video on MTV, “That song is going to change everything.”  I have no idea how I knew that.

But what happened since the new millennium began?  Why, almost two decades after the year 2000 began, does that decade still seem to have no personality of its own? Why does there seem to be no clear cut off between the late ’90s, the 2000s and 2010s?

Obviously, we are far enough into the 21st century that at least its first decade’s personality would have emerged some time ago.  So it’s not because we haven’t waited long enough.  Now, that could be the case for the 2010s (which we are still in but not for much longer) but not for the 00’s.  But I suspect the reason is something else entirely.

Since 9/11, there’s been a change in the national zeitgeist, a darkening of the overall mood.   People are more suspicious of each other and of the government, and the overall mood is one of distrust and dread.   That distrust and dread, sparked by 9/11, is what led to Trump and the rise of hatred and nationalism, and the disintegration of American democracy.   Pop culture — music, fashion, movies, art, and youth movements — all the things that have traditionally defined the decades take a secondary role to survival itself.   A society that is not thriving doesn’t really care about frivolities, pop culture, and being entertained.  During dark times, people tend not to create a new culture; instead they draw from the past and become nostalgic for happier, more stable and prosperous times.

There’s another reason for the lack of definition of recent decades, one which may be even more important than the darker national zeitgeist.   Technology has continued to advance, to the point that every person can customize their own entertainment.   Up until the 1990s, people tended to listen to the same songs on the radio, watch the same music videos, and shop at almost identical malls scattered across the country.  A mall in Miami was pretty much the same as a mall in Minnesota.  There weren’t 1000 different cable channels.  People bought physical records or CDs because of what they heard on the radio.  In general, there was less choice in entertainment (though many believe the quality was much better).   There was no internet or social media to influence individual opinion or create tiny niche cultures, the way we have today.   Now anyone can start a Youtube channel, anyone can create their own music video or short film and get their own small group of fans or followers.  Anyone can start a blog and sometimes gain a modicum of internet fame from doing so.   Your friend may listen to a band, watch a movie, or be a fan of a comedy series you have never heard of because they have only a tiny niche following on Youtube or Vimeo.   There’s also the isolating nature of today’s entertainment.   People watch videos and listen to music on their phones or iPods instead of turning on the radio for all their friends to enjoy.

And of course, many of us, overwhelmed by too many choices and not enough quality, escape into the past for our entertainment, indulging our need for nostalgia.   The unifying sense of solidarity people once experienced through enjoying a common zeitgeist is almost completely gone.  Now it’s everyone for themselves.   The disintegration of that kind of solidarity may actually have something to do with why Americans stopped caring about each other.

Missing normal.

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I was going to write a post, but this piece (I don’t know who the writer is) sums up my feelings as well as I can.

normal

“Tommy” (The Who): full album.

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Tommyalbumcover

“Tommy” was one of the first “concept albums” I ever owned, back in the 1970s.  (The album was released in 1969).   “Tommy” may be The Who’s most ambitious project ever, and all the songs tell a story, so they should be listened to in order.

A short synopsis of the story (since this was performed as a rock opera before being released as a concept album, it includes the names of the original cast members):

After seeing his stepfather murder his father during an argument over his mother (Ann Margret), young Tommy goes into shock, suddenly becoming psychosomatically deaf, dumb and blind. As a teenager, Tommy (Roger Daltrey) stumbles upon a pinball machine and discovers he is a natural prodigy at the game. Fame and fortune follow for Tommy, as he first becomes a pinball champion and later the messiah of a religious cult who view his pinball skills as a miraculous sign of divine intervention.

I was just listening to it today (on Youtube), because my original copy (a two album set) was sold in 1994 along with all my other albums I’d collected from the 1960s – 1990s.   The owner of a used record store came to my house and bought my entire collection of about 600+ albums without even looking at the titles.   There was some real shit in there, some of the records or their covers in poor condition, but there were also a lot of classics ones in excellent condition, like my copy of “Tommy.”   The guy just took the whole lot for $300.  I was desperate for the cash at the time, but I still have regrets about getting rid of all of them.

Listening to “Tommy” again today, I was as blown away and haunted by this ‘rock opera’ as I was when I first heard it as a young teen.

For your listening enjoyment, here’s a trip back in time, courtesy of The Who!

1-Overture 00:00
2-It’s a Boy 05:21
3-1921 05:59
4-Amazing Journey 08:48
5-Sparks 12:12
6-The Hawker (Eyesight To The Blind) 15:58
7-Christmas 18:12
8-Cousin Kevin 22:45
9-The Acid Queen 26:52
10-Underture 30:26
11-Do You Think It’s Alright? 40:30
12-Fiddle About 40:55
13-Pinball Wizard 42:26
14-There’s a Doctor 45:28
15-Go to the Mirror! 45:52
16-Tommy Can You Hear Me? 49:40
17-Smash the Mirror 51:15
18-Sensation 52:50
19-Miracle Cure 55:19
20-Sally Simpson 55:31
21-I’m Free 59:42
22-Welcome 1:02:21
23-Tommy’s Holiday Camp 1:06:54
24-We’re Not Gonna Take It 1:07:51
25-See Me, Feel Me 1:11:20

Remembering my favorite seasons of American Idol.

