The Works

First of all: the next time you're in the Way of Sub, order the Veggie Delite on Honey Oat with Pepper Jack cheese, Sweet Onion dressing and The Works, except Spinach instead of Lettuce (The Works is like tomatoes, carrots, olives, green peppers, banana peppers, jalapeños, pickles, red onions, legos, loose leaf paper, AA batteries, a grand piano...) You will not be disappointed! I'm serious, you don't need meat, just try it.

Next stop: My aimless and unsystematic musings about music.

I really like music...I mean aside from the printing press, I think the concept of music is the best invention of all time. This is the reason why, if forced, I would choose blindness of deafness. They should do a study (probably already done, google it) of cases of depression in blind people vs deaf people. Obviously it's much easier to be deaf in terms of getting around, earning a living, etc. You'd still be able to read and write in a typical fashion, and even speak a little if you lost your hearing later in life. If you're blind, you undoubtedly need a lot more help. Obviously we see blind people getting along on their own just fine with the aid of a seeing eye dog, walking stick, the kindness of strangers, but let's face it, there's no way I could be a graphic designer without my vision. If I were deaf though, I could get along just fine. With that said, however, I'd still choose to be blind over being deaf. There's no way I could survive properly without music I don't think. Now I'm no music expert; from knowing every indie band to the Italian names of arias and to which operas they belong...I'm not your lady. But I do have a pretty eclectic taste and it undoubtedly has to do with the vast numbers of music genres I either grew up with or learned about in college.

When I was a wee lass, my parents listened to Simon & Garfunkel, Abba, Cat Stevens, and musicals, to graze the surface. But I was also brought up on classic 80s Radio Top 40. I did the New Kids, Boyz II Men, En Vogue, TLC days too...I admit it. And those were carefree fun times...SIMPLER times! In high school I went through my Complicated Times Pearl Jam Obsession Phase like a majority of teens did in the early/mid 90s...but I also found myself listening to stuff like Great White, Boston, Tesla and Skid Row of all things. Now when my mom remarried, I really loved my step dad's taste in TRUE "Alternative" music of the 80s/90s: your Echo & the Bunnymen, Oingo Boingo, Psychadelic Furs, the Cure... Couple that with my gay father's love of early pop electronica: Erasure, Depeche Mode, Pet Shop Boys, Alphaville, and continued love for musicals like Evita, Phantom, and JC Superstar, and that's a vast array of genres goin' on.

Once I got to college, music just exploded for me...a now defunct website called cdnow.com answered my prayers and allowed me to search for artists/bands via the "sounds like" feature. SO since I was a fan of Blur (from my stepdad), I found bands like Gene and Ash and Pulp. I also discovered other great lesser known bands like Mono, Air, Portishead, and Morcheeba. Then enter the college classes, from Opera and Symphony to Big Band and Afro-American music throughout the last century: I added Verdi, Wagner, Woody Herman, Glenn Miller, Sam Cooke, Al Green, and Thelonious Monk to the long list of faves.

Right around the time senior year and graduation rolled around, I embarked on probably my longest love of a specific genre to date: Classic Rock. Pink Floyd and Zeppelin is music tailor made for high school and college kids hitting the MJ and eating pizza by the slice at 3am, but I guess I was busy with Morrissey, Otis Redding, and Haydn's Symphony No. 94 in those days?? In any case, my love for all things "Oldies" reminded me of the coziness of childhood. There's something about classic rock that is wrapping yourself in a warm blanket of pea green, ruddy orange, and wood paneling. I didn't even live in that era, but I totally feel its good times.

And now I'm into rap. What? I think being 28 has caused this sudden urge to go back to the "simpler times" of 6th/7th grade when I liked boys and makeup and dressing like a thug. Rap and R&B these days isn't too bad though, I gotta admit. It's fresh and fun and silly and is a good compliment to the ultra seriousness that is Neil Young's "Old Man", Floyd's "Great Gig in the Sky", and S&G's "Only Living Boy in NY".

My itunes "only" contains 7.5 days of music, and my repertoire doesn't contain as much of the new fangled music kids are listening to these days. But my love for Jeff Buckley, The Police, Timbaland, Pavarotti, ELO, Seal, Aimee Mann, Bowie, U2, The Jam, Fleetwood, Mark Ronson, Guster, Keane, CSNY, Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass Band, Dan Fogelberg, The Killers, Jilly Boel, Frank Sinatra, Sam & Dave, Todd Rundgren, My Morning Jacket, Nick Drake, Justin Timberlake, Postal Service, America, Puccini, the Dandy Warhols, Radiohead, Pete Yorn, and the band that inspired this post, Röyksopp, won't fade away with passing fads. Like the music that came out of my childhood or out of my experimental college years, each and every one of these artists came out of something inspirational whether it be a film I liked, a good day on the radio, a sad day when I wanted to make myself cry, or loud coworkers causing me to put on my headphones.

Ahhhh music.

PS, if you're a parent, I don't know if you should let your kid Radio Disney their impressionable childhood years away. Even if you feel like busting out the Dr. Dre while she's sitting in the back seat...I say go for it!