GLENDA BAUTISTA

You had me into it,
now I’m over it.
I believed that you were worth it.

You had my tortured heart
closed in a vise that longed to breathe
new meaning into both you and me.

Months and years pass,
shielded from connection,
the silence between our best intentions.

And soon, and predictably,
I grew tired of the endlessness
Never to see resolution to this.

So, so long, my sweet,
I hope you meet her someday.
That is, if you know who you’re looking for.

Honey, you’re an awful drunk
And I’m an awful mess
Which makes me prime to know
When it all just goes so wrong.

The feelings that you get
Late, in the night keeps you wanted
You’re a thief in the break
That I could never afford to have.

So who am I to judge when
It all just goes so wrong?
Your attempt at comforting me
Is the reason for this song

I only know when the day brings
the heart of what is true
Because every wasted day
Just reminds me of you

I’ll bridge the gap for
the weight that keeps you under
I’ll temper the silence with
the clever in our lives

Because I never remember
a thing that you say

I’m not perfect, never claimed to be
I’m not even sure you want me,
But just so you know
I’ve always been crazy about you.

Cleveland, you were the summer
That I never thought I’d get over.
The winds off Lake Erie whipping at me
Without a care in the world.

Walking down Coventry
With the whole of my curiosity,
The smokestacks would expel
The promise of your Rust Belt romance.

Circling about the crown of the shore,
Like a sailboat that had lost its way,
I’d sing of my escape from town
Having ventured off where no one knew me.

With the setting understanding that
This summer would fade to fall,
The light of Midwestern fireflies was
kept in a jar to guide my way back.

This is probably the only time that I’ll be writing in a very direct fashion here, because when I started Agendacide 13 years ago, it served an entirely different purpose for me.

Obviously a lot has changed over many years. I’ve changed repeatedly and in many a different direction. I’ve made many a mistake, and maybe foolishly, I documented a lot of these things. In fact, when I re-read some of these entries in an effort to understand recurring themes and patterns in my life from time-to-time, I can’t imagine why I would want the world to know about these things — but I didn’t care who was watching then, and I wanted to be able to relate to others in the best way I knew how.

Over time, external factors (like my career and the technologies that index web content) changed the way in which I was able to communicate. I’m not blaming the evolution of these things, and I realize that innovation is the name of the game, but I largely refused to evolve with it. I became extremely self-conscious and obsessed with the permanence of anything I’d ever written. Additionally, knowing all too much about technology and the ways in which it flows through a digital ecosystem started to, in short, freak me out. Without getting into too much of the details over all these years, I did grow professionally through my love of the web — but my life, career, and the knowledge of how things actually worked took away its magic.

I got to the point where I understood the medium so well and for so long, that I hadn’t been able to enjoy it as much as I wanted to. I’ve dealt with stalkers, gone through some of my own online character assassinations, had it interfere in my friendships, jumped into nerdfight commentary — unable to draw the line between my personal and professional life. And amazingly, after this, it will never matter what I do in action, in person, (and to tell you the truth, my friends rarely see me,) but people will and can take words quite literally and make them representative of the type of person you are.

Way before all of this crazy web shit happened, I was actually a writer (first and foremost) and (secondarily) a musician. So it’s safe to say that prior to the advent of the internet, and bringing it into the forefront of my life, I was an amazingly different person. At some point, I threw those things away and I forgot who I actually was. I could hypothesize as to why I decided to do that, but with regret, I have to say that it was largely due to practicality. The web proved to be far more profitable and a decent career direction for me, and I immersed myself in it to the point at which it affected my life in not only intellectually uplifting ways, but also came with its share of emotionally unfortunate ones, as I began to slip away from myself.

I liken this instance to back when I was a music journalist, much earlier on in my career. I would go and review bands and artists, and went to many a live performance and reviewed many an album. I was also a college radio DJ, and ended up running my college radio station for a while when I wasn’t working record retail on the side. After a while my love of music — both listening and playing it — and the ever-so-perfect lyric, would all turn to mush. Back then, I used to listen to the things around me much more deeply, and would feel closer to my own thought process than I’d ever been through a universal connection with a writer/songwriter. But that devolved into spectacle and flash and bang, and beyond that I was unable to discern the fun and magic from the truly authentic and from the ridiculously pretentious and trite.

