Sinister: everyday is like SOMEday......

[caleb ben moore]

hey-lo sinisters.  

caleb ben here.  i just read this.  its an
excerpt from an essay that a friend of mine wrote
awhile back.  it has no b&s content, but you'll
still like it.  or at least i hope you will. :)
if you do like it drop the author a line at
pleasenoalarms at aol.com  her name is danielle.
  ttfn!          .caleb ben    p.s.  a big hug to
my shy & shimmering kallis ulla :)
                 ***

Sometimes just the way someone’s voice comes
across on a radio or cd player can encapsulate
the way your heart feels at the exact moment.
Their built up years of misery, rough childhoods,
broken families, experimentation’s with chemicals
and those of the opposite sex that left them
feeling more empty than they did before,
listening to laments of other singers that they
thought expressed the same writhing pain they hid
in their lanky bodies. Tormented teens planning
their escape, either through ending their misery
(I’ll show them all!) or running off to a life
where they could immerse themselves in the only
thing that they loved and loved them back, the
one thing that never judged or asked about future
plans or criticized the wearing of tacky retro
jeans, all loving music.

The weakness and yearning in David Bowie, the
confidence and smartness regardless of suicidal
lyrics and unrequited love for self of the
Smiths. Ethereal highs and lows as Elizabeth
Fraser wrapped us in clouds of voice carrying us
along a ride we knew nothing about, nor could
discern through lyrics we couldn’t interpret, or
didn’t want to interpret, dreaming of a song
created for us, no matter what she said. The
upbeat, progressive and self pitying songs of New
Order and Pet Shop Boys. Dancing and flailing our
arms, smiling even though they were talking about
the roughness of life, in perfect candor. We were
sycophants addicted to their music, even though
we were the lowly they sang about, but we danced,
lost and convinced ourselves for that 5:30
minutes we were on the same plain, only to have
it crash as they played the melancholy, dark and
haunting ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart” by Joy
Division. 

We can all relate, even if we were never loved or
kissed or had never even loved another. The voice
of a dead man seems to be even more poignant as
he sings and wails about lost love and how he
would bleed himself just to hear her sweet
laughter once more, or how he would sell his soul
to be adored. Even in the depths of our candlelit
rooms, with our pretentious books in full
display, Q magazines always abundant and water
stained from when we read them in every bathroom
in the house, we sobbed and cried as Brett
Anderson asked us to come to his arms and be
there under a nuclear sky. Or even indulging
ourselves as far as to run away from our sad
homes and streets to that of an English one just
to accept that we truly are common people…and
admit that it was ok.

Commuting to our work and home and running our
errands, living out a fantasy that we weren’t
really here, that we could walk through walls or
float down a liffy or elevator as it were.
Smiling our painful smiles, the ones that made
your heart feel that it could actually break.
Saying hellos as though they weren’t forced,
making meaningless conversation with people who
never thought or felt the things we did. Choosing
tea over the mechanical rhythm of coffee and the
chic nature of it. Repeating lyrics whilst making
copies, with every flash of light of the machine
reciting “The corporate hands” …flash…. “grab all
they can”… flash… “all for themselves” ….flash…”
after all… it’s a competitive world…SING IT”. No
more flashes except the one to change the toner
and return to a desk and chair.

Disbelief, acceptance, panic attacks, obsession
and then questioning which just led us to where
we were before. Reading dark books to the ambient
sounds that sent us into a trance where we knew
not what time it was just that it was time and
there was nothing we could do to stop this clock.
Our days were jumbled, first going too slow and
now as we look at ourselves and pray we aren’t
Gen-Xer’s we feel so different inside then when
we first discovered that wild horses could never
take us away, or that all we ever wanted was
everything just to wonder what have we become, my
sweetest friend, fearing that everyone we know
goes away in the end. Even a US band could have
touched us in our fragile youthful states, a
state where we couldn’t decide if the Smashing
Pumpkins were cool or not, but with the lights
off and the door closed hearing Billy singing
like a hand on a chalkboard, words we thought or
emotions we felt. We were running to tell
someone, but then we didn’t have anyone to go
except parents who spoke of his voice as too
annoying to bother to interpret what he was
saying. But, before we even sent one dollar
American for lyrics, we knew he was singing it to
us… calling us hipsters and uniting for the big
fight to rock for us. We were hipsters, more than
we knew. We are the hipster generation. Or we
thought… and just as our affirmations felt clear
and settled we were told an album later that he
too feared he was ordinary and the sadness of a
death rock boy, who like us was mascara sure and
lipstick lost. We retreated once more.

Skinny boys, boys who wished they possessed the
same frame as Brett, Bernard and Jarvis. Who
daydreamed they had the passion and frightening
allure of Dave Gahan. But, all they were were
less accomplished Trents, with their self
loathing and hurting themselves just to see if
they could still feel. Taking too much time in
showers just to lip sync, shouting out with no
voice to slow down, cos we were taking them over.
Walking with a bravado of ultra cool. Wearing
skinny sunglasses indoors, trying as hard as it
was not to become too emotional in any way.
Growing their limp hair just to toss it back as
though we would swoon as ask to be their girls,
not that they would know what to do with us once
they had us. Thinking and having convinced
themselves that if they acted aloof or
disinterested we would do anything to find out
the mystery. We have to admit some of us did fall
into the trap of a boy trying to be uber cool.
Thinking it was the closest we would get to Thom,
Jonny, Ed (oh Ed), Colin or even Phil, just to be
disappointed in finding that he was mortal and
didn’t really have a mystery. Feeling a let down
that he wanted to know about us, that he did
care, that he did want to love. Disappointment,
since what we craved was the non-committal almost
loathing disregard we were used to with our
fantasy lover who either thought they would never
marry, or just didn’t feel that we had earned it
yet baby.

Girls who wanted to be the girls of Lush, with a
darkness that appealed to even us, with their
tiny voices that sang so loud. Wanting to possess
their strength of how they could tell a boy that
they werent offended with things that he said cos
it was just too fine a day. Their faces hidden in
shadows made us reach conclusions that they could
be nothing but perfection. But, after all our
primping and after going through all the black
clothes ever made, we seemed to be bargain
basement versions of Elasticas numerous bass
players, who like us had come and gone. 

We, boy and girl alike, sat in smoky rooms, not
only inhaling the toxic air of spilt beer and
clove cigarrettes but also the pulsating music.
It ran in our veins, and we often thought if we
ran out of blood they could just run an ivy to
our cd players right to our heart and we could go
on living in our asphalt worlds, dancing around
like europe was our playground, going to
marvelous parties, stepping out of our cages and
on to stages, and having a lust for life like
never before. 

=====
"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a 
harder battle." ~Plato


"Love does not consist of gazing at each other, 
but in looking together in the same direction." 
                       -Antoine de Saint-Exupery

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