so earlier today I found out John Frusciante left the Chili Peppers. Donno if that's true or just speculation because of his solo career.

anyway... worse news is that the drummer from Avenged Sevenfold just died. James Sullivan. He was so fucking amazing. I'm sad for his band mates. I don't know what its like to lose someone so close like that.

I was thinking earlier, listening to the Chili Peppers, how I still associate bands (especially their lead singers) to the guys who got me interested in their music. RHCP was Nygil for sure. Nirvana was Matt. And Tony... Avenged Sevenfold (A7X) and HIM. I can't really hear Anthony Keidis' lyrics and not think of Nygil; Kurt Cobain's music automatically leads me to thoughts of Matt; and A7X will forever remind me of my relationship with Tony. I don't listen to HIM anymore. I can't. I haven't been able to since sophomore year. Occasionally I will try a song or two, but I always end up in tears. The lyrics, I guess, I had created into this ideal of love. A depressing, but dedicated belief in what love could be, but... turned out not to be. It could also be that Ville Valo's voice reminds me too much of his voice. He use to sing it to me. I use to believe it. I guess maybe by listening, I believe the meaning of the words will change to better fit my circumstances now, and perhaps I want to preserve the emotion evoked by each sound. It brings me back to this dark room, with posters covering the walls. The only light being the flickering of the stereo LCD screen. I can vividly remember the anxious feelings, the excitement of being in the room, in the arms of the person I love, and not wanting to be anywhere else, ever. I can remember the heat, and the smell, and feel.
Maybe I don't want to lose that memory. and I know that can happen...

But whatever. I guess I enjoy the connection these guys had to these bands, and the lead singers... I guess it made me believe I better understood the people I love through the lyrics of someone they admire (or at least listen to). This belief could be wrong. As Tyler has shown me, some people just listen to music because it sounds good (not saying there is anything wrong with it). But for me, my connection to Ben Gibbard is something very strong, and goes much deeper than how his songs (Death Cab, Postal Service, solo) sound. I think Nygil and Matt understand that when they listen to his lyrics, they are also very much listening to my thoughts, and... listening to words that I have scrutinized passed the needed level of understanding. But in listening, they ARE gaining an understanding of me, whether or not they know it.


To continue the idea that music can lose its memory:
Panic at the Disco. Their first album I wore out on the first trip to Mexico right after Tony and I broke up. Its a vengeful bunching of songs, and it helped fuel me through the worst of the sorrow and onto a bit of bitterness. Good or bad as that fact may be, the album felt refreshing and the trip did too. And they will always be somewhat connected. However... after the trip I continued listening to the songs, and slowly, over time, the association weakened. It is still their if I listen to the songs freshly, not anticipating parts I know well, but approaching it as though I have never heard it before. That is a hard thing to do, but if I can get there, I can remember how it felt to learn the songs, as I was doing in Mexico, and I can almost feel the humidity, and feel the bitterness, but it will never fully return.

Incubus. This is another band I started listening to frequently when Nygil and I were dating, or whatever it was we were doing. That period of my life is somewhat fuzzy, but at one point or another I was visiting Oregon, and I snuck out of Caitlin's house to meet Nygil. It might have even been the night I snuck out with no shoes and jogged through a couple inches of snow until we met on the road. Im pretty sure we ended up in his room that night, watching a video of Incubus performing at the Red Rocks. I remember the colors from the TV lighting his room; I remember wanting to be able to be closer to him than is physically possible for two humans to be. But only if I can access the songs as I heard them then, can I fully remember the rawness of the moment, and feel the truth of those feelings. Otherwise, they are almost like a dream, or something I read in a beautifully spun line of a poem.

Silversun Pickups. Grey. That was all we listened to the last three or so weeks of camp. Driving on our TOs, or hanging out in the Craft house. It should permanently remind me of Grey and that summer fling we had. But then I realized that Grey did not connect to the music the way I did. He connected to it, deeply, but... when I left camp, I began actually listening to the songs and what Brian Aubert and Nikki Monninger are saying, and what makes the music special to me, were not what Grey was telling me when he wrote the lyrics in a Camp Gram. I too am guilty of a more open interpretation of lyrics, and I do not condemn that... I support it wholeheartedly. But I guess the rift between interpretations, represents the rift between Grey and I, as individuals, at the points of our lives we are at. Nothing wrong with it. But it is interesting. And I can no longer listen to the album Swoon, and have it bring me back too far. That's unfortunate in some respects, because the one thing I promised Grey was that I would think of him when I heard these songs. Pretty ironic in light of some of the lyrics on that album...


Well, it is late. It has been quite nice to just write like this. And I am sure I could keep this up for another hour or so if I didn't have other things to do, like sleep.

Ariel and Carolyn come tomorrow.
Before that I will go hiking with Jackie, and hopefully at some point go test out my new climbing shoes which I absolutely adore.