Dispatches from The Tom Zone

• Radio roulette is a dangerous game for music geeks like me.  Sometimes, I'll just hear three songs in a row that have a common thread, theme, or leitmotif, and it will be awesome. 
• Yesterday, it crushed me a little: "I Miss You," by Klymaxx; "Are You Lonesome Tonight," by Elvis; "My Eyes Adored You," by Frankie Valli.  In my newly Punkinless condition, those three were kind of scab-off-rippers.
• There are certain songs I've heard that made an immediate impression, where I knew it was a special song at a special time, and it would forever be linked to me that way.
• One of them was "The Breakup Song (They Don't Write 'Em Like That Anymore)," by the Greg Kihn Band.  The first time I heard that one, I was 14 or 15, and I'd never even had a real girlfriend.
• For clarity's sake, I should note that I didn't have a roomful of artificial girlfriends either.
• Anyway, that song had some beautiful images, and I could see a guy sitting in a dark bar, alone at a table, a glass of whiskey in his hand, a Marlboro smoldering in a full ashtray, staring down at his hands, setting the glass down on the warm wet condensation circle.  Just gut-churning, throat tightening, eye-watering, whiskey-burping, soul-rending pain.
• Ouch.
• Another one was "Angel of Harlem," by U2.  As a cosmic joke, the Universe mandated that 3 of my 5 final exams my final semester of college would be on the same day.  So I had Film Theory & Criticism at 730 AM, German 3 at 10 AM, then my final final (sic) was Contemporary Literature, at 8 PM.  I was pretty fried by the time my German exam was over.  I meandered back to my apartment and fell asleep.  My alarm was set for 730.  The clock-radio kicked on just as "Angel of Harlem" started.  The chord progression and general r&b vibe of the song made me realize I'd survive my final two hours of higher education juuuuuuuuuuuuuust fine.
• I don't know why, but that confident, positive progression did keep going through my exam.  I walked out of the FSU Law School Annex, felt the cold air of freedom on my smiling face, and threw my notebook up on the roof.
• Another music geek moment.  I forget what grade I was in, but I know it was high school.  I heard Journey's "Open Arms" at the same time I saw this really cute girl named Allyson.  I knew I'd always think of her when I heard that song.  God bless her, I have too.
• I wonder what she's doing tonight. 
• Some times, I wonder what the hell I'm doing tonight.
• After one of those early heartbreaks, I found myself home alone–my parents and brother out of town.  I put on Derek & The Domino's Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, strapped on my Yamaha SG-2000, cranked the Fender Twin to eleven, and I wailed along with Mssrs Clapton, Allman, Radle, Whitlock, and Gordon.  It was purifying, scourgifying, maybe.  "Why Does Love Got to Be So Sad?" "Bell Bottom Blues;" "Have You Ever Loved a Woman?" Just loud, screaming, humbucker-fueled catharsis.
• 

  Sg2000

• I loved that guitar.  That particular girl, not so much in retrospect.  That guitar? That amp? Those 17 year-old fingers? Very much so. 
• It's unfortunate that people don't listen to the radio anymore.  If you play iPod roulette, it's not the same, since you're the one who programs it.  In my little moment of radio-directed sadness, it was from three songs I've never owned. I don't even own an iPod.  I have some music saved on my computer, but it's not the same.  Even though I know how music rotations work, and testing and packeting, ad nauseam, it's still kinda cool when everything aligns and there's that one set that makes such sense. 
• One jock I used to work with–Cynthia Clarc–and I had a little game we played with our music.  We'd see if song titles made sentences or interesting phrases when read together.  They had to be in a row, of course–no cheating–but we had fun.  (examples: "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" "I Go Crazy." Or, "Here Comes My Girl" "Walkin' On Sunshine."  Or, "Every Breath You Take" "After Midnight" "Makes Me Wanna Holler") 
• On my lunch break a couple Saturdays ago, my partner-in-mischief, Jenn, and I went out to buy caffeinated beverages and lottery tickets. The radio played Guns & Roses' classic "I Used to Love Her (But I Had to Kill Her)." So there we were, just barrelling along in my pickemup truck, blasting GnR, the Florida Cracker and the Georgia Redneck singing along at ridiculous volume.
• On my lunch break tonight, I went out for coffee.  That same song came on.  I still sang along, just like I did on my sad songs trilogy earlier this week.  I realized that I still love her, I'd never kill her, and "Every Breath You Take" was the #1 song the day she was born.  And apparently, as Doctor John sagely observed, "I was in the right place, but it musta been the wrong time."   Right girl, wrong time.  Sad, but okay–still friends, and who knows?
• Stupid damn radio. 
• Then again, thank God Rickie Lee Jones tests for shit, or I could've heard "When I reach across galaxies, I will miss your company."
• Have a great week.

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