After that whole entire stint, I had to not listen to new music and not even play or write anything — to my own detriment… for years. I guess it’s just that sometimes you just get burnt out and hit a wall, until you approach things from an entirely different perspective. This is what happened with Agendacide. As much as I wanted to blog, I couldn’t. I was growing and changing and didn’t want to feel as if I was performing for anyone or pandering to an audience. I don’t even perform songs I wrote more than a decade ago because they are so out-of-touch with who I am in the present, so it feels like I’m just going through the motions with little sincerity. And, by the same token, when I look back at this blog’s long list of archives, while certainly entertaining, it’s not very indicative of who I am anymore.

To add to this kind of creative frustration, my concept of friendship warped a bit when my personal and professional circles started overlapping on the internet — and it called into question those that I considered close to me, and those I considered to understand who I was and what I was about on a very surface level. I felt unsafe and unable to understand who I’d truly be able to confide in. For all the years that I wanted to reach out and show people who I was, I felt the desperate need to hide everything for fear that I’d be judged or ridiculed for my choices or ideas, because it was safe. Admittedly very cowardly, but safe.

Many years back, a venture capitalist told me that I was an artist at my core and I didn’t forget that. In fact, I think it takes a certain person to understand the art and commerce of science, and it seems ironic that I’m currently in graduate school for business. And while I am floored by learning new things and how they are applicable to the things that I do professionally, I feel as if I’ve emotionally neglected myself.

“If you want to live your life in a creative way, as an artist, you have to not look back too much. You have to be willing to take whatever you’ve done and whoever you were and throw them away. What are we, anyway? Most of what we think we are is just a collection of likes and dislikes, habits, patterns. At the core of what we are is our values, and what decisions and actions we make reflect those values. That is why it’s hard doing interviews and being visible: As you are growing and changing, the more the outside world tries to reinforce an image of you that it thinks you are, the harder it is to continue to be an artist, which is why a lot of times, artists have to go, ‘Bye. I have to go. I’m going crazy and I’m getting out of here.’ And they go and hibernate somewhere. Maybe later they re-emerge a little differently.” — Steve Jobs (1985)

This brings me to talking about the current state of this site. (I know! How meta.) After all, what is it to me? The traffic going to it is flat, which is fine. I feel no need for anyone to be watching or for anyone to be updated on what is going on in my head. But, after I’d taken some time from it, over years, it has become the place in which I am able to jot down ideas, or work on pieces or songs without the constant scrutiny that came with former lives of mine. I don’t have to be any more than I am, or anything more than I feel. I am simply myself, laid bare — it’s a safe place in which I’m able to do nothing but work out issues and thoughts I may have not addressed, and I also get to share them.

You’re probably wondering what brought this on. At the top of the year, I also made a promise to myself that I’d strive to be a bit more emotionally accurate and honest, and listen more to the world around me a bit more deeply. Through a set of bizarre circumstances that I still have yet to understand, I be-friended someone who reminded me of who I was at my core, and what I had kept buried within myself for the longest time. They never explicitly said, “This is who you are at your core.” This person was a stranger to me then. But the difference is that I was listening deeply, which is something that this person seems to be incredibly good at.

Just so that I don’t over-intellectualize all of it (because to be quite honest it’s really quite an amazing story), in summary, meeting this person changed my life and taught me a great deal about acceptance.

I know, right? That shit is deep.

If you’ve been reading Agendacide, I wanted to address a couple of things:

• The voice behind the writing
• The style of the writing
• The purpose of it
• The methodology
• The actual content

I swear this is the last time you’ll hear of it.

