I’d heard of [1] A Perfect Circle, of course. But I’d never felt them before.

I was actually looking to download some [2] Tool from iTunes. Silly me. Apparently, you cannot get Tool from iTunes. I’m sure this is not hurting Tool in anyway - just idiots like me who depend on iTunes for the bulk of their music. Even more exacerbating is the the fact that at my local Best Buy (no links for the Dark Side), I can’t find Tool cds. When I do manage to divert one of the pimple-faced customer-profiling zombatrons from their zone sweeps to ask about Tool, they usually tell me Sears is at the other end of the mall. Such is the travesty of living in a small town. Don’t get me wrong. I love the shit in Best Buy, but the people working there… I’ve seen more friendly bouncers at biker bars I wouldn’t throw my grandmother into without and 8-ball, a big knife, and a huge stash of cash to either buy her way out with or purchase sex from some guy named ‘Skids’.

Anyway - [1] A Perfect Circle. Fucking genius. Here I am, whining to my friend that I can’t find Tool on iTunes and she says “You should check out A Perfect Circle.” Well, I already had a couple of songs by them on my iPod. (By the way, I’m really getting sick of iThis and iThat. Next time I go to the iDoctor, I’ll make sure to tell him I have a family history and he needs to check out my iProstate for iCancer).  But, I digress.

I am lost in a fugue of brilliant emotive eloquence and I am ecstatic about it.  This is exactly what music is intended for.  If the music you’re listening to doesn’t allow you to take wing and soar, it’s not worth listening to.  I’m a musician - always have been.  Music is a powerful coalescing force inside me, screaming to get out, searching frantically for a voice, an outlet, an avenue for anger, loss, love, joy.  It’s absolute feeling.  Mine comes out on six strings but the stream is carried in the lyrics.

 Wake up and face me.  Don’t play dead…  This song, “Passive” just screams what I can’t write for myself.  I don’t know what moves me more, “I’m dead as dead can be” or “You fucking disappoint me”… “Go ahead and play dead… you fucking disappont me.”  It’s easy to get lost in this.  Every now and then you find a perfect song at the perfect time and you become a fan for life.  It’s the in-between spaces that music carries me through.  If you’re reading this and you think I’m referring to you, no matter how obliquely, you’re probably right.

“Someday, maybe, I will walk away and say  you fucking disappoint me.”

Yeah.  Passive-Aggressive Bullshit.  Maybe you’re better off this way.