Yesterday I had the Friday the Thirteenth blues. Nothing all that bad, really. I didn’t see the doctor for test results, I didn’t lose $10,000, I didn’t lose my job (I hope), I didn’t get a thick envelope in the mail from a lawyer, and no one I knew got hurt. So yeah, I should count my blessings. But it was still a frustrating day. As the morning dragged on at work, a bunch of things that should have been settled days, weeks or months ago came back unsettled. The trend continued throughout the afternoon. More e-mails, more phone calls, more visits from co-workers. I tried to settle what I could, but the wave was too big; I left around 5 with a huge to-do list for next week. And in the midst of all this, it occurred to me that I’ll never have a romantic relationship again, as the fires and passions that ruled my youth have cooled far too much. I could never go thru the craziness of it all again.<\/p>\n
I felt a bit better in the evening, sitting with my brother in a local bar-restaurant with a Guinness Draft under my chin. But then he got into the weekly review of the situation with his girlfriend, and it sounded pretty much like the report from last week; and the week before that, and the month before that, and . . . Well, let’s just say that they are caught in a loop . . . can’t live with you and can’t live without you. (Hmmm, maybe it ain’t so bad about my own fires having cooled . . .)<\/p>\n
OK, it’s a little more complex than that \u2013 i.e., can’t live with your kids, whom you can’t live without, and who can’t seem to live without you, despite being in their mid-20s. I asked the usual questions: any progress with the four of you, any new trends, any breakthroughs or resolutions . . . but no, the whole story just kept on repeating itself. Given that my brother was paying, I was obliged to listen. And all right, even if he wasn’t paying, as his brother I should listen. Actually, I’m glad to be of comfort to him. But after that day of repeated frustrations at work, it was sad to see him going thru the same kind of thing that almost brought me to tears. <\/p>\n
I’m a Zen meditator and a believer in God, along with being a half-ass philosopher and indulger in self-analysis to boot. And yet, none of those things seemed to help me yesterday. None of them could overcome my Friday the Thirteenth blues and mop up my narcissistic depression. The Zen in my life was gone, God seemed far away, the situation couldn’t be psycho-analyzed and the consolation of philosophy was nowhere to be found. There was only one thing left, one thing that finally did pull me through. It was music. There was a song buzzing around in my head, a new song that the local radio stations started playing a few days ago. Of all bands, it was by the Cars \u2013 yes, the Cars were somehow dug up from the detritus of the mid-1980s, like a woolly mammoth trapped under miles of ice. The song in question has a simple title: Sad Song. <\/p>\n
So I went on-line and fired up the official video<\/a> on You Tube (in violation of company policy, but I was desperate for relief). Somehow it got me through the afternoon stretch without crying, and kept me going thru the evening. Here are some of the lyrics that pulled me thru:<\/p>\n Too many eyes Too many thoughts Too many clouds Too many heartaches Too many fires Well yes, that represents MOST of the lyrics from \u201cSad Song\u201d. But they are SO good. They were just what the doctor ordered for my Friday the Thirteenth blues. They made me chuckle, just as Cars lyrics always did (e.g., \u201cgermanium lover, I’m live on your wire; come and take me, whoever you are\u201d, from The Dangerous Type). The Cars still have that off-tempo wit and an off-beat sound formula based around Rick Ocasek’s<\/a> strange voice, which got them noticed back in my innocent days of youth (well, young adulthood, anyway). I feel much better today. <\/p>\n One afterthought \u2013 Sad Song made me happy again; but in a way, there’s a higher-level melancholy to it all. The Cars never sang sad songs back in the 80s; their hits were about weird relationships (remember \u201cMy Best Friends Girlfriend\u201d and \u201cJust What I Needed\u201d and \u201cCandyO\u201d) and good times (recall \u201cLet’s Go\u201d and \u201cGood Times Role\u201d and \u201cShake It Up\u201d). But now, the people who would remember them and buy their CD’s and downloads are getting old, just like me. Melancholy is becoming a growing part of our lives. The brooding chord at the end of \u201cSad Song\u201d pretty much sums up our future prospects these days.<\/p>\n Oh well. I’m still glad that Rick Ocasek and his old cronies were there for me on Friday afternoon. Even if the future isn’t as bright as it seemed back when the Cars were always on the radio, even if the passion from those days is gone, music got deep into the mis-firing crevices of my brain yesterday and smoothed things out. So what if there’s no more passion; so long as the Cars are still around, it can’t be all bad!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Yesterday I had the Friday the Thirteenth blues. Nothing all that bad, really. I didn’t see the doctor for test results, I didn’t lose $10,000, I didn’t lose my job (I hope), I didn’t get a thick envelope in the mail from a lawyer, and no one I knew got hurt. So yeah, I should […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2097"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2097"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2100,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2097\/revisions\/2100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nLooking for hope
\nToo many tears
\nLooking for a way to cope — It’s no joke<\/p>\n
\nBreaking your stride
\nToo many jekylls
\nFeeling like a mr. hyde <\/p>\n
\nDarken your day
\nToo many rain drops
\nFalling on your thunder bay<\/p>\n
\nWaiting to strike
\nToo many clowns
\nSaying everything’s all right<\/p>\n
\nScorching your mind
\nToo many preachers
\nSaying what you should find<\/p><\/blockquote>\n