The Sensory Dispensary

Back in college I had a job working at the student center game room / bowling alley cleaning up after they closed. I could come in any time as long as it was clean and ready to open the next morning, so it was often pretty late in the overnight time period when I did my work.

Mostly my job was to clear the trash, the beer bottles filled with backwash or the spit from the ubiquitous chewing tobacco. I would mop the floor, vacuum by the bowling lanes, wipe down the glass on the arcade games and pinball machines, brush the pool tables and just make the place presentable, like resetting it so people could just make it dirty again the next day.

I worked alone and I had the key to the CD Jukebox so, to no one’s surprise, I always had music playing while I worked. Over time I found that certain album were just better as working music than others. One I listened to most every night was Blood Sugar Sex Magik by the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

I was not then, am not now, and never really have been a fan of the Red Hot Chili Peppers – but at 3am when I was pouring people’s spit in to a bucket, I found that this particular album, played obscenely fucking loud, was sort of perfect for the occasion.

I don’t listen to it much anymore, and rarely all the way through, but sometimes I’ll put on the title track, or “Give It Away” – but for my money (or the unlimited free plays I got) “I Could Have Lied” is the best thing they have done.