The Top 100 Rock Guitar Solos of All Time--29-20

And here is the long-awaited return of my patented "The Top 100 Rock Guitar Solos of All Time" series.  I'm sorry for the long delay, but things came up (see: my Road to Recovery series; also, I felt quite a bit of alienation towards the blog, which I think is best left alone).

Without further adieu, here are the next ten:

29.) "Burning Rain" (Steve Vai)



Another classic off of Vai's live album Alive in an Ultra World, this is I believe his song for Japan. This is a solo of buildup (my favorite kind?), and has the feeling of oriental murkiness and opium languor that I find especially sexy. The second half of the song is basically just one long voyage into the steamy streets of Bangcok or Calcutta or some other exotic place. At 3:50, Vai brings us back to the more familiar world of his shredding, but it's hard to shake the sense of unease from the exotic musical quality of what came before. The backdrop of sitar is a nice touch. There is something so sexy about the vacant-eyed quality of his playing on here--he seems eternally a fraction of a second behind the beat. Perhaps that is what some of us find sexy about heroin or Kristen Stewart.

28.) "Paradise City" (Guns N' Roses)



Ah, this wouldn't be a guitar solos list without Slash on it. I have a hard time picking between the three GNR songs on this list, because they all bring something completely different to the table. I don't think there had been a song that rocked as hard as "Paradise" in a good decade when Appetite for Destruction came out in '87. This song is all about the band meshing together, its parts forming a much greater whole when they managed to keep their self-destructive tendencies and egos in check. The weak link for GNR was always (of course) Axl to me, and this is just one of many examples of him shrieking over Slash's solo. The man can fucking play guitar--why is there a need to scream over his solos? Ugh. The end of this song is probably the greatest '80s hard rock moment there is. Please don't listen to this song on laptop speakers. Slash absolutely fucking goes for it.

27.) "Beat It" (Michael Jackson)



Eddie Van Halen turns in the greatest guest solo ever on this classic MJ track from Thriller (Dave Chapelle: "The man made Thriller...Thriller). Eddie again proves that he reigns supreme over his ragtag group of shred-army followers by delivering a solo just as catchy as Michael's song. Full of his signature movies--finger-tapping, artificial harmonics, and a buzz-saw tone--this solo has a concise sense of composition to it, like Vai's in "Ladies Nite in Buffalo" and Randy Rhoads's in "Flying High Again." Best part: the first note--a chainsaw starting up.

26.) "Satch Boogie" (Joe Satriani)
 


Like Joe's other signature tune, "Surfing with the Alien," "Satch Boogie" combines old-school rock 'n' roll with lightning-fast licks, throwing in an otherworldly, alien feel that befits an album called Surfing with the Alien.  Joe careens through the first half of the song, driven by his drummer's blistering tempo.  Amateurs would have trouble just trying to keep up with a tempo over 200BPM, but Joe allows his honed sense of craft to carry him throughout, delivering an almost impossible set of bluesy licks and runs (although these are only "bluesy" in the loosest sense, since they range from hand-crippling to just insane).  It's an interesting song, because the actual solo is so unlike the rest of it.  After hanging on through almost two minutes of Satch's deranged version of a boogie, we are dropped into the most otherworldly moment on an album that brims with them: a completely finger-tapped solo using an effect that makes it seem like you are inside of a glass cube at the bottom of the ocean.  Now that I think of it, that intense echo and distortion reminds me of what an IV cocaine bellringer sounds like.  I love how the solo exudes a completely different vibe than the rest of the song.  It is groovy where the rest is chaotic.  It lounges in its scalar haunts, unlike the rest of the song, which careens from melody to melody and scale to scale, only occasionally repeating its main theme.  The solo is jaw-dropping in its absurd sense of technique, but especially in its ability to create its own universe through tonal effects and the uniqueness of Joe's writing.  This idea that solos do not always have to mirror the mood of the rest of the song--that they can be their own separate entities, full of atmosphere and character--is something Joe began to explore in this song and continued throughout the rest of his career.

25.) "Kid Charlemagne" (Steely Dan)



Steely Dan was not known for being a guitar-driven rock band.  Instead, they were a sophisticated songwriting duo that were able to match their insightful, cutting lyrics with equally sophisticated songscapes, by cherry-picking the best talent from LA's studio musician community.  Here jazz-fusion guitarist Larry Carlton rises to the occasion on a song about about a famous LSD chemist who grew reclusive and paranoid as the hippie era ended, transforming into the bitter hangover that we now know as the 1970's.  Like many great guitar songs, this has two equally staggering solos.  The first is a clinic on phrasing, as Carlton knows instinctively just where to place each lick, and the end result is a hopelessly beautiful solo which I find impossible not to sing along with.

The second, fade-out solo is comes at just the right moment in the song.  It has such an optimistic tone to it that I can't help waiting the entire song just to hear it.  I believe this one was largely improvised.  The two solos in this stand as some of the brightest solos in rock history (up there with George Harrison's in "Nowhere Man").  It's interesting that both of these songs have rather depressing and cynical lyrics, yet have such sparkling solos.

24.) "Stairway to Heaven" (Led Zeppelin)



When a lot of us think of guitar solos, our minds immediately go to Jimmy Page's foundational work in "Stairway to Heaven."  His ending solo is like the icing on top of a cake: what would already be great is turned legendary by Page's divine sense of phrasing and composition.  Frankly, that is what sets the higher solos on this list apart from those behind them.  A truly great guitarist can paint a picture using his solos.  He can create a towering entity within itself, encapsulated inside the rest of the song.  While there are plenty of great one-dimensional solos out there, those that have incredibly fast or complex playing or a great-sounding tone, the truly great solos have a sense of their own self, independent from the rest of the song.  "Stairway" is such a majestic solo that it is often ranked as the number one greatest of all time.  It releases all of the energy which has been building up throughout the previous six minutes of the song in the astonishing cavalcade of Page's guitar.  What I think of when I hear this solo is the maturity of age and experience--when one has enough experience to know that less is more, and to be able to proceed gracefully through all of the trials and tribulations of each day of existence in this old world.

