Playlist for Monomania

I get wired via music. I don't drink or smoke or do drugs, so I use music to amp me up before a public appearance. Yes, sex is wonderful, but it relaxes me...I don't need to be relaxed to perform, I need to be on the verge of exploding in gouts of electic violet flames, I need to be toying with a coronary.

I used to depend on the radio, but with the advent of the iPod age (thank you, Steve Jobs...when the histories are written, Bill Gates will be remembered as another robber baron, amoral businessman predator who got forced by tax laws to give to charity...you and Woz will be seen as the guys who ushered in the digital renaissance)...I jack myself into my own mixes, selecting the pieces by the mood I want invoked in me.

So now I am working on my mix for December 14th's launch party for the new books and CDs. The stock is ordered, I have no control over my publisher or the US Postal Service, I am tanned, rested and ready...now is the time to fill the parfait glass with what I want to serve.

I wouldn't dream of using my own recordings to the purpose. I still barely tolerate my own voice, even when I know I nailed it. So what songs am I putting on my list? Still preliminary, but here's a serious list of some of the top contenders, based on the attitude they invoke in me.

"Crash Into Me" by The Dave Matthews Band. Brings out my melancholy demons. It burns away my defenses and makes me malleable for the surface layers to be applied by the next selections. A song that makes me weep when I am caught with my guard down.

"Living on the Edge" by Aerosmith. Driving and actually with a malevolent prophecy. Brings the darkness just to beneath the skin, where I want it, so I can feed on the ego. This gives me the energy I need for the rest of the process.

"If" by Janet Jackson. Unapologetically erotic, with a driving rhythm (as good sex should have). A non-brainer straight from the loins. Again, a supplication to my darker self.

"Criminal" by Fiona Apple. A trick of the light with mirrors and smoke. I used to go to a lot of movies, by myself, when I first was divorced. I would sit in the movie theatre at the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica and this song was always playing before the films there. When I let it in, it bends time and I regain the feral sadness of those days. I need that, the unemcumbered romantic, in some degree. The tear on the face of the assassin.

"Heart and Soul" by T'pau. What? Ye, I know. But this immensely listenable romantic piece of pop has the right blend of complexity, romanticism and rhythm to scrape away the last vestiges of the day to day as they rise to the surface.

"Fire Down Below" by Bob Seger. Pelvic rock at its best. Changes the way I walk when I listen to it.

"Slide" by The Goo Goo Dolls. Another emotional snapshot. Watching a lover dance. The energy, the beauty, the surreality of it all. The sorrow of lost opportunities, the joy in the moment. It reminds me of where and with whom I have been. It makes me grateful for life and love.

"Pope" and "The Cross" by Prince. The rhythm and drive of the former, the introspection, the spirituality and energy of the latter. The dichotomy that drives all great art: the flesh and the divine.

"Battle Flag" by Lo Fidelity All Stars. Disconnecting from the real world, powering up like Tony Stark at a wall plug, my armor of the illusions invoked by the power of the music matched only by the sound of my own heartbeat in my ears. Adrenaline going into OD mode.

"When the Night Comes" by Joe Cocker. Time to seal it all in with a varnish of pure invincibility. There's something about this performance off of "Joe Cocker Live" that makes me feel like I am standing naked in the roar of the winds off the high desert in the Morongo Valley, like I am hardwired into the universe, indestructible and immortal. And that's what you need when you are about to face an audience.

Okay, I'm ready. The argent sergeant has slipped into his costume, his shell, his mask. Gimme the frigging microphone.