While looking for something else, I stumbled across this playlist commentary from last November. With a minor tweak, it still fits, and it serves again as this week's check-in of where we think we are and what this place looks like today.
It's very difficult to dance on a tightrope, especially upon such a slender thread stretched taut above an emotional abyss. It's been more than a year and a half since America broke my heart. That wound has not healed, and I suspect it never will.
But the tightrope says DANCE! We lack footing, we lack style, and I for damned sure lack motivation. Every day is a struggle to address the need to engage in things that are light and sustaining--the need to dance, the need to breathe, the need to love, the need to dream, the need to create, the need to live--and reconcile those needs with the darkness casting its toxic shadow over all efforts in all directions. Things are not as they should be.
But the tightrope says we should dance, and maybe the tightrope ain't wrong about that. There are things we can't control; conceding that point is not the same as conceding defeat. And yeah, it's a challenge to even feign the merest interest in enjoying...anything.
We dance anyway. Dancing with heavy heart is better than allowing the beat to cease altogether. We can't dance blithely, unaware or uncaring, and dancing itself doesn't quite qualify as an act of resistance. It's still something, still better than nothing, if “nothing” means that damned abyss from which we're trying so desperately to escape.
And if we're still dancing, we still have a chance to reclaim the delight that has been stolen from us. The odds...aren't great. However, if my understanding of the relevant math is correct, a chance is at least a smidge greater than no chance.
The tightrope says dance. Okeydokey, tightrope. I pray for a time when we can all dance together again. I'm a ray of motherlovin' sunshine, I am. But I'm looking to the skies. I'm looking for light. And I'm looking to dance.
Join hands. Believe. Dance. It won't solve any of the problems. But we can't solve a damned thing if we give up our right to what's light.
This is what rock 'n' roll radio sounded like on another Sunday night in Syracuse this week. Seeking light. It's out there somewhere.
This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, streaming at SPARK stream, and on the Radio Garden app as WESTCOTT RADIO.
You can read all about this show's long and weird history here: Boppin' The Whole Friggin' Planet (The History Of THIS IS ROCK 'N' ROLL RADIO). You can follow Carl's daily blog at Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do).
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Carl's new book Guitars Vs. Rayguns!! Short Stories And Other White Lies is available! Read about it here. Autographed copies of Carl's previous book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) are available here, and you can still get Carl's previous previous book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones from publisher Rare Bird Books. If you like the books, please consider leaving a rating and/or review at the usual online resources.
