Knuckles

I've been thinking about musical prejudice and just how damaging it can be. A recent example from my life is the band Cold War Kids. When I first heart the name, I instantly dismissed them as emo garbage just because of their name. I never even listened to their music! It wasn't until much later that I happened to be listening to a Pandora station I'd put together and this really simple but powerful piano-accompanied bluesy-voiced song came on. I was instantly taken with it, so I looked to see what it was: Hospital Beds by Cold War Kids. I was fairly shocked, and decided to look into them some more.


The problem stems from the fact that there is SO MUCH music out there that you often have to wade through a sea of total crap before you find something that you like, and that crap makes patterns in your head. You tend to extrapolate based on those patterns and sometimes miss out on things that you might have otherwise enjoyed.


A prejudice of mine is against acoustic singer-songwriter types. I really don't like Jack Johnson, and I tend to find the genre, in general, to be generic in theme and melody. Most of the time it just doesn't do it for me. But there are artists that fit into this genre that I absolutely love too. Most of the time it depends on the circumstances behind the discovery. You have to be in the right frame of mind. So step outside of your comfort zone. Find someone who's musical tastes you respect, and have them suggest some bands or songs in a genre that you generally dislike. You'll probably be pleasantly surprised. Who knows, maybe you'll add Bluegrass, Gangster Rap, Country-Western and Metalcore to your regular rotation, because I assure you there is great great music in all of these genres, sometimes you just have to wade through some of the bad stuff to find it.


Here's a poem that has NOTHING to do with that whatsoever. 


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Knuckles
They found him huddled,
hugging his knees,
in the bathroom
under the towel rack.
Awake but unresponsive.
No obvious trauma,
but it was clear
that all was not well.
So the ambulance came
and took him away,
not quite catatonic,
to his hospital bed,
where he slept very much
and ate very little.
When they asked him what happened
he asked for a marker
and drew big arrows
on the backs of his hands
pointing up at his knuckles.
His doctors made those grave faces
they're so practiced at 
and said this boy is very sick
but we can find nothing wrong with him.
They poked and they prodded
and asked a great deal of questions
which he did not answer.
He explained to them at different times
under different circumstances
how some people see life as a journey,
or a wheel that they spin
and stare at, wide-eyed
to see what happens to them.
Some see life as a chore,
something they have to 
wake up every day and do
and he'd like to go back to bed now
because he's very tired.
I heard one day he jumped out the window.
He was chatting with some kid
who just had his tonsils out,
a captive audience.
He said one day he woke up
and just didn't want to do it anymore,
but it turns out you can't
just lay down and die.
So he ran and jumped out the window,
with both fists out
in front of his face,
superman-style.
Those arrows were still pointing at his knuckles.
I think it's so he'd know
which way he was going.
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There you have it, post number two. (approach with trepidation)