When my visitors sit down and leaf through the issue of
Paste Magazine that sits inside the laundry basket in front of the toilet, they come out of the bathroom thinking that there’s a new
Okkervil River or
Voxtrot album. If they know anything about their musical timelines, they’ll check out the front cover to find that the issue they hold in their hands is dated August 2007.
I moved to Guatemala City during the summer of 2007, and that issue of Paste was officially the last issue of the last music magazine subscription that I had in the States. The laundry basket that sits inside my bathroom, filled to the brim with books and magazines, is essentially a “This is who I am” kind of container, with old issues of Paste, Details, the New Yorker, books on special education, Superfreakonomics, the not-so-funny Best Required Nonfiction 2009 edition. Whenever I travel back to the U.S., I am sure to pick up one or two things to replace, but they typically always align with what I’ve already got in there. One thing that never gets replaced, for some strange reason, is that Paste August 2007 issue. Even when the bathroom lights burned out and couldn’t be replaced, due to a flaw that’s typical of Guatemalan design, forcing me to get a lamp to put inside, that issue has remained a fixture.
You see, music has been that fixture. With every start of the new year for the past 4 years, my life has taken some wild new turn or undergone some ridiculous stress. This new year was no different as I was faced with a decision to take a job (that would start after my work here in Guatemala ends) that I wasn't quite sure suit me. I decided not to, eventually, but not without some internal and external battles, as well as a full body rash. What got me through it? Besides the pills and cream? The
Dark was the Night compilation. First
Andrew Bird for a little over a week, for the brooding, and then
Yeasayer for almost two weeks now, for the redemption.
For year
s I’ve
wondered if I could pull off a blog and be consistent about it. My friends encouraged me to do something on Guatemala or special education or something else that I love. Tonight as I read the January 2010 issue of Paste, more specifically a blog entry from a girl who works on a farm and listens to
Iron & Wine while tending to the chickens, I thought, I would love to be with chickens, just to feel closer to Sam Beam. And to be in a circus to feel what it’s like to be
Zach Condon of Beirut.
I’m 32 years old and I still love music with the same unwavering intensity that I had when I was 13 and listening to
The Smiths for the first time. Music is the one thing that I can go on and on about, I think. So why not start tonight?
Unlike other preteens, at the age of 11 or 12, I had the ability to rationalize that there would not and never could be any kind of romantic relationship between Martin Gore and myself. In my dreams I never thought he would be that much older boyfriend who could sing ballads to me. I’ve never been one for that anyway. (At this point, all I want in a boyfriend is one who can hold his own while singing Tom Waits’s song “Old Shoes (and Picture Postcards)” with me.)
So how could Martin Gore factor in my life, if not by being inappropriate, imaginary boyfriend? I decided that he would be my second or adoptive father, not that my own real-life father wasn’t good enough, I love my God-given parents (see the next post) but it just didn’t make sense for me to have a boyfriend who wore a skirt. I preferred to have a father like that, I guess.
With that firmly in mind, I decided then that I would need to make a home for us. I spent weeks, maybe even my whole three years of middle school, designing a 3-story home for my adoptive family. Martin and I would live on the 2nd floor while the others, Dave Gahan, Alan Wilder and Andy Fletcher, would live on the 1st and 3rdfloors. We had rooms just for listening and just for singing. In my dreams, Martin would often take me along with him onto the Arsenio Hall show to sing songs from Black Celebration together.
When The Smiths came along, I was suddenly overwhelmed by this new figure Morrissey who captured my attention and vocal cords. I knew that I had to find a place for both of them (after all, Martin did have another 10 more or so good years in front of him). He would be Uncle Morrissey, and we would oftentimes have afternoon tea together, while talking much crap about Robert Smith and the Cure.
I’ve read that the peak of rock star idolization occurs around the ages of 10 – 11, that it is developmentally appropriate and healthy to some extent. I am happy to know that I was developmentally on track at one point but I am not sure how healthy it was.
I watched recently a video of Martin singing on stage with his real daughter. I admit feeling a tinge of jealousy. I doubt her floorplans are as good as mine though.