If you notice, it’s much different from the established previous writing style and that’s for very good reason. Obviously, I’m different now, with different things going on in my life, and that voice within me surfaces in other ways. One of the things that I realized out of this exercise over the last couple of months is that, process-wise, I try to write beyond myself. It’s my way of trying to reach out to others and say that I feel the same. Sure — I guess it comes off cloaked and rather vague, but that’s for two reasons: 1) Sometimes I can be quite embarrassed when people take me literally, and 2) I write because I don’t believe that I’m the only person that feels this way.

I write because it’s freeing, and a release, with an understanding that there are other people out there in the world that feel the same way I do. I write because there’s beauty in many moments, however vague, that echo the same within another person. I write because it’s all I know how to do when life disappoints or fails to provide an answer to what I’ve been asking about for many years. I write because when I do, I don’t feel so alone.

The content here isn’t about me — or at least, it isn’t, wholly anymore — not in the way that I see it, anyway. There is only so much navel-gazing one can do on a blog before they feel a sense of responsibility to someone else, or feel the need to perform or put on airs knowing that someone will see. But I don’t think that’s really it for me anymore. As far as the technicalities are concerned, it might feel like I’m writing about someone specific, but to tell you the truth, I’m actually not.

What you see and what you will read are a collection of instances related to multiple people that all harken the same emotion. Sometimes this happens within one piece, and other times I mash-up instances. And, sometimes it’s not really about me, but me writing from another person’s shoes. It could have happened to me last week, or a year or two or ten years ago. I write about people — living or dead, those that I’ve loved, or those I don’t know. Some are actual characters in my life, and others I make up. I could take one memory and mix and parlay it into another, but regardless of the avenue that I take to get there, the emotion is the same.

I use a load of devices to bring the lesson out as I tend to recognize patterns within my memory really well. I find that when I write something, it’s not necessarily applicable to one person, but resonates across multiple situations. I mainly write now so that these instances can move between other moments, and they may or may not be applicable to your own life, or my own in a very direct way. Ultimately, it’s with the knowledge that we all go and grow through similar moments such as these. The pieces, in some way, detail others in and out of my life that made me feel a certain way at a certain time — and, it’s all based around the same emotion.

So just so that you know, I’m not really writing about you. If you feel as if I actually am writing about your life, well! All the better. I’ve done my job. I’d like to hear about it, too. (I was never really much of a journalist, anyway. Only you can write the truth of your life.) I’m writing because it’s the only thing I know how to do when sometimes, my self-imposed silence between becomes too much to bear, and I’m trying to uncover the truth beyond myself. And you can help.

Something helpful to keep in mind here: True words are not always pretty, and pretty words are not always true. Please do the appropriate algebraic logical expression for that, because I’m fine with that statement alone. There are just some things that you cannot explain with logic. And that’s what I’m looking to do here.

Thank you — deeply, for reading, for however long you’ve been reading Agendacide. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

You tried to tell me the other night. But regardless of whether or not it’s said aloud, and how it’s articulated, I already know what you mean. So you don’t have to say a thing.

There are few I keep within the walls of this heart of mine. And to tell you quite honestly, I’m terrified that you bring me to a place of beauty that I feel too tarnished, too imperfect, to be in.

Absolutely, positively, terrified.

We were driving with no destination, trying to catch up on things. It was some days before your birthday and it couldn’t have mattered how much time had passed between. And instantly, I’m fifteen again, listening to Clapton in the Royal Albert Hall, while I am left to navigate the corners of my universe with you as my guide, knowing it wasn’t your home.

You say you like Clapton. Though not primarily a singer, there’s a sadness in his voice, a nothingness that you are somehow nostalgic for. This I know. And though you would never know the artist’s heart, you had wished to feel the same.

It doesn’t matter where I go. Up and down the route you’d taught me how to ride a bike each Sunday. It didn’t matter for how many miles. It didn’t matter how long it took to balance myself. You would wait for as long as I’d be able to learn the lesson, and redeem me when I’d hurt myself, trying so hard to put me back to conquer my own disappointment. This, you were good at.

