These posts have been ready to roll out for a while, but unfortunately they have not been posted due to a volunteer’s unfortunate sickness. I had hoped to see them published in the order he wrote them. (There is a swath of several pages that appear between this Day 16 post and the last page posted in the original megapost here, which ended on Day 9) Since Dale posted some of the most recent, I’ll just go ahead and release all of these. Thanks to Garret Ean for the transcription:
Page 37
May 22 2012
Day 16Subject: The Day I Got A Radio
Anyone who has lived with me can tell you that I am always listening to music. It fills my bedroom, it follow me into the kitchen for a snack, it relaxes with me on the front porch. You know I’m about to enter a room as you hear the music (usually techno or oldies) volume swell.
Perhaps one of the reasons I have felt so alone these past weeks is because I have been without music. Music moves me. I like to dance. I like to sing. To be without music is to put blinders on my heart; I am only living and experiencing a fraction of existence.
One event which I look forward to the most is Free Keene Karaoke every Saturday night after Free Talk Live. It had been going on a long time before I arrived in Keene, but the past months, I’ve hijacked it, so to speak, taking requests, setting themes, awarding points and faux awards.
Today I got a radio. I flipped through the channels to see what stations come in through the thick jail walls. A tune which I recognized began to play. I tried to place where I had heard it before and then remembered: it was one of the songs which was sung at the last Free Keene Karaoke before I was caged.
The song playing was ‘Whiskey in the Jar-O’, and I had never heard it before. Rapsher introduced me that night, but hearing it again as I am locked in my cell brought me to tears. It’s not the only one. Now that I’m in jail, I’m learning how many songs are about the human emotion or experience of being trapped. Even though I am sitting in a cage, alone, I feel a moving sense of solidarity with the artists on the radio who are singing about their experiences feeling imprisoned, and I remember my friends, and I don’t feel so alone.
