music – Metal Regression

Things That Scare Me

April 28, 2022 Jairo Comments 0 Comment

I was listening to Jonny Greenwood’s latest score and I am ashamed to admit that often times I am moved by the music, having never watched the film. I definitely intend to watch Spencer, but my opportunity to see it in theatres was lost amongst the shuffle of life. I’ll report back here once I do but until then this piece highlights something I want to call a beautiful dread. I lack the knowledge of musical theory to really describe it but there is the challenge and response at the beginning, followed by an unceasingly ascending fugue that is anchored by some devastatingly minor chords. He is channeling J.S. Bach at his most contrapuntal here, which in the film is no doubt a reference to the baroque excess of the royal lineage, but for the person sitting here listening to it without knowledge of its origins it fills me with a promise of greatness and an anxiety of failure. The fugue is especially suited for this because it’s layering of melodic lines represents the many pressures, demands, and thoughts circling through my head at these times of fear. Yet undeniably, on the whole, it’s a beautiful, fragile piece and although there is an undercurrent of anguish it strives upward and onward like many dancers who do not notice they are inching towards a great precipice as they are too preoccupied with their partners.

But the song alone is not responsible for my current malaise. This Sunday I’m doing a brevet, a 200km bicycle ride, I’m afraid of: 124 miles and 6000 feet of elevation which for me is no walk in the park. If it goes well it will be both the highest elevation and the furthest distance I have ever covered in a single ride. I have 13 hours on this earth to finish, which may very well be a lot until you realize I practice the way of the tortoise when it comes to these large efforts. Yet why am I afraid? Not finishing a bicycle ride will hardly be the worst thing to ever happen to me. It is my soul that would suffer, the bitter defeat of not achieving my goal, however small, is a blow to my ego and confidence. I have employed every trick in the book to rationalize away this fear:

“I’ve done 100 miles what’s 24 more?”

“I’ve done 5400 feet of climbing in 70 miles, 6000 spread out over 124 miles that’s easy.”

“My friend Daniel is doing 370 miles that day, he is surely better than me but even I can keep up on his last 124 miles can’t I?”

“Worse comes to worse I can just stop and quit, it’s my choice. I can get picked up.”

“If I feel like I wont finish I can cut the route short, I am the master of my own destiny after all.”

“Even if I don’t finish maybe I will still have gone further than ever before.”

This is my personal fugue, playing endlessly in my head leading up to the ride this Sunday. There is the anticipation of pain, but also the sweet dreams of victory. Will I come back here next week hence and regale you with the tale of my adventure, mission accomplished? Or will I publish a post about Icarus and how he journeyed too close to the sun? This is what Kierkegaard refers to as Anxiety, the dizziness of freedom, for after all as much as I like to hand off the responsibility of being on this ride (“I paid $20, I have to do it now”) it is my choice alone to put myself through this gauntlet, a test of my mental and physical fortitude. Taking that responsibility is unmasking my true being and rejecting the many excuses and opportunities to exit it that my inauthentic self whispers to me is part of the challenge. So there we have it: challenge, response, and now the perpetual silent second before the journey.

Everything Is Jazz

April 10, 2022 Jairo Comments 0 Comment

Yesterday I rode 100 miles on my bicycle, a concept that is still kind of mind blowing to me as even the thought of driving 100 miles fills me with exhaustion. From my Palm Springs Century post it’s clear though that 100 miles isn’t some monolithic suffer fest like you would imagine cycling 100 miles at a gym is. It really becomes a series of adventures, compromises, and improvisations. I think it’s that excitement that keeps the ride feeling fresh and vital the whole way through. This time I wont exhaustively cover the music through the ride because even though I was listening to some, since I was cycling through Los Angeles my mind was distracted by the sights of the city, and by trying to stay alive despite some drivers’ insistence otherwise.

The century ride started as a great romp up the all the strand beaches and since I was riding mostly solo I could stop and take in views but more importantly stop for donuts. I had a deadline of 11 am to get to the arts district so I cut across Santa Monica, down the exposition bike path which runs parallel to the expo line, and finally down Venice boulevard straight into downtown. Just barely made it on time since I can’t play fast and loose with the traffic lights while riding alone, the ones in downtown especially took foooorever. Made it to Detroit Vesey’s (an awesome new cycling cafe at the arts district) just barely in time for the Heavy Pedal group ride that was rolling out.

They had posted the route in the weeks previous and it was going to be a ride up Elysian Park as an appetizer climb before hitting Griffith Park and climbing up to the observatory and back to the cafe for a raffle. What I didn’t know was that they had made the decision to do the route in reverse and hit Griffith first and I didn’t realize it until about 20 minutes in. Thankfully I made the start of the ride or I would have been severely lost, but Daniel was trying to catch up with us and I voice texted him the change in route lest he be lost forever too. He eventually caught with us up the climb to Griffith which I was impressed by because I would have given up and gone back. The group ride wasn’t slow either, I was struggling to keep up on the flats and once we hit the observatory climb I abandoned all hope of staying with the group. I went at a snail’s pace, I think the previous 60 miles, the heat, and the extra effort I had just made brought my energy levels way down.

