Crap

In keeping consistent with the blue vagueness that comes with the emotive rot of hormonal maelstrom ~ coupled dankly with a general sense of physical malaise and self-induced, pain-filled humiliation, here's a song that's been on repeat in my mind for the past few days. Its pervasive sense of smooth alienation from the numbing overkill of capitalism, media, information, and advertising ~ and one's subsequent loss on the grip of various kinds of control ~ somehow works well to appease my stinky mood, and strangely offers a cathartic slap of re-awakening. The initial detachment in Bono's blithe vocal narration of man's alienation from his environment also works well to help remind one to ~ every once in a while ~ think, "Ah, just fuckit" when things get too whacked out of perspective. At least, that's what I'm getting out of it tonight. And it's helping.

If nothing else, there's always something about that glorious moment when the bass and drums finally kick in that makes me feel a billion different shades of pure awesome. For an album that was panned to hell by almost every critic and über-U2 fan, I still think it's brilliant.




U2 ~ "Zooropa" (1993)





The trick will be to hang onto this pseudo-relief. In moments, we'll be finishing off the second half of "Restrepo." All I could think about last night during the first half was transposing what I was seeing into my friend's eyes as she was flew over that same territory while working on a story, days before she died in a roadside bombing just over a year ago. (One morning this mid-December, around two weeks before the first anniversary of her death, I was walking in my neighbourhood and passed three separate women who looked jarringly like her, and that was when I remembered the date was coming up. It was a haunting, yet unexpectedly comforting experience, like a, "Hey, Hon, don't forget about me!" sign.) So yeah, thinking about Michelle and "Kite Runner," plus feeling completely overwhelmed and wrecked, wondering how vets who've returned from tours are coping... short of suicide, PTSD, depression, etc.

Oh, yay. Movie time.


Ah, fuckit.

Bring on the tissues.




(photo credit: signage spotted somewhere in Asia from perennial favourite, Engrish.com. Stupid things that make me laugh when I feel shitty-shitty bang bang are good things indeed.)