Caught in the Carousel

Letter from the Editor - March 2009

Mickey Rourke's performance in The Wrestler is so physically brutal that it made me leave the theatre feeling short of breath, one hundred pounds heavier and emotionally demolished. And it came as no surprise that Bruce Springsteen's song of the same name plays the movie out as the screen goes heart attack black. In the same vein as anything off Nebraska, "The Wrestler" has a haunted, lonely tug, as it tells of a broken and weary man, slouching his way into oblivion.

Nebraska's a brilliant, uncomfortable album that always leaves me feeling the same way Rourke did in The Wrestler—cosmically heavy and physically exhausted. I used to listen to it almost every day in college—which might explain my equally depressing transcripts—and looking back, I'm not sure how I did it. It lacks the life-affirming get-out-of-town-and-save-shit vibe of Born To Run—as a matter of fact, in every way it's the exact aural analogue: if Born To Run is about running free, Nebraska is about the rot that sets in when you don't.

I love Nebraska and I love Nick Drake, but I can't play them as often as I used to because it was a lot easier to be a gloom junky at 16 than it is at 38. When I was 16, I used to play The Queen Is Dead all night and come to school hoping to look tragic, romantic and that the soil really was falling over my head. It's all about the recovery time, I suppose, and the fact is, perhaps I've grown overly sensitive, because I just can't bounce back the way I used to.

Here's some evidence if you need it:

I heard Tracy Ullman's version of "They Don't Know" in Whole Foods one night and they found me the next morning, sobbing somewhere near the muffin mixes.

I played Mazzy Star's She Hangs Brightly and woke up the next morning holding my high school yearbooks. I think I may have even started a journal.

There's more, but for the sake of my rugged reputation, I must stop there.

All I'm saying is, even though I still do it, it's just a little tougher now to saturate myself in, as my friend once said, The Sad, because it's so deliciously wearying it makes me want to shoegaze the week away. An activity of which, I should add, I am the International Champion of...

Choosing what to listen to is really choosing a speed you want to set your heart to. You know what "Janie Jones" or "Some Might Say" or "Pink Moon" are going to do before they do it—and so you choose wisely. It's probably safe to say you haven't found yourself on the treadmill at the gym listening to the Tindersticks. That's for later.

But who am I kidding? I love the doleful and the melancholic, in fact, the more mopish, the better, but I use more discretion than I used to because I get too tempted to fuck the pepper, shove work aside and bastard away the night watching old YouTube clips of Pat Benatar and sobbing about the injustices of having never been "America's Favorite Teen."

I suppose the most adult thing about me—aside from the rapid gray and excessive sun damage—is now I plan ahead for the gloom.

Curious to hear how you do it...

We've got a great issue: Issa, a new installment of "The Roberge Report," an expanded review of Ruthie Foster's new one, including a Q&A with the legendary singer, MP3s and brand new album reviews. Check out the "Christian Bale Tirade Remix"—a fulminating onslaught of fuck you's that you'll want to keep forever.

Thanks for reading and making CITC a part of your everyday life.
We heart you and we're telling everyone this thing between us is real.

Love and Rockets,
Alex Green
Editor, Caught In The Carousel
Alex670@earthlink.net