I Wanna Get Back

I jog about every day and I've found the best way for me to make it through my 33 minute and 34 second run (3.54 miles) is to completely disappear inside your head. The more you're distracted or daydreaming, the more you forget the pain coursing through your body. An iPod can be an invaluable ally in that fight.

The problem is I'm not necessarily a music guy. I don't seek out new bands, I don't find new music to spark my interest. I'm open to suggestions, but the old standbys can sometimes make it three or four months on my jogging rotation without a break. It can get old quick. To that end, I've been experimenting with old music which haven't passed my eardrums in, literally, years, and I struck on something strange.

Weezer's "Pinkerton" wasn't just great fuel for ignoring pain, especially for me, but the entire album is just a fraction over my 33 minute 34 second time frame.

A quick bit of background - I'm a semi-big Weezer fan and Pinkerton, famously dubbed "great dance music for agoraphobics" came out in 1996 when I was a freshman in college and was sort of floundering around campus pulling bad grades and getting it on with whatever would have me. You read that right.

If the album had a concept, it was basically my life at that time. "This is beginning to hurt...this is beginning to get serious?" Check. "Why bother, it's gonna hurt me, it's gonna kill when you desert me." Big Check. "I'm dumb, she's a lesbian." One of the greatest rhymes ever, and no comment. I wish I had been taking notes as I ran, but I was too busy trying not to fly off the treadmill and onto the wrought iron coffee table immediately behind me. It hurts a lot. Here's an approximation:

:52 seconds - This is a song that never gets old.

4:50 - I can't believe what you've done to me

It's strange, but I swear to God I can smell Randall Hall. It's where I lived my Freshman year and left promptly after a liberal arts major whose name is long gone puked on me right after my finals. I don't think I ever set foot in that building. I remember bad furniture, hard floors, a big, unsturdy loft, and a TV you had to crane your head crawl into the loft to watch properly.

What I did to them, you've done to me

I wasn't a very nice guy, but I found some nice friends.

6:32 - My girl don't see me when she's with my friends/she's all I got and I don't want to be alone

God, I'm remembering now why I'm never really whistful for this time in my life. It was amazing, but there are some things I'd rather forget. It's odd how my head puts the stuff I want to remember in a different order. As I understand it, every time you remember something your brain re-creates it on the spot. I guess this part of my brain is barren. Pot? Drinking? None of the above.

11:31 - More than a mile in. "Across the Sea" is a song I never really connected with and used to fast forward. Now it's my favorite on the album. I still don't connect with it, but the crescendo it builds to is almost unmatched. I'm also remembering why I gravitated away from Weezer over the years. I'm not nearly as big a fan of feeling sorry for myself as I used to be. It's a hobby that can take a lot of time if you let it, and I let it. I used to actually carve out time to wallow about exes. When I studied, I'd go for 90 minutes and allow myself a 10-minute period where dread and fear would wash over and nearly drown me. Then back to memorizing genus and species for that god-awful biology class.

I could never touch you...I think it would be wrong

I never related to this song.

18:04 - "The Good Life" is a great song to run to, but I realize now I've superimposed my own lyrics over it for years.

It's been a year or two since I was out on the floor

I might never go back on the floor. There's a sobering thought.

21:43 - I once got the attention of a young lady by e-mailing her lines of "El Scorcho," one at a time. She wrote me back wondering what I was doing, but I kept sending her the lyrics. I was soooo smoove. It worked, though. Well.

I think we'd make a good team/And you would keep my fingernails clean

Well, not everything can stand up.

26:00 - On the home stretch, and greeted by "Pink Triangle." God, I have a history with this song. Apparently I was drawn to lesbians in college. One, in particular, I fell for really hard because she was worldly, wordy and in control. I'm about 99 percent sure if I ever saw her again, I'd have the same reaction John Cusack had in "High Fidelity" to the Catherine Zeta-Jones character, to wit "my god, she's self-absorbed and obnoxious." At the time, she was the moon and the stars.

I have a confession about the next song, "Falling For You." A girl I knew hadn't heard the album. I was sure of it. So one night, while we lay on her single bed (how did we ever sleep on those), I recited some of the lyrics to that song. I'm not brave enough to say which ones. I'm sure you can figure it out. I'm genuinely embarrassed. I mean, genuinely. Red ears and everything. It's these kind of memories that make me want to poke a hole in my head and use a drill bit to remove the memories. If only I had a powerful grasp on the centers of the brain.

I can't believe how bad I suck, it's true/But I do like you and you like me too

Couldn't have said it better myself.

32:30: Just a few seconds left, but "Butterfly" is not helping. This song is like a great B-movie - awful on it's face but genius in a few, carefully selected spots. My brain is also deprived of oxygen and my side hurts. I'll save it for another day.

And tomorrow, I'm listening to something else.

Smell you on my hand for days/I can't wash away your scent/If I'm a dog then you're a bitch

Damn you, Cuomo.