23.) "Sultans of Swing" (Dire Straits)

 

Mark Knopfler is an unsung guitar hero.  I've already paid him some tribute by putting "Brothers in Arms" on this list, but wow, why doesn't the guitarist of "Sultans of Swing" get more credit?  Famous for his finger-picking style and the groovy headbands which he seemed to never shed, "Sultans" will always go down as his masterpiece, both in terms of songwriting and for its spectacularly clean and precise guitar work.  Every single vocal line is followed by just the right guitar phrase.  I think what makes a great guitarist is not necessarily his technical ability, but his ability to craft memorable musical phrases.  It doesn't really matter how fast you can play if you can't make a hummable phrase to save your life.  "Sultans of Swing" is like a compendium of great blues licks.  And that's to speak nothing of the two solos (two-solo songs FTW!), which are dazzling displays of absolute clarity (I'm guessing this is because he doesn't use a pick on them) and purpose.  The two solos in this actually remind me somewhat of "Kid Charlemagne."  The first one is a model of elegant restraint, while on the second, improvised-sounding one, Knopfler lets loose and goes for it (well, at least "goes for it" as much as a perfectionist like him can...I can't imagine Knopfler ever letting go too much, for fear of making a mistake or creating a sloppy-sounding line).

22.) "Highway Star" (Deep Purple)



There's nothing to say that a great guitar solo has to reside in a particularly original or fabulous song.  Make no mistake, "Highway Star" is completely driven by the keyboard and guitar solos in it.  Otherwise, it's a pretty stupid song about cars.  Who are you--the Beach Boys?  Guitarist Ritchie Blackmore is able to top Jon Lord's fabulous keyboard/organ solo, astonishingly.  The solo opens with something that I can't really describe accurately--something which I've seen before in "Black Dog."  It's a particular kind of electrified guitar twang that sounds like a European version of honky-tonk music.  Blackmore tops even the legendary Jimmy Page (one of my top five guitarists) in this strange domain, and then firmly cements his dominance with an astonishing set of closing legato licks that provide counterpoint to the previous keyboard solo.  The licks sound to be double- or triple-tracked, which adds to the their crushing power.

21.) "Cause We've Ended as Lovers" (Jeff Beck) 

 

This is the guitar solo that I've heard come closest to Steve Vai's ballads.  It is an entire song composed of a slowly building, elegant, and utterly beautiful guitar solo.  Perhaps the finest feature of Jeff Beck (the third of the British Holy Trinity, alongside Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton) is his ability to manipulate the tone and sound of his guitar using just his hands.  He has such an amazing ability to control his instrument in a way that is almost unsurpassed.  He showcases this intimacy with his instrument in this song, written by Steve Wonder (here's the original--I like it even more; its delicacy is absolutely unparalleled in pop music history), which allows him to build from the saxophone-like moans from the darkness that open the song to a blistering, cathartic shriek against a lost lover (and, indeed, love itself) at the climax.  The song/solo isn't necessarily about these two extremes, but it's about the journey there.  This is the spiritual brethren of "Tender Surrender" by Steve Vai.  Although they are about two different phases of love, they both exemplify that life is about the journey we make unknowingly toward whatever irrelevant goals we make for ourselves.  After all, fate plays such a large part in our lives that it is at the very least questionable to say that we have much control over our own fate.  To quote John Lennon (and thanks, Bethany, for mentioning this), "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."  What I get out of "Cause We've Ended as Lovers" is an appreciation for the little details in both music and life.  The high, wavering note at the end is like angels crying.


20.) "Crazy Train" (Ozzy Osbourne)

 

My apologies for the live video, but YouTube seems to have cracked down hard on Ozzy videos (I hope to God I can find a studio one for "Mr. Crowley," or at least the Tribute version, which is just as good).  Also, what the fuck's up with the new YouTube format?  I don't like it, but I guess that's what we think every time a popular site changes it's format (I'm looking at you, Blogger.com...didn't you used to be fucking Blogspot or something?!).

What a pristine gem this solo is!  Not in this live version, mind you, where we miss the triple-tracked glean of Rhoads's studio version, but I can't think of a more exciting and dazzling solo delivered in as short a time as Randy's in "Crazy Train."  This song already has one of the all-time great guitar riffs, but that solo is what pushes it over the edge into a metal classic.  Fuck Ozzy.  His solo years were about his guitarists as far as I'm concerned.  Not that I hate him, but really, why is his name always on the CD when he probably isn't even writing any of the songs?  "Crazy Train"'s solo has the sense of concise structure that Rhoads was known for.  Every note is as it should be, and the solo begins and ends just precisely where it musically should.  He utilizes the studio technique of triple-tracking to make the tapping licks and trills sound even faster than they are.  This shows Randy's determination to nail just the right sound on each of his solos.  He had an eye for composition that ranks him up there with the best guitarists of all time.  Along with Yngwie Malmsteen and Deep Purple's Ritchie Blackmore, Randy Rhoads brought the classical tradition of symmetrical and mathematical composition into heavy metal.

PS: I found a link if you want to listen to Randy's guitar track in the original (sans everything else in the song): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nC0wepBfog&feature=fvsr.  Enjoy the solo!

--Edward

Favorite Music Videos: "Don't Worry, We'll be Watching You"

First post of November! Anywho, since we don't really have a topic yet, and this is a cool video I just found, I'm going to throw it up here. Gotye (apparently pronounced "gore-ti-yeah" according to AllMusic) has made a few tracks recently that have been really catchy - look up "Someone That I Used to Know" and "Eyes Wide Open" by them. This video for "Don't Worry, We'll be Watching You" is very shimmery and slow mo-y and just kind of awesome.  We seemed to have arrived at a point where computer simulations of things and even people are about as realistic as film of the real counterparts, but the computer generated ones can be manipulated to look pretty spectacular.  I'm not sure how much if any of this video is from real life, but I'd be interested to find out.  Enjoy:

Edward's Road to Recovery, Entry #2

Greetings from the ocean floor and from the eagle's vista perched high above, for the beauty of sobriety--after an extended stay in the rusty cage of intoxication/experimentation/growing dependence/physical addiction/depravity/hopelessness--finds me in a state of mind where I feel that I'm exploring the entire world again. Like a child, those of us who are newly sober have to learn how to do everything over again. To stumble over our feet, yes, but to get up again. Everything is so new, and our bodies feel like a raw nerve, but that is the beauty of life, something I have missed out on while constantly numbing myself for the last 7 years of my life. Whether through the warming embrace of opiates, the vicious implosion towards coma of alcohol, or the sheer white light of cocaine rushing through my bloodstream into my brain, I was seeking ways to hide from life. From feelings. From relationships. From responsibility. From growth. And I suppose ultimately from myself. All of these things are scary at first, but I finally feel like everyone else. I feel a comrade of those in the street, struggling against the everyday grind of existence, whereas before I was hiding from the beast, putting on a mask to pretend that I was like everyone else, when in reality I was a coward.