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Since Trump got elected, I feel as if a magnet has been taken over the country’s hard drive.  I barely recognize America as my country anymore, and feel almost like I live in an occupied country.   Politics has taken over my mind.   Things I used to care about — like movies, entertainment television, novels, and other “frivolous” pastimes — hardly seem to matter anymore.

But all this obsessing over current events and the political situation all gets a little too much sometimes, and it helps to remember simpler times — like my interest in the singing competition reality show American Idol that lasted from 2006 through about 2009 or 2010 (after that year the show–and my interest in it–went south).    My interest was renewed somewhat in 2014, because one of the contestants, Caleb Johnson, was from my city and went on to win.

I wasn’t that interested in American Idol during its early years (it began airing in 2002 as a summer replacement show), though perhaps I should have been, since two of its most famous winners, Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood, went on to become major stars who are still making hit records today.   No contestant since has matched their level of success, though several have done well for themselves and have careers in the music industry.

I assumed American Idol was too cheesy to capture my interest (and I won’t deny it could get pretty cheesy), but because my kids were in their early teens and used to watch it, by default I began to watch it too.   The first year I did was in 2006.   It was season 5, the year Chris Daughtry made the Top 4 (and everyone was sure would win).    I watched reluctantly at first, but soon Daughtry, a hard rocker with a post-grunge style very much in vogue at the time,  became my favorite contestant so naturally I had to tune in every week.   I was devastated when he got a shock boot in 4th place.    I didn’t expect that at all. No one did.

In my opinion,  Daughtry’s cover of Fuel’s “Hemorrhage” was one of the best performances ever on this show.

Chris Daughtry’s shocking elimination in 4th place.

Daughtry’s shocking elimination was mitigated somewhat by the fact he became quite successful, with a string of mainstream pop-rock hits over the next few years.

Daughtry’s hit “Home” was used as the elimination song in season 7 every time someone went home (the song played over a film of the contestants’ “journey” on the show.)

The next year I didn’t really have a favorite contestant and didn’t get into it quite as much. A 16 year old named Jordin Sparks won that year.   I would have preferred third placer Melinda Doolittle, a former gospel singer, but that wasn’t to be.   Doolittle’s style probably was a little too old fashioned but she outsang everyone else that season.

2008 (season 7) had its first bona fide rocker win — David Cook, whose style was similar to Chris Daughtry’s.  No one thought Cook would win, but he knew how to play the game, and seemed to top himself every week.  He never had any bad performances. He could cover just about any genre, and make it his own by rearranging the song or by using someone else’s rearrangement that suited him.   2008 was the first year the contestants were allowed to use musical instruments, and David Cook was the first of a long line of white guitar playing male rockers who would keep winning for the next several years (some say this led to the show’s demise).   I was over the moon when he won, because I’d been rooting for him since the auditions and at that time, no one took him very seriously or thought he had any chance at all.

 

Cook’s own rearrangement of the Mariah Carey song “Always Be My Baby”

A performance of his own song, “Anodyne,” which was not on the show, but he performed at many of his concerts on tour.   I’m including it because I love the song, even though the quality here isn’t that good.

The next year, 2009, was the year Adam Lambert, a gay glam rocker, almost won.   Like David Cook, he never had a bad performance, and was creative and innovative, with impressive, unforgettable performances, usually with elaborate stage sets and lighting.   He had a voice that could hit unbelievably high registers, much like Chris Bellamy from The Muse (who was one of his mentors).  Season 8 was a very talented year (some say the most talented year) — all of the Top 4 were great, so it was hard to pick a favorite.   An inexperienced but talented singer named Danny Gokey had a soulful, raw gospel-tinged voice, and most people thought either he or Lambert would win, but neither did.  Gokey finished third.  On finale night, a quiet, unassuming folk-rocker named Kris Allen, who had been building momentum during the last episodes of the season, took the title.   Adam Lambert fans were devastated and shocked.   I wasn’t all that happy with the outcome, as I would have preferred either Lambert or Gokey, but I could see why Allen would take the title. He was very likable and talented in his low-keyed way.

My favorite Adam Lambert performance — a slowed down arrangement of Tears for Fears’ Mad World.

I think season 8 was the last really good season of American Idol.   I watched halfheartedly for the next couple of years, and finally stopped watching at all — and so had my kids, who were entering their 20s and had other interests.

