Whatcha got?

Out of nowhere today, I started whistling Michael Penn's "No Myth" in the shower. I even whistled the guitar solos, which are great and blend seamlessly into some of those great little Patrick Warren Chamberlain circus noises. If you don't know what I'm talking about, then you're not part of the club.

To confess to a conceit, I didn't really start whistling it out of nowhere. I've been playing and singing Michael Penn songs since I was a teenager. So it's not like it sprang to mind from some strange MTV flashback. What was really strange about it was that just whistling it, I felt that weird magic that his music has exercised on me, off and on, over the years. I go through lulls where it doesn't do much for me. And then they end. I think the lull ended tonight.

There are enough of us out there to keep the man from having to beg his wife for lunch money, probably. But still not so many of us that we run into each other with any great frequency. I briefly fell in love with a girl in high school because we sat and exchanged favorite Penn verses and riffs. When I bought his long-awaited second album, the guy behind the counter was a Penn fan and punched up my "Buy 10 CDs get one free!" card with illicit holes. There was a quiet, excited feeling of conspiracy, like Masons doing a secret handshake.

For me, Penn is one of those artists whose #1 tracks remain special for life. By which I mean that the opening notes of the first song of each album give me as much joy as I felt slipping the dress off my high school girlfriend. Because just like with the dress, they represented the achievement of something I'd been wishing for and waiting for for so long. No Myth, but especially the others-- Long Way Down, Try, Lucky One, Walter Reed.

Just a little magic, courtesy of the man with the guitar and the crazy brother. A little something I got.

Is this thing on?

All right, you hardy souls. O ye who have not dropped me from your RSS feed. This is fair warning that I think I'm going to start writing again. I squeezed out a page or two earlier this week, and it didn't result in too much internal bleeding. Time to end the navel-gazing and go back to tossing these little letters out the window for whoever wants them.

So yeah. Keep your spectacles handy. Or something like that.