So let me backtrack to where my last post left off. Through the help of my sister and parents and a therapist, I found myself in the Inova CATS Day Treatment program. I had just had a two-month heroin relapse, after months of alcohol addiction, and I was throwing my hands into the air in surrender, because I knew that drugs were a force stronger than me. Why try to tame something which will in the end kill you? I knew from experience that I couldn't win that battle. With trepidation I went into the hospital for my check-in and first day. I wasn't really sure what to expect, other then an environment like the previous AA and NA meetings that I had been to. I was not a big fan of these, since I always felt that they had a cliquish environment which I found to be socially intimidating. Furthermore (and I know that the 12-step programs help a lot of people, so God bless it), I have always found the AA type of person to be excessively boring. They always seem like the lame, New Age type of person who believes more in meditation and sipping herbal tea than they do in humor and fun. I figured that this detox/rehabilitation program (technically, inpatient and day treatment at CATS is detox-only, since most stays there don't last more than 7 or 8 days) would be something similar.

So I went into the waiting room, and after much paperwork and slightly anxious waiting, I went in to see the admissions nurse. She asked about my health, bare-bones questions, and then asked me to tally off my abuse of all the various drugs that exist in my 7 years of intimacy with them. It was a rather sobering moment, and made me feel like a bigger addict then even I normally do, since I had to tell her about my dozens and dozens of alcohol black-outs, the thousands of times I've stabbed myself in the arms (and other places) to inject heroin, opiate pills, stimulants, or even far worse substances (which make me cringe even more than the more notorious drugs, since these undoubtedly did far more internal damage to my body), and basically the sheer variety of drugs that I had tried. I once prided myself on trying as many drugs as possible (and using the most potent ways of administering them) for research's sake, as if by doing this I was gaining some compendium's worth of worldly knowledge, instead of letting my soul slowly rot from within. However, as my various posts on Demons can show, I have never had a difficult time being honest to those around me about my addiction problems, except to those who would "get me in trouble" (i.e., girlfriends and my parents), so I tried to be as true as possible in my details.

I was eventually let upstairs to the more hospital-like section of CATS, which was where the inpatient people met and slept. As part of the day treatment crew, I would come every day from 9 to 4 to go to meetings and basically do everything that the inpatient folks did, but at the end of the day I had the freedom to go on my very merry way back home. Most of the people there were inpatient, not day treatment. And I think it's also safe to say that the majority of those there were alcoholics, as opposed to other kinds of drug addicts. However, this isn't to say that they weren't all just as bad off as me. I know a lot were worse off. Alcohol has some of the worst withdrawals possible--worse than heroin's if you are a bad enough drinker--and most of the people in early alcohol withdrawal stages simply stayed in their rooms, medicated into near-unconsciousness to prevent the incapacitating tremors and ghastly hallucinations of delirium tremens. I saw some people come to meetings that would talk nonsense, and a lot who were still shaking all over from the tremors (luckily I had only had minor bouts of this from drinking--I can't imagine what a full-blown bout of alcohol WDs would be like), so I always had a particular brand of sympathy for the alcoholics there.

I went to my first meeting there, and quickly, before the meeting, several people, including a very nice alcoholic woman, already introduced themselves to me and assured me that the place was full of "good people." Almost from the get-go I found CATS to be a much more welcoming environment than the various 12-step meetings I had been to before. I found it very easy to participate in the meetings and to interact with my fellow patients. I believe this is because we were "all in the same boat." When you go to a NA meeting, you are often surrounded by people who have been going to the exact same meeting with the exact same people every week for years. You are surrounded by people who have been sober for 2 years, 5 years, sometimes 10 or more. It's pretty easy to feel like an outsider at AA, especially since they have their own particular lingo, a shibboleth that consists of phrases such as "One day at a time," "Keep coming back, it works if you work it," and "One is too many, a thousand is never enough" (although, like most of their quotes, these do all have some truth in them). But it is the way they say them--in unison, timed exactly correctly, and so dispassionately that they sound like robots--that makes them feel like some foreign tongue to the newcomer. The air stinks of groupthink. But at CATS all of the patients are newly sober. They have come into the day treatment/inpatient center to detox from being on drugs, so even if they are followers of the 12-step program, they aren't sitting on their high horse anymore and are right alongside you in the trenches.

