Emerson Dameron, Chemical Castration for a More Tuneful Tomorrow

You are a musician. When most of us are scrolling through baseball scores and faded crushes, you’ve got symphonies banging around in that tortured noodle of yours. If there is a benevolent force governing this bombed-out pump ‘n’ munch we inhabit, you are its direct line, its right hand. You struggle so mightily to translate its signals into the perfect chords and couplets, it makes me want to serve you a steaming bowl of soup, with floating oyster crackers.

However, as most people aren’t part-time music writers, most people don’t sense your pain like I do. There’s only so much attention to go ‘round, padre. And who gets the lion’s share? Vacant pretty boys with bleached coifs, tight jeans and Jackie O shades. Self-absorbed art students with metal in their noses and whistling vacuums between their ears. Pouting slaves to the dead hand of the karaoke machine, churning out shitty copies of the lesser tunes from the Grosse Point Blank soundtrack.

Why do they do what they do? For the same reason they’re boring: They’re in it for the sex. They know it. You know it. Their mediocrity outsexes your genius, because sex is the only thing that interests mediocre volk. And sexual arousal is the most mediocre of all human states. It’s a mere biological drive. Even raccoons can pull it off.

But it’s such a distraction, isn’t it? Surely, if you had the energy, you could construct a double LP of such overwhelming brilliance, it would, if only for a moment, turn everyone’s attention away from the dull, nicotine-stained sexpots. But somehow, you don’t get around to it. You need money for restaurants, bars and presentable outfits, so you work a humiliating day job. Unable to cope with your intensity, your paramour hands off your walking papers, and it’s all you can sing about for awhile. Just as sex clouds others’ awareness of your singularity, it cuts you off from same.

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You are a musician. When most of us are scrolling through baseball scores and faded crushes, you’ve got symphonies banging around in that tortured noodle of yours. If there is a benevolent force governing this bombed-out pump ‘n’ munch we inhabit, you are its direct line, its right hand. You struggle so mightily to translate its signals into the perfect chords and couplets, it makes me want to serve you a steaming bowl of soup, with floating oyster crackers... Read More.