Fatboy

I have a new obsession. And his name is Fatboy Slim. A bigbeat musician, I've got my iPod loaded to death with his stuff. I comb iTunes looking for new songs, hunting for EPs of cool remixes (like his Rolling Stones remix--Sympathy for the Devil). What is it about Fatboy Slim I love so much? Maybe that I get lost in his music. It's a body happening, taking me, even if I'm walking in pitch darkness in the icy cold (like last night--I walked two miles), with my iPod on, into a club. I just feel it through my whole body, and if you were ever a club kid, if you ever spent time haunting major dance clubs in NYC (like me), then you know what I mean. The music is in you and through you, and you can dance like nobody else is there.

Which brings me to reading. And writing.

First reading. I tend to find new obsessions the way I do music. I never download something on my iPod that I "sort of" like. My iPod, all thousand-plus songs of it, is a friggin' work of art. I have a "club music" playlist, a jazz one, a bigbeat one. To make the cut, the music has to rock--or it has to haunt (like Howard Shore's Eastern Promises soundtrack). But if it's club music, it has to be awesome. As my significant other said, "You should be a gay club DJ." (I once did a DJ stint in the roughest bar in town, where they put me on a platform, with a ladder, and then told me to pull up the ladder so no one could start a fight with me over the music--but that's another story.) I take that as the HIGHEST compliment because everyone knows gay dance clubs are the hottest in town. So when I find a new author I like, just like a new artist, I want their backlist, their frontlist. I want to know what inspired them. I want to read everything I can get my hands on that they ever wrote--I'll read their 7th-grade term papers if that's available.

Now, just like my iPod, it's tough to make the cut. I mean Fatboy is the king. Oakenfold--he's got ONE good song. But Fatboy has depth. I have an Oakenfold song, but not a LIBRARY of his greatest work. Same with books. Everything ever written by Margaret Atwood. I went on a Neil Gaiman kick. Have been toying with a graphic novel obsession thanks to my best friend, Pammie, who got me into it. Unfortunately, for me, I have never liked some of the people with the thickest backlists. I don't like being scared, so I don't tend to read Stephen King. Don't like James Patterson, though he can do what he does well. As far as reading, it mostly applies to nonfiction subjects. I have piles of astronomy texts, as well as physics. And I adore that my oldest daughter loves physics as well, since we go to B&N's science section and buy out almost everything they have there. And no matter how many books I read on physics, I don't get bored of it. At least not yet. Just as Fatboy continues to amaze me so much I'd like to have his baby.

And writing. I don't think I ever have a day where I write a page and go do something else. It's either "the zone" or nothing. I write in bursts--10 pages of it just flying . . . or nothing. It's an obsession that day--like, I have this flash of what passes for genius in my world, and I must get it down on paper. I can't let it go.

Or . . . as often happens. I have the flash of what I want to do. But then Demon Baby wreaks havoc in my office, and Older Boy needs to be picked up from martial arts, and Younger Daughter needs help with math. But . . . like all good obsessions, it's there, percolating. Until I can sit down and let it burst out of me. Just because Fatboy Slim isn't playing right now (because my parents are still sleeping, and I don't want to wake them . . . and let me tell you, my dad's new thing is needing DESSERT every night, so now I have to go out to the grocery store and stock up on pies and ice cream!) . . . but just because Fatboy isn't playing doesn't mean his beats aren't on my mind.

So I read, write, and listen to music all the same way. With passion, intensity, obsessive streaks . . .

And you?