Static

I bought my first CD player in 1983. I was in California. I had enough cash left over to buy “Linda Ronstadt’s Greatest Hits”. I loaded the disc, pushed “play” and ran to the couch (no remote). “Love is a Rose” began to play. I listened to the first half-minute and thought: “Hey, wait a second! The first part of the song is missing.”

I got up and started it over. I was right. They cut part of the intro. I called my neighbor David Wettstein to come over.

“Listen to this, Dave, and tell me if something is missing.”

Dave listened to it twice, and smiled. “Something’s missing all right, but it’s not part of the song. The song’s all there. You’re missing the surface noise---the pops and crackles the needle makes during the first two revolutions of the record before the music starts. What you’re missing is the static.”

Static. One of my dad’s favorite words. As in, “Don’t give me any…”

When I went into alcohol rehab they asked us to identify the static in our lives; the unnecessary noise.

For me it was anger. It didn’t take long to identify it. Most of the time, I could feel it brewing like the strange silence before a storm. Still can.

I never figured out where it came from, even though I underwrote several lengthy archaeological digs.

Every counselor tried to get me down to the root of it. Not possible. For one thing, I was holding onto it so tight for fear of what else I would lose if I let the anger go. Would I lose my link with my dad? Would I lose the raw fuel to my creativity?

So what am I doing these days? Still trying, one day at a time, to separate (not eliminate) the static from the music of my life.