…To help get me through what we call the fiend’s nasty pass, 77S through Charleston/Marmet WV, & the monument to evident monstrosity & vitriol that Dupont built beside the river [No offense to folks who live there, in fact I wish you well, but this stretch of highway never ceases to hammer my hope for humanity with each and every go by], I had to put Heroes on infinite repeat ~~~ see how long it’d take to get burnt-out on one lone song.  Well, NEVER got burnt-out…after umpteen repeats for a good hour or so, only increasingly more enamored by the very nature of such a perfect l’il ditty; thanx a million for the apt distraction David.  From the Boom…Boom…Boom…Crash........breakdown to the final, “…hey…let’s just be heroes…” never been a more excellent ditty for surviving emotional wreckage and the morosity of industrial disease. 

Then…headed for the man’s mighty tunnels between Princeton & Max Meadows, one click off repeat, …the boon & perfection of ambient car audio sound reflecting off of black leather & plastic & glass, ease back into…Boomtown…for another couple replays of the album in its entirety.  Why does music always sound so dawgone good in a car?

Sometime south of Beckley, just north of the Bluestone on a heady downhill pass, …

[Where’re th’ fck are your Jakes anyway, G!?

You’re killin’ with that toxic burn, …bro….

Can’t breath th’ lethal blue smoke blowin’

Back here, …behind your steady load

…Down on m’ eyes

…Down on m’ lungs

Burnin’ down on these descending &

Ideal high-speed curves here in the sunlight, 

With the roof opened wide to the sky,

…Until you jammed your brakes (for a mile)

…Got ‘a breath the shit you’re blowin’…

Just to get this hope to where it’s goin’;

…A small price to pay, I suppose, for escape…& recuperation]

…a CD change…& Blues Traveler Bridge took to rendering a new groove with 12 perfect [in cenotaph] songs.  Never ceases to amaze me just how well JPopper writes.  Particularly when he’s saying so-long-ya-bastid to a best friend:  If I lend myself to the song completely, Pretty Angry wells me up every time.  I suppose…because we lost our best friend & fellow songwriter with a Les Paul a-decade-ago-this-month to one mocking night’s meaningless overwhelming depression, a poorly placed rope [where a blind-drunk could find it] & a damned sturdy joist.  Why I kept clicking replay on that one…is a mystery to me, but I did; …I guess I never stop missin’ ol’ Digs….

…

So this impromptu & meditative points-south-journey to both bidness & pleasure began with selections from the wholly roadmix trilogy (The Final Cut; The Pros & Cons of Hitch Hiking; Radio K.A.O.S.)

…&, crossing the boarder into NC, …it would conclude with Big@l’s BU2 on-a-loop until well across Lake Norman into the city…. 

Now sitting here in the morning sun listening to David & David again on a good pair of headphones, …looking at the date on the jewel case:  1986.  “19fckng86!”  [Time so does fly-by.]  We were shacking-up (then) about a year before a marriage that still rocks today, something that for too many well-intendeds would never prove to stand the test of time; not in a million years.  &, really, what manmade conception or thing does stand the test of time?  What better than…excellent heartfelt songwriting/recordings?  Nothing.  Absolutely nothing, in my humble opinion.

Close second?  I don’t know: 

Great film; great plays; great novels; great art; the rare-rare great love affair? 

...Tyranny born of affluent self-indulgence?