Hummus and Heavy Metal

This one is for Tara, who insists upon being difficult and I love her for it.

When I get tired of chips and queso (it happens), my other go-to snack is pretzel chips dipped in hummus. Actually, just about anything dipped in hummus is all right by me. My finger dipped in hummus is delicious. I used to believe that there was no such thing as bad hummus. There was good hummus, better hummus, my favorite hummus, and hummus that is so good you want to bathe in it and build edible castles out of it.

That was until I made my own hummus.

I am a pretty good cook. I enjoy messing up the kitchen and making things from scratch. At a certain point in my life I decided that hummus is so straightforward, comprised of such simple ingredients, that I should really make my own. I found a few recipes, looked them over, fired up my food processor, and created a paste that looked like newborn poo and tasted like bicycle tires. If you are not familiar with hummus, this is not how that should all go down. It is disquieting to create something vile when you are going for simple and delicious. I have discussed this problem with people who know about such things and they have consolingly sent me their "foolproof" recipes. With renewed confidence, I produced more bicycle tires. I have given up. It's probably cheaper to make your own hummus, but when you have to discard batch after batch of inedible glop, it starts to add up and your time is better spent looking for a good sale on Sabra.

My brother and I have had an on-going disagreement about what constitutes "good" music since childhood. While we both enjoy an eclectic array of all kinds of genres, he generally hates whatever I love and vice versa. He has perhaps never been more dismayed in this regard as when he came home for Christmas from college my junior year in high school right smack in the middle of my love affair with Metallica. "There's no way you actually like that," he ranted. "It's just noise." Being a good little sister, I just turned that noise up.

I had the good fortune of growing up in a home that was full of love. It was something I took almost completely for granted for most of my childhood. Sure, we had our share of squabbles and annoyances. I got in trouble for plenty of things (which were obviously not my fault) and sometimes I bit my brother, but the underpinnings of everything were the sort of love that was dependable and reliable and demonstrated daily in both word and deed. I used to believe that there was no such thing as bad love. There was good love and better love and best love.

Then I reached a certain point in my life where I tried to manufacture loving relationships outside the bonds of family and friends. From my perspective, it was so simple: you have affection for someone, you express it. I somehow managed to make baby poo and bicycle tires out of it all.

Master of Puppets is, on first listen, a diabolical, angry drug anthem. Perhaps it is on second, third and fourth listen as well. But remove the notion of cocaine for a moment. I find it's almost always easier to see things more clearly once you've removed the notion of cocaine. We've discussed this before: it is a given that all rock songs are about drugs except the ones that are about sex. If they are heavy metal, they are about drugs or the devil. Since those are all a given - let's look past the surface, shall we?

Master of puppets, I'm pulling your strings
twisting your mind and smashing your dreams
Blinded by me, you can't see a thing
Just call my name, 'cause I'll hear you scream
Master
Master
Just call my name, 'cause I'll hear you scream
Master
Master

Have you ever had a gigantic, unrequited crush on someone? Have you ever lain awake at night and wished so hard you sweated that they would just notice you? Have you ever spent far too much time imagining that the object of your affections was out there pining for you and just waiting for you to make that first move that you could not, would not force yourself to make? Have you ever? I'm going to go out on a limb here and say probably most people have, at some point, been blindingly, ridiculously in love with the idea of someone. It's like an addiction, it consumes you, it owns you for a while and it makes you a little bit crazy.

To my fifteen-year-old, combat-booted self, that's what this song was about. I suddenly found myself in a place of complete inexperience, making a foul-tasting botchery of something I had always believed to be simple and comforting. I was unprepared for failure and I took it hard. Because I'm me, I produced loads of terrible poetry on the subject to no avail. Friends would offer advice that rendered equally dreadful results. My parents tried to offer perspective, but I refused to accept it (I was fifteen, remember.) Being young, somewhat sheltered, and extremely naive, I was dealing with the disproportionate emotions of teenage love without any real frame of reference. Enter Metallica. I discovered that I could release some of the rage through mighty bouts of head banging and stomping along with music that sounded like what it felt like inside my head. I couldn't explain or clearly express my own emotions, but boy howdy, I'd found someone who could do it for me. I'd found my sale on Sabra.

I don't listen to Metallica very often any more, except for nostalgia's sake. I have been more successful in love than in making my own hummus, it would seem. But I think part of that success has come from knowing when to recognize it's time to hand the hollering over to the professionals and just head-bang along for a while until the notion passes.