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January 20 - February 6, 2019
The kara in the word karaoke is the same as the one in karate, which means “empty hand.” They’re both “empty” arts because you have no weapons and no musical instruments to hide behind—only your courage, your heart, and your will to inflict pain.
People can turn anything into a love song if it helps keep them together. The artist doesn’t really get a say in the matter—it definitely doesn’t matter what the artist might intend the song to be about.
Work doesn’t get finished, and neither does play. You start over every day, and what you don’t shave off today will be waiting tomorrow, until you run out of tomorrows and leave behind more work for others to do. You fight
(Misery might love company, but it’s rarely mutual.)
You often hear the words “they finish each other’s sentences,” yet I’ve never been able to understand why this is supposed to be a good thing. In my experience, trying to finish a woman’s sentence means taking your life in your hands, and if someone finishes one of mine, it’s usually “I’ve heard this one”
If you want hotness in your life, you learn to build a fire and keep it going. You don’t run around with a pack of matches in your pocket, chasing clouds and hoping you get struck by lightning.
If you still love music at twenty-four, you always will. Even if you check out for years at a time, fandom comes back around. You’re stuck with it. You won’t get sick of the songs you already like, but you will always want to hear songs you haven’t heard, whether it’s buried treasures from before you were born, or whatever great new band just plugged in their guitars for the first time last night.
Once you reach that point in your life, you may not be the target audience for new music anymore. But that just means you have to scrounge a little harder to find it. You don’t necessarily want to make a religion out of it; you just want to keep participating.
Music isn’t an accessory to a lifestyle—it’s part of a life. It’s not a youthful phase you go through.