Another aspect which I love about this sort of professional treatment (which thank God I have insurance for) is just that: the fact that it's professional. 12-step sober support groups are a great idea, and clearly work for many, but they all have the feel of being rather amateur. This is even worse in the one SMART Recovery meeting I went to (SMART Recovery is an "alternative" to the 12-step programs, in that it promotes a recovery plan that doesn't depend on the "higher power" of the 12-step groups, as well as a more individualistic approach to recovery), which lacked even the basic organization and focus of an AA meeting God bless ya, I love all addicts on some level for the connection that we share, but most of them aren't exactly the smartest cookies in the batch, so it's nice to be in a program run by medically-trained professional doctors, nurses, and counselors, who have researched all about the disease of addiction and the treatments for it. One of the biggest things I get out of my continuing time in the CATS program is the sense of structure that it provides me in my recovery. The counselors work with each person to try to come up with an individual treatment plan, and while they are inevitably swamped with patients, at least this is better than AA/NA, where everyone is expected to do exactly the same thing, which is go to meetings all the fucking time to talk about what you are doing to get your life back on track (instead of actually doing things to get your life back on track, since you are spending all your time at meetings) and to get a sponsor. Everyone says that without a sponsor (someone you talk to as often as possible who has been sober for a while and is in the 12-step program; their main task is to lead you through the "12 steps" of the AA/NA program) you will fail. I find this to be a bit presumptuous. Why can't we be open with the people in our everyday lives instead of relying on this sponsor? I know that you are supposed to have close relationships with other former addicts, but I just don't see how this should replace the meaningful relationships that are already in my life. Perhaps this is because most addicts find themselves in lives surrounded only by other addicts, but my life is full of (relatively) sober people, and I think I can trust in them. What concerns me most about the 12-step programs (which even the professionals of the CATS program tell us to attend regularly) is the sense that it is like a lifetime without freedom. You are supposed to always go to meetings. I heard a member tell us the story of a woman who had 33 years of sobriety under her belt. She relapsed, and when this person went to ask her what happened, she said she had stopped going to meetings and that's why she relapsed. There is this sense of group pressure, much like organized religion, weighing down on the shoulders of a newcomer to go to the famed "after-meetings" (which I assume are just trips to a food establishment to hang out with other group regulars [what if I already have friends that I want to see that I like for their personality, instead of just for the fact that they have a shared group identity with me as a person in recovery?]) and to get a sponsor and to "work the steps." I wouldn't care if I thought the people at 12-step meetings were cool, but honestly (and I know this is the child in me, but I can't help it) I just see them as being the opposite. I see them as being people who can't fit in on the "outside," so they stick with their AA friends. And let's be honest, if you are friendly to anyone at an AA meeting, they'll be your friend (there is a saying that [and this is paraphrased] there are no strangers at an AA meeting; there are only people waiting to be your friend). I don't want that. I don't want forced phoniness, like any sort of organization breeds. I want to do my own thing. So that is my big beef with AA. The people just all seem so fucking New Age and, frankly, unintelligent, because anyone who follows anything--whether it be a religion, a political party, a way of life, or whatever--blindly and without hesitation or individual thought I believe to be a fool. I do see the point of AA. Many addicts aren't the smartest, or are surrounded by a world of poverty and unfairness, so for them AA is a group that provides them strength where they are weak. And I do aim to get the most I can out of the 12-step program, whatever that may mean in my future, but I don't plan on being a devout member the rest of my life.

Anyways, sorry for that extended rant. It is one of the biggest issues for me in recovery, as my peers and counselors always tell me I should be attending sober support meetings. To not do so seems almost out of the question. So I feel some sort of guilty need to do so, instead of actually ever wanting to (and the meetings I have been to have really done nothing for me--especially compared to my various CATS meetings, which do a lot for me).

I met some good people while I was in my day treatment program there. Most of the young members were opiate addicts like me. There was some heroin addicts, and some painkiller addicts. I met a very nice and well-spoken alcoholic man that said that he had blacked out every single time he had drank in the last 2 years, and was caught two nights in a row naked in a fancy hotel somewhere in Eurasia, blacked out and locked-out from his room, with nowhere to hide except behind a window curtain, which he wrapped around himself when he strode downstairs to the front desk. This isn't too far off from my own story of being awake for 2 or 3 days on amphetamines, finding myself locked in at my office building, late at night, trapped without a pass card, locked out from my car keys and phone, and without pants or underwear. Such is the craziness that drug abuse causes.

I met people who said they spent in the excess of $100,000 on painkillers, and those that stole tens of thousands of dollars from their parents and others to get money to buy them heroin. I met a man who spent 16 years of his life in prison (he is 42 years old), with a very gruff voice and an eagle-like intimidating stare, but that I feel has the heart of a teddy bear and remains one of the core members of my outpatient support group. For the most part, everyone was pretty damn cool I met. What made them cool is that we all shared our own minds, our own pains, and most importantly, our own personalities. 12-step groups have a way of erasing the watercolors of our personalities into a blank slate, where everyone repeats the same phrases and tell their life stories using the exact same narrative (the only thing changed are the names of the people in the stories). There were lots of AA/NA-devotees in the CATS detox, but there were lots of others who weren't. I found this mix of people to be very refreshing, and we all brought different viewpoints to our daily discussions and activities.

On my last day I was even a bit sad to leave. I wasn't quite sure when I would leave the day treatment program, since they told me I had to test negative to drugs two days in a row before I could leave. A slip-up that I eventually admitted to the staff of CATS when questioned had occurred after my first day of treatment. I got off at 4 and immediately went to buy some cocaine (which turned out to be crack-cocaine). I had had it on my mind all day, since I still had some money in my account and a hook-up for it, so immediately that went into my arm. As it goes, I do not regret this slip-up, since it proved to be a deciding factor in my sobriety this time. I ended up overdosing that night, surprisingly, since the shots that did me in were just 3 spoons' worth of remnants from all my previous shots. It actually took two needles full of vinegar (to dissolve the crack) to shoot it (I shot one, then immediately pulled it out and shot the second), and what hit me was the most intense rush on my lifetime. For the last 4 or so years I've been trying to find new heights in terms of IV rushes, but this one was the cap of my career as a rush-junkie. The bellringer started coming on before the first shot was even injected, but heedlessly I pulled out that shot after its completion and pressed down the plunger on the second. Even typing these words my heart starts beating fast and my mouth salivates and I can imagine my pupils dilate somewhat. IV cocaine has a way, like no other drug, of bringing about sensory recall when I remember the rushes. I think this is because it has the most intense of all rushes, so the body can easily recall it again. I believe that IV cocaine causes the greatest dopamine release in the brain out of all drugs (the sound effects that the bellringer is named after are caused by such a massive amount of dopamine flooding the brain at once--dopamine being the pleasure neurotransmitters of the brain), so it's no wonder that the body can recall its effects even months and years later. But this particular bellringer just kept getting louder and louder. I remember starting to get worried, since usually after a little bit, the noise subsides and the physical feelings grow less intense, but this just kept getting stronger. I started getting tunnel vision and my mouth was completely dry. I couldn't look anywhere else but at the tile floor of my bathroom, since I was growing scared and to look anywhere else would just be too intense. I felt like I would puke if I looked anywhere else, and that kind of physical exertion seemed out of the question, since I was gripping the toilet seat I was sitting on just to be able to handle this kind of unbearable force and intensity. My body started shaking, gradually at first, but then wildly, as my legs kicked uncontrollably and my hands flayed out against the wall and the toilet. I knew that I was having a seizure and a cocaine overdose, and I knew that if I went unconscious it would be a very bad sign. I was scared I'd fall unconscious and hit my head on the floor. I was scared I would bite my tongue, so I tried putting a towel in my mouth. My legs and arms were kicking everywhere, completely out of my control and contorting into unnatural positions, and I could only look on with horror, realizing that I no longer had any control over my own body and that something terrible had happened. My heart was beating in excess of 200BPM. I knew Bethany was watching in shock from my bedroom, and I vaguely got the idea that she came over a few times, but I kept pushing her away since I was afraid she would call 911. I was also dimly aware that my cat was on the floor near me, but none of this seemed real whatsoever. Even to this day, the entire event seems like something out of a dream--blurry, formless, like milk instead of the clarity of water. I knew that as long as I stayed conscious, I would make it out alive. I knew Bethany had an intense fear of death and also an intense fear that I would overdose one day, so I knew that she would be paralyzed. But I also knew that there was nothing else I could do but ride this out. It seemed to be taking literally a half hour to get out of this seizure. I was shaking uncontrollably, and my body hurt from the incredible strain I put my heart under. I just kept whispering to myself, totally helpless, "Fuck, fuck, fuck." I am a very fearless person when it comes to drugs. I won't say I was completely scared shitless, but this was the first time I had had a real, genuine drug overdose, and it was from an IV stimulant, which is definitely one of the worst things to overdose on. Only because of my extensive knowledge of IV cocaine and overdoses through research did I know that I would make it out of it alive. Had I been more ignorant, I probably would have been scared that I would die. But luckily, the intense surges of seizure passed by after a few minutes (according to Bethany, since to me it seemed like at least half an hour of my body being out of my control), and I climbed into bed. My body kept shaking for the better part of three hours, gradually less intensely. I had only once before come this close to dying from doing drugs, and that was the night I was arrested after a 7-drug binge that ended with me running my car into a guardrail, almost hitting someone else, and getting pulled over outside of the Clendenin's house. But this time, because I wasn't blacked out like I was that night, I felt the full conscious effect of just how close I had come to the razor-thin line of mortality. I wouldn't say I was "scared straight," since even if I hadn't had this OD, I still would be exactly where I am today, but it was nevertheless a good kick in the ass on my way out the door of intoxication. I took it as a sign that that was all the rush I ever needed.

