Do some rock ’n’ rollas actually bang to the sound of their own music?: The Ember Files - Log 10.1
NOTE: Do NOT jerk off to these files
To read the previous log - Log 10 - click here.
Case Subject: Vega, Wyatt
Filed from: Palm Springs HQ
Classification: Emotional Volatility; Aging Rock Star | Observer/Subject: Mara Luz Analysis
Date of Occurrence: December 8, 2023
Editor’s Note:
Picking up right after Wyatt told Mara he loved her on tour, and she told him his record sounded like shit.
Back to the night Wyatt sent me the album. I’d hurt his feelings. His ego.
So I gave it another listen.
I put on headphones, played the record start to finish. At midnight I texted him:
Send me the lyrics.
No reply. But a minute later, they landed in my inbox. Word doc, 12 pt Courier. Like it was a screenplay.
My printer was low on ink, so the lines came out ghosted, jagged. Looked like someone had tried to redact them in grief. I read them anyway.
Played the album again. Then once more, whisper-singing with the lyrics.
That’s when it hit me.
This wasn’t just noise and nostalgia. It was a concept album. A self-elegy. A grief memoir disguised as fuzz-pedal erotica.
It was a declaration: I’m losing my edge, one chord at a time.
Sure, I’d told him it sounded like a one-man band trying to fuck a tambourine and fart into a harmonica. But now I heard what he was trying to do.
He wasn’t just making music. He was confessing.
This was his Pink Moon.
His Sea Change.
His Ziggy Stardust—if Ziggy survived and had to pay alimony.
I thought of the band’s early records.
Tits and tequila.
Songs about fucking in port-a-potties and lighting motel curtains on fire.
Spiders everywhere. So many goddamn spiders.
Now? Still spiders. But slowed down. Softer. Maybe sobered. The sound of someone crawling back into his own skin after decades of living outside of it.
I got it.
I sent him a text:
Ah, I see. This is your midlife crisis album. A sex god grappling with elder statesmanhood. It's not background music. You have to sit with it. That said, none of these tracks are making it onto a playlist called Hot Summer Vibes or Music to Chill (or Fuck) To.
He hearted it immediately.
I sat there in the dark, imagining him half-naked in a hotel room somewhere, reading my message. Grateful someone saw through the noise.
Ten minutes later he texted:
This summer, we will chill and fuck to the record.
God, I do love a man who’s direct with his intentions.
Unless I’m not attracted to him.
Then that’s how a fella ends up with a chipped tooth and a new respect for boundaries.
I replied:
Rock ’n’ roll isn’t supposed to take itself so seriously. Also, we’ve never fucked to one of your songs.
I almost added how masturbatory it would be to climax to the sound of your own voice.
But got distracted thinking about which rock legends have absolutely done that.
Dee Snider? Probably.
Gene Simmons? Without a doubt.
Billy Corgan? Yep—and he wept after.
Bono? Most certainly—and he made eye contact with himself in the mirror.
But Wyatt?
No. Wyatt wouldn’t.
That’s not the kind of narcissist he is.
He doesn’t want to fuck to his music.
He wants to fuck me into loving it.
And that, dear reader, is a very different kind of pathology.
ENG OF LOG 10.1
To read the next log - Log 11 - click here.
