Megadeth - Countdown To Extinction

Show of hands. How many of you remember when cds were housed inside a plastic theft protection case that you had to cut off with scissors when the cashier couldn't find the little doodad tool to remove them? Ok. Keep your hands up if you remember when they were housed inside a full color printed cardboard box with the cover art printed all around it?

I do. I don't remember if tonight's album did or didn't, but i do remember Master of Puppets and Ride the Lightening were in full regalia when i got them, so quite possibly. Which came first, the oversized card board box, or the plastic thingamajig?

I could write a hundred different essays about Countdown to Extinction. Some would be funny, some historical, some about the actual songs, some very painful to read or write. Some of those i'll save for when i do the discography. Tonight i would simply like to talk about my personal connection to this album because i am the only person who could have this relationship with it. The only connection i want it to have with current world events is that i think humanity (whatever that is) has a completely dysfunctional, unhealthy, and possibly unresolvable relationship with the concept of death.

My oldest friends will remember my period of medicated clinical depression, but the process that led to that breakdown started much, much earlier. I met my beautiful wife of now 17 years at the end of that process as i was building a new human being out of the ashes. I was not, nor have i ever been suicidal, but my doctor and i decided on using Celexa because i was afraid that i might become suicidal. The insomnia and irrational sadness had grown too frightening and debilitating, so i sought professional medical help. Still here today so i'd consider it either successful or unnecessary. Counseling and therapy were available to me, but i personally chose not to pursue them. I am not a psychiatrist or psychologist, so that is as much as i will say about that (perfectly happy to talk about it in a different context, though).

I'm getting to the album, be patient. I already told you that this was the first cd i ever had, because Symphony of Destruction just clicked with me. And, my fascination with the complicatedly intertwined history of Metallica and Megadeth is something that really did spark my love of learning. That sounds silly, but i assure you it's true.

So this essay is about Uriah Golden. We were school acquaintances as children. He lived a difficult and somewhat violent childhood as a human being trying to live with Tourette's. We were not really friends, but not really enemies either. Then one day in i think it was in 9th grade Oklahoma History class, he said "hello me, meet the real me" and i, not even bothering to turn around continued "and my misfit's way of life" and he was completely elated and that was our connection as human beings. We didn't hang out or anything, but years later when he killed himself i understood quite clearly that he had reached the end of his ability to fight against the forces of nature he had battled his entire life. I do not wish to offend anyone by saying this, but i find no shame in losing that battle. He was no less of a person for losing that battle. I have a memory of my connection with him that i find beautiful, if bittersweet. If i were to say that my moderate depressive condition taught me anything, it is that the will to carry on can only come from inside, but that no man can fight alone forever. I truly believe that the sadness i feel for his situation is the sadness that the world could not accommodate him, or rather dissuade him from believing that he was a burden to the people he deeply loved. I do not believe that he was somehow less of a human. I do not believe that was his fault. It is a fact. I do not believe his suicide was selfish, or vile. Rather, my dealing with these ideas is a part of my own humanity and my own will to keep going. If there is good in me, then surely Uriah Golden played an important role in that development, and for that i would sincerely thank him if i could. I cannot, but i do it in my head whenever i think of him.

I hope that was not too unpleasant of a read for anyone, and i further hope that it gives some new perspective on the reason i end this essay with my inevitable macabre sense of humor by saying that it doesn't hurt that it's a kick ass album to begin with.

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