Five Song Friday: Wanderlust Jones
This Week: Bionic Mike, Bowling Songs and Questions for God
Human beings were born to walk the Earth.
We are bipedal creatures designed to move and explore, hunt and forage.
That is why my body hates me.
Day after day, I deny it the sweet simple pleasure of forward motion.
I sit for hours on end, contorted like a typing, mouse-clicking monkey at my desk. A hunchbacked Mr. Magoo, squinting at a motley multiplex of monitors.
I am a virtual globetrotter. I click browser windows that show me anything, anywhere on the planet. I launch video calls with people from everywhere on Earth.
But physically? I go nowhere.
The bottom half of my body is so neglected and bored that my legs routinely fall asleep.
And lately when that happens, I just leave them be. It seems rude to disturb them. Left and right both look so peaceful, a pair of hairy little angels folded back under my bottom.
I’d snooze too if someone sat criss-cross applesauce on top of me for two hours!
I make jokes, but I’m legit SCARED.
I seriously worry that if I keep up this regimen of inactivity, I’ll lose my prehistoric passion for mobility.
If I continue to ignore the primal call to GET UP and MOVE?
My bones will go soft and my brain will atrophy.
I will become a pile of goo with no distinguishing features except for two prominent thumbs (for scrolling) and a mouth hole (for snacks and karaoke).
Maybe you have the same fear.
Maybe you also feel disconnected from your hunter-gatherer ancestors and long to be roaming the planet in search of beauty, experiences and adventure.
Maybe you feel like you should be marching across the open prairies and striding on winding forest paths. Meandering through majestic canyons and sauntering through the desert.
You should be yelping and whooping from mountain peaks and watching sunsets that make you cry.
You should be spelunking the shit out of some caves right now.
Maybe you are.
In which case, good for you.
But overwhelmingly, I think people save that kind of stuff for vacations and retirement.
Humans like to pay tribute to our wild, wandering past in two-week bursts.
“Getting away from it all” always ends with coming right back to it all. We go but don’t stay gone, like a bunch of homesick gypsy poseurs.
Once upon a time we never stayed put. Never stopped moving. We were basically bearded land sharks with zero percent body fat.
That’s just not who we are anymore.
We haven’t been those people for about 10,000 years.
Today we spend most of our days sitting and driving and ignoring the siren song of wide open spaces.
It’s been a long time since we were all meandering nomads, but I feel like our bodies remember. Deep down we all feel the pull of OUT THERE.
I believe that the more we ignore it, the worse we feel.
That’s why I encourage you to satisfy your Wanderlust Jones.
I know “Wanderlust Jones” sounds like a 1975 blaxploitation movie starring Pam Grier as a retired showgirl/assassin who travels the Southwest in a Winnebago doling out her own brand of sassy justice to the jive turkeys who double-crossed her back on the mean streets of Detroit… but it’s not that.
Your Wanderlust Jones is the overwhelming urge you feel to hit pause on your routine and go see what you can see.
Your Wanderlust Jones is the thing that makes you walk out the front door and keeping walking until you see a sign that says “Welcome to Reno.”
Wanderlust Jones is the dumb name for an important call that most of us keep missing because we’re distracted by so much noise and comfort and convenience.
I know it’s a million degrees outside and everybody’s busy and the world is so messed up it feels like a dumpster filled with hot diarrhea right now, but I encourage you to get out there.
Go somewhere. Go anywhere.
To start, all you’ve got to do is put one foot in front of the other.
Your body will take it from there.
Sincerely,
DJ CrankyPete
Five Song Friday 073
“Still Getting It Done” - Ghost of Vroom, Mike Doughty, Andrew Livingston
Mike Doughty is still getting it done. Even after Soul Coughing hacked up its last song. Even after he released a whole bunch of solo albums and side projects. Even after he was attacked by a mountain lion, left for dead and recovered by a top secret government agency that saved his life by replacing most of his limbs and organs with synthetic tissue and bionic robot parts. Even after all that, this guy is still making music which people like me consider “very good” and “groovy.” Great job Mike!
“Geneva Strangemod” - Glyders
Sometimes you hear a song for the first time and you know you like it. You want to buy it a drink and invite it to go bowling or something. This is a song I would take bowling.
“Mais si loin de moi” - Marie Laforét
Pardon my French but this song is sooo fucking French. I have no idea what she is singing about, but I like to think she is issuing a warning to the people of the future about the Pandora’s box that is artificial intelligence and machine learning. I could be wrong. In fact, I know I’m wrong. It’s much more likely a love song between a pretty lady and some obnoxious loser with a mustache and a crippling fear of intimacy.
“God” - David Peel and the Lower East Side
I appreciate the gesture of asking God some basic questions about the purpose and meaning of life. But from personal experience, that dude never answers. Like ever.
“Seeds of Night” - The Cave Singers
One of my most favorite sources of new good sounds used to be John in the Morning on KEXP in Seattle. I would listen to a live stream during work and I probably filled an entire notebook with band names and song titles to follow up on. His musical selections were so tuned in to my own sensibilities that I figured if we ever met, we’d be instant best friends forever. But that’s what everybody else probably thought too and I just didn’t have the energy to compete with hundreds of other fans, so I gave up on that silly dream. I’m going to play it cool and let him come to me.
“Roam if you want to / Roam around the world.” - B-52s