A Junkie’s Obstacle:
Yes or No Questions
It’s a typical Saturday afternoon. I have finished my laundry. I have washed the dishes. The Advil has somewhat neutralized last night’s pints. The echoes of bass riffs and crash cymbals only a few hours old permeate my thoughts. I return to my bedroom and to my computer. I place my headphones on my head and see how my downloads are going. Is that King Crimson show done yet? How many more hours until I can listen to that Zeppelin show from ’75? That DJ Shadow set is still only at 80%? I check my email. I see what shows are coming up, which albums are coming out. I check the Floyd boards for the latest rumors. I check the calendar to see if it’s anyone’s birthday. Neil Young is 60! Good - a reason to party. Well, not until later, I would think. Nothing much to do yet. I’m not feeling creative enough to compose any music… just stare blankly at my monitor.
My eyes are drawn to the heap on the floor in corner of my room. “It’s time.” Staring back at me is a project I began last weekend. A necessary project, yet overwhelming. Too tiresome. Something I’ve put off for quite some time. A never-ending work-in-progress. It’s time to reorganize my CD collection. If only John Williams and a full orchestra were in my room. They would give me that precise musical punctuation to my dilemma. Like when Indiana Jones realized he was missing his gun when he encountered the Thugees… a sharp, desperate two-note phrase, signifying an insurmountable obstacle.
I take a deep breath and start at the beginning. I pick up the first jewel case and peek inside. Angel Dust: empty. Headhunters: empty. Band of Gypsies: American Beauty inside. I drop the case and sigh. I am having second thoughts of this task… maybe another time. I got some vacation from work coming up. Maybe that would be a better time. But it’s easy to find an excuse with a case of beer in the fridge and the Curb Your Enthusiasm 4th season DVD set. Should I? Yes or no? Am I ready for this physically enduring and mentally draining undertaking? Or shall I bum around for the next five hours until nightlife presents itself?
"Just do it," I tell myself. Not in a muscular Nike tone, but rather one of logic and compromise, as if to say “Just get it over with.” Thus begins the adventure.
“Okay.” I begin by separating my CDs into two categories, what I like to call “Yes,” and “No.” Yes, meaning the correct CD is inside, and no, meaning I’ve got a lot more work to do. “Yes, yes, no, no yes, no, no, no, no, no, no, yes, no, no, no, no, no, no.” This is going to take all day. “Yes, no, no, empty American Beauty! Now where’s that matching CD? Hmmm. Actually, this is good CD organizing music. This’ll get me truckin’.” So I pop it in my changer and press play.
Soon, I’ve got stacks and stacks of yes and no piles, most of which are of the latter. These piles become so high, that they begin to lean, and I’m afraid to get up too fast for fear that any air displacement may cause a chain of dominoes worthy of the Guinness Book of World Records. “Time to reward myself with a beer.” I slowly rise from my position on the floor to my feet, the tips of my loose stacks sway like a Chicago skyscraper. “Easy, now.” I place my hands near the stacks to snag any errant cases. I tiptoe out of the room and into the kitchen for a frosty beverage. Being quiet, not to disturb the fragile castle of plastic I’ve built in the other room, I open the fridge and grab a cold one. I connect the cap to the opener and like the fly on the dumbbell, the crack of the bottle cap ignites an avalanche of digital media in the other room. A mouthful of multi-genre molars tumbles and bawls like a soprano Jenga. Knowing I can’t stop the catastrophe I so ambitiously set myself up for, I silently sip my beer in the kitchen, and pour the rest in a pilsner glass.
As I enter back into my bedroom I survey the damage. The last pieces have just finally settled. Luckily, most of the mess was “no” CDs, and to my knowledge, nothing has been destroyed. I restack these piles into smaller portions and place them on my bed and continue. “Yes, no, no, no, no, wrong one, no, yes, DONE!” I smile in accomplishment, yet frown in helplessness. Now what?
Now it’s on to the spindles. It looks like I got about ten CD-R spindles filled with various discs -- some are burned CDs with no homes, waiting for me to buy a new 304 disc booklet, others belong in the tenements I have built on the floor and on my bed. I take these spindles and bring them into another room. I empty them on to a table and begin the next stage of sorting -- the tedious task of separating the CD-R's from the retails. And just like the jewel cases, I have a yes and no system, and just like that system I find myself on another roll.
