Tuesday, January 25, 2011

THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET

THOUGHTS THAT SWIRL LIKE COTTON CANDY AROUND A PAPER CONE

I was tooling around watching videos while waiting for a ride (that I inexplicably missed, and don’t ask why… just giving you the facts ma’am) to take me to an intermediate computer class, when I found this video featuring the Nine Inch Nail song, ‘Hurt’. A lot of people from different demographics are more familiar with the song because of the Johnny Cash cover (which is a great cover… didn’t Johnny win or was nominated for Grammy for his verion of the song?) and there are those who have listened to both and say that the ‘man in black’ did a better job. I am not among them. There is a purposed solemnity in Johnny’s voice that does not exist in the original, an emotion that brings the possibility of the pain passing. When Trent sings the lyrics, the last thing that I would think about when listening was that whatever he was going through being something that he thought was going to end.




 



AND NOW WE’RE BACK TO ‘DO, RE, MI, FA, SO…


There is always a danger in becoming numb to pain when trying to tough things out. Enduring discomfort is often thought to be a natural part of life and is to be expected. Growth is accompanied by pain physically but it is dealing with the mental development that growth brings that taxes most of all. Now that I am back to waking up early I can begin to get back into my schedule, running in the mornings (with the sun melting some of the snow off the sidewalks… THAT is something the locals are slack on around here… the damn HOME snow removal!!). Since I have been blogging, even when I don’t have anything to say, I do manage to get around to a few blogs and comment and say ‘Hello’. Some folks have such interesting things to say and others write so openly about themselves that I feel awed that they would share so much with strangers. This is not to say that I don’t write as openly as maybe I don’t write as well as others… anywho, for me to be reading blogs and not having anything to write is a good thing. Usually, that is a good thing. I am looking for something stable and if I can only get there…

Anywho, do you know who else was a student at Eddie Murphy High when I was dating my first sweetie? Tee Jay!! Man, my world is sooo small!  Either that or full of cosmic coincidence!! Our paths did not cross then but they may have already crossed by then… at my very first amateur boxing match!!

Making these links in my mind make me happy. There are a lot of warm associations tied to them that even if I could not see things clearly as I did once before, the lightness confirms for me that they were good times. So I am not like Kurt Cobain singing ‘I find the comfort in being sad’ in the song ‘Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge On Seattle’ (a super underrated song if you asked me… and no one has, so I will be quiet!) thinking about my past. That is part of what made leaving Mookie Dee and discharging my sister to another man for me to justify the level of concern I once had for her


She does have any more relevance (none of my sisters do for that matter) to me and  their welfare is decidedly unimportant to me, as it should have always been.

YEAH, BUT YOU STILL NEED TO CLEAN A SELF-CLEANING OVEN OCCASIONALLY


I think that I am going to bounce back. What other option do I have? Touching on growth, once you accept that there is going to be pain incurred for your effort, you don’t mind growth so much. I knew it was going to be difficult so once I calm down, I will get back to it. After all, it is on my ‘to do’ list!


Now I have a few names and numbers to call and I promise to use them if I feel that I am really in a sinkhole and can’t pull myself clear(in addition to the email... don't forget to reach out via email). The way I figure it is that I would not have them if I wasn’t supposed to use them.

Tomorrow is not only a day away, but it is an important one as well.  Have to make sure that I hit my marks...

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I like the Johnny Cash version better, but it's one of those songs that I think a lot of people can sing, and they can each sing it differently, and they can all be wonderful. Johnny Cash was an old man when he sang that song, and that gave it a whole different feeling than when a young Trent Reznor sings it.

Sarcastic Bastard said...

Love you, buddy. I like both versions of Hurt. You are right. They are very different.

SB

Beth said...

I also prefer the Johnny version, but I know I'm biased. However, I wouldn't say that either version is better than the other. Two very different interpretations of the same song, and as Thomas points out, it had a very different meaning for Johnny when he sang it.

I've read that Trent Reznor said that Johnny did his song better...said "It's his now." I thought that was very magnanimous and gracious of Trent. But Trent wrote it. Who knows? Maybe he wrote it for Johnny and he didn't even know it.

OOooooo!