Confessions of a Fanboy

I haven’t finished the first sentence and I’m already afraid this is going to sound like some corny, cosmic New Age bullshit but I’ve had a musical experience and I am compelled to write about it. I hope it’s as compelling a read as it was to feel firsthand.

I started the morning with a venti mocha from Starbucks and felt fireworks in my head explode into a spectacular case of jitters. Maybe it had nothing to do with the coffee. Maybe it was just an ordinary panic/anxiety attack. don’t know if the coffee did it to me or not, but I felt myself careening out of control. I needed to slow down.

Typically what happens to me when I have one of these caffeine-induced roller coasters is that what comes up must come down; unfortunately the crash as nearly as spectacular — and sometimes more — than rush before it. Maybe I just can’t handle my coffee. Yes, I’m a manly man, aren’t I? This is your brain. This is your brain on Crack-bucks. Any questions? This is why I’ve never done illegal drugs. The legal ones turn me into a whirling puddle of panic. Can you imagine me on crack?

Now this state of panic and nervousness was completely artificially induced but when the mind is convinced that something — or everything — is wrong, the truth doesn’t much matter. Perception is reality. DANGER. PANIC! RUN!

It’s damn foolishness and I am embarrassed to admit that a cup of coffee turned my life upside down for half an hour. Maybe we should forget suing the tobacco industry and start treating coffee like a controlled substance. I’m giving the chemicals a bit too much credit. I’m an excitable sort always ready to lose my shit over nothing, coffee or no coffee.

I needed an antidote to the crazed way I was feeling. I reached for my iPod and it came to me. I found it. It found me. The perfect song to transform my impending decline from a crash to a peaceful glide.

I’ve never thought of the flute as a lead instrument. When I was in band as a kid, I often wondered why we bothered having a flute section because no one could hear them over the bang and clatter of all the other instruments. Six girls with flutes were no match for four rows of clarinet. My fellow aspiring saxophone players sat directly behind the flute section and I don’t remember ever hearing a note they played. That probably speaks more to my awareness as part of a large band than it does to anything else, but they still seemed to be playing the most thankless instrument in the band.

In “Survival Portuguese,” Barrett Martin puts Craig Flory’s flute at the center of the composition and I’m always amazed when I hear it. This morning, Flory’s skillful performance did more than amaze me. It moved and soothed me. I’ve never been to Portugal and I’m not just real sure I could even find it on a map (it borders Spain, right?). I don’t know anything about it, but “Survival Portuguese” creates a serene feeling inside me. I don’t know if Portugal is a serene place or not, but it is inside of me.

Flory’s flute is backed by some deft acoustic guitar (I believe it’s a nylon-string acoustic guitar) and some subtle rhythmic work and even though I can’t describe a specific picture of what I see when I hear it, I sense myself being carried somewhere far away from where I am now. Even when my mind isn’t playing tricks on me and I’m not allowing myself to fall victim to foolishness and weakness I feel carried by this song; I’ve listened to it so many times over the years since I first heard it. Today, though, that journey was more than a pleasant diversion. It was a necessary escape to a beautiful oasis.

The silver lining in being a big, dumb animal who freaks out over nothing is… well, this. The journey through “Survival Portuguese” gave way to “A Waltz Under The Stars” (with a brief layover in “Favela Song”). By the time the final notes of “The Diamond Path” had ended, I felt renewed and ready to make my way through the rest of my day.

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