So these are some more of my experiences in beautiful, raw sobriety. I hope to write more about it in the future.

Cheers,

--Edward

Survey

To spark further open discourse about this topic, and to feed my own fervent need to find out interesting background information about others, I've composed a short survey that I'd just love for everyone to answer in the comments section. Answer as many as you'd like. I'm answering them too. Here goes:

1. What is your favorite physical feature? (you can list more than one)

2. What is your least favorite physical feature? (you can also list more than one)

3. What, if given the chance, would you change about your appearance? (you can list more than one thing)

4. In what shape would you categorize your body as? (for example: athletic, medium build, out of shape, chubby, skinny, pear shaped, apple shaped, curvaceous, lean, etc)

5. Was there a time in your life when you liked your appearance more than the present moment?

6. Was there a time in your life when you liked your appearance less than the present moment?

7. What is your favorite physical feature in a woman?

8. What is your favorite physical feature in a man?

9. What is your physical "dealbreaker" in terms of a prospective romantic interest?

10. Who, (celebrity, athlete, model, actual person you know) if anyone, has an ideal figure to you? (Men and women can answer in terms of either males or females here)

11. In what ways do you feel limited by your body?

12. Do you plan to "age gracefully" or attempt to fight the visible signs of the aging process?

13. If you have a significant other, are you happy with their physiques? If you're single, have you been happy with past exes' physiques?

14. Would you categorize your relationship to food as "eating to live" or "living to eat"?

15. Do you have an "dream" body weight or size? If so, what is it?

Please everyone answer!

Body Language

          Writing again, after taking such a long hiatus, is definitely not like riding a bike; I find myself forgetting the littlest of details, losing track of my organization and flow, developing writer's block by the first sentence, and basically forgetting what I even write like. Anyway, seeing as how I pushed for this month's theme and have yet to write a post for it, I'll try to make amends here. I actually find it curious that I chose this theme at all, as I'm not particularly fond of my own body, to say the least; its limitations frustrate me, my imperfections depress me, the notion that my figure is somehow enmeshed with my projected womanhood confounds me, etc.  This is perhaps why it's been an especially difficult topic for me to write about. Since I'm not ready to go full throttle here in terms of my own body image neuroses, I'll instead use one of my favorite mediums of artistic expression to illustrate what I find fascinating about how we, as sentient beings, relate to our bodies on more than just a functional level.

          This first poem is by William Carlos Williams, titled, "Dance Russe":

If when my wife is sleeping
and the baby and Kathleen
are sleeping
and the sun is a flame-white disc
in silken mists
above shining trees,-
if I in my north room
dance naked, grotesquely
before my mirror
waving my shirt round my head
and singing softly to myself:
"I am lonely, lonely,
I was born to be lonely,
I am best so!"
If I admire my arms, my face,
my shoulders, flanks, buttocks
against the yellow drawn shades,-

Who shall say I am not
the happy genius of my household?

          I love this poem because I so aspire to feel this particular feeling of complete and utter contentedness with my own physique, alone, independent from the gaze of others, away from the presence of any other bodies. I wonder how many out there actually feel as Mr. Williams does-- see their physiques as something that defines their individuality, something to celebrate and rejoice in, something that can happily exist as a "lonely" entity. I find this most interesting to me, as I seem to feel the most disconnected from my own form when I am left alone with it. In these moments, the negative narrator in my mind pipes up, speaks a little louder than usual, persuading me to crucify myself for not being aesthetically "better."

          The second poem I'd like to share is one of my favorite poems written by one of my favorite poets, EE Cummings, titled, "i like my body when it is with your" :

i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite a new thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh . . . . And eyes big love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill

of under me you quite so new

          So, interestingly and opposingly enough, I relate very much to this particular poem. Though I may not like my body when it is with me and only me, I seem to appreciate it in a starkly different way when it is with the body of someone I care for. I see it in a new light (mostly from the adoring perspective of another), and in relation to another body-- how it interacts, how it is attracted to another's form, the things it does for and with this other body. It's a very uniquely specific feeling, connecting your body with another body, as though you are the only person in the world to experience it (though almost all humans, and certainly some various types of other animals definitely experience this very physical phenomenom).
          I understand the relationship between the body and the brain; I'm aware of the fact that our cognitive processes dictate our corporeal senses. And still, I am able to see the majesty of the human body-- amidst the seven billion of us out there, there has never been and will never be another Bethany Dawson. My body will never be duplicated (please do not go into a cloning debate), and my brain's perceptions will never be perceived within the confines of another's shell. This idea pleases me, and reminds me that the body is still a thing of mystery and magic in many ways, even though neurologists would have us feeling foolish for thinking much of this exterior vessel.

