O P I N I O N

NOT THAT PROFOUND

By Nathan Graziano

For some reason, I experience a vast amount of existential dread—a fear of an eternal abyss—while driving to work each morning.

I can’t imagine that this is an idiosyncrasy.

I’m willing to bet that the combination of listening to morning show deejays cackle at fart sounds, along with the “dead man walking” sensation of knowing you’ll be at work for the next eight hours is enough to make most people contemplate the darker questions involving our shared human condition.

For example, some mornings I’ll be driving on I-93 North for a five-minute stretch at 6:45 a.m., and I’ll take a sip of my coffee then wonder exactly how long it will take after I’m buried until I experience my second death, or the last time someone says my name.

As you might imagine, these queries don’t give birth to a sunny disposition when I arrive at work. I have a tendency to be sullen, slightly aloof and low-grade anxious until at least 9 a.m., or whenever the coffee and anxiety meds kick in.

But on the way to work last week, I stumbled upon a radio station that was actually playing music. It was playing Steely Dan’s “Do It Again,” and although I was never a Steely Dan enthusiast—I did, however, have a prose poem in one of my books involving Steely Dan that I’ll include at the end of this column[1]—I found myself singing along, smiling ever-so-slightly.

When I got to work that day, I wasn’t the human manifestation of a puppy’s tears. I was ever-so-slightly pleasant to my students and colleagues.

I remember reading somewhere about music’s effect on a person’s mood, and how listening to pleasing or calming music can make the brain produce dopamine and serotonin.

So how does Steely Dan—a band named after a sex toy in William S. Burrough’s 1959 novel “Naked Lunch”—get those positive brain chemicals cranking? Why does listening to “Bad Sneakers” at the break of dawn suddenly and inexplicably elevate my mood?

I have no clue.

Perhaps it’s a latent longing to return to the 1970s, a decade that ended when I was 4 years old and so I’m incapable of appreciating fondue parties and Quaaludes and Jimmy Carter’s presidency.

Maybe it’s simply soft rock that does it for me. After almost 49 years of angry head-banging, maybe Donald Fagen’s jazzy keyboard solos soothe a side of me that I’ve neglected.

I’m sure that I haven’t discovered a panacea for the malaise of waking up for work each morning, but I’ve stumbled onto something that seems worth tracking. Now if only I can find a leisure suit, a fondue fountain and some old school Quaaludes, perhaps I’ll finally bury that existential dread.

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[1] “Two Kisses”

When Cobain left us dental records, we softened to Steely Dan that summer. On the ride to work in Todd’s van, the four of us passed a joint, our aprons stained with ash and ketchup.

In the back, beside the paint cans, I sat with a girl I loved for two weeks. The sunlight shot like a tongue through the circle window as “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number” rattled from the speakers’ lips. It grew too much, and we kissed. Once.

Last night, while shivering with a fever, I kissed her again, trying to recapture the taste of warmth.

from After the Honeymoon (Sunnyoutside, 2009)

You can reach Nathan Graziano at ngrazio5@yahoo.com