Digable

I was reviewing some old paperwork and discovered something surprising. You see, for awhile now I've thought that I lost the vast majority of my hearing when I was 46. Turns out, I was 49 when my audio took the last train to the coast.

What’s this mean? I had hearing for three more years than I thought. This makes me happy. I mean, 49 is almost half a century of music heaven. Awesome, n'est-ce pas?

I googled ‘music 2007’ to see what was happening right before the old sound system crapped out. It looks like I didn’t miss much that year (remember, art and music tastes are subjective—so this is just me and not an imperious judgment. REALLY!). There was a lot of rap, the always execrable country and a bunch of forgettable pop/rock.

I was never really into rap but I’m happy as hell to have been able to enjoy Digable Planets’ alt hip hop and jazz rap stylings after they reunited in 2005. I got to groove to The Beastie Boys but, sadly, totally missed their instrumental album, The Mix-Up.

What did I listen to most during my last few months of hearing? I knew the wrecking ball of deafness was coming at me so I had David Byrne’s mostly instrumental album, The Forest, Aaron Copeland’s Fanfare for the Common Man, Jeff Beck Group’s Truth all in solid, continual rotation on my little stereo. I wanted to burn them into my memory banks. There were so many others too—Paul Simon’s Rhythm of the Saints, Pearl Jam’s Ten, Nine Inch Nails’s The Downward Spiral, Jeff Buckley’s Grace to name just a few.

That’s it for today. After a nasty night’s semi-sleep, I’m feeling foggy and not fully up for another day of errands, physical therapy and whatnot. What I’m DEF gonna do is avoid the news, especially the rage-baity let's-manufacture-a-horserace shit. I've got Douglas Adams' Life, the Universe and Everything and John Scalzi's The Ghost Brigades to read.