Album a Day: Rundown

Since I don't have the brainpower to look back at each in great detail, I've thrown the album covers up with a link to a song from each album that stayed with me and some brief reflections.  Going forward, I'll try to go into each more.  And I'll be returning to these no doubt through comments if not more posts in the future.

Can It Be All So Simple
The sample on this track is dreamy and dark.  Like tripping down a back alley with the Wu-Tang rapping away in your head.  It took a long time for me to find my way to listening to all of this album through in spite of the rage surrounding it right after high school around bonfires and garages and basements and bonus rooms.

Love Minus Zero/No Limit
The quick jump right into this song sends me back into a sleepy happiness.  It's such a light, frolicking tune.  I can't really begin to speak on the overall meaning of this album in Dylan's career and its influence on music, but I love this song and the entire album, especially the ending (Baby Blue).  Edward should really do what he did for the Beatles albums but for Bob Dylan's.  Just sayin'.

A Case of You
This is devastatingly deep and romantic and searching, which I guess is much of what this album is.  I love the stream-of-consciousness in the lyrics that is reflected in beautiful wandering of her voice.  I actually came upon this song before I went through the album because of finding an incredible cover first by James Blake.  I love that it's a whole case. "O Canadaaaaaaaaaaa".

Pretty Vacant
Couldn't get the thought out of my head of how much Carl Athey loved this band while listening to their songs.  Regardless, I can appreciate how much these guys pissed over authority and society and all the set ways of a man's existence.  I love this bit, "According to a later account by Jones, both he and Cook played on instruments they had stolen". Ah to be a filthy, spitting Brit. "We're so pretty, oh so pretty, vaaaacant!"

I'm Waiting for the Day
Way too many brilliant songs on this, so I tried to go with one that I hadn't heard much if at all before going through this album.  I also almost put "Caroline, No", but I love the drums and keyboard in this one that keep building and tromping along on it.  It reminds me a little of this song by a modern day band, Dr. Dog, who also seems to have taken a lot from the Grateful Dead and maybe The Band.  Anywho, this album is stacked with the soaring vocals of these so-called "Beach", "Boys".  I almost get more of a feel like they're in a chapel rather than on surfboards, and they're boyish faces are forever preserved singing in large stained glass windows.

Caught, Can We Get A Witness
From the cover art to the album name to the name, "Public Enemy", this album is relentless.  I love the combination of Chuck's voice, Flava's incessant chatting up the audience, and the constant shout-outs to the DJ, Terminator X.  "Fellas, you think we gonna sell out?" "No!"  Hip hop was so damn soulful and funky back in the 80s and early 90s, and I love how groups of rappers would just go back and forth between each other taking down a song in numbers.  So good.

All Tomorrow's Parties
This album unsurprisingly took me down a trip while browsing the bios of each of the band members and the influences and others involved in this album. It was eerie, sifting through the deaths of Nico and Edie Sedgwick and then seeing the wickedly aged faces of Lou Reed and Jon Cale.  Also, just trying to imagine the Warhol scene and parties and drugs and films is so impossibly foreign to me, but of course alluring like all the songs on this album. I love Nico's voice on it and in this song, and how it contrasts with Reed's trippy/heady lyrics and voice. I look forward to coming back to this one later in the future when I can let it really sink in.

Good Night
Like something out of the end of Peter Pan, I did not see this song coming at all.  Of course the album itself is epic and steeped in cult followings, and for good reason.  Again, I'm going to come back to this and all of these many-fold, and then I'll try to come up some more to reflect on.

An Album a Day

I'll admit it, I've grown a little weary of my 17 Youtube playlists of about 200 songs each, pulled together over a couple years now whenever I listened to a song, and the mood struck to "add to playlist".  Needless to say this mood struck often, and will continue to strike, because as you all should know if you don't already, I'm a Youtube (music in particular) addict.

In an effort to funnel spew of videos into something perhaps a little more structured and hopefully a bit more productive in a new way, I've started assembling some of the critically denoted best rock albums of all time, one per day, so that I can listen to them straight through as though I had legitimately purchased them in full form!  As sacrilegious as it is to not only not pay these timeless artists for their hard-earned work, pull together clips from online that are for sure not as good quality or even consistent with each other (or even may be live versions if I can't find the album's studio version(!)), and then eventually listen to it all in just one day (doesn't mean I won't come back to them!), I have to say that I haven't ever had this much success and pleasure out of digging into albums I'd always wanted to.

Basically, I got tired of waiting to take time out and listen to these albums and decided to sacrifice the proper environment to fully appreciate these important albums.  However, I consider there to be worth in laying the foundation so that I can come back to them for repeated listens with even a little background and some familiarity.  Plus, it's all just really amazing music and often times pushes me to hear what I normally might not be ready to try out.  I'll go more into how I select them in later posts, but it involves help from Digital Dream Door and Rolling Stone.

That said, I'd like to go through them with you all here on Demons.  Just note that the posts will likely be quite haphazard (reflecting the sort of approach I'm taking) and not as in depth as Edward's impressive works of depth and precision in his Beatles and guitar solo lists.  They also might not cover every album I listen to, or maybe they'll cover more than one at a time, but I just know I won't be able to keep up a post a day.

A Wrinkle in Time

I love the body.  It's wretched and beautiful.  To identify with something physical that has actually endured the years that you claim to your name is something that is nothing short of profound.  It is proof.  It is the manifestation of all the ideas, all the poetry, all the lusting, all the hatred, and all the love.  It is physical and cannot be denied or accepted, except by another in physical form.

