Science Gone Mad: Audio eXchange

Whew, the more I listen to this, the longer it will take to get me out of the dark.


June 10, 1997: "Batman & Robin" hit theaters and stank 'em up, stank 'em up. The soundtrack has your requisite throwaway tunes from an eclectic mix of bands - some of whom should have known better (although "Gotham City" made R. Kelly a lot of money). At the end of the disc is a rapid fire, technoesque song by the Smashing Pumpkins called "The End is the Beginning is the End." While pretty much par for the course for some of their lower end output, the song itself is full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

July 18, 2008: While sitting in a darkened theater with two of my good mates waiting for "The Dark Knight" to unspool before me, this thumping drumtrack lays seige to the sound system. It's the trailer to the upcoming film, "Watchmen," based on the bleak superhero yarn of the same name. But for me, it's not just seeing the Comedian, Rorschach, and their ilk realized in tri-dimensional fury, it's that song, that fucking distantly familiar, soul crippling tune that puts the trailer over the top for me.

July 19, 2008: Someone at my house walks out the front door of the house, only to return in one week through the front door of a different residence altogether, with nothing I could do about it. From one dark to another ...

July 27, 2008: The reality of my situation hits me.

July 28, 2008: I had asked about the identity of that song in the "Watchmen" trailer on my go-to forum for all bizarre questions - the Death Valley Driver Video Review Message Board - two days ago. Since I'd seen that trailer, I'd been obsessed with it ... well, the song. It might have been some precognizance on my part, a prelude for the mood that would dictate my days for an untold time that lays before me from today onward.

On this day, a poster on the forum uploads the track for me to have. Once I get it, I don't just listen to the song, I absorb it; if mp3s were vinyl, this track alone would be scratched and warped from the amount of time it's been rotating off my hard drive, nay, my very cerebral cortex. The lyrics speak out to a broken, broken man, with both pointed external cynicism ("Is it bright where you are?/ Have the people changed?/ Does it make you happy?") and internal vitriol ("And I am master of a nothing place").

July 31, 2008: It's time to post a new Audio eXchange file.

"The Beginning Is The End Is The Beginning" - Smashing Pumpkins

(If for some reason the band name still reads "Smarshing Pumpkins," I apologize. I'm hopped up on cold medicine, and that's how I've written it three times now.)