YOUR WET HEART (AN ODE TO 1987)
I was recently divorced and on the tail end of a 4 year speed binge that played a major role in the reason I was divorced and why I was with the woman I was with...a woman I would be with for the next 8 years and (fortunately) live to regret each and every one of them.
"It's not your fault
it's no fault at all
she only wants you to join in her fall"
Speed is an interesting drug...I'm not talking about the white crosses I took when I was a 15 year old,I'm talking about crank...methamphetimine or the biker bathtub version you snort or inject.I was a nose guy,the gimme another bump dude kind of speed freak.
What started as a weekend diversion led to a daily chasing of the buzz. All of us were doing it,all the time.I remember being in a training school and I went to the bathroom to do a line off the sink,I looked in the mirror and saw a ring of dried blood around my left nostril. I didn't wonder how long it had been there or how many of my co-workers had seen it...I washed it off and snorted through my right nostril-back to class...lunch?no thanks,just a coke and a smoke please.
I could go on about what a substance abusing fool I was but you get the point (I hope).
This is really about the music of '87 and how it played into the chaos that was my life.
Speed was all about being intense...do a line,smoke a joint,drink some beer and have intense "meaningful" conversations while the music of the day rolled around the turntable in that glorious analog hiss.
"And the voice says to me....
You are alone,you are not free"
A favorite in '87 was thin white rope...dark loopy music made by guys who were either doing the same drugs we were or knew how to feed into the buzz...the record was called "moonhead" (which I found on CD yesterday as Ann wrote...she's knows it's a favorite,but doesn't know the details).
"Stiff-walking like a seeing eye
Your hand too dry to hold
What disappointed you
To make you act so old"?
As I said,I was divorced...which meant I was not with my son,I was with a woman who,had I been honest with myself,was a diversion.On some level I always knew this but never acknowledged it,after all we were in"love".What we had, really, was a drug addled fantasy with lots of good sex(initially).It was a diversion that lasted 8 years until I figured out what I really wanted.
I was angry...I was strung out (though I never admitted it) and I was alone.Surrounded by people, but alone. I was surrounded by other people altered by speed engaging in hours of ultimately meaningless conversation,bearing the secrets of our souls to each other around a coffee table with a mirror and a straw and a razor and vials destined to be filled with water and drunk when there was no more to be railed out.
And the music played over it all...dark,angry music...a music that propelled us along,fed our need to understand why we were so angry,so sad...so lost.
"She doesn't like to compare scars
I shrug and say "it's your wet heart"
She wants to be a mystery
I'm sorry theres no way to be
I guess I'll go on wondering
If she was hiding anything"
Those days are long past for me now,but I remember them,clearly-like it was yesterday.
You wouldn't think a trip to the record store could be anything but......but.