THE LIFE OF A TEMP is one of long periods of boredom interrupted by rapid, uncontrollable change. After two months of sitting inside my beige semi-cube and staring at my computer, having (in a very literal sense) no work to do, I think I'm starting to lose my eyesight. At this point, I hardly care. Another consequence of my vagrancy is binge listening to my Compact Disc collection. For example, today I listened to the entire seven disk Miles Davis collection, and now I feel like I'm on LSD. Change of any kind is most welcome, but at the same time I am certain that this is the most obnoxious jazz ever recorded.
I bought this box set during a brief period of financial solvency a few years back, and, in retrospect, it seems like such a bitter waste. The impetus was that I really enjoyed the MD Quintet's studio recordings (e.g. E.S.P., Miles Smiles, and Filles de Kilimanjaro), but these albums are different. Instead of playing their new compositions, they're running through the typical Miles standards, which would be fine, except that these musicians seem not to be paying much attention to each other. My aunt likes to tell the story about how she saw Miles play in the 80's, and how he wandered around the stage pointing his trumpet at the ceiling or into the back corner of the stage, bleating a note occasionally and completely ignoring the audience. Well, these albums lay the foundation for his later performances. I guess that's what you get when you like music by people that do a lot of drugs; it can be hit or miss. Well, this is one interminable miss. (FYI: he's still a genius.)
Nutritional Equivalent:
a whole bag of almost-stale pretzels
