"J'Ai Passe Devant Ta Porte" Michael Doucet & Cajun Brew A New Orleans Visit: Before Katrina
"Jacqueline" Franz Ferdinand Franz Ferdinand
"Jacques Lamure" Of Montreal The Gay Parade
"Jag Vet en Dejlig Rosa" Robyn Body Talk: Pt. 1
"Jaguar" John Gregory The Sound Gallery, Vol. 1
"Jah Live" Bob Marley Songs of Freedom
"Jail Guitar Doors" The Clash The Clash
"Jailhouse Rock" Dean Carter Instant Garage [Mojo]
"Jailhouse Rock" Elvis Presley The Complete '68 Comeback Special [x2]
"Jailhouse Rock" Elvis Presley Elvis 75
MCA died. Junior Seau did too. I am pretty upset about them both. Mostly for selfish, self-absorbed reasons though. Junior Seau killed himself at age 43, after a long, successful career in the NFL, and he is not the first to do so (or even the first recently). Given the increased awareness of head injury and the long-term impact of the game on the people who play it, I am wrestling with whether a sport I have been an avid fan of my entire life is actively killing people. I am also concerned that if that is not the point, there has been very little concern for whether it is the case. Professional football is a spectator sport - it doesn't exist without people watching it. The point of it is so that people will spend their money in order to witness it. Stadiums seating nearly 100,000 people and billion-dollar television contracts attest to this. So the violence, the speed of the game, the crushing blows, are at some level because I want it (not me alone, but y'know . . . this is my navel-gazing so just accept some melodrama). I can say that I did not know, and that is both fine and true. The issue is now I do know. So do I stop watching, do I insist it be fixed, or do I merely live with my own hypocrisy. (as I sit here today, my money is on the latter). I honestly live in fear that I will see a young man killed one Sunday afternoon, and I know that is the last time I will watch football on any level. I also feel like that will be too late.
Adam Yauch died of cancer at 47. This makes me feel old. (I am not alone - a lot of my peers commented on the death that a part of their youth or adolescence died with him). I have now reached the point where my peers are dying of natural causes. No longer restricted to violence or drugs, now we face the everyday presence of death by just no longer living. This is the territory of Baby Boomers and Classic Rockers. I am not ready for an extended future of maintenance prescriptions and annual check-ups. My least favorite phrase, which I started hearing at the doctor's office a couple of years ago, has to be, "It is a natural part of the aging process." So now I not only hear it in my creaking bones, or from the doctor when he mentions the disappearing cartilage in some joint or another - now I am reminded of it as the rock stars of my youth shuffle off this mortal coil like Frank Zappa (just shy of age 53, but somehow suddenly almost 20 years gone . . . that went by fast too).
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