Are you Listening?

Tom Waits and Pink Martini have new music out this week. Can't call them albums...can we still

call them CD's? How soon will EVERYTHING be digital?

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I heard Waits on Fresh Air with Terry Gross this week on NPR. I like him, but he can be hard to listen to with that gravelly voice. With Waits, the stuff I like I really, really like, and the stuff I don't, I really...don't. There is no inbetween. Pink Martini is a group I like to think that I like, but the truth is I don't. I like a few songs and that is about it.

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I'm getting to be an impatient music listener. Listening to Pandora...I get exposed to all kinds of music but I never really go all that deep into it. I just flick around... and flick and flick...it's like when you are watching TV and a whole half hour goes buy and you didn't "watch" anything.

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When I was a kid it would take me two weeks to save up to buy an album. They cost $6.35. As soon as I got it home I disappeared into my room with my headphones and that is pretty much

where I stayed until I listened to the whole thing over and over again. I can still tell you the order of songs on some classic rock albums, because I was used to hearing them that way. And, in my head at least, I knew every guitar riff, every nuance in the lead singer's delivery, just where a chorus kicked in, all the verses, etc.

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Now when I listen to things I punch around....I listen to stuff I know until I'm bored with that, then delve into something new until I tire of it and then I'm just done. Is everyone getting like this? Is my mind so fast paced now that I can't listen to an entire song without feeling this inner impulse that I could be listening to a "better" song...I just need to punch this button one more time?

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Maybe I need to hook up the turntable again. It was awfully difficult to switch songs if you are

on the floor with headphones on. You had to get up...open the cover, drag and drop the needle...

or flip over the album...or find another album...put the first one away...etc. Life was slower. Listening was...more like listening. Does that make sense?