Home - Week 4 - Air Guitar

Several months ago I started putting together a playlist called "Air Guitar". It was going to be a collection of music that regardless of my mood I would bound to that infamous semi-stride pose, one hand plucking away at my thigh, the other hand stretched out from my shoulder with a slight bend at the elbow, fingers in arthritic positions, and all the while imagining I have wild hair as I bounce my head emphatically to the beat of the music.

With time on my hands I decided to go back to the list and see where it would take me. The first part of the list looked pretty good as it stood: Fat Bottomed Girls, Queen; Voodoo Chile (Slight Return0, Stevie Ray Vaughan; All Along the Watchtower, Jimi Hendrix; Over the Hills and Far Away, Led Zeppelin; and, Baba O'Riley, The Who. After some thought, I was missing some more recent tracks. So I added Alive by Pearl Jam. If you can keep your body still during this song, I know some good heart doctors you should talk to.

Recovering from surgery (and perhaps recovering from anything) is odd because you spend quite a bit of time just sitting there. For me it's sitting on my couch beside the fireplace. M. set me up with a pillow to put behind my back so that my feet touch the ground and I can maintain as best a posture as possible while I just sit there. I catch myself often just staring straight ahead. I give myself one of those head shakes that flaps the cheeks and jiggles the eyes back to focus. I pull my work table close to me and start looking at the playlist again.

I added something not so classic, but a great tune for playing it loud: Doesn't Remind Me, Audioslave. Again, if you can make it through this song without a foot tap or a little chin bounce, you need to give yourself one of the above head shakes. I liked where I was heading so I added Resurrection by Moist. Nowhere near a classic, but a great digression. I'm not going for a mixed tape history; this is an air guitar playlist. Every song is a whole new personal rock out session.

One of my favourite personal characteristics is that I digress in mid conversation. It must be annoying as hell for everyone else, but I'm fascinated how I can completely get off track often unable to return to the original thought. That's how I was starting to feel about this playlist and I embraced the digression and added What's the Frequency Kenneth by REM. I then thought Green Day. I had no GD. Whether you like them or not, the simple 3 chord nature of almost every song makes it impossible to not want to start plucking. Not in that classic way either. This is more of a bounce up and down pausing occasionally when you land to go from knee to waist in rapid succession with one hand while the other maintains the chord. Then back to the bounce. It was a hard choice, but I went with Welcome to Paradise.

Digression well in place I decided to brings things back with a few gems that don't get the recognition they deserve: Rockin' in the Free World, Neil Young; No Sugar Tonight, The Guess Who; Tom Sawyer, Rush (although I would describe this track more of an air drum than air guitar); and finally Detroit Rock City, Kiss.

I pushed the table back, adjusted my headphones, jacked the volume, moved my cursor up to track one and hit play. Then I just sat there... It didn't take long for fingers, hands and feet to start moving. With my mom in the room I wasn't prepared to start windmilling, jumping off the couch or kicking over furniture, but in my head I was in full air guitar mode.

The days are getting better. We're up to 2 full 40 minute walks a day. The pace is still slow, but there is progress. Sleep seems to be more difficult now, but I trying different tactics. My chest is still pretty numb; we met with the surgeon on March 26 and he was pleased with the x-rays and what he was hearing. My next big step is Rehab.