A piece with 15 links for bold, hooked-up reading.
Only the young think they’re immortal. They don’t stop believing until the wheel in the sky descends upon them, casting shadows over their dreams. Faithfully they hold on as long as they can, screaming at the top of their voices, ‘I’ll be alright without you… I’ll find my way through…’ not sure if they’re addressing their youth or their faith. ‘Any way you want it…’ they scream, pointing to fantastical enemies. ‘Ask the lonely… the faithful… hell is for heroes.’ They know what it feels like to find oneself on a packed highway, cars whizzing by on their way out, somewhere near but far away, wondering who’s crying now, where everyone’s going, what promises dangle before of them — scores of people flowing out of the busy lanes, drifting, dreaming, going their separate ways, a world of individuals stacked next to each other, worlds apart, in the torturous presence of company that’s always close but never available, in a sea of lights that play tricks on them, in the shadow of those who can’t stop lovin’, touchin’, squeezin,’ always promising, never sharing. Never giving. Open arms laid out, waiting to grasp, not offer, the distance between them grows with every sundown. The girl next door awaits, sitting on the porch, grasping at hope with her outstretched hands, praying. Laughing out loud. Girl can’t help it, she thrives on hope, be it torrent or ember, it matters not, it feeds her soul. I respect that. Send her my love. Wish her well. Smiling back, she waves me closer. ‘Be good to yourself.’ she whispers. ‘Love works best when one loves oneself. That’s how the journey begins.’
PS – Who said corny was bad? It rhymes with thorny and sounds an awful lot like journey, and a journey is what we took, straight into the sad, wounded loneliness of modern-day urban life.
We also made our way through corporate rock vanilla-land, sampling the songs that killed off rock music in the 70′s, which, by sleight of irony, gave it new purpose by making it mainstream, an opportunity on which Van Halen and Mötley Crüe capitalized, injecting rock music with a little glam and sex appeal that made the girls wet and the guys frisky.
Here’s to vanilla-cum-spice-rum.
Play loud, party hard!
PS 2 – In case the links above were a little too meh and the article too melancholy, here’s an antidote to perk you right up.
PS 3 – The ape in me hopes the aliens aren’t watching.
PS 4 – And here’s something a little more grounded, by the fabulous Journey again, whose songs inspired this article …