My Mind on Shuffle

Because I don't have much original to say the last couple of days, let's have another installment of my reaction to Mr. Klosterman.  Again, all of the portions in italics are directly reproduced from Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, Klosterman, Chuck, published by Scribner, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020, 2003.  Buy it.

5. You meet your soul mate.  However, there is a catch: Every three years, someone will break both of your soul mate's collarbones with a Crescent wrench, and there is only one way you can stop this from happening: You must swallow a pill that will make every song you hear–for the rest of your life–sound as if it's being performed by the band Alice in Chains.  When you hear Creedence Clearwater Revival on the radio, it will sound (to your ears) like it's being played by Alice in Chains.  If you see Radiohead live, every one of their tunes will sound like it's being covered by Alice in Chains.  When you hear a commercial jingle on tv, it will sound like Alice in Chains; if you sing to yourself in the shower, your voice will sound like deceased Alice vocalist Layne Staley performing a capella (but it will only sound this way to you).  Would you swallow the pill?

Now, I like Alice in Chains as much as the next guy born between 1975 and 1982, which is to say I find them vastly inferior to Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots and really most alternative bands not called Hole.  Needless to say, this is no way to go through life.  If this person were really my soul mate, I believe that she would volunteer for the Crescent wrenching.  I would, of course, try to "take one for the team", as it were, and down the pill, but she would do something drastic to prevent this from happening (perhaps even beaning me with a Crescent wrench as a preventative measure).  From there on, I would continue to enjoy a wide variety of music and every three years would be wracked with guilt as she has her collarbone reset.  Eventually she would come to regret her choice, resenting me for putting her in such a situation.  We would both seek sanctuary outside of our relationship, only to find all other companionship lacking.  Still, we would finally split up, only to have the three year anniversary come around again.  She would be accosted once more by a wrench-wielding maniac and discover that her suffering is indepedent of our relationship.  Her new partner would not be able to handle the pressure of handling this bizarre situation.  We would eventually reunite and live out our days in constant fear of plumbers.  The ironic twist to the story?  We would discover a bizarre appreciation for the musical stylings of Alice in Chains and ultimately play one of their songs at our wedding.

6. At long last, someone invents "the dream VCR."  This machine allows you to tape an entire evening's worth of your own dreams, which you can then watch at your leisure.  However, the inventor of the dream VCR will only allow you to use this device if you agree to a strange caveat: When you watch your dreams, you must do so with your family and your closest friends in the same room.  They get to watch your dreams along with you.  And if you don't agree to this, you can't use the dream VCR.  Would you still do this?

For some people, this wouldn't be too challenging.  A lot of people remember their dreams vividly.  I am not one of these people.  I rarely, if ever, remember my dreams, and when I do only in the vaguest sense.  For this reason, I believe the dream VCR would be a fascinating glimpse into my subconscious.  I wish I could just remember my dreams better, so what could be better than being able to watch them play out?  Despite this, there's simply no way I could possibly agree to this condition.  Why?  Here's the deal: I find watching movies with incidental sex scenes in the company of others fairly uncomfortable.  Could I watch such a movie in the prescence of my friends and family if it starred myself?  Sorry, I'm just a little too repressed for that.