Well, I am not sure if you noticed or not, but I haven’t updated the station since last Sunday. Reason being, I spent the last five days at Myrtle Beach in South Carolina. That Drifters song, “I’ve Got Sand In My Shoes” kept repeating itself over and over in my head over the past week.  No matter what people may say, the best time to go to the beach is a week or two after Labor Day. The crowds and tourists are gone. The shore is empty. All you have is cool ocean breezes, the geriatric crowd and plenty of space and time to make memories. All you need is a blanket, a bottle of wine and your love, and nature will provide the rest. Skies dappled with starlight. The sound of the ocean rushing up and crashing upon the shore. Lock it away, that memory. Because another one just as good may be a long time in coming. The greatest thing about a vacation is that it reminds you that life is not all cubicles and flourescent lighting. There is beauty out there.

Oh, the boardwalk’s deserted
There’s nobody down by the sho-o-o-o-ore
And the ferris wheel ride isn’t turning around any m-o-ore-ore-ore
The heat wave and the crowds are just old new-ooh-ews
But I’ve still got some sand in my shoes

I am reading the book “the conquest of happiness” by Bertrand Russell, and for some reason, one particular sentence struck a chord within me this evening.

Boredom is therefore a vital problem for the moralist, since at least half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it

This society that we live in, slathered in affluence and ennui. What chance do we have? How many of our vices exists simply due to the fact that we are bored? The common phrase you hear about American marriages is that half of them end in divorce. The number one cause of divorce is extra-marital affairs. How many of these affairs are born out of boredom? Affairs allow one to use their imagination. The tediousness of marriage is obscured by that radiant glow of passion and romance and secrecy. It’s like a game in many instances. How far can I go before I am caught? One is bolstered by the idea that they share a secret with one other person that no one else can know about. There is a certain thrill in placing your entire life onto a precipice and watching as is teeters back and forth. Even the knowledge of the destruction it could cause is dampened by the excitement of it all. Alcohol, gambling, drugs. How many people indulge in these vices simply because they are so dissatisfied with their own lives?

Russell even suggests that  ”Wars, pogroms, and persecutions have all been part of the flight from boredom, even quarrels with neighbors have been found better than nothing.” I have friends who feel they must constantly be on the go. They loathe boredom, complacency. They despise those moments alone, silent moments when they are forced to look at themselves and see that they are sprinting in a race they can not win. Happiness is not brought about by constant movement, nor is it kept at bay by inertia. The people who drink to avoid inertia become over-indulgers and ultimately their lives do become nothing but inert as their only goal becomes feeding their habit. The same can be said for gamblers and drug users. The adulterers ultimately find that the excitement from an elicit affair can not last forever. Now, they find themselves faced with a reminder of their infidelity, or, if they are caught, they are emotionally and financially decimated. Quarrels often end in bloodshed. And the thrill seekers often find that they have bit off more than they can chew.

I am not above the fray, that fight against ennui. I struggle with it myself, especially now that I am in my thirties. When you are young, you have time to dream and you are still idealistic enough to believe that your dreams can come true. As you get older, your dreams and your destiny are no longer synonymous terms. They are two entities staring each other down. You begin to wonder if they can co-exist. On some days, it seems your dreams don’t have a chance and destiny tells you that your new friend is mediocrity. And that is when the boredom creeps in. Mediocrity is an annoying companion. Not at all encouraging like your dreams. Your dreams are always ahead of you, beckoning you to follow. Mediocrity is right beside you, telling you to go back to sleep.

Russell suggests that a quiet life occasionally interrupted by brief moments of excitement is the ideal life for man. Too much excitement “dulls the palate for every kind of pleasure”. How can you appreciate life if you are always trying to outrun it? The quiet moments are perfect times for introspection. Instead of moments of boredom, they can be moments of  epiphany. Great novels, music scores, works of art. At what moments were these accomplishments achieved?

As Russell concludes and I concur:

A happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life, for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy can live.

 

This week I added a few tunes from the cd entitled “A Point Of Departure” by the Phill Argyris Quartet (http://www.myspace.com/phillargyrisquartet). There is some truly inspired music on these cds and some really nice ballads as well. His cut of “Body & Soul” is especially good, in my opinion.

Mr. Argyris was nice enough to send me three of his cds. I thought that instead of holding onto the two extras myself or giving them to friends, I would pass them along to my listeners. So…I will give the two extra cds to the first two listeners who are interested. Just email me at emadmin@eveningmelancholy.com and put TPAQ CD Requests in the subject header and I will get back to you and get your shipping info.

When both cds have been promised to someone, I will post here and let everyone know.

I have decided to make the EM Music page and EM Video page. I will make the change soon and will include all the jazz videos and vocalists I come across on the web, especially those from YouTube and Google video. I figure it would be nice to have one place to find all the great videos of legends past.

I am adding a category here on the blog for my MySpace musician friends. I wanted to make a page on the site, but I simply could not think of anything that would be aesthetically pleasing. 

 

Cruising around You Tube, I came upon this forgotten gem. The first time I saw Vernel Bagneris lip-sync “Pennies From Heaven” in the movie of the same name, I realized that musicals were actually not that bad. In fact, I got the movie just for this sequence. I love it. The actual singer is Arthur Tracy who recorded this sometime in the 30’s, I believe.