By FRANCISCO E. JIMENEZ
Staff Writer
reporter@sbnewspaper.com
Francisco E. Jimenez
I have writer’s block. Bad.
Normally this isn’t a problem, but being that I have a deadline to meet, and beers to drink, I am becoming more agitated by the minute.
I flip through a stack of books I have on my desk looking for inspiration. Anything. That one spark of electricity that will turn on the light bulb in my brain.
“What would Chuck Klosterman write?” I ask myself as I flip through one of his many books of essays and interviews.
Nothing.
“What about Hunter S. Thompson?”
Nothing.
As I watch the minutes drip away like a precious water through a hole in a canteen in the middle of a hot desert, I suddenly realize that I’ve had the same album playing on repeat for close to four hours now. The album I am referring to is Radiohead’s “In Rainbows” – an album so beautiful, so haunting that it still gives me chills when I listen to it five years later.
Suddenly I am taken back to that time in my life. A time when I was working part-time at a local home-health clinic doing clerical work, and always looking forward to the weekend. That album takes me back to a time when I was old enough to be responsible, but not responsible enough to consume alcohol (legally). Most weekends were spent at a friend’s house, trying to decide on what to do; where to meet girls and where to get into trouble without actually getting into trouble.
When worse came to worst, we sometimes found ourselves “ghost hunting.” A friend and I became completely obsessed with a show called “A Haunting” on the Discovery Channel. In fact, we got so “serious” about “ghost hunting” we actually drove all the way to Toys R Us in McAllen to find a glow in the dark Ouija board. I had always wanted to try one, not that I necessarily believed in its ability to communicate with the departed, but it was that interest in the unknown that made us all victims of our own curiosity.
That first night, flashlights in hand and girls to impress, we ventured to a building that was supposedly abandoned and was purported to be haunted. You know how these old buildings always have some ridiculous story about some horrific death. Inside the building, we found an old, steel spiral staircase that creaked and moved with every step leading to the second floor (I can recall immediately regretting this decision to climb the staircase by the 15th step), so naturally that’s where we went. The upstairs room was exactly as you’d imagine it, empty, dusty and disturbingly quiet. We sat down in a circle, laid out the Ouija board, and proceeded to communicate the spirits of all sorts (allegedly).
This went against everything I had been brought up to believe, and whether or not we were actually communicating with an alleged “evil spirit.” We were obviously venturing into territory that people should not take so lightly. Yet we did, and we did so more than once. The Ouija board went from house to house, (I seem to recall my mother being very upset at me taking it out during a hurricane and was eventually lost. I have no recollection as to who stayed with it, and sometimes during reunions with those old friends we try to trace back our steps to see who had it last. But it’s gone. Lost. And probably for the better.
As “In Rainbows” begins yet another round of music, I am immediately taken back to that dusty abandoned room – that old, musky smell. The adrenaline rush of doing something that may or may not have been really dangerous. It’s funny how music has that affect. It was fun for a while, but it was really stupid. Oh yeah, but “In Rainbows” is still awesome.
What was I writing about again?
Read this story in the Jan. 27 edition of the San Benito News, or subscribe to our E-Edition by clicking here.
Recent Comments