In 2014 though, my daughter mentioned that a boy she had known through her friend in high school (they did not attend the same high school) had made it through the auditions.  His name was Caleb Johnson.   He was a hard rocker with a style reminiscent of the classic rock of the 1970s.     Of course I tuned in to check him out, and saw that he was very good and had a style I enjoyed.   His range was huge.   I didn’t expect he’d go that far though, but every week he kept making it through the rounds, until he made the  Top 3 and a big “homecoming” (a tradition where the Top 3 contestants emerge from the “Idol bubble” and return to their hometowns to be greeted with parades and fanfare) was held here, which I attended.  That was a lot of fun.    I still didn’t think he’d win, but he did.    Unfortunately his album didn’t do very well, but as far as I know, he still makes a living making music and performing at various charity events.

Caleb Johnson’s cover of Aerosmith’s Dream On.

American Idol’s final season was last year, but I didn’t watch any part of it except the finale, because of the tributes to the original judges Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul, and Randy Jackson, and many of the former contestants.   I don’t even remember who won.    The show has a good legacy, and was cancelled at the right time, after a 15 year run.  It’s peak years seem like the distant past, even though it really wasn’t all that long ago.

 

Long-forgotten one hit wonder I just heard on the radio!

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I loved this one hit wonder song when it came out in 1984 but it didn’t receive airplay much beyond its radio life, so like so many other songs that came and went over the years, providing my life’s soundtrack,  I completely forgot about it.

Just a few minutes ago, I heard it on the radio (a local indie-rock station that plays both old and new music), probably the first time in about 20 years.   It’s a song from one of the happier times in my life (which there haven’t too been many of), so it brings back pretty good memories.

I love when that happens.  I wish it would happen more often.  There’s probably so many others songs I completely forgot about, but would remember immediately if I heard them again.

No Doubt also covered this song in 2003.  Their version is just as good.   On  side note, Gwen Stefani appears to be portraying  woman with Histrionic Personality Disorder or maybe BPD.

Raw nerve.

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everything_is_fine

Over the past few days I have been extremely anxious, even panicky. I can’t focus enough to write anything or do much of anything else either. I really have no idea why or what might have triggered it.

Last night instead of writing anything, I poked around on nostalgia sites, reminiscing about the things of my childhood, particularly the snack food. My childhood was terrible, but I have fond memories of the various sugary and salty foods I ate (why in %$#& did Buitoni ever stop making those awful but delicious toaster pizzas? Where’s a chalky, non-chewy Giant Sweet-Tart when you need one?) and the toys I played with (those over 45 or 50 or so will remember that Fuzzy Wuzzy soap that grew “hair” just like a Chia pet and had a small but high quality prize inside). These memories bring me a measure of comfort. Things seemed so much simpler before everything started going to hell about 30 years ago and hearts began to harden and greed became good because a movie character named Gordon Gecko said so. Life has just become way too complicated and stressful for someone like me (although I couldn’t live without the Internet, which for someone like me is the best thing that could ever have happened).

Sometimes I feel like I just can’t cope anymore. I’m so tired. I’m getting old. I have too many unresolved psychological issues. I worry about the future constantly. I have a pervasive feeling of nameless dread, as if something terrible is about to happen.

I don’t know where these feelings come from or what might have triggered them, but I feel like a raw nerve and even at work have been jumpy, quick to take offense to everything, and paranoid. I have too many disorders to function well at a job for any length of time, especially when it comes to dealing with others. Sometimes I just wish I could go off by myself and live as a hermit, never having to deal with anyone, but for that you need money and I have no money. I’m caught in a no-win situation.

The job might be part of the problem. I’m burned out; I hate my job. There. I said it. I hate the politics at work, and the favoritism. I’m not a favorite. I have never been a favorite at any job. I can’t play the game; I have never been able to play the game. I wish I didn’t have to work, or could just write and make a living that way. But I can’t, not yet anyway. I don’t want to look for a new job because I know it will be as crappy as the one I have, that I’ll still be forced to deal with people I dislike and who dislike me just as much. I’ll still feel like the odd one out, the employee who is most expendable and always overlooked. I’m so ill suited for the service industry but I can’t get my foot in the door for anything else. I burned all my bridges a long time ago, and now I’m well past 50 and it’s too late to start over in an employment situation or going back to school. My only hope left is to become a professional writer.

The DBT and self-soothing tools I normally use to focus and center are not working. My thoughts are racing and my hands are shaking. My sleep has been fitful. Maybe it’s the heat but I think it’s more than that. I feel like my head will explode. I don’t know what’s really going on with me right now. I need to find a good therapist. I need to be in a relationship but am too scared. I need to write more.

One thing that might be contributing to my high anxiety is caffeine. I’m addicted to coffee. I’m craving some right now, but I don’t think I should make any. I might have to cut down on my favorite beverage–a prospect which itself causes me anxiety.

I spend most of my free time holed up inside the house on this laptop, which is fine when I’m actually being productive, but last night all I did was poke around on random nostalgia sites and Facebook and wrote absolutely nothing. And then felt guilty about it.

I know what I need to do is go out, do something outside the house, get off the computer, but I don’t have the motivation.

Finally I got the idea to just write about my panic-stricken state. After all, this blog was intended to be my therapy, so what have I got to lose?