Love Myself Better Than You

A month ago, I was sick. Thursday morning, I had an interview outside the city. I woke up early that day. I was nervous, but fine. Basically, I had to speak about my own research to some peers. Every time I have to do something like this, I feel anxious and kind of stressed. The interview happened as I expected, I felt smart enough, but immediately, as I took the car to return to the city, I started to sneeze, as If I just got the flu. My eyes watered all the time. I could not breathe at all. I had a headache, and I was, from one minute to another, surprisingly weak. I had a meeting in the evening -a celebration for the year that it is about to finish-, and I really wanted to go, but at that point I felt so sick that all I was able to do, was to rest in bed.

I had a terrible night. My nose was full of snot all the time, and I started to have sore throat. All night long I was feeling bad, and I could not sleep at all. I did not want to be as sick as I was a month ago. At the beginning, I thought it was a sort of allergie, but after that terrible night, I was convinced I was about to become ill, again.

The physician told me that maybe it was an allergie, but also that it might be possible that my immune system is a disaster. As I leave the city a morning before, I was close to a nurse, and all the week I was close to a guy who got the flu. Damm it. It is possible that I was stressed enough to ignore the illness, but as I stopped being stressed the illness came out. 

I have spent the last three days in bed, and now I feel better but weak. I still cannot breathe completely well. I cough terribly once in a while. I have experiments to do, and I am afraid to get worse if I leave my house and expose myself to pollution. The last time I was sick, I was in bed for almost two weeks. 

via GIPHY

I really hate most people. Most of them are irresponsible, when they cough and sneeze freely without any precaution. They do not seem to give a fuck if they infect someone else. On the other hand, it is amazing that viruses run freely in the wind. They are invisible, but could be letal. People fears of God, but they should be afraid of Nature. 

I am so fragile -my health is so fragile- that I cannot stop thinking why does it seem too damn difficult to wear a scarfe or anything else to cover up your mouth when you are fucking sick.

On A Plain (Unplugged)

On A Plain (Nevermind)

I See You Shaking In The Light, Reading The Headline News

On December 4th, it was 6 months after my surgery. It has been a very low recovery. I've been nauseating and weak most of the time. Sometimes, I'm just tired of eating the same food everyday and avoiding anything else I like.

Physicians have told me to be patient. And warned me to not drink alcohol -or to do any other drug- in excess, ever again. Supposedly, I also have a weird heart condition and I can't smoke anymore. It's easy for them, to ask me things like that. But I cannot even drink a cup of coffee, neither eat a cheesecake nor bacon, without becoming ill.

I don't believe in God, so praying is not an option to ignore my  disease. I still don't have kids, so becoming a daddy it's not an option for getting better. I just like things that put me sad, like literature and music. I used to enjoy to be alone, but now it's sort of a hell. I try to do all the things I like, and that I'm able to do, as much as possible, but sometimes it is frustrating to feel nauseating in the middle of a reading or while I am listening music.

I love to hear live music. Sometimes I still feel ill in the middle of a show, too. And it sucks. Sometimes, when I write, I'm so sick that I cannot stop writing about anything but illnesses. When I read, I try to not focus on melancholy. But it's impossible.

Anyway, on Sunday 4th, I went to a show. Lee Ranaldo was about to play with another musicians in Mexico City. They formed a band to play live music for Georges Méliès' short films. Sonic Youth is one of my favorite bands, so I couldn't miss the opportunity to hear Lee Ranaldo's live music, again.

Before the show, in the mezzanine of the Auditorio Blackberry, I bought Acoustic Dust and The Rising Tide and when I did it, a guy told me that Lee would signed up some albums shortly after the show. I didn't think of it a lot, but as I was just right in front of Lee when he played, I was determined to make him to signed up one of the albums I bought.

When the show finished, I was so nervous. Lee is one of my favorite musicians, and I couldn't believe it would be possible to get close to him in order to get his autograph. I really love his music and his lyrics, and I can't say anymore.

In a few minutes, the mezzanine was full of guys looking for a photo with Lee and I thought that I couldn't even get closer to him. It was a little bit chaotic, and I had to get rid of some guys.

