Soundtracked

Trying To Find A Balance

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This week's theme: The Precious Few

Ok guys, this is it; the penultimate entry for our Precious Few. Fair warning: there will be some memes, pictures, and explicit lyrics in the videos. Avert your eyes and ears if this portion of my existence doesn't interest you in the same way it excites me. Life isn't always white linens and bible verses.

Again, I don't have a funny anecdote regarding this song itself, but it's more of a guiding principle of mine. In life, along with everything in it, there should be balance. And that doesn't necessarily mean 50/50 evensies and shit...it's ok if the numbers skew a little as long as you're comfortable with what they represent...sometimes a true split isn't possible.

For example: maybe you think your life is perfect if you can achieve a 65% work life versus a 35% non-work life. Or 50/25/25 between family, work, and friends.

1/2 Cheese, 1/2 Cheese & Pepperoni. 1/2 Cheese & Pepperoni, 1/2 Sausage.

Whatever it is, it has to work for you. If you don't have balance, you fall. Life doesn't get any less complicated in description than that.

Atmosphere...it's just a 10-letter word. Huge part of my musical lineage, from the days of reading magazines and write-ups and album reviews...and then browsing a used CD bin at a record shop and going "Hey, I've heard about them..." when I spotted You Can't Imagine How Much Fun We're Having  . The first time I'd heard the term "Emo Rap" was in conjunction with that record. I picked it up on the cheap and went a few months straight listening to it at least once a day. I don't know why, to tell the truth. The beats were good. The bass was alright. The samples were fresh. The production was on point. And lyrically...very impressive. It's not the greatest album of all-time, and it's not even the best hip hop record of the last two decades. Well, maybe it is. I don't have a good reason. And I don't think I owe anyone one. I know what I like.

And then, like any musician or band or artist, you start going backwards into the catalog when there's no more room to go forward. Seven's Travels   is just a really solid album. It's not one of those long plays that bounces all over the place like some albums do...this settles nicely into one lane and stays there. Is it abrasive? Yes. Suggestive? Violent occasionally? Angry? Check, check, check. But it's real...because life is real.

Our lives consist of about ten percent of what the public actually sees of each of us. Our social media accounts, our pictures, what we wear to work and school and the grocery store. There's almost this whole other world that people don't get to see. Perhaps our most vulnerable side...that's who we are the most, yet it's what everyone sees the least of. At best, we're only balancing out our fears, our image, ourselves, into some fit-for-consumption box that we're always trying to get more comfortable with. Some do it better than others. Some get paid a lot of money to fit into other people's souls. And some of us just stay inside as long as humanly possible.

"In the days of kings and queens I was a jester.
Treat me like a god or they treat me like a leper.
You see me move back and forth between both...
I'm trying to find a balance; I'm trying to build a balance."
Lyrics.  

I'm not gonna tell you I identify with the lyrics, because I don't. The chorus, yeah, but not the entire body of work. No matter what, there will always be differing opinions of me. I can only do what I think is best for me, not what everyone else thinks I should be doing. I try to be a good person, even though I realize there have been plenty of times I've given people reasons to believe otherwise. I'm not perfect. No one is. But so many of us want others to believe we are...like it's so important. Like there's some kinda prize at the end or somethin'. There ain't. All we ever really wind up doing is balancing...projecting our good versus our bad. Our rights and wrongs. What is liked about us against what we like. Wants and needs. That's it. And sometimes we need help doing that.

This is so when I look down, I know to remember that I need to find balance in everything. There are wrongs to right, even if they're just for my own sake or locked up in my head. I need it. Even when everything around me is falling apart, there's something grounding me in the chaos. If I can still look, then it must be worth looking for. And if it's worth looking for, it's worth having. Even if it's just a little tiny piece. It's better than nothing, and it's something to build on. What's the sense of anything if there isn't at least a little somethin'? With that you can begin to grow and build and make things better whenever you start slippin'.

I know, that sounds vague and boring and I'm not really sayin' much. But there's not much to say.

Two legends. One's a famous rapper guy named Slug; the other one is Norb, a not-famous writer guy. Here's how to tell which is which: I'm not the one from Minneapolis . This was from the second-to-last concert I ever attended in Buffalo. I was waiting in line with my boy W!nkz and his girlfriend for the club to open up...Atmosphere was one of those shows that I had to go to. June 2012. I was mere days away from bottoming out and losing everything. Relationships, belongings and possessions, sanity. Clinging on to last hopes and calling all the bluffs I could muster and not fathoming making it out alive if I was wrong. And was I ever. I still don't know why I'm here, but I at least know now I'm supposed to be; nothing's killed me yet. Sometimes I think I've reached a whole new level of invincibility; the kind that comes after you've seen what death is supposed to do. It's not the type of existence you fuck around with anymore; it's not "let's crash cars, and jump off bridges and buildings, and see how long we can float for with these bricks tied around our ankles!" It's the quiet "I did this" nod of acknowledgement. The secret password for the existential treehouse of survival. The bass got so loud and distorted that it rattled the walls in that little room but everyone singin' the same song carried the words like they were crystal clear in your headphones when you'd be walkin' along your way on any other day. The push/pull, give/take in full effect. Life bounding out of you and bouncing back at you. All in the chorus of one song.

"A semicolon   is used when an author could've chosen to end their sentence, but chose not to.
The author is you and the sentence is your life."

Semi-unrelated Fun Fact #1: I used to use a website called Myxer back in the day to make ringtones, and my ex wanted me to make her a couple. She actually asked me to do one up for her of "Trying To Find A Balance" even if hip hop was something she really wasn't into all that much, so she could set it to my phone number. And yes, she specifically wanted that part  . And this tiny little 40-year-old blonde chick would totally thug out to it whenever I called her. True story. I went to pick her up at work once not long after making it and she made a point of telling/showing everyone. I was somewhat embarrassed and entirely proud.

Semi-unrelated Fun Fact #2: Atmosphere released a new song the other day, as they do on occasion. It's not "Party For The Fight To Write"  , and it's not anything remotely life-altering...I'm still trying to figure out if Slug is saying "You right" or "You write" or both. It don't matter. Any day that starts off with new Atmosphere in my inbox is a good day fo' sho'.

I know, it's not for everyone, and you probably don't like it, and all that and whatever. I'm not for everyone either...but at least you sorta like me sometimes.