Everyday I get into my car and plug my iPhone into its
swanky console iPod connector. When I do this automatic and mindless task, akin
to clicking the coffee pot on as I head out to walk the dog every morning, it is without thought or measure.
When I combine my phone and my car together the same thing happens every
time, and has for close to three years.
The hard driven beats of System of a Down (SOAD) start to blare. Loudly.
I’ve become so familiar with my music beginning automatically
that I have a pavlovian response of clicking the satellite radio button and
finding something good to entertain me on Sirius radio. This action happens every time use my
car, for three non-stop years. Until, strangely yesterday morning when I clicked
my iPhone into its tiny holster, and when the driving guitars and hypnotic
vocals of Serj Tankian, the lead singer of this alternative heavy metal band
started, my automatic response failed. I sat there listening to this bands
proprietary song, as it moved forward I was moved backward.
I received Toxicity,
System of a Down’s first major release as a present from my Ex Dalton, right
after September 11, 2001. We took
the CD on our first road trip. A black Dodge Ram driving across west Texas in
the middle of the night. Two men hand
in hand. September 11 fresh on our
minds. We listened to the album over and over as night covered the Texas landscape.
The heat of night trying to force itself into the cab of the truck. We didn’t
know our future. We barely knew each other.
We spent a week in Santa Fe. Getting to know each other.
There is no other reason why this album starts when I connect
my iPhone other than the first song starting with an “A”
sounds like an interesting story
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