Year End Playlist 2016

January - Phantogram - 10,000 Claps
February - Robyn - Fembot
March - Moderat - Sick With It
April - Discovery - Slang Tang
May - Bell - It's Oh So Quiet (Bjork cover)
June - Great Dane - Alpha Dog
July - Moderat - Porc 1
August - DJ Shadow - Mutual Slump
September - Unkle - Restless
October - Dan Deacon - Meme Generator
November - Philip Selway - Coming Up For Air
December - Miracle Fortress - Raw Spectacle

The honorable mentions in very particular order.  The higher up, the closer to the final cut.

Chvrches - Strong Hand
Santigold - L.E.S. Artistes
Lou Reed - Perfect Day
The Cure - Close To Me
Kanye West - Waves

This was a year that was supposed to be a statement of capabilities that flamed out midway and became a statement of resilience.  If you want to find the honorable mentions, they are out there in the woods with their own little fires to gather 'round, each one with different mothmen circling just outside their fire's light.  If you want to talk to them, you can find them.  A little place where we keep half ideas.  Things we fear.  Say it three times and they'll appear.  The body you thought stayed buried is floating behind your ear at the edge of peripheral vision.  Next time, do not wear sunglasses at night.  You can sense them by the flex of ember light.

I cannot remember the last time I saw every detail of a year coming before it happened.  This past year was close until I realized my map was flat and the Earth was a sphere.  With the year end look and this, the bookend to 2016, the only thing to do is look ahead to two thousand oh one and seven.






///the year is written.  let it go.  thank you for loving me.  thank you for being there.  one of these days we may be eating at the same table.  in the meantime, you know you have a place at mine where the reeds are just high enough and the shade just thick enough for no one to notice we're there by a fire together.

I Know It's Going To Be A Rough Day and That's Okay

I've been trying to arrest my emotions for two days and here we are at day three.  I can't allow life to seize up and die.  This morning, poking the tines of my work into the middle of a sunny side up egg on a piece of medium tough toast with a shake of a salt and a dollop of syrup beside it, I am afraid.  I used to call Annie, I used to call Alexis, I used to call my psychiatrist, my therapist, myself, when fear gripped me.  I haven't been able to eat willingly so I am preparing to chop up an egg into a little toast and see where it goes.  Maybe we will cut up a clementine into quarters and have that in lieu of juice.

My emotions are still all over the place.  Stitched together with some will and a little self motivational glue and a little music.  I know I am going to cry today and I won't be able to stop it, but I will make myself go to work as best I can.  There will be a lot of difficult exchanges of conversations today.  "You look awful."  "Are you okay?"  I know and no.  Walking through hardware stores and to the bank and to the grocery to buy more food to force myself to eat.  I cannot allow myself to curl up and die.  I cannot allow myself to see people.  I have to turn everything inward to generate enough power to keep my sun from collapsing into a singularity.

Hysterical laughter tearing through my lungs and tears staining the floor between my boots while I stand in lines.  Eyes red and sunken and lips cracked from grinning and grimacing.  Doubling over in hacking coughs and dry heaves that will not stop.  Questioning, screaming, begging the snowy sky why there is no magic pill, but there is a magic bullet.  It's not going to be easy.   Please don't talk to me.  I know I am a mess and nothing will help more than time alone.  Thank you for understanding.




///Philip Selway - "Coming Up For Air"