Sometimes I Really Need to Just Chill the Hell Out
But finding the right tunes isn’t always easy
It’s the start of a brutal week here in Mayberry, with three consecutive days of doctor visits for my stepdad, a heatwave that saps all mental and physical energy by 7 a.m., and my ridiculous decision to finally stop putting off a study of the Book of Revelation. Throw in a dearth of article ideas (save yet another prompt from Buddy Gott that I will work on later tonight) and August is already looking like it will be as much fun as July was.
When I was a young man, times like this would be solved the old-fashioned way: I would get drunk tonight and stay that way until September. I am older and wiser now (and I also have to drive my vision-challenged dad to those appointments), so that’s not an option anymore. My pain-killing drug of choice these days is music. Music solves everything, and the louder the better.
I started, of course, with Springsteen. To my astonishment, however, even “Born to Run” did not budge the needle on my surly/anxious/defeatist mood. This was serious.
I switched to my other go-to artist, The Smiths, and realized one verse into “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now” what a mistake that was. Somewhere, Morrissey is laughing.