I’d blown past where I’d planned to be originally, where you would pick me up during the days in which I’d been so homesick. Blatantly overshot it. “You could keep driving,” you’d said to me. So I did. Past the trees, past the reservoir, past the past that oh, it doesn’t matter now.

And so, the sun set in Katonah, the silence in my car heavy with the understanding that I would carry all in the world that you were. It was the last time I’d know you, of your majesty, and all the moments that you lived that I would ever inherit.

Why does he leave me here,
lost within the silence and the prison of my head?
I am left to pick up the pieces
of all the things in the world that I thought
he might have valued and desired?
Of the void within my chest, left to fill?

The story of who he was to me is still
to be pieced together haphazardly.
Yes, yes, to all those that inquire with interest,
although my own objective is to make peace.
How can I explain this in a way that won’t offend
When I only seek the truth of what had happened?

Says the man who has lost far more than I today,
brothers, friends, fathers,
through the wisdom of experience,
with a chasm that
can only be bridged by relation and reach,
He has much to teach me of
The cycle, this life, knowing that surely, someday
It will come to an end, that he unfortunately knows too well:
The pain is there because it mattered.

The deaths we die everyday through memory,
The ghosts, they are kept alive
by the theater of the mind,
where it plays out its sad scenario
In the hopes that those
that had been sacrificed in the search
Give birth to the more meaningful.
The abandonment, the cross to bear.

I — touched by a madness
as the tragic touches my life,
May the feeling come as close
as at the time in which it touched my heart.
And now, as it stands, my dear
May I allow myself the accuracy of thought.
As this space I’ve been left
is made more empty without you here.

Here, in the solitude,
alone, within my thoughts and memories,
awake
They can’t touch you.

You said, while we were standing there,
in the enormity,
I was supposed to promise you
Promise you that no matter what, I protect that memory
Preserve, keep, like a guardian, keep safe
that moment that we flirted dangerously
with the very possible reality of falling in.

Never should it be erased, never should it be freed of my heart,
Never should I allow it to die amidst the reeds.
And I shall carry the song for all of eternity
cursed with its truest meaning.

There, you are softer, there, there are no limits to the mythology.
Oh, you’ve gone back in for it, back in for the memory, I’ve protected
No, it hasn’t been stolen, I’ve taken it far below
And here it is: past perfect tense.

No need to be obtuse, no lyric can resolve the truth.
The sailors, they always lose sight of the shore, and yet
I still hear nothing more
but the shipwreck and sinking of hopes once had.

Under the surface, still, it’s all so still, and quiet.
I could have been an angel.
And so sooner without my escape,
It’s haunted and held in the air I’ll no longer breathe.

At the sound of my command,
When I hold you there, I don’t let go.
And next time,
no, I won’t let go.

Selfishly, I have often chosen to remember you as you were in that doorway, rid of all of the trivial details of our lives as we knew it to be. It all seems to clear to me: How cold your hands were when they touched my face. How you had traced my lips with your thumb. The autumn turned to winter as we grew displaced. Our minds betraying us, our affections in the connection of all that had tied us together. I had no choice but to rescind for you were never mine, and maybe never will be. I need you to change me…

Must have been early when we were there, looking at the majesty of it all. Enamored by all before our eyes, not really knowing the how or why. Leaned up against each other, bracing the chill, our loaded stares addressed in an armful of moments, projecting far more than light or sound would allow. Now, my angel, my heart and friend — today, I look and see you in everything; that phenomenal wave of all unanswered. Not so much space, as it were time. Time, as it seems, allowed me to forget.

Looking to the sky and asking why, in the direction in which you had left, I wondered to myself if that, too, was what you kept. And if so, please take it, wherever you may go, so that it lives among those that cherish it most. I know that was you shooting past my line of sight, when you let go of me that night, with a wish for me to be as it had been then. We don’t have to be true — but know the expanse of all I see is great, because of you.

100% legit, proper, and all-independent hip hop for all the true heads out there.  Enter the resident Starchitect and make some noise for new The Undisputed Hip Hop Show.

