Ipod, youpod, we all pod for Ipod

My ipod has revolutionized my life.

Bold statement, I know. And not a very original one either—I’m sure the Apple marketing department is all over it. In fact, I’ve seen that commercial—the one that promises that the ipod will revolutionize your life. But as corny and as hokey (as corkey?) as the statement is, it’s so fucking true.

I was never a Walk-man boy. I’m sure I had one—I’m sure I had several—but the Walk-man always seemed clunky and awkward (clawkward?) to me. You know, I’d inevitably break that clip that you used to attach the Walk-man to your jeans, and I never wanted to lug around a bunch of tape cassettes (or cds, when I upgraded to the Disc-man) for variety, so I would use my Walk-man (or Disc-man) a couple of times and then I’d break the clip and throw it underneath my bed (because I never actually throw anything away).

But my ipod…well, first of all, it has 3,154 songs in it (8.3 days of consecutive listening!) and it has room for 5,000 songs (!), and it’s compact (it fits in my pocket—no clip!), and all of that, etc., etc., blah blah blah.

But that’s not why it’s so great. That’s not why I like it. That’s not why it has revolutionized my life. (Wouldn’t it be cool if ipod had employees whose job it was to sit at their computers all day and google the phrase “the ipod has revolutionized my life,” and every time they found someone who made that claim, they sent them another ipod?) (That would be cool.)

Anyway, the reason that my ipod has revolutionized my life is because it has, like, literally changed the way I look at the world.

When you listen to music on the stereo, or on your cd player, or whatever—you can have a groovy time, sure. But when I listen to music through those little white ipod earpieces that I shove into my ears…it’s like the music is inside me. (I can’t believe I just typed that sentence—I am so corkey.) (But, dude—it’s true: the music is inside me.)

I bet there are, like, scientific studies that prove that, if you shove those little white ipod earpieces into your ears just right, they’ll deliver the music into your brain—into, like, some specific cerebral cortex—and then the music will get pumped directly into your soul, or something. (Now that I started being corkey, I can’t stop.)

Anyway, the music is inside me, right? So then I walk around with my ipod blaring music into my soul and it starts to feel like it’s my own personal soundtrack. Like I’m in a movie. And this is where I get into the “how” part of the ipod revolutionizing my life. Living your life like it’s a movie…that’s a good way to live. Because in a good movie, there isn’t a single moment that’s not important—there isn’t a single moment that isn’t necessary to telling the story. Each moment is full. And life is like that too—or, it should be like that. But it isn’t like that because we spend so much time forgetting about how full life is. Like, we drive around in our cars and we get annoyed by the traffic and we worry about the bills and we fret about that important meeting we have at work tomorrow, but we forget to just breathe and enjoy simple things. At least, I do.

But I put my ipod on, and Bjork starts whispering “It’s Oh So Quiet” into my ears, and the music swells, and then suddenly the clouds in the sky, like, pop, and I look at them like I'm a little kid and I want to point and yell “cloud!” Or, like, I’ll be walking down the street and suddenly “Audrey’s theme” from Twin Peaks will start to ooze its way into me, and I’ll start feeling really sinister and sexy. Or I’ll be on the freeway, stuck in traffic, annoyed, and then all of the Muppets from The Great Muppet Caper will start manically singing “Happiness Hotel” and how could I possibly be annoyed by anything in the world after rocking out to “Happiness Hotel”?

Or, like, for instance, right now, if I didn’t have those little white ipod earpieces jammed into my ears, it would feel like I was just writing a blog entry. But since I do have the little white ipod earpieces jammed into my ear—since Joe Esposito is singing “You’re the Best” (the theme song to the original Karate Kid movie) directly to me—it feels like I’m writing a manifesto for, like, my life. Like, this is something that I’ll write up feverishly and then I’ll distribute it to everyone in the office—in my case, the coffeeshop—and people will read it, aghast, shocked that someone actually had the balls to say it—“live your life like it’s a movie”—oh my god, they’ll be so in awe of the brilliance of that concept and they’ll all read it and whisper to each other about it and then when I come into the office the next morning—in my case, the coffeeshop—they’ll all stand up and clap for me—well, some of them won’t stand, some of them won’t clap, some of them will think I’m just a corkey asshole—and, well, of course I’ll get fired for letting my beliefs be known--but, still, in the end I’ll get the girl, or the guy, as the case may be. And my life will be especially exciting and hip because the movie that is my life not only has Cameron Crowe's music supervisor, but it also has the music supervisor for Grey's Anatomy. So, you know, the music on my soundtrack is hecka good.

And, of course, none of that made much sense, and I should probably scrap this blog entry, but I can’t because I’ve been listening to Joe Esposito tell me:

"Try to be best,
‘cuz you’re only a man,
and a man’s got to learn to take it.

"Try to believe—
though the going gets rough—
that you gotta hang tough to make it.

"History repeats itself—try and you succeed.
Never doubt that you’re the one and you can have your dreams.

"You’re the best around, nothing’s ever gonna keep you down.
You’re the best around, nothing’s ever gonna keep you down.
(etc.)"

The way he sings it—to me, he’s seriously singing directly to me!—I totally believe him. I totally won’t let anything get me down. When the going gets rough, I’m absolutely gonna hang tough to make it. And the thing is, I’m a naturally optimistic person, but now that I have my ipod and I have a soundtrack and my life feels like a movie, well, I understand even more clearly that some moments in life are just establishing shots, and I realize that some moments in life are just planting other moments to pay off later, but each moment is important, and rich, and full of possibility.

That's why I love my ipod. Fuckin’ corkey, right?