About two weeks ago I wrote a post entitled ‘Who Am I.’
It was loosely about a Lewy Body dementia patient, me, getting a little existential.
There’s an anecdote that comes out of writing that blog post that blows me away and I want to share it.
It probably won’t blow you away, dear readers, because it was a kind of you-had-to-be-there moment.
But anyway, the anecdote will allow me to raise the question: Are you a ‘random shuffle’ person? Or a ‘straight playlist’ person?
OK here comes the anecdote: It was a weekend day and I had a chore. Do laundry and clean up my messy room. I brought my 120GB iPod to play to make the work go easier. I turned it on to Shuffle all songs. That would be a random shuffle of about 7,500 songs.
Midway through this cleaning escapade I got an idea. One of the things I’ve been thinking a lot about since being diagnosed with a fatal degenerative brain disease is my mortality, the meaning of life and, frankly, ‘Who Am I.’
So idea in mind, I went downstairs to write, leaving the music, the iPod playing my 7,500 songs at random.
An hour, maybe two, slips by as I write on my laptop. Eventually I meander upstairs and I was stopped dead in my tracks. I instantly knew this song just now coming out of my iPod, which as you remember I had left on and had been randomly shuffling for the better course of two hours.
I immediately knew the guitar-organ opening with drum build-up and the group in unison asking a question.
The song: Who Are You?
Who Are You? That well-known song by the Who.
After catching my breath, I looked around to see if someone was pranking me.
What are the odds? I thought (maybe 7,500 to 1?) that that song would be playing. As I walked in after writing a post called Who Am I? I was actually a little shaken.
I ran and told my daughter and her friend who were in the house. But I don’t think they had the same reaction, nor friends and colleagues of mine. Coincidence they say. Funny, how these coincidences are following me around though.
So that brings me to the question about a facet of who you are? Random shuffle or straight playlist.
I’m definitely a random shuffle guy. When they invented digital music and I could load up my jukebox of CDs (about 100 at least). I put it on shuffle.
My wife complained as soon as she figured out that the nice James Taylor song ‘Fire and Rain,’ now playing, might be followed by a Rancid song (yes, Rancid, those Bay Area punksters). I liked the randomness, the expectation of anything can come next.
Catherine didn’t like so much. I never peeked at my presents on Christmas. Catherine did (and still does).
I like starting on a hike not knowing where we’ll end up.
I like taking multi-day road trips with absolutely no plans on how far I’ll get.
My grandfather, a career Army guy, had the mileage all figured out (pre-GPS) and made reservations to make sure he and grandmother had a place to stay.
I can’t tell you how many times Catherine and I would stop at motels with no vacancy and have to keep going. But that was the fun. Where will we end up?
She tolerated me and still does most of the time.
Now these orientations can be taken to the extreme, so I think we are combinations of the two but lean one way or another, some more than others.
A totally random person would presumably never get anywhere on time. (Although, I haven’t worn a watch in 50 years, and I’m not usually late). I think my random orientation has served me well as a journalist over the years. Everyday is something new at a newspaper or online news operation where I worked and still work at AL.com. <NOTE: Retired in 2019>
Reporters know that the Supreme Being laughs when we make plans. You might think you are going to spend the day researching and writing this big story, only to get tapped on the shoulder to cover a breaking story like a tornado, or major court ruling or whatever.
In fact ‘whatever’ was coined by random folks.
The nature of this blog, www.myvinylcountdown.com is a mix between random and playlist. I am reviewing on this site my 678 vinyl records in alphabetical order. Now that sounds tidy, right? Well it has the same effect as random play on the iPod. For example, I open the blog with African music, King Sunni Ade, which is followed by hard rockers Aerosmith.
I have a huge 625-song Christmas playlist in my iPod that, as my family is well aware, I have insisted on playing on shuffle for years and years (but only after Thanksgiving.)
“But Dad, I want to hear the rest of that Christina Aguilera Christmas album, I hate what’s on,’’ a daughter would say.
“Just wait sweetie, this Love Tractor track will be over in a minute and I can’t wait to see what will be next, can you?” I say, blocking their hands from the iPod controls with my arms in a style I learned watching Karate Kid (wax on wax off).
I usually won because I could fend them off just long enough for the next track and it would be the Hanson’s Christmas collection.
Saved once again to fight another day. For random play.