Let’s keep it short and sweet and get to the music, because I’m just as excited as you.  There’s a lot of hip hop out there going unnoticed today, and I’ve been hearing about the death of hip hop for entirely too long for one reason or another (guns, bling, bitches, etc).  But that simply isn’t true, and hip hop isn’t dead.

Way to state the obvious, right? But, listen — one thing’s for sure. There are a number of new artists that you’re not listening to, that have released new material in the past year. A lot of it is deserving of your ear and no doubt will keep your head bangin’.

I can understand why people tire of the same commercial rappers. I do too. As their releases progress over the years, I don’t really relate to them or their lifestyles, and almost feel as if once you hit the level of a mainstream artist, you lose the struggle. You lose the ability to relate to who you’re talking to and making music for — authenticity suffers, the hustle dies, and you lose the things that keep you honest.

Let’s be real here — it happens in every industry. It doesn’t necessarily even happen in hip hop, or in music for that matter. When you lose that that fire in your stomach that’s pushing you to keep going, you don’t try as hard to come correct or starch it. You become complacent and you just go through the motions.

But! I’m not hatin’ on those heads that’ve made it. I’m just saying that there are plenty of people coming up in the game that people haven’t discovered based on some wack generalization that hip hop is dead. It means you weren’t looking. Luckily, I pour through new releases every week to make sure that I stir up the same passion I had as a kid for hip hop culture — these are tracks that reinforce my hope in the progression and elevation of the rap game, and I share that with you. These artists that I’ve picked aren’t complacent about their craft and what they do. I’d like to think that they’re just like you.

Lastly, I just wanted to say that this is my first stab at a hip hop show and I wanna hear what you think. I’ve broadcast material in the rock, metal, and RPM formats before (on-air, not necessarily via podcast), but this is the first time I’m picking an all-independent hip hop set. If you’ve got something to say, about the artists, the show itself, the tracks I picked, my swag (or lack of), or whatever — leave it in the comments and I’ll chat you up.

And, If you’re an MC or DJ, I’m all about hearing new things. So if you’ve got something that you think I’d enjoy and eventually play, please send it to me! I give you that info in the podcast… hit it up!

Till next!

G

————–

The Undisputed Hip Hop Show 001
“Set It Off” Playlist:

1. Mr. SOS - “Welcome To The Future (Chew Fu’s Bionic RMX)” (mp3) from “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb” (QN5, Inc., 2009)
   Buy at iTunes Music Store
2. The Insects - “Wonder Years (feat. Josh Martinez)” (mp3) from “Gone Pt. 1″ (Camobear Records, 2009)
   Buy at iTunes Music Store
3. Jurassic 5 - “Gotta Understand” (mp3) from the “Iller Sessions” compilation (Bomb Hip Hop, 2008)
   Buy at iTunes Music Store
4. Superstar Quamallah – “You Need Knowledge” (mp3) from “Invisible Man” (Brick Records, 2009)
   Buy at iTunes Music Store
5. The Kid Daytona - Perfect” (feat. Outasight)” from “Come Fly With Me” (Notherground Records, 2009)
   Free download directly from the artist
6. Jake Lefco - “Teeth Chatter” from “Missing Trooth” (KRU Records, 2008)
   Buy at Amazon Downloads
7. CasOne – “Two Steppin’ (feat. Tommy Jamin)” (mp3) from “Liberation” (Clocktower Collective, 2009)
   Buy at iTunes Music Store
8. Noisy Stylus - “Broccoli Wars” (mp3) from “Return of the DJ Vol. V” (Bomb Hip Hop, 2003)
   Buy at iTunes Music Store
9. Roscoe Umali - “I Remember” (Featuring Raekwon the Chef and Smif & Wesson) from “I Love My DJs” (Mediaworks-Artisans, 2007)
   Buy at Amazon Downloads
10. Def Tex - “Late Saturday Night Joint” (mp3) from “Thanks But No Thanks” (Son Records, 2007)
    Buy at Amazon Downloads
11. Kool G Rap - “100 Rounds” (mp3) from “Half A Klip” (Latchkey Recordings, 2008)
    Buy at iTunes Music Store
12. Domingo - “Street Hustle – feat. Immortal Technique” (mp3) from “The Most Underrated” (Latchkey Recordings, 2007)
    Buy at iTunes Music Store

Life moves pretty fast when your DJ name is Speed.  The count isn’t at 140, but goes from one to twelve, and 1-2-12 over 12 songs and a year, over months.

This episode of the newly-dubbed 140 Fury brings to us the magic of the calendar taperoll.  (I just found out that you can buy it off ThinkGeek.) If I had a calendar taperoll, I would probably try to tape various life events on the insides of my head.  Because really, that’s the kind of innovation that we all REALLY need… at least, that is, if you’re forgetful.  Thankfully, I was blessed with a more-than-decent memory triggered by music, their attached lyrics, and its various life lessons.

Until that day comes where there are day planners and calendars implanted to our bodies (PDAs and handheld devices notwithstanding, but close), here are some songs that access my musical mind/moodmap over the last year.

140 Fury 002
One Two Twelve:

1. Monk – “Santa Ana Murders And The Neonlights Of Love” (mp3) from “The Man Who Sleeps On His Breath” (sevenahalf records)
   Buy at iTunes Music Store
2. Benjamin E. Morsberger – “Don’t Forget To Regret” (mp3) from the Idiot Sleep EP
   Listen to and download more songs on MySpace
3. Sawoff Shotgun – “Bloodee Maree” (mp3) from “Never Mind the Botox, Here Comes the Sawoff Shotgun” (sevenahalf records)
   Buy at iTunes Music Store
4. Matt & Kim – “Yea Yeah” (mp3) from “Self Titled” (iheartcomix)
   Buy at iTunes Music Store
5. Boat - “(I’m A) Donkey For Your Love” from “Let’s Drag Our Feet” (Magic Marker)
   Buy at Amazon MP3 Downloads
6. Harlem - “South of France” from “free drugs ” (female fantasy)
   Buy at Amazon MP3 Downloads
7. The Advantage – “Revenge (The Legend of Zelda, Fortress)” from “Advantage: Programmar“ (5 Rue Christine Records)
   Buy from record label
8. The Invisible Cities - “Flipped Out” from “House Shine Like Teeth”
   Choice of album, directly from their website
9. Benton Falls – “Angel On Hiatus” (mp3) from “Guilt Beats Hate” (Deep Elm)
   Buy at Deep Elm Records
10. Desert City Soundtrack – “Drowning Horses” (mp3) from “Funeral Car” (Deep Elm)
    Buy at Deep Elm Records
11. John Lee Hooker – “I Love You Baby” (mp3) from “Ride Til’ I Die” (SnailWorx)
    Buy at iTunes Music Store
12. Abigail Washburn & The Shanghai Restoration Project – “Sala” (mp3) from “Afterquake” (Undercover Culture Music)
    Buy at iTunes Music Store

In the inaugural episode, Glenda kicks off CraneKick for all the urban ninjas out there with a mix of beats and atmospheric guitars. The cast ventures all over the place with some breaks, a light foray into electro, underground hip-hop, a healthy dose of lo-fi indie rock, folktronica, and post-rock goodness.

A long time ago, I used to be a college radio DJ. When my stint ended, I wanted to continue being a broadcaster, but I didn’t have the resources to do that. As time went on, I evolved, audio technology and distribution channels evolved, and I kept thinking of giving it a shot again. I’ve been “thinking about giving it a shot again” for like 10 years, and now I have the resources to putz around with things.

I’m not going to go into why I started CraneKick. That’s what the About page is for.

I love discovering new music and I think of arranging lists of 10 songs in themes all the time. If I had to pick ten songs and give them a title, they could probably speak volumes as to what’s going on in my head.

