23 May, 2008

*Sigh*

Am I doomed to a life of constant irony? Am I a punch-line in someone/something's master-plan joke? Or is reality so inconceivably non-linear that my life, my actions, and reactions are creating a feedback mechanism that forces certain unusual values to constantly reappear in my daily life? I am a believer in synchronicity, but I'm at the point where there's nothing to do but raise my hands and yell "WHAT THE FUCK??!!".

Here's what prompted my little outburst. I'm slouching around, minding my own business when I receive my latest copy of Spin. It's a cool magazine, if occasionally slow on the uptake (for instance, this most recent issue has the title "Special Report: 'Death to Emos', Inside Mexico's Punk Riots". As any regular blog-reader knows, I reported on that report quite a long time ago...but I digress). I'm flipping through the pages in a semi-interested way, because really I'm already pledged to my latest New Yorker even if I do have to drag myself through another John Updike story to see the back cover. I find one of my favorite sections: "The Spin Mix". It's just a playlist of new-ish songs, but it's generally a diving board for a blog post (as you can see), so I start searching for the songs online. I have no real process, in fact I usually just look for the band name that captures my interest, and this morning I found myself typing I See Hawks In L.A. into my iTunes search window.

This is when my life gets a little spooky. I See Hawks In L.A. has been around for awhile. Their self-titled album was released in 2003, followed by Grapevine in 2004, California Country in 2006, and their current release Hallowed Ground. I start by listening to the track "Slash From Guns N' Roses", which is kind of a campy little romp that revolves around - how did you guess?- Slash from Guns N' Roses. It's fine, but I'm ready to move on so I look at their most popular songs. Number two is called "Humboldt". At this point I'm a little curious, because Humboldt County California has become a little more than a dot on a map to me, as of late. I now know a couple people who may spend the next ten years of their lives in Humboldt County, and what's even more strange is that the last two books I've read have had entire sections devoted to Humboldt County, and it's also made an unusual number of appearances on my radio. I feel like I've heard more about Humboldt County lately, than I've heard about New York City. All of this goes through my head, but the sane part of me, the part that ignores reality and requires logic keeps reminding me that Humboldt could very well be someone's name. In fact, by the time I actually start listening to the song, I've convinced myself that this band from L.A. must be referencing Alexander von Humboldt the German naturalist and explorer. There's no way...

Yeah, there is actually. The song is about Humboldt County's cannabis, which is most likely its most famous crop. If "forty pounds in the back of my van, it's all part of the master plan" didn't let me on, then maybe it was the line "spark it up and let it out, breathe it in what it's all about". Whatever, at this point I'm resigned to insanity.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

spiritus mundi