"The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you."--David Foster Wallace

An interesting thing happened this morning. The lady of the house, in her daily preparations for work, likes to put on a radio in the bathroom so she'll have something to listen to whilst in the shower. At any rate, as she climbed in, I went outside to smoke a stoge. I couldn't tell you what station she managed to tune to this morning, but what I do know is that when I came back in the house I could hear the faint sounds of a perfectly hideous pop-country song emanating from the bathroom. Knowing full well she was probably going cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs inside the shower stall, I went in to see about changing the station. We joked briefly about how terrible the song was as I adjusted the tuner on the radio, until finally I landed on a classical station. "Here you go," I said, "This'll do you good." To wit she replied, "What, are you trying to make me smarter or something?" Which, of course, translates from Woman Speak into English as, "Are you calling me stupid?" Even though we both agreed that the selection playing made us feel less cultured and more as though we were listening to a commercial for dish soap, I left the dial alone and exited the bathroom.

As I continued to listen to the music wafting in from the next room, I remembered a discussion I had in high school with my great friend, Ulf, an exchange student from Hamburg. For whatever reason, we were talking about classical music. The original impetus for the conversation now escapes me, but what I can recall went a little something like this:

Me: You know something? I kind of like classical music. How about you?

Ulf: Yeah, it's ok. Who's your favorite composer?

Me: If I had to pick, I'd say Rachmaninov.

Ulf: That's because you're a fuckin' communist, Nevin. Only fuckin' communists
listen to Rachmaninov.

Me: [Laughing] Well, who's your favorite?

Ulf: Wagner.

Me: Well, that figures. Because you're a fascist, and only goddamn fascists
listen to Wagner.

[Both Laughing]

Ulf was/is a great guy. I remember the day he introduced me to Guinness. I was forever banging on about my Irish heritage, so I suspect that had something to do with it. As he handed me my first bottle, he said things like, "This what we Germans call 'sweet beer,' because it has so much alcohol it tastes like wine," "This is a man's beer, Nevin. You have to be a man to drink this beer. If you're not a man, it will make you one," and, my personal favorite, "This is the beer of your people, Nevin. You have to like it." Fuckin' priceless. It took all I had to disguise my disgust for the black, frothy ale as I drank it and replied simply, "It's really good." What I really wanted to do was get as far away from the stuff as humanly possible. Who knew that, 15 years later, it would rate inside my top 10 favorite beers of all time? But, I digress.

What I really wanted to talk about was, despite our differences being both cultural and ideological, the truth that held us together was a universal one. That is to say, what kept us friends was the universal truth of music. You see, despite the fact that every time he played country music in his Jeep Wrangler I wanted to kill myself, and despite the fact that every time I played rap music in my parents' Ford Probe he probably wanted to kill me, we both shared a love of obnoxiously loud rock and roll.

As the morning progressed, I continued to think about the transcendent nature of music. I thought about Beethoven and his deafness. I thought about how, impassioned by his composition and the orchestra in his head which played it perfectly, he closed his eyes and flailed his arms, never seeing the musicians in front of him fumbling and failing to keep up. I mulled over how, as an amateur bassist myself, rewarding it is to hear a piece of music in your head that nobody else has heard before and then pick an instrument and release that music into the world. I also mused at Beethoven's ultimate irony. The poor bastard must have been traumatized by going deaf, and you can hear it in his music. In every movement of every symphony he produced after afterward he's all over the map, emotionally speaking. And, therein lies the crux of his greatness and it's irony. The thing is, had he not been a man whose sole passion in life was music who went deaf, experiencing trauma of epic proportions, would he still have produced his Ninth Symphony? I sincerely doubt it, and just the thought of it all still gets me a little misty eyed.

Think about it. If you look at small children, as young as a year or two in age, it's impossible for them to express an understanding of music and dance. But, even if they don't know what dance is, even if they've never seen it on TV, what happens when a song they like comes on the radio? Invariably, no matter what country they come from or what language they speak, they'll try to dance. Something about a pleasing melody and exciting rhythm just makes them want to move. Music is one of those rare things that is both unique and universal to the human experience. It's hardwired into our DNA. I once related that observation to the brother of a friend over beers at Fadó Irish Pub in Austin. His response was, "Wow, that's actually really insightful." I was flattered, but made sure to sound humble by replying, "Well, I'm sure somebody else noticed that before I did, but it's just something I've been thinking about lately."