Artist	Song
Ani Difranco	Half-Assed
Gomez	78 Stone Wobble
Brian Vander Ark	1229 Sheffield
Sean Watkins	Locking Doors
Radiohead	In Limbo
Turin Brakes	Average Man
Pearl Jam	Indifference
Weezer	Slob
XTC	Travels in Nihilon
Devendra Banhart	Dogs They Make Up the Dark
They Might Be Giants	A Self Called Nowhere
A Perfect Circle	The Hollow
The Beatles	I'm Only Sleeping
The Cardigans	Iron Man (Black Sabbath cover)
Jewel	Who Will Save Your Soul
Ani Difranco	Pixie
Hope of the States	Black Dollar Bills
Great Lakes Myth Society	Isabella County, 1992
John Mayer	Waiting On the World to Change
Otis Redding	(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay

Comment:

The junkie doctor diagnoses the hugely obese patient with twin killers: terminal lung cancer

and a disinterest in prolonging his life. A test confirms the former condition, but she

refuses to accept the second half of the junkie's conclusion. And yes, the latter condition

is irrelevant at this point, but it still breaks her heart when the patient confirms it with

a mere "C'est la vie".

I smile. Not for her debunked optimism, nor for the junkie's validated cynicism, but for the

temperament of the dying man. C'est la vie, I think, ain't that right. Many people do

cost/benefit analyses for little, everyday decisions and big, life-changing choices, but few

dare to do the calculations for life itself, even when their lives hold little or no beaut-

A friend interrupts this thought with a call and an invitation to a party. We'd love to see

you, he claims. But I politely decline; there's really nothing there for me. I can't

reasonably expect any sort of connection to occur, not even with those friends, those people

who'd love to see me. They've never been even remotely similar, never close to fitting. Dead

ends, all of them.

I set the phone back down and return to my pixelated friends. There's the guy who stands by

his drug-addled friend, even at the risk of trouble with the law. Yes, I'd gladly do that if

I had such an interesting occasion. On to the happenings of a Canadian high school. There's

the woman who won't pretend a relationship in order to hide a secret anymore. Oh, if I could

find myself in that blur of intrigue, I'd congratulate her on recognizing a final straw and

then go on to counsel her fallen benefactor. And here we find a young intern at another

hospital, giving a rare rant on his loneliness to a bunch of supposed friends who take issue

with his date choice. Beautiful, I'd tell him if I could, just beautiful.

Another channel..ugh. There's that black mark. Reality TV. What a grand idea, the work of a

complete genius. Television's greatest strength is its contrast to reality, so let's take

that away and see what we get! Idiots. Documentaries have the decency, at least, to leave

out the galaxies of filler material when they portray reality. This shit barely skims the

surface.

As I resign myself to the couch, something is devouring the empty spaces in my numerous

epicenters of inactivity. The fruitful small talk with a coworker, the defense of a slightly

effeminate acquaintance, that promising interview with a big four accounting firm -

something is feeding upon these might-have-beens. Something luminous... and yet, something

positively lifeless.

Whatever it is, I let it feed. It's not doing me any harm.

Take a chance, you say. Risk some effort and some embarassment, reach for that slim

possibility. And every time I hear that, I recognize the same courage and resolve present in

the guy who spends his paycheck on scratch-offs. No thanks. Excuse my cowardice, but I find

no comfort and certainly no security in that lottery ticket. It's a big church, over six

billion served, so go peddle your raffle elsewhere.

While the night is still young and the sun keeps its distance, the safe bet sits ten feet

away from me. For now, I am content. And that is all that matters.

Mix #60, a substitution, made in December of 2006.

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