Stop this Train

"So scared of getting older
I'm only good at being young
So I play the numbers game to find a way to say that life has just begun"

-John Mayer "Stop this Train"

Sometimes, I think John Mayer can read my mind. It almost freaks me out a little. That's all I got today.

Always Waiting

I ain't exactly up.

I ain't gone too far down.

I'm looking for some answers and there ain't noone around.

I guess I'll lose my mind waitin' in this purgatory line.

-Shonna Tucker

GETTING NUMB WITH TOM MORELLO

Things haven't been exactly great lately. I've spent a lot of time trying not to think. About anything really. I've rented lame movies that you can cut your brain off for. I've played computer games. I've mindlessly searched the net, looking for what I don't know. Some of these things work. I've found driving to be the hardest part. I always listen to music or NPR when I'm driving by myself. The problem is, NPR is out because it brings up too many painful memories right now and I hate all my other music because it's either too happy, too sad, too old, too new, blah, blah, blah....it's tough to find something to numb you in a medium that was created to inspire all types of feelings in you. I've been searching for something that would allow me to reach some sort of numbness, or a mental purgatory if you will. I don't want to be happy right now, as weird as that seems to say. It seems annoying and wrong. I don't exactly want to wallow in sadness either, as that is not very much fun. I basically just want to exist for a few weeks until I hopefully start feeling better. Enter Tom Morello.

Tom Morello rose to fame as a guitarist for Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave. In 2007, he released a solo acoustic album titled "One Man Revolution." It's a little hard to categorize. Maybe coffee shop, folksy anarchy. It's a great album that I was introduced to by my friend Nick a few months ago. I'd almost forgotten about it until I happend to stumble upon it yesterday while looking for another CD. I threw it in and found exactly what I've been looking for lately. This album seems meant to inspire thought and political acivism. It's well-written, morose and melodic tunes describing a world that seems close to slipping off the rails unless we get off our lazy butts and do something about it now. "Viva la revolucion!" and all that. In a normal state, it succeeds well on that level. However, in my current frame of mind, it's the only music I've found that allows me just to drift off to that vacant place in my head and hang out for awhile until my road trip is over. The combination of Morello's deep cadence and that harmonica just put me out. It's great. I know Morello would probably hate to hear that the album he wrote to inspire action is being used to help me just space out, but it's been a Godsend.

So, if it happens to turn out that those old Roman Catholics are right and those of us not good enough to go up and not bad enough to go down end up hanging out in Purgatory's coffeehouse for awhile, I can only hope that Tom Morello will be there strumming his heart out and helping us all to pass the time.