“Yes, no, no, no, no, yes, Band of Gypsies! Is that good Organizing music? Who knows?” I pop it in the CD player in the living room and continue. Looking at the titles of the CDs causes a number of thoughts. "I didn’t even know I had this. Haven’t heard this one in a while. Never heard this one. What the hell is this?" The good thing about the loose CDs portion of this process is that one doesn’t need to worry too much about spilling anything as even stacks are force-formed onto the spindles.
“No, no, yes, no, DONE!” Finally, chapter 2 is complete and it’s time for another celebratory beer. Sipping on the brew provides me with my thoughts on how to go about tackling the next part of the organization process: finding homes for all these CDs.
I start with the discs I know I have cases for. This is basically like playing memory. I have to pay close attention to the covers while I sift through to find the first one. The theory is, the more albums you unite, the faster it’ll go, as you’ll have fewer empty cases and fewer case-less CDs to process. The theory goes perfectly according to plan until I realize that in my haste I put half a stack of “no” CDs on a “yes” spindle. I go back into the living room and confirm the suspicion that the opposite has occurred as well. But I don’t let that bother me as I am on a roll, and once you’re on a roll, the only thing that can stop you is---
My phone rings: “What’s going on tonight? There’s a tight show! Party! Come drink some beer!” I look out side and it has gotten dark. Have I really spent that much time on this simple task? “Dude, I’m reorganizing my CDs. I’ll have to get back to you later.”
I am reminded of the scene from High Fidelity where Rob Gordon rearranges his records autobiographically. It seems silly at first but then I think about it and wonder how I’m going to manage mine. I collect so much, how can I alphabetize when there are new names every day. How can I categorize when it’s hard to put a label on everything. And to go chronologically would just be too confusing. Autobiographically seems like the logical way. But wait! I can’t remember if I bought Kind of Blue before or after Fudge Tunnel’s First Movement. I bought Abraxas at the same time as German Drinking and Beer Garden Songs, so which is first? I picked up Zeppelin IV at the store first but put it down because Countdown to Extinction just came out, but bought…Oh the Hell with it! So I settle on genre for now and see what happens. Next test: What’s what?
Time to be methodical about this if I want to make the show tonight, I think. I first gather all my clothed CDs and divide them into two categories: Rock and not rock.
But during this process I pay attention to certain artists I know I have a lot of and begin making separate stacks for them. Wrong! I soon have 20 different piles in front of me. Just rock and not rock. Yes, no, no, yes, yes, yes, no. I was planning ahead to then break down the rock into sub-categories: classic, metal, progressive, punk, new-wave, 80’s, whatever alternative was in the early nineties, so-called jam rock, instrumental. Non-rock divides into jazz (early, big band, be-bop, funky, hard bop, free-jazz, fusion, revival) and electronic (ambient, illbient, chillout, big beat, break beat, hip-hop, trip-hop, flip-hop Nu Skool, Nu Jazz, noise, hardcore, hard house, deep house, deep hard house, hip house, Italo house, micro house, funky house, Florida breaks, Miami bass, trance, psytrance, goa, trance house, gabber, Nu Gabber, downtempo, and drum and bass).
Not there yet. I’m still at rock, not rock, physically.
I was aware about five hours ago what I had in store for myself upon tackling this endeavor, but the concentration and the constant opening and closing of jewel cases, and the dust have taken their toll. Having divided all my clothed CDs into two categories is enough for now.
I hop out of the shower and back into my room to dress for the evening’s activities. Here I am naked and they’re all staring at me, my classmates through my entire career as a student of music. I must laugh at the situation -- all that music covering my floor and my bed. The stacks look like they are going to cave me in. They are swelling and soon they will crash down on me and take me down in its undertow. I guess I’m going to have to sleep on the couch tonight when I get home. I can hardly even get into my bedroom without kneeing over the Bix Biederbecke pile.
But as I shut my door to my bedroom and make my way off to the show, I feel comfort in knowing it’s all there, waiting for me. It’s always waiting for me. I promise them a place to spin and they promise me music. It’s a symbiosis. I’m in the forest that no one’s supposed to be in, hearing that tree fall. As long as there are tunes to be heard, there are tunes to be played and vice versa. I smile at my Yogi Berra-esque sentiment and lock my front door. Getting into my car I find another full spindle and probably twenty jewel cases, all reminding me I better not be too hung over tomorrow, because I haven’t even finished organizing my clothed CDs, let alone having even started on the homeless and burned CD-R's. That might even have to be postponed until the next Saturday afternoon. But that’s alright. It will give me another opportunity to be with my children. I can’t, after all, live without them.
