Last Night an ex-Veejay Saved My Life

     Well actually, it was yesterday afternoon. A series of asinine events had decided to converge upon me no doubt answering some subconscious call for internal anarchy that I had issued against myself. The exercise bike refused to cooperate, a batch of brownies burned, and it was the one week anniversary of the death of one of our herd, our first loss in over eleven years.
     I was doing fine until I wasn't. For the next several moments, I made myself motion sick from climbing and just as rapidly descending all of the Twelve Steps of Whatever it is You Wished You Weren't Dealing With. I cried to the remaining dogs, I screamed at no one in particular, and then in a split second of blessed pathos, I remembered something. That something saved me.
     I owe it all to John Fugelsang. I will explain, but first let me offer him a gift in return. I pass along this little nugget of wisdom to all the baby-laden folks I know, even those with abnormally large babies. Post the following over your changing table, or whatever other location you find yourself returning to in your version of the Childrearing Passion Play:
   
          1. Is baby hungry?
          2. Is any article of clothing pinching baby?
          3. Does baby need a diaper change?

     I was in constant amazement at how easy it is for these obvious answers to fail to come to one when a small person is screaming the question. It was just as obvious that yesterday I needed an answer for my melancholy. I needed music, but not just any music. I needed to visit the Prophesy of Fugelsang in the Book of Mash-ups.
     If you know the genre, you will understand when I say that mash-ups are the perfect way to hear twenty songs in about six minutes, a good way to force your mind out of its comfort zone (get off your ass, hippocampus), and the only way in my humble opinion to hear today's equivalent of the great classical composers. For when my just-barely-teens were small, I would explain to them how classical pieces were full of movements and that those movements constituted the same elements as the paragraphs of a three- or a five-paragraph paper, or of the sermon of a Southern Baptist preacher. You start HERE, you travel around the edges to gather up the disparate pieces of cloth, then you sew it all up into a package. You bring it all home, as it were. I'm sure there are those who enjoy mash-ups about as much as I used to enjoy those sermons, but they refine the cloth for me, they stitch together colors and fabrics I had yet to consider.
     Since the news that Uncle Al had sold our beloved Current TV to Al-Jazeera, I had begun the task of preparing myself for survival, Steph-head style. I downloaded the TuneIn Radio app to my phone in preparation of going from TVland to Podcast Alley. In my distraught state, I had forgotten that particular arrow in my liberal quiver. I had TuneIn; I could go on a mission of discovery.
     John had introduced those of us in the listening/viewing audience to many of his favorite mash-ups some months ago when he was filling in for Stephanie Miller, and like a sinner running to salvation I found the Got Radio Mash-ups station. Boston's "More than a Feeling" and the Black-Eyed Peas' "I've Got a Feeling" wove new directions in my tapestry, followed by Lady Gaga meets the Human League, Soft Cell and the Dandy Warhols, The Doors and Blondie. After all, you gotta love your man, even if he is from Mars. Ninety minutes later I was feeling much more bohemian than tainted, my crying dissolving into dancing.
     Who knew that you could combine Loius Xiv, Fatboy Slim, Devo, and The Knack into "Finding Out Sharona Was Blind"? And who knew that the man with the most pompously wonderful TV hair since Andy Travis of WKRP in Cinncinnati could mend a broken heart, or save your soul, or hey, what about the BeeGees meet Jewel?
     So I wanna send a shout out of thanks to Mr. Fugelsang for helping me through my momentary lapse of reason yesterday. Like John Barleycorn, our Roxy (who had the big C) did have to die, but I know that when I get to that dark place again I can extricate myself: Never from the strands of white fur on purple couches nor the deep pawprints left on my heart, but certainly from the abyss and back to a place where I can recognize myself, same as I ever was.