Eventually Daniel who had long since caught and passed me told me that the group was waiting, and I did put in some extra effort because I didn’t want to be THAT guy who held everyone up even though I totally did anyways. I was the last person to get to the top and the group rolled out to take a photo in front of the Hollywood sign. Since it was hot and the group (me) was lagging it they decided to just ride straight back to the cafe which was a blessing since I wasn’t looking forward to the second climb.

Back at the restaurant we hade some delicious latkes, coffees, cookies, and I even had a mocktail that scratched that itch for a refreshing mid-ride drink. I ended up winning two prize bags in the raffle easily worth over $150 and I only bought $40 worth of tickets so it was money well spent. Finally it was time to head home for the last 24 miles of my century.

I took it real easy on the LA river path going back to Long Beach since the pains of a century had begun to set in: saddle soreness, back pain, toe pain (this one is the bottleneck for me right now, can get painful enough that I have to stop and take off the shoes for a bit sometimes). I realized as I got closer to home that I was going to fall 2 miles short of 100 since I didn’t do the climb up Elysian. Part of me didn’t care and wanted it to be over, the other part of me wanted to finish what I fucking started. The latter me won and I flew past the exit to my home and down to the beach path for some bonus miles. What I totally forgot was that the shoreline area had been inundated by tourists going to the Grand Prix, and an entire swath of the path was closed to foot and bicycle traffic. I got to a chain link fence and was told I needed to go back the way I came. Instead of going all the way back up to river path to the previous exit I rode up the wrong way on the Queens Way Bridge then flipped a U turn back into downtown and finally, mercifully back home.

I had a tight timeline since I was trying to make a concert at 7pm. Except as I found out when I got there the concert was actually at 8 pm. So I went to get a coffee and wait. I was watching Big Band of Brothers, a big band tribute to the Allman Brothers Band which sounds crazy but inevitably makes perfect sense. I sat in the theatre and watched this 13 piece band rip through some ABB classics with saxophone, trumpet, and trombone solos standing in for Dickey Betts and Duane Allman. The 100 miles still felt fresh and my legs were feeling a dull throbbing pain, I should have been home resting, but I absolutely wanted to see this band. This milieu I was in had me reflecting on the nature of Jazz. I was an Allman Brothers fan long before I was a jazz fan but now it seems inevitable that I would come around to it. The Allman Brothers band live was an amazing experience, the songs are never played the same way. You have all these musicians on stage who play off each other, off the energy in the room that night, or just trying something new that day. This southern classic rock jam band is really just a jazz band. I read a description of a 30 minute version of Whipping Post once where the band had shifted past the first couple verse and choruses and into a primordial ooze of instrumentation, a space where the band was still playing but where direction the song could go in was infinite, it was the nameless miasma before the universe is created. Then suddenly there’s a big bang and the song takes real shape again with every musician suddenly knowing exactly what their role in this new world is. That’s fucking jazz! So it’s inevitable that I would one day grow to love it, and also inevitable the Allman Brothers would be transcribed so well into it.

This form of improvisation is what sets this genre apart from every other music on the planet, what’s more it’s uniquely American. To me jazz shows are electric, energetic, and always unique. Something which unfortunately is not true for all the concerts I go to, thinking of Slayer and Megadeth who play through their songs with precision and clockwork just as they are on the albums, but it’s okay I love them for other reasons I’m sure I’ll get to on here some day.

This interplay between conflict, resolution, solos, improvisation, payoff: it was just like my ride that day. This dance between obstacles, setbacks, shortcuts, serendipitous rewards: that’s fucking Jazz! It’s alive and ever changing, exciting and new every time, no matter how many miles I ride.

Benedictus

April 2, 2022 Jairo Comments 0 Comment

At a bar last night some poor woman had the misfortune of asking me what I was currently reading and I proceeded to vomit half-formed ideas on existentialism, freedom, authenticity, and self-discovery at her. Today I realized I desperately needed an outlet lest the flood gates be open upon more unsuspecting bar patrons. Sometimes I loathe the question “what is it about”. Can you truly summarize such a dense work of prose in a sentence or two? (Spielberg would say yes) Yet as humans we are constantly compacting, contextualizing, and abstracting vast amounts of information. Not only that but it is the foundation of the creative process to absorb and produce. So, as my platform, this blog shall serve as the repository for all further fruits of my creative digestive track.

