Sea of Red

'Bo and I were driving home from a birthday party Sunday night on Long Island. The good old 495 (Long Island Expressway). Obviously there was traffic, people were heading home to their city abodes, gearing up for a big monday. It had just gotten officially "dark" out and the sea of red lights that we sat in reminded me of when I was a young kid. When I was around ten lets say, that sea of red was one of the most amazing things I had ever seen. My family and I would drive back home to the suburbs from Amagansett or East Hampton every Sunday night on the 495. Together we'd sit in that same traffic together, listening to Bob Dylan cassettes, or The Stones. Sometimes Bundell would get her way and slip some Pat Metheny or Steely Dan past the stone cold rock n' roll ears of Old Daddy Dan. Othertimes we'd listen to her recount the last 15 pages of that book she'd read, or the East Hampton Starr. I guess it didn't really matter. It was routine by then, and it was nice to be together at least.

And that sea of red never got old back then. Every time I saw it, I would gaze in amazement at not only how many cars there were, but how bright those lights would get. How they snaked out to the horizon and beyond. So much red, and so vivid. Funny how I never turned around to see if it was the same thing in white, behind us. But it was one of those things that made me wonder about how much I didn't know. It was about that age when I started internalizing the fact that there was a bigger world out there than my own. That were thousands of different people on this same stretch of highway, all going somewhere different than me, with their own complexities and lives. But as soon as that thought entered my brain, it immediately got tangled up and reprocessed because it was far too big for me to wrap my head around then. I'd go back to listening to the music, and everything would be as it should. 

Nowadays, that red sets me off like a Bull at a fight. It only means time wasted, staring at the ass of some SUV. You think to yourself, "Shit, I could be at home right now sitting on the couch", as if that's SO different than sitting in the car. You know, they say you spend about 3 years of your life waiting in line. I don't know if traffic was necessarily factored into that equation, but I sure as hell hope so. 3 years of a 70 year life. 3 long years.

That's why music is essential. I'll wait in line for double that time if I've got headphones and a little space to tap my toes. If I'm in a car, forget about it. That's my equivalent of a spa treatment, though I acknowledge that probably doesn't work for the 99%. If I've got nowhere to be, I'll sit in traffic for as long as you want if I've got some tunes and preferably an auxiliary input in the car with cable for my ipod. But hey, no sweat,  I always keep a couple burned discs handy in my bag. You never know, right? They don't call me the Music Nazi for nothing, but I'm getting better.

Now chances are you've always got somewhere to be, but that's not my point. When you're stuck in line or traffic, clearly, you're not going anywhere. And why fight it? Can't let that blood pressure get too high, we eat enough salt as it is. It's our own fault anyway. We decided to keep making babies and crowd into congested areas together. You could live in Montana. You don't wait in lines there. But we choose to live in areas where millions of other people do the same exact shit we do. You buy coldcuts, you get haircuts. You have to fill your car with gas, and you have to go to the doctor. You want to watch the Yankees at the stadium and the bar. And we're stuck in line every time we want to do it. 

Sure, it can wear on you. It should really. That's why my ipod is a hand-in-the-pocket away, though I have been proficient in working my ipod flawlessly through the pants for years now. I know, you're impressed. I make a "Top Picks" playlists that's about 2500 songs deep, and throw the bitch on random. Depending on the fabric of my pants, I can even work the volume wheel from outside the pocket, but even if I'm in Jeans, I can always work the FWD, BACK, Pause/Play, and Menu functions. Maybe I'm crazy. Fuck that, I'm nuts. But I'm not going to stand, sit, kneel, or hang in line without music. 

I'm really not prepared to do anything without music when I think about it. I wake up, throw the ipod in the dock in the bathroom and scrub. Pop the headphones in the jack and walk to work. Start up the Mac, link the ipod to the comp, and listen through the external speakers on my desk. 7pm, what? Closing time? Here we go. Headphones in jack, walk home, Ipod back in the dock, and on goes the Yanks game. Who needs announcers when I've got the new Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes single to overplay. I even made Kimi download it on her iphone...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyzacUdRlx4