Oh my god!
I have to tell you all about what happened to me over Christmas! On Christmas Eve, I couldn't sleep. I thought it was just some undigested food or maybe too much alcohol, but then, I saw the most frightful apparation looming in the hallway outside my bedchamber. It was a skinny alt-rock looking guy with a long goatee floating in the air beckoning me sternly to come with him, as he had something very important to show me. Naturally, I refused at first, but he persisted and showed me what he did to the last person he haunted that didn't go with him, so he kind of scared me into following him. Next thing I know I was at a rock club where a bunch of people were grooving to mediocre brit pop, some were smoking cigarettes some were talking on cell phones, and before my eyes I saw them all turn into little babies, some were crying, some were sitting in their own shit laughing, some were still smoking. But, this vision made me see the vulnerability and child-like-ness of us all. I said as much to the goateed ghost and he nodded in satisfaction that I had learned the lesson he was trying to teach (not rocket science). He said, though, he would now turn me over to the next ghost for my next lesson.
This next ghostly creature was more terrifying than the first. It was a large womanly apparation with an ironic t-shirt, or maybe a logo from an esoteric hipster music store (her breasts were too big for me to make out the slogan exactly) She gently grabbed me by the arm and floated me over to an industrial looking complex, all brick with towering smokestacks under a heavy grey sky. It was such a horrible place, I shuddered and begged her not to make me go inside. But, she gently calmed my fears and coaxed me into the complex. Inside I saw legions of pale indie kids chained to small IKEA issue desks banging out copy on computer keyboards in the freezing cold and dark warehouse with (at the time) the Fiery Furnaces being piped in. Every so often an old haggish looking woman would come by an hold a cigarette to the lips of one of them and let them have a puff. My corpulent ghost host carefully touched my eyelids with her soft doughy fingers and allowed me to see up close what they were all working on on those computers. What I saw was unbelievable.
They were writing music reviews...lengthy, boring music reviews...each and every one of them. "What is this?" I asked the ghost. She explained that these were aspiring music writers and that ever since the Big Yawn website had shut down, this was the only place for them.
I was horrified. I broke down in tears. I asked if they were forced to write reviews and listen to Fiery Furnaces all day long, and she explained that they also got to listen to stuff like Interpol and TV on the Radio, and sometimes Polyphonic Spree. I knew what this meant and it was too sad, too devasting to bear.
I begged her to take leave of me and let me alone with my thoughts. She said she would only if I could tell her what I learned from the whole experience (these ghosts are big on making sure people learn stuff and imposing a sense of school-yard, or jail-house, or mob justice of some sort). So I told her I was sorry for being so mean to the Big Yawn kids on the 930 club chatboard and that I was a changed woman, and what about the other ghosts that traditionally visit bad people on Christmas? Wasn't I supposed to get three (in addition to the firs) why did I only get these two? And she said the rest of the ghosts were busy preparing their top 10 albums of 2004 lists...
I said OK, then, I'll be nice.
How weird is that?
