B O N D P H O N E.
Words and pictures by Chris Lamb.

How 2005 ends: sitting on the edge of a futon in robot-mode, stabbing at a borrowed keyboard during a break from a marathon push through season five of Angel. This is the good one, apparently, and so far the appearance of Spike has gone a long way to offset the mumbled half-acting of David Borenzahozenhausen, the guy what plays Angel. If part of me must be a seventeen-year-old girl spending her date nights closing a bookshop in the mall, at least it is easily satisfied.

I spent Christmas in Huntsville, playing catch up with my now scattered to the four winds family and swinging between disappointment and disgust. Far too little time with my mom and brothers, far too much spent around dad's (admittedly nice) shake-n-bake family and my religious fanatic aunts. And that's not even going in to Christmas night spent quietly boiling on my side of a bar booth, spitting out more bile than I should have while some how managing to hold back the worst of it. I used to wonder why Muffet, the oldest of my mom's sisters and the last one before me to light out for the territories only came to visit for three days out of the year. I don't any more.

Home now, with my city around me and the strange comfort that comes from buildings taller than ten stories and local commercials about something other than gun shows and church groups. The wash of Christmas is already mostly pushed out of sight and mind, making room for New Year's. With everything going on, the feeling of global reset hardly had time to catch up with me - it took reading Bruce Mau on the train to get my hands tingling at the thought of it. Now, though, with six minutes and counting, I'm totally on board with Team Change.

I've said this here before, and rather recently I think: oh-three was the year we thought we ruled the world, my friends and I, when events and people seemed to fall in line with whatever happened to be crossing our minds at the moment. Then oh-four came like a boot, sweeping the rug out from everything and one while setting the stage for oh-five, the year we started dressing like adults. I was going to pontificate on what the new year would bring with it, but hey, fuck it, y'know? If this last year was less about gaining ground than earning it, then let this one be about application. Before conquering the world, let's have one worth owning.

With that in mind, I come to my one tradition: first song of the year. Last year's was part battle plan, part farewell to the year before's shit-kickery with Johnny-Boy's "You Are The Generation Who Bought More Shoes And You Get What You Deserve." I thought about having it again - "This frequency's my universe" still gets me between the eyes - but decided something different was in order. The same trick rarely works twice, and all that. So we're kicking things off this time with Costello's "Jack of All Parades". Slow, yes, and more than a little mixed-message, but the whole "Give in, don't give up" take appeals to me right now. It's more apt than the incidental music from a DVD menu screen, at any rate.

Give in, don't give up. That'll do nicely.

posted by chris  # 12:23 AM