I realized Lee was asking their names to the fans, so I got even more nervous. When I arrived close to him, I was shaking. So, to avoid a confusion, I told him "I'm Marcel, like Proust..." and he smiled and told me "Like Duchamp, too"

My wife took the photographs, and Lee was a very nice guy. I still can't believe it.

Wish Fulfillment

And You Wanted To Dance, So I Asked You To Dance

It was a cold sunday evening, when I attended for the first time to an Eagles Of Death Metal show. Someone gave me a couple of free tickets for the festival in which they would play that evening. It happened in Mexico City, in a festival called Corona Capital.

When I heard the studio albums of the band, long before the show, I did not like them at all. I knew Josh Home was somewhat involved in the band, so I thought this band was similar to Queens Of The Stone Age. When I realized they were a funny band, I felt disappointed.

Then, at a show in Paris, they became sadly famous because they were playing when some crazy killers started to shot innocent people. I did not understand why this funny band was in the middle of such a tragedy, but I listened to their albums again.

It was almost 7: 00 pm, when Jesse Hughes and the rest of the band came up to the stage. Ironically, I was really close to the stage. I never do that, even when one of my favorite bands plays. People was enthusiastic and intrigued because of the involvement of Eagles Of Death Metal in the terrorists attacks in France almost a year ago.  Shortly after the band appeared, a popular mexican mariachi song sounded and people started to sing it along and they became crazy.

Before a brief introductory speech, Jesse Hughes and the band started with I Only Want You, and they sounded terrific and powerful, like I never expected. They were a better band than I thought. Obviously, I felt so bigoted and dumb.

The show continued with the same intensity. The frontman was so dynamic, danced here and there, and talked to the audience all the time. At some point, he put on a jacket allusive to David Bowie. Then, the band made a cover of Moonage Daydream and people got wild. Later on, they played Duran Duran's Save A Prayer, and I fall in love with the band. Since then, I cannot stop listening this version. It's really a great cover. 

My point of view changed completelely. From now on, I will not judge a band from a studio album but from its live music.

I Only Want You

Save A Prayer

Your Purple Prose Just Gives You Away

I just hate sickness. For the last two years and a half,  I've been constantly medicated. Almost eighteen months ago, on May 17th, 2015, I smoke my last cigarrette. On April 20th, 2016, I drank my last beer in a Guns N' Roses show. I have a balanced diet -meat, fruits and vegetables included- on a daily basis. I don't drink soda nor sweet beverages. I avoid palatable food and desserts. If I eat something so crazy -as Chop Suey, or regular cheese, or a small slice of a chocolate cake!-, I feel immediately ill. 

I start to suffocate with my saliva and with deleterious vapours coming from the upper part of my esophagous. It really sucks. Just my wife seems to imagine how I feel. 
People often underestimate my health problem. They always seem to believe that I am being dramatic -that I just experienced a silly transient stomach pain-, but it really is annoying and weakening. If I really had been overreacting, physicians would not had proceeded with a surgery. 

No matter what, I feel sick almost all the time. A week ago, I was recovering from a pharyngotonsillitis. Now, I've got the flu. Of course I went to the physician both times. When I'm not sick in this way, I feel nauseating.

What else can I do? 

I wish I could be healthy, as I was when I was a teenager.  When I got sick, I didn't even need to take drugs. All I mattered about was idleness, music, literature and girls. I miss the comfort in being healthy. I don't even remember how it was.  

I am nostalgic about the first years of highschool. Rappers were trendy, and there was a band called EMF. They had a song called Unbelievable. They sounded rapper and rocker at the same time, and I liked them. I had a crush on a girl that liked NKOTB, and I always thought of her when I heard EMF. She could be my girlfriend, but I never asked her on a formal date. 

I remember how simple it was to go to the movies. When Tim Burton's Batman came out, my parents took me to the movie theater. I was completely amazed by the darkness and beauty of the film. It was a little violent, too. And cryptic. Now, I have to leave the cinema when I feel about to threw up. 

You don't know the boundaries of normality until your not a normal guy. 


Unbelievable

Porcelina Of The Vast Oceans

One cold night –perhaps on November of 1995–, I watched an amazing show on MTV. 

