Spent the evening watching people “sing” on The Voice. Both myself and my wife auditioned, and, yeah, I’ll say it: we’re amazing. And, no, neither of us were selected to be on The Voice.
I’ve started and trashed several blogs in the past few days. I want to say something but I don’t know what to say. So, here’s a set of lyrics I wrote for my band, Moosejaw.
“Well-meaning, self-serving hands extended towards me
Most days I’m far too tired to laugh
Seven hundred channels of processed shit, you know it often bores me
I’ve got a date with a photograph.
Painting the walls, painting the walls, painting the walls with a colostomy bag
Painting the walls with my inability to understand
Painting the walls, painting the walls, painting the walls with a colostomy bag
Painting the walls with my inability to coexist.
I apologize for breathing all your air when given the opportunity
I’ve got one bullet and so many enemies
If I remove myself it would be easier for all involved or affected
I’ve got a date with a photograph.”
-“Sinanju“, Moosejaw
The song is about growing old gracelessly, something I’m fairly certain I’ll do quite well. Dementia, Alzheimer’s, Brain Cancer: these things scare me. We take our faculties for granted, I feel. I’ve chastised myself for it on many occasions. I am healthy, possessing twenty (one) digits, and more often than not, smart. But it won’t always be the case. Eventually I’ll grow old and the athleticism and mental jiu jistu that I enjoy every day will start to slip away.
Meredith and I were shopping this past Saturday and got trapped behind an old couple in an aisle while trying to get to the Macaroni-n-cheese. (Don’t keep me from my mac-n-cheese; you wouldn’t like me without my mac-n-cheese.) I eventually slipped past them (using my youthful litheness) and got the Precious, and in the process got to get a big whiff of the decrepit couple. Both smelled like they’d just emerged from the smoking section of a coffin, and the patriarch’s breath smelled like a perfect blend of Saturday night in a Florida bingo hall, the Goodyear factory, and liquefied pickled innards. I think his organs had been removed and replaced with found art; hearts and kidneys and livers made from cigarette butts glued to a coarse piece of construction paper in the vein of macaroni art. And don’t get me started on their voices. If you could give voice to a boulder falling down a crag, it would be the woman’s. I snuck back to Meredith, pointed at the old couple, and said “That’s why we’re quitting smoking.” I don’t want to end up like that.
Or I’ll get lucky and just die.
Wow, that got dark fast.
Eric McClanahan 
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