I’m turning 35 this year. Do it all over again, and I’ll be 70. It doesn’t seem that long ago I was worried that double my age was 50. I don’t personally feel 35, although my lower back begs to differ. But then, what does it mean to “feel” an age anyway? I appreciate the number of “Happy birthday” messages on Facebook. It can get a little overwhelming, but like having too much food in the refrigerator, if that’s your biggest problem you must be lucky. Birthdays used to excite me. Now, as the age number climbs, they haunt me. For some reason, ages that end in 5 or 0 are the worst. Completely abstract and arbitrary, but behind their symbolism, birthdays represent something very real. Grains of sand slipping through an hourglass. Time ticks away, in a cruel endless flow that accelerates with every passing year, and my body is gradually breaking down. No one really believes that they’re going to grow old when they’re young. “Other people age, but of course, I’ll be the exception.” It gets harder to live in such denial as you begin to age. The illusion has been shattered. Is it time for a midlife crisis yet? I’m still not over my quarter life crisis. But no matter how much time passes, no matter how much I may change, I am and always have been at my core, myself.
Music has been a constant companion to my existence on this floating space rock since the beginning. There are songs I associate with different periods of my life. I’ve been making mixtapes since I was 12, and I started making mix tapes covering eras in my life after I turned 20, as a retrospective of my life up to that point. The first of these is Mikey’s Music. I have mentioned on my blog that as a kid I went by my middle name Michael, and there were a few years where I went by Mikey. Hence, this mix was the music that Mikey liked. Nearly a separate entity from who I am now, but still me, deep down. It’s definitely just a summary, being only 90 minutes long but covering my first 12 years. Perhaps because I have retained so few memories from that long ago, it feels complete enough. It mainly consists of 1990s alternative rock.
The next tape, Suren’s Songs: The Teen Years, covers my teens, from 13 to 19. This tape, 120 minutes long this time, follows my transition from alternative rock to metal and finally into dark electronic goth genres. Seven years in two hours was still only scratching the surface.
When I turned 30 I made the next one, Suren’s Songs: The Roaring Twenties, covering my life from ages 20 to 29. During these years I became a goth. Das Ich, And One and Ayria were my favorites. This was ten years in a two hour tape, or twelve minutes per year. Two to three songs for each year. So a lot was omitted. You still get a feel for each year.
Wih my thirties, I’m going to do what I wish I had thought of sooner. Each five years will get a 90 minute tape. 16 minutes per year. That will be about four songs per year. I originally came up with this idea because two hour blank tapes are getting harder to find, since they don’t manufacture them anymore. But this gives each decade three hours, and I can cover more. I will do this for the rest of my life, as long as I can still make mix tapes.
I am going to share the playlists of each tape here on my blog. Then, you will be able to hear my life story. Of course, I have my own unique memories and interpretations embedded in each song. Thus, I’m the only one who will ever really understand these tapes. Just like we all are the only ones who truly understand our own minds. But I want to share them anyway. Perhaps someone who has been on a similar life path as I will relate to them.
Because I’m tired of Spotify not having half the songs I put on my mixtapes when I try to share them on my blog, I made a YouTube playlist this time, of all four mixtapes in one. And it was only missing one song (“Missing Track” by And One...ironically). Where available I included music videos, but not every song has a music video. I did this more for myself (just like this blog, pretty much), I don’t know who would actually want to listen to it. But it is a public playlist.
Listen along here:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUzP1Twau7QIG1JgtWBPoGB1WaugydIcx
I wonder though. If my life were a mix tape, would I still be on Side A? If I live to 70, this would be where I flip the tape over. Hopefully I will live to be older than that. But I don’t know how long I’ll live. We are all serving out a death sentence in this strange universe, time and method of execution unknown.
Mikey’s Music
Side A
Side B
Suren’s Songs: The Teen Years
This tape was done chronologically. You’ll immediately notice an abrupt change in tone from the previous tape, as my childhood imploded due to bullying, school, and just puberty. It was an abrupt loss of innocence. “Anthem to the Year 2000” by Silverchair in particular signified my turn to the dark side, at least with regards to my musical taste. The Linkin Park type of stuff kinda makes me cringe a little bit, but it’s what I was into at the time, it’s part of who I was. What 14-year-old wasn’t listening to that band in the early 2000s? The mix takes us from my tumultuous Middle School years to my angsty, angry and dark High School years, and at the end, a change in direction as I finally began to work out who I was. It is a chronicle of my transition from Michael to Suren. An unpleasant, bumpy ride.
Age 13
The Smashing Pumpkins - Disarm
Reveille - The Phoenix
System of a Down - Sugar
Age 14
Age 15
Rob Zombie - Dragula
Korn - Kick the P.A.
Adema - Freaking Out
Age 16
Age 17
Age 18
Age 19
Suren’s Songs - The Roaring Twenties
Age 20
Age 21
Age 22
Age 23
Age 24
Age 25
Age 26
Age 27
Age 28
Age 29
Like the Venn diagram?
Suren’s Songs - The Thirties Part I
The dawn of my thirties was really when I began to realize the harshness of reality, as well as the first aches and pains of aging, after I was cast out from paradise when I graduated with my Master’s Degree, which left me over-qualified for the jobs I wanted yet at the same time without enough work experience, and saddled with insurmountable debt. College had been a scam. I also learned through trying to publish my first novel that the traditional publishing world is a lottery, and self publishing only becomes profitable if you have enough money to market yourself in the first place. However, I did start working at a historical museum which I very much enjoyed. I got married, which of course was nice. When my wife became pregnant though I could no longer stay at my museum job because I needed health insurance, I toiled away at call centers, which chipped away at my sanity and became a very low point in my life. After this though, I got to raise my son, and with nothing at all to lose, I started blogging, writing Oz books and a webcomic. I stopped caring whether or not my art made money, and I accepted the fact that I may never be rich or famous, and that I may always be obscure and fade into oblivion. Doing so has been liberating. I got interested in astronomy, I started to finally contemplate existence, and see the bigger picture. Other than the shadows of my past, as well as the realization of what a dreary and unjust world this is, I’m overall in a good place at the moment. Anyway, here’s my mixtape. It chronicles the ups and downs of my bumpy journey through publishing, jobs, marriage and parenthood these past five years. I will do the next tape when I’m 40...in five years. Excuse me while I scream into a pillow at that revelation.
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