My hands felt just like two balloons

December 29, 2007 was an unremarkable day.  I woke around 8AM, feeling entirely uninterested in the day ahead of me.  I felt rather rotten, so I asked for the option to go back to sleep.  Unfortunately my request was denied and I sauntered out of my room and made my way to the kitchen.

I dropped some toast into the toaster and threw two eggs in a pan.  Eating quickly, I got dressed in baggy snow pants and a large winter jacket.  After piling all of my gear into the car, I left my home in South Burlington, and began the 45 minute drive to Smuggler' Notch where my family and I had a great day of skiing ahead of us.  As my father pulled out of the driveway I, being a college freshman, turned my iPod on and selected the song "Comfortably Numb" by Pink Floyd.  As I listened to Roger Waters sing I couldn't help but think how this song resonated with me.

"Hello, is there anybody in there? Just nod if you can hear me.  Is there anyone home?"

As it was still early morning, and I was a bit ill, it felt as though Roger Waters was talking directly to me, asking if I was still alive.  Feeling tired, I took out my earbuds, turned off my iPod, and slept for the remainder of the drive.

Fast forward about nine hours, I was on the slopes, feeling like a God.  Skiing is a truly fluid activity which generates the most euphoric feeling.  Unfortunately, during my last run of the day, I payed to much attention to how happy I was, and not enough attention, to the heavier snow caused by warmer temperatures at the bottom of the mountain.  I hit a heavy patch of snow and landed directly on my right shoulder.  I stood up embarrassed and reached for my poles, which I had dropped.  I immediately realized I was in trouble when I couldn't lift my arm.  I skied down the remainder of the mountain and went directly to ski patrol who phoned my father and informed him that I needed to go to a hospital.

After the most painful drive of my entire life (cobblestones are an injured person's worst nightmare), I arrived at Burlington Hospital and was immediately taken for an x-ray.


The doctor explained that I had one of the worst broken collar bones he had ever seen, and immediately handed me two horse-pills, which should stop the pain.

As I left the hospital, things began to change.  I turned my iPod back on, and all of my pain began to disappear.  It was as though Roger Waters was speaking directly to me.


"O.K. just a little pinprick, there'll be no more aaaaaaah!"  Everything felt so surreal.  There was no pain, I was merely receding.  Everyone's lips were moving, but I couldn't hear what they were saying.

I had truly become, "Comfortably Numb"

Oh J-Zone, you so fly!

     J-Zone, in his post 5 Things That Killed Hip-Hop, exhibits a great deal of nostalgia toward the 1990's Hip-Hop scene.  In the first half of reason 1, 'Clans, Posses, Crews & Cliques: Who U Wit?' J-Zone claims that one of the reasons for Hip-Hop's decline is the necessity, as an artist, to have a "crew" and constantly collaborate with other artists.  He cites albums by Run DMC and Da Youngstas, as the first groups to do this, explaining that "it worked back then...  but it wound up being a cancer" (Petracca 68).  This type of fondness for the past is very similar to Richard Hoggart's fondness for his childhood displayed in his work The Uses of Literacy.  Hoggard talks about the "traditional working-class culture [of the 1930s being] under threat from the new forms of mass entertainment of the 1950s" (Storey 38).  Storey elaborates on this and explains that while Hoggard was writing the book he said "nostalgia was colouring the material in advance: I have done what I could to remove its effects" (ibid.).  This shows that nostalgia weighed heavily on the works of Hoggart even though he tried to avoid it.  In the introduction to 5 Things That Killed Hip-Hop, J-Zone actually provides an excellent example of how nostalgia can warp our opinions of the past.  He states that "For the record, the politics at major labels, press and radio are not listed here because they've been around since the beginning of time" (Petracca 67) implying that most would look at the past so fondly that they would overlook problems that were already in existence.

    J-Zone began briefly to discuss the idea of "taste" in this work and made some excellent points while doing so.  He explained that what the Hip-Hop industry needs is to chill out.  Not everybody needs to be seen as a drug-dealing thug, with a '64 Cadillac sitting on 26" rims.  It is okay for an artist to have fun with his work and and discuss funny or silly ideas in their lyrics.  There is a great deal of good music out there today, that exhibits artists having a good time, but as J-Zone points out, most of it gets buried within the swarm of thugnificent, gangstalicious, murderizing, hood-music.  When seen in his neighborhood, located down the street from where 50 cent was born, J-Zone was confronted by a fan who proclaimed, "Yo I ain't know you was in it like that, yo why you ain't tryin to pump your shit out here and let people know, you should rep the hood? 50 did it" (Petracca 70).  His response could not have been better.  "Why should I." I completely agree with him; why should he discuss topics that he feels are overused and uninteresting to him.  I, like J-Zone, view music is an escape from everyday life, so if he wanted to write a song about how much he loves unicorns, then why the hell not?