I remember when I first started losing my hearing. I was playing acey-duecy with Julio Velasquez, who many years later took me to the Playboy Club. This one of many strange games we used to play that involved a Spaulding pink rubber ball and a stoop or a wall or a brookstick. There were variants of all these games with various names like Jack, King, Queen and Stoops and Blood Ball and Kick the Fuck Out of Whatsisname.
We also had brutal games involving bottle caps, pop sticks, and cards. Knucks was one of those, but that's another post.
I can't remember the specifics of the game I was playing when Julio hit me smack on in the left ear with the Spaulding, but it tore fuck all out of the side of my ear drum. I didn't know this at the time, of course. I didn't actually find out about the tear until I was 34 or 35 and tore the thing again when a drunk, crippled, motherfucker ran a red light and totaled Mrs. Faustroll's car with me alone in the driver's seat.
When the injury originally occurred back in Astoria in the mid-50s, I didn't think anything of it for a week or two until this foul-smelling slime started running out of the left ear. My mother tried treating it with a dropper full of cod liver oil mixed with hydrogen peroxide. This went on for a few dayss, until I started puking up some blood to go with the ear ooze.
So off I went to Dr. Bizarro — I can't remember his first name — who figured it was an ear infection and began giving me frequent penicillin injections until my arm began to turning colors that I later learned were slightly psychedelic.
Eventually my ear drum repaired itself. Imperfectly, of course. Every ten years or so, something would happen, and some asshole doctor decided to give me penicillin, which landed me in the hospital, or irrigate my left ear for wax removal, which led to an infection, which led to antibiotics, which landed me in the hospital.
Finally, I discovered pataphysics and decided being drunk or stoned or both was the most effective course of medical care in the nation of miserable fucks.
Occasionally, I would lose hearing in my left ear, and I would get terribly depressed that I would never again be able to experience the highs and lows of Led Zeppelin, The Five Intestines, Tangerine Dream, The Electric Prunes, Frank Zappa (in his various incarnations), Gong, Rupert Hine, Peter Hammill, Lothar and the Hand People, The Paragons, and The Jesters.
I still find interesting music being created, and I am glad that I can hear it, although I don't listen as much or as ardently as when getting laid was an important part of my day. I do usually listen to at least a few songs on one of the iPods while working, primarily to block out the noise around my cube.
And I occasionally post a playlist to iTunes, although I've yet to post one that Apple has all the components to reassemble. They have yet to reject anything I've posted, although they have censored the playlist title on occasion.
The one I posted last night is one I often listen to when I need to get away. You can find it at Bourne Again Muzak.
BTW, although Apple claims that they only keep playlists available for a year, I've found several that I posted years ago. The music remains good. Politics is poopadoodle and community still sucks, particularly if it includes rightwingnuts.