I have about two dozen half written drafts of posts I was inspired to write but subsequently got cold on. In fact I have about a dozen of them that have the preceding sentence written into them, as if such a sentiment holds the key to actually, finally publishing one of these damned things. But so help me God this is the one that will make it through because I’m deciding to keep these short and sweet. My problem previously has been to try and write thematically cohesive, well thought out essays (or stories) but really my mind has never worked that way. So today I am presenting my thoughts just as I currently have had them today.

I mention God because he is on my mind. And I mention he because he is the patriarch of the church as was made clear by the Great Mass I witnessed today. Mozart’s other great unfinished work was performed handsomely by the LA Philharmonic at the illustrious Walt Disney Concert Hall. As usual I was the only one there wearing a Sleep hoodie and a t-shirt and below the median age of 50. I’m trying to make classical concerts metal again but I’m fighting a losing battle I fear. The LA Phil was kind enough to display lyrics of the translated Latin up on the wooden beams behind the orchestra. For something that sounds so divine the lyrics are so boring. Oscillating between “we worship you great father” and “we thank you for your glory”. That’s not to say the music was boring though, quite the opposite, it feels rapturous to sit in that theatre and listen to the rich sound of the orchestra delivering some of Mozart’s most inspired writing. I could not help but wonder how he wrote something that could make me feel as if I believed in a divine being without actually doing so. To me, belief in God was never even a consideration so although I grew up Catholic, I wouldn’t call myself a lapsed catholic, I simply never was one. Which brings me to my other rumination of the day, that I am nothing.

The concept of nothingness as it relates to existentialism is a void to which all meaning can be ascribed to. Simply put (from a simple understanding I’ll admit) it means absolute freedom, infinite possibility because nothing has no attachments, duties, wants or needs. We are born nothing and we die nothing. Which sounds nihilistic but in fact is rife with excitement and opportunity…and anxiety. I sat at a coffee shop today to try and parse through this concept and after the last bit of caffeine ran its course I decided a bar was more suitable for the punk rock philosophers of the 1900s. A single beer can go a long way towards helping you understand the concepts of Being and Not-Being, nothingness, and time. So I was swimming in this philosophical milieu as I watched, experienced, the LA Phil play Mozart’s exaltation towards his heavenly father. If we are nothing, walking voids then naturally we try to fill that by collecting identities, roles, occupations, ideas. It would appear to me that God, the church, and any religion is the ultimate answer to that void, certainly the easiest to adopt since the processes and mechanisms have all been laid out for you by generations preceding. I can’t help but admire the creative work of geniuses that are moved by a singular focus and devotion to religion. Having that clear of a purpose is work in and of itself, but it’s not for me.

Imagine Mozart in 1782 composing a tribute to God, hoping his audience would worship in unison with his music reaching a height that neither would on their own. Enter me in 2022 using the performance as a springboard to ponder the absence of God and my ability to free myself from religious attachments whilst experiencing second hand spirituality. I’ll admit that this sort of intellectual hijacking is always a delicious treat when I am present of mind to notice it.

100 Miles Through The Palm Desert

February 23, 2022 Jairo Comments 0 Comment

A Mostly Musical Journey

About to take off at the start line with RCC

Inspired by my triathlete friend Daniel’s Blog where he recounts his big events I’ve decided to write down significant rides on my own though not always through an athletic looking glass. The germination of this particular post stems from a conversation we had the night before the Tour De Palm Springs between Daniel, our friend Sergio (who we recently viciously kidnapped into the world of cycling) and I. The question of what we actually do for multiple hours on a bicycle on these 100 mile rides came up. Obviously we pedal, yes, but our minds are left trapped on this one way train for hours on end. If you stick with a group or are of a friendly disposition then conversations are easy enough to have and those are great to pass the time but if you have a hard time keeping up with groups…let’s say…particularly on climbs or long but gradual inclines like me or if you just prefer riding alone then what do you do?

Daniel and Sergio both agreed that listening to audio books and podcasts is the way to go. I agreed, that’s definitely a great way to live out your masochist fantasies on a bike. Okay I’m being sarcastic, they enjoy this and maybe consider it even more of a “productive” endeavor, a synergy between mind and body where the body is working and the mind is learning. I understand the impulse, it’s the same feeling I get when I used to drive across LA for work, may as well knock out a book or learn some new shit while stuck in traffic, right? May as well learn the secret art of the law of attraction while pedaling for 6 hours straight too then yeah? Hell nah.

I listen to music, it’s a ride enhancer for me. It scoops me out of the lows and it makes the highs higher. My bicycle ride becomes art, a film in my head. Oftentimes the combination of my struggle, the vistas, and the music combine together to form some sort of alchemical concoction greater than the sum of its parts and later on that’s what I remember the most, not the suffering but the grandiose canvas of emotions I felt. I tried to jot down some quick notes to prompt my recounting of the ride so get ready for a deep dive into the intersection between music scores, soundtracks and cycling that you never asked for.

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