Without it we'd be left to an existence, well, not far from the internet and The Matrix, whoa.  As cool and anonymous and free and unattached and fun as that may sound, there's nothing to hold onto.  And honestly, it actually would be a little different than the internet we have now.  Because here, we have something to hide.  I have a physical incarnation you are denied in experiencing me through this medium.  I have two eyes you will not meet.  If we all were just bodiless voices drifting around a void talking and musing and posting and friending and liking and responding, then we'd be meeting each other in full.  I'm meeting you in a percentage.  Here, I'm only part of what I really am.

But getting back to that grip hold.  I cling to my physical existence.  I pull my hair when thinking.  I scratch my ever-growing, never-stopping scruff.  I cover my mouth with my hand when looking at things and don't know why.  I fidget and function and twitch and watch and track and listen and hover and follow and jump and sleep.  I am a jukebox and a Richter scale machine.  These things may seem rudimentary or dull, but they are the key to my being outside of my mind.

It's not my mind that knows the touch of a loved one.  And it's not my mind that can smell their scent.  My mind can't chase after them.  It can't speak to them, and it can't receive their words.  It is my hand that knows their touch, my nose that finds them in the dark, my voice and ears that lets them enter my psyche with ease, and my eyes that I overvalue but still take for granted while watching them walk toward me.  We are assembled with every gadget and device and yet we still insist on muting our senses in favor of something spoon-fed to our minds (no offense internet blogs).

The extension of the physical form out from our minds is truly a gift, and there will never be enough dancing, singing, and sex to celebrate this.

Now that that is there.  I will say that our head can turn against our bodies.  Not that this should be news to anyone.  After preaching the glory of the corpus, I can't pretend that I don't worry about flab lapping up against my hips, threatening to trigger the beer gut in a matter of months/years.  And if I couldn't control it in time, there goes my health and my life span and my potential fatherhood, let alone years to play chess with other old crotchety men in a park as a balding, gray-haired ol' man.  These are the threats on the table.  We can take them and fear, or we can leave them and live. 

Perhaps that's too simple, but really, what is it all but atoms and molecules and compounds and bullshit.  We grow, we shrink, we scar, and we heal, or try to.  I intend to try and push myself to stay healthy, but in the end I'm going to end up battered and beat-up anyway, so it's not like I'm trying to preserve myself for some pristine natural history collection.  I'm using this shell, this thing, until I can't any more.  It's going down with me and I'm going down with it.  And in the meantime, I'll put it to rest.

The Human Form

The Body, Le Corps, Der Körper, El Cuerpo, Il Corpo, 身体, وكانت الهيئة, Jednostka

        Hundreds of thousands of ways to communicate it, express it, display it, depict it, objectify it, protect it, utilize it. It's the one thing all seven billion of us share as a species, the most easily detectable commonality-- the form which sets us apart from other animals here on earth. So, as we've (mostly me... sorry to disappoint) now decided a week into September, this month's theme will deal with all aspects of the human body. Seems vague and strangely biological, right? Well, it most certainly can be. If you relate to your body on a strictly anatomical and molecular processing level, then please, for God's sake, do tell! I know I'd be interested to hear. For all us others out their who have come to develop an, at once uniquely personal and yet somehow commonly shared, relationship to our exterior appearances, let us commence an open discourse with regards to this highly peculiar subject! (i.e. do dogs ever think about how trim their waists are?).

    I became quite interested in the body at a very young age-- commonly thinking of it as my armor, my protection against the grass I rolled in, the rocks I tripped on, the trees I climbed. As as a child my body was simply a physical extension of my overactive imagination. I didn't judge it, didn't overanalyze it, didn't worry about my heart rate, my breath pace, my muscle tone, my diet, my BMI, or what others thought of its shape or size. This changed almost immediately with the entrance into middle school and the realization of what being a "hot" girl meant to young boys. As shallow and limiting as this may sound, my body was no longer my armor, but rather my goods, it seemed. This led to my own perception that the body, at some point in young adulthood, transforms from it's true intentions as our outside shell into an exchangeable commodity embedded with a plethora of complex and self-created meanings. As soon as my own self-image was jaded, I began noticing corporeal depictions in art, in literature, in music, in movies, in magazines, in fashion, and in my day-to-day existence. I know my own views are unique and unhealthy, and, trust me, I will certainly go further into this as the month progresses (don't want to scare anyone off too soon!).

    I'm quite aware that men and women view their bodies much differently in terms of their uses and their overall self-images. Sex, age, sexuality, ethnicity, social class, mental health, etc all play directly and indirectly into our psyches (though this certainly varies considering the country into which you're born). This is why I hope to get a good amount of responses here this month. I'd love to find out what body image means to everyone out there--- Basically, how do you all define and feel about your mind's relationship to your physical appearance? Is it mostly positive or negative? Is it effected by your friends? Your family? Societal norms and pressures? Internal dialogues and delusions you're too embarrassed to share with others? Is it based in beautification? Athleticism? Laziness? Or sheer necessity and basic functioning to get you where you need to go? I'm simply fascinated by how our thoughts regarding our physique can at various times limit us, uplift us, destroy us, free us, or give us confidence.

    Clearly anyone can write about absolutely anything this month, even if it still vaguely relates to the body-- a cool story about an injury, a time your body failed you, a time your body's strength surprised you, etc. Basically, anything involving the human form is accepted here! I look forward to getting a variety of opinions!

Edward's Road to Recovery, Entry #1

First off, I want to apologize to all of the readers out there. I mean this from the bottom of my heart. This blog was my baby, and I had a lot of hopes and dreams of it becoming something special and bringing all of us together while allowing each writer to express themselves both creatively and emotionally. I have been completely absent on here since Sex Month back in June, and while I could say that I was busy with "more important shit," in truth I neglected my writing and commenting because I was lost in the depths of an intense drug relapse that ended with me shaking on a toilet uncontrollably in a seizure caused by an IV crack overdose. I want to make it up to you guys. I originally had an idea for this series that I would start writing about my time in day treatment rehab, chronicling each day as it was happening, but that proved too difficult, as there were a lot of things to take care of at that time and I didn't have enough time to really sit and concentrate and brood over my psychological neuroses that led to this relapse (I will talk later about how it wasn't even really a relapse, since I never totally gave up substance abuse in the first place). In any case, I will write about my road to recovery and happiness, away from the depths of polydrug addiction and depression and other woes, whenever the whim strikes me. My sincere wish is that this series will inspire others to share their own feelings of hopelessness, pain, and hope, and their own intellectual ideas about the nature of addiction and substance abuse, and how society deals with it.

