Why do I love records and tapes so much?
Because the crackle of a dirty record warms me in the same way a wool blanket in front a fire does? Is it because in the digital silent gaps between songs, when I become keenly aware of my tinnitus and the deep dread of both being alive and the crushing thought of my own death?
Von Dutch by Charli XCX. Sweet reprieve, best not to dwell.
Is it because my distracted brain can’t stay focused for more than 20 minutes without having to jump to a new task and flipping the record takes just enough effort to scratch that itch?
Is it because everything in the world feels like it’s asking me to be anywhere but where I am and pay attention to anything other that what’s in front of me?
Because we figured out how to monetize every fucking moment of every fucking day.
Or are tapes just really cute and that makes they get some likes on the gram?
I have this terrible habit of needing everything in my life to have a deep and Important ™ meaning. Like I am on this sysphisian quest to just be alive and a without a reason for all this struggle I feel truly fucked. Loving tapes can’t just be because, i dunno, they are cool. It has to mean something.
Or else why would I insist on the headache.
Ever since I was a kid, I’ve felt like there was a cannonball sized hole missing in the center of my gut. Like behind my ribcage and gut is just a hollow void of wanting. A black hole sucking every positive affirmation or CBT workbook I throw at it. (Ironically, digesting Zoloft has helped significantly).
Sometimes feeling like if I have a purpose, a meaning, it makes the hole feel a little smaller. Or at least directs it’s hunger at something other than my wellbeing for a while.
Hilarious to me that I can give that much meaning to a lo-fi beat tape to chill to. But I do.
I think your early 30s are about realizing progress isn’t always progress and maybe the kids should get off your lawn.
A joke, but … the kids are not doing okay and definitely not touching grass (I also cannot afford a lawn to this is a moot point and bad analogy), and it has nothing to do with my metaphorical lawn. Like misogyny isn’t going to end if MRA podcast hosts just listed to a few slowed down golden-age beats with with a Ghibli quotes thrown in for good measure.
Maybe if they just really listened to J-Dilla, though. Like felt it, man.
I am constantly searching for way to feel soft enough for a good cathartic cry. I watched the first three seasons of This is Us for exactly this reason. I cried hard and alone. I might never be able to live in a cabin napping next to a crackling fire, but sometimes I can trick my body into thinking I am in the euphoric afterglow of felt-body loss.
That’s what records and tapes do to me. In their softness I begin to escape inward, towards softness. Towards tenderness. Towards myself.
On social media, I quickly leave my body, I leave the literal fucking concept of time, and find myself both rewatching my own stories and hating myself. Holy hell, there is such a need to be seen.
Listening to tapes and records is the opposite.
Lost in time? Time to flip the record.
Left your body for a digital-liminal-ghost-self comprised of stress-sweat, auto-correct, and a lack of impulse control? Your gonna have use your hands for something useful and flip the cassette to side B.