There was this band of four or five guys (I don't remember if there was a keyboardist) touring an album named Mellon Collie & The Infinite Sadness. Supposedly the album had been released a month ago, or so. 

The show started with a long song.

Amongst hypnotic changes of lights and beautiful images of the oceans reflected behind the members of the band, the cymbals and the guitar sounded slowly... as if their purpose was to wake up the audience from a warm dream. 

The atmosphere was so blue and calm. 

The song didn't sound like anything I had heard before. 

The music was soft and enveloping.

After a few cycles, the cymbals stopped and the guitar and the drums sounded like a fierce roar. Then, again, while a bold guy with a Stratocaster sang the verse and the chorus of the song, the music returned to the softness of the beginning.

The lyrics seemed so poetic and elaborate. It seemed to me that the writer of the song was not a common guy, that he or she didn't read silly literature. 

I hadn't heard of Smashing Pumpkins before, though I watched MTV almost everyday.  

The bold singer, at the center of the stage, with a black and white Stratocaster on his shoulders, was difficult to ignore.

He dressed a black shirt with the legend "Zero" in silver capital letters on his chest and he also wore silver brilliant trousers. He sang with passion and his voice sounded violent and guttural sometimes and sweet and melodic other times. He also kinda sang out of tune. He looked like a mad astronaut. I thought he was the brain of the band. 

Billy Corgan was a rockstar and a poet. 

The drummer, behind the singer, played with intensity. He made the snares and cymbals sounded so coordinated, changing from jazz to heavy rock n' roll beats. I thought of him as the soul of the band. 

On the right side of the stage, there was a thin asiatic-like guy. He seemed so shy, and out of place. He seemed an introverted man trying to be extroverted, but he was completely focused in being the lead guitarist of the band. 

The bassist player, at the left of the stage, was a blonde woman. She had pale skin. Her face was covered of something that looked like powder coating, and she was scary and attractive at the same time. Somehow, she looked sad or indifferent to the fans. 

Nevertheless, she tried to smile each time she had to whisper parts of the chorus of certain songs, and never stopped accompanying the chords and beats of the songs with her Fender Precision Bass. 

Though I didn't know they had a romance, I thought of James Iha and D'Arcy Wretsky as the heart of the band. 

via GIPHY

I was a teenager of almost 15 years old.
Music was everything for me.
The band impressed me so much. 

After three songs or so –maybe the show was edited by MTV– the Smashing Pumpkins played an acoustic set. 

The sweet-furious formula of the previous songs, changed a lot. 
Even Chamberlin used a smaller drum set than the one he used in the first part of the show. 

The members of the band took their places in a small surface of the stage. I think they even sat on small chairs. I didn't know the name of any of the songs they played, but I liked them, too. 

I also found the lyrics sort of poetic. 
I vaguely remember that these acoustic songs talked about love and anguish. 

(A few months later –when my brother and myself started to buy Smashing Pumpkins' albums– I would know that they had played Disarm, 1979 and In The Arms of Sleep on this acoustic set.) 

After the third commercial pause of MTV, the band played another heavy new songs from Mellon Collie & The Infinite Sadness and some other older songs like Today, and I kinda recognized it. I had watched the video of the song. The members of the band were mirthfully painting an ice-cream wagon and they looked so silly and dumb in the video. 

I guess they appeared so dumb that I just did not pay attention to their music. 

While I watched the show on MTV, suddenly I felt I was a moron because I was so bigoted and I didn't know such an amazing band existed.

A couple of weeks later, as a Christmas gift, my father gave us money.
My brother and myself found Mellon Collie & The Infinite Sadness in a supermarket and we bought it in compact disc format. We really enjoyed it. We heard it everyday. We recorded it on a cassette and we listened it on a walkman on our way to school or while we traveled across the city on the backseat of the red Jetta, as our dad drove to a boring place and our mom and our little brother were so impressed by the lights and by the Christmas ornaments hanging on the tall buildings in the streets. 

I listened that album for almost one year, day after day.
I even memorized all the lyrics. I even filled a notebook with Corgan-like poems.
Now, I hardly remember the lyrics. I lost that notebook as I lost my memory. 

Mellon Collie was released on October 24, 1995. 

                                                      

Love Is Suicide

Porcelina Of The Vast Oceans