I write this today while still sweaty from a brief workout at the gym, a place that I was paying $25 a month to be a member of even though I hadn't worked out there in almost two months (and I hadn't really consistently worked out in ever). This neglect of health and my interests symbolizes one of the most obvious facets of my substance addiction: it causes me to neglect the things that I am passionate about--whether they be my loved ones, my hobbies, and the things that I care about--because nothing is as important as getting loaded on whatever substance I find myself drawn to at the time. This is because these substances (for me, alcohol, opiates, cocaine, and meth/amphetamines) refuel the dopamine receptors (pleasure center) in my brain, which has lost the ability to maintain its own normal levels of dopamine through drug abuse and tolerance. I look back on my days of active use with disgust. Anyone who knows me knows that I have an obsession with cleanliness and health. How could I have gone days without showering, without brushing my teeth? Left my apartment in a squalid mess? Ate the kind of crap that I ate on a daily basis? I use this (Bethany would say OCD) obsession with cleanliness and organization, with health and strength, as a way to combat the self-destructive, yet soothing siren song of addiction that forever tries to creep up the walls of my consciousness and plant its egg of doubt in my dream of hope.

Let me try to backtrack here in our first entry to talk about how the last few months have been since my previous brush with opiates. It had been ten months since I had last gotten high on anything other than alcohol. I suppose on the surface, for someone not very educated on the topic of addiction, I was doing good, because drinking alcohol's a lot better than shooting heroin, right? When it comes to addiction, not really. Though I don't claim to have been at their level of dependency, I saw a great number of patients shaking and talking deliriously in the depths of their alcohol withdrawals when I was at rehab. Alcohol can suck your life and your wellbeing away just as fast as heroin can. In truth, my drinking was not as bad as my opiate use was in terms of how it affected my day-to-day life. It was probably worse for my health (alcohol being more of a toxin than opiates are), but I wasn't dead-broke and utterly physically dependent upon alcohol. I did begin to experience the symptoms of mild alcohol dependency towards the end of my ten-month binge, waking up in a bed soaked with cold sweat and piss, hands shaking uncontrollably, each day the same as the last. I wouldn't for a moment question whether I'm an alcoholic or not. I am one.

But most importantly, by continuing to abuse alcohol, I never really got rid of my addiction altogether. I never even really tried. I know that I acted all tough and optimistic a year ago when I was writing blog posts on here about how my life was going to change, but it was really all a bunch of bullshit. Yes, I really did believe those things. Yes, I did want to change. But I wasn't ready to take the necessary steps to get well. An addict can't go on using other substances like I was. An addict needs sober support. I can't just go to a therapist who I didn't even connect to and expect by doing that that my problems will suddenly up and disappear. What was most important with my drinking is that I retained the sly habits of an addict. I would lie about my drinking all the time, and hide it in shame after I told everyone that I was going to stop drinking (I did not have the strength to stop on my own without help). I would regularly get off from work at 5, alcohol having been on my mind all afternoon, drive to the nearest liquor store, and pour myself a very strong mix drink to drink on my commute home, already being drunk by the time I got out of the car at home. I blacked out almost every time I drank. Hangovers were an unfortunate part of daily existence that I had to learn to cope with. I cannot use any mood-altering substances with control. That is why I have learned I have to quit ALL mood-altering substances. That's how it is. I know it's hard for others to understand why I can't just have one drink, or drink socially, but I'm a person with the disease of addiction, and for me it's impossible.

Anyways, my drinking got worse and worse, to where I was occasionally drinking on my break hours at work, and, on weekends or off-days, drinking throughout the day starting in the morning. I went drunk to an ASAP (Alcohol Substance Abuse Prevention or something like that) class, which I was assigned to for driving under the influence in the first place. I was just drinking to shut my brain the fuck up. This isn't any different from shooting up cocaine or heroin or anything else. So really, my slip back into drugs was inevitable.

It started with some Percocets that I heard a friend was prescribed. I begged this friend for them, and offered them an exorbitant sum so that I eventually got them. I took all of the 20 pills in two different sittings over less than 24 hours, and wound up feeling slightly dopesick. My brain was again already hooked on the deadening warmth of opiates, something I hadn't even craved for months and months. My dad was prescribed them soon thereafter, and I stole large amounts of his, which he found out about, causing me even more pain and shame. Soon enough, I was back on heroin.

It is true what they say, that each relapse is darker than the previous one. Almost immediately (I knew this would happen, honestly), I was back at the same place I was before after months of using. I needed a big amount just to kill the withdrawals, much less get high. Every time I use again, there are more negatives and less positives. I stole money on a daily basis from work, pawned all of my prized possessions at home, and manipulated people I cared about to get drugs to shut my mind off. I don't regret my relapse and any of the actions it caused, because it made me who I am today and the suffering allowed me to hit a bottom that forced me into the treatment I've always needed, but I am deeply sorry to anyone I hurt or let down or manipulated in the throes of my completely selfish drug binge. I say this from the bottom of my heart.

Luckily by this point in my life I knew that I couldn't get out of this hole on my own. I knew that I needed help, and admitted as much to those around me. Although resistant to the idea at first, I ultimately knew that I needed more complete and organized treatment then I had received before. I needed to work the process that millions of addicts have worked before me so that they could get better: detox/rehabilitation, counseling, group therapy, sober support, and medication. I wasn't willing to do any of those steps before other than counseling, and that is why I never really got better. I will talk more about how treatment is going and went at the beginning in my next entries. I really truly have hope that this time I can finally slay this very real demon of addiction (please remember that addiction is never the root problem--something else always lies underneath, but what that is with me, I am not sure of at this time). But having hope without having a plan and support is a futile thing. I think I have all three right now.

One day at a time.

--Edward

PS: For anyone interested, my sober date is 8/26/11. As someone said in one of my meetings, I don't like to put too much focus on my clean time, since it is like you are counting down towards something that is going to end (these were his words, and although I don't truly understand them, I like what he had to say). For me, it just puts too much pressure on an abstract number that is ultimately meaningless. What matters is happiness.