CraneKick 001 Tracklist:

1. The Chemical Brothers – “(The Best Part Of) Breakin’ Up“ from the Loops of Fury EP (Astralwerks, 1996)
   Buy song at Amazon MP3 Downloads
2. Wristerons – “Freestyle Rock” (mp3) from Revenge of the B-Boy, Episode 2: The Attack of the Toyz (Bomb Hip Hop, 2002)
   Buy at Amazon MP3 Downloads
3. Jazz Liberatorz feat. J-Live – “Vacation“ from Clin d’oeil (Kif Records, 2008)
   Buy the album from Amazon MP3 Downloads
4. Thes One – “Target“ from the album Lifestyle Marketing (Tres Records, 2007)
   Buy the album from Amazon
5. Ill Lit – “Worth The Wait” (mp3) from the album Tom Cruise (Riparian Records, 2006)
   Buy at iTunes Music Store
6. Scientific Maps - “Solitary Confinement” from Hold On Whoever You Are (B3nson Records, 2009)
   Buy directly from the band and label
7. Madder Rose – “The Love You Save” from The Love You Save EP (Seed Records, 1995)
   You need to buy a CD from Amazon, because it’s out-of-print
8. Exit Ocean – “Haloperidol” from their 3-song EP (self-produced, 2004)
   Buy directly from the band via their website
9. Moving Mountains - “Grow Up, Grow On, Grow Out” from Pneuma (self-produced, 2007 / re-released by Deep Elm, 2008)
   Buy directly from the band
10. Bottom Of The Hudson – “Bee Hive” (mp3) from Fantastic Hawk (Absolutely Kosher, 2007)
    Buy at iTunes Music Store

DJs are ultimately curators, entertainers, appreciators and influencers of an art that no one really listens to on the same level as them. I would like to believe that they, along with the sound engineers and the producers, are the music industry’s “most passionate users.”

Sometimes things are conveyed in lyrics — other times in the song name itself (and after I’ve realized I’ve picked a bunch of tracks; I subsequently psychoanalyze myself), or maybe it’s just the feeling I get when I listen to something. When I hear something I haven’t heard in a really long time, I hit the “seek” button in my brain to go back to the instance in my life when I remember that song being part of my memory’s auditory soundtrack.

Obviously I never wrote or created any of these songs, but I feel they speak for me when I can’t be as eloquent as I’d like to be.

The podcast’s episode name is obvious because of recent events and the death of Michael Jackson. I’m not going to get into what his music ever meant to me because many people have said everything I could possibly say on the subject. However, the second vinyl LP I ever bought in my young life as a budding audiophile was Thriller. (The first was Cyndi Lauper‘s She’s So Unusual — says a lot.) I can still moonwalk with the best of them (albeit like a 7-year-old, but yes — I can still moonwalk), which many of my friends can appreciate.

You’ll have to pardon the mess, as I’m not only tweaking the levels and format of the podcast itself, but this site on the front and back-ends. Hopefully after a couple of runs, things will begin to sound smoother and so will I — admittedly, I’m a bit rusty.

That being said, this episode is available in two flavors:

• The first is your standard MP3, which is down below, at the end of this post. (If you’re reading this in a feed reader, then obviously this information doesn’t so much apply!) It can be previewed and played right here on this web page, or downloaded for your amusement at the link under the embedded player.
• The second, which you’ve probably cruised by already if you’ve gotten down to this part of the post thus far, is above in a video box. That video box is an iTunes enhanced M4A file, with thumbnails and links and the whole nine. It too can be downloaded at the link below the box, or you can preview and play the whole thing above. (However, I suppose if you’ve played the file in the box already up there, then you’ve already figured that part out.)

Anyway, I hope you enjoy what you hear. Catch you soon, kids!

The photo above and contained within the podcast itself is cinematic visionary Spike Jonze doing a Crane Kick off the top of a municipal parking meter, somewhere in LA. What I didn’t mention is that the photo of Spike Jonze is a mobile phone shot from Kanye West. (It’s an awesome picture Kanye, please don’t sue me for using it. K THX BAI)