I hear music all the time. Since I can remember.
All sorts of music.
Sometimes other people’s music. Sometimes my music.
Sometimes my music has helicopters in it.
The thwap-thwap-thwap, thwap-thwap-thwap, thwap-thwap-thwap.
I’m forty-three years old and I’ve written 167 symphonies, 598 pop songs, 134 jazz numbers, fifty-six rock-and-roll/punk rock/heavy metal riffs. I can mix records on three turntables at a time and I’m the only creator, as far as I know, of a scratch-dub-trap-hip-hop opera. I’ve written twelve of them.
But I haven’t written anything in a year. I’m at a standstill. I hear partial music—bits of songs in my head, but I don’t hear what I used to. There are instruments missing.
I miss Kenneth since he left us. I miss Kenneth because there weren’t supposed to be any departures. Once you come here, you stay here. That’s the deal. Kenneth broke the rules and left. In doing so, he reminded me why I wrote twelve scratch-dub-trap-hip-hop operas.
The whole idea is to break the rules. The whole idea is to break the fucking rules. So I stopped. Time stopped. Everything is focused on departure.
And today I hear a song. Today’s song has helicopters.
This can mean only one thing.
Arrivals.