Monitor This!

There's this Irish singer that I really like, right? And I've turned on quite a few folks to his music and most of them really like him too...and there's this person that I also really like, and that person is a new fan of the singer...you still with me?

Anyway, the person I like asked me if I had a copy of a particular song by the singer we both like and I thought that I did, but I couldn't find it, so I went on-line and bought the mp3 from Amazon- and it turns out that the version I bought is not the original (which I have never heard) ,so I went to another site to look for a legitimate download and found a link that had the aforementioned singer's name on it, but when I followed it, I was directed to a page for Rod Stewart CDs, but the particular singer in question is not named Rod Stewart, so I went to the singer's website and looked it up- the CD that the song first appeared on is not available in the USA anymore, which is weird because Amazon offers the entire CD as a download ( if I'm gonna buy an entire CD, I want a freekin' hi-fi disc, not lo-fi mp3s) ...I looked all over the web and the CD is available in the UK , but I can't afford the import price, so I wrote a letter to the people representing the singer and asked them if they could help me promote their artist on the radio by sending some discs to the station. This is the second time I've asked them and it's starting to hurt my feelings- I know I'm the tiniest of spuds in the small-potato world of radio, but I thought the Irish liked small potatoes...you still following this?

The point is, after this fruitless internet search (and two years of election coverage), I was totally sick of the sight of any sort of non-reptilian monitor ...why, I wondered, is the TV on? The election is over. I needed a break from the TV, I decided, so I turned it off. Then I looked at my PC monitor and was nearly blinded by my failure to find one freekin' song...why is it so goddamned difficult to find it? I'm willing to pay for it, but no one's selling!

(Digression:In my 20's I owned a monitor lizard that looked like this (above). Her name was Pinecone and she broke my heart.)

So I turned off the PC and picked up a novel that was given to me by the person that I like and read for a couple hours... the book's protaganist- a wanna-be writer- is haunted by the horrors of his past and is tortured by the mundanity of his endless series of soul-killing temp jobs...his despair overtakes his imagination and it wreaks havoc with his life- or perhaps it's the reverse, I haven't finished it yet...in any case, I couldn't help but strongly identify with the book's lead character. Such was my empathy that I was soon reduced to tears.

Unable to read, watch TV or go on-line, I turned to my fail-safe support system, my guitar...but sometimes I can't get my fingers to co-operate (I've had two surgeries on my ulnar nerve) and this was one of those times...I couldn't make my guitar gently weep so I had to do it myself...while I had my head in my hands, I looked at the floor and saw it needed sweeping, so I swept, but my broom is so worn-out that it left broken straw everywhere it went, which was frustrating as hell, but I pushed on...when I was done, I was unable to find my dustpan- my apartment consists of two rooms, a stairwell, a stove and a toilet- how the hell did I lose my dustpan in such close quarters? I looked at the accumulated pile of cat hair, dust bunnies and straw and wondered if this was going to be what broke my camel's back, so to speak.

Exhausted, I went to bed. In my dreams, I was doing cocaine with dead friends and I watched in horror as their flesh waned pale and grey, taking on the pocked, funereal pallor of the cafeteria meatloaf described in the novel I was reading...a skeletal hand offered me a mirror-full of long white lines and I woke up in a cold sweat, unable to return to sleep.

This morning I offered a prayer to a god that I don't truly believe in, asking that god to please, help me make it right. I don't know if anyone heard that prayer, but I figured it can't hurt, can it?

At work, I have no choice but to stare at a monitor- I get my work orders via email and I need to pay attention to Outlook, but I also check my personal email a little too often ...this time it paid off, though- one of our DJ's is sick and he needed someone to cover his drive-time (5pm-7 pm) radio spot, and Godzilla knows, if there's one place I feel safe and secure, it's on the radio, so I pounced on the chance to substitute for him. My boss is letting me leave a little early, so I'll head directly from work to the station and do the show. I'll be playing new stuff, whatever I can find on the shelves.

I'm looking forward to the show, but I sure wish that I had a copy of that damned song.