Runaway Train

To whom it may concern:

In addition to my years of experience, I have the determination to succeed in almost any environment, I am naturally curious and driven to discover consumer motivations. I am ready for the next step in my journey and believe that I can be an asset to your organization!

…but can you help me remember how to smile?

Have you ever listened to Runaway Train? Like really heard it? Not at the grocery store or in an elevator or while waiting in line at the bank. Does anyone wait in line at banks anymore? Maybe not. Runaway Train, like most of the great enduring pop songs of our lifetime, is nothing but one big smelly cliché. It’s about a transition phase for a person that doesn’t know which direction they are going to push forward to or be pulled towards next. Translation: here’s some things that rhyme with ‘ain that are a subtle mask for our collective depression and anxiety as a species.

Runaway Train came out when I was in high school. It was ok I guess, but if I had to pick a song off that Soul Asylum album to listen to in every god forsaken grocery store for all of eternity I would have went with Somebody to Shove. Like most sane human beings, I grew to absolutely loathe Runaway Train in the following years as it played non-stop for a portion of my junior year and practically all of my senior year. In fact, that damn song just kept going well into Andy Swart: The College Years as well.

For some silly reason I listened to Runaway Train 5 times in a row today while driving home from the doctor’s office. I even picked up a guitar for the first time in 2 years and started strumming the chords. The thick layer of dust on the contraption was comforting. It felt like picking up my dad’s cracked Ovation acoustic in the 80s for the first time and not having the slightest earthly idea how to tune it.  

Last night I had a dream where I actually saw my dad for the first time in 2 years. He was getting home from work at 10pm at night and I was so happy to see him. In the dream he started playing a heavily scratched, worn down ukulele and was in the best mood I’ve ever seen him in. Just laughing and talking and shooting the breeze. It was like I was seeing a home movie stuck on fast forward, but also in slow motion. I loved the song he was playing but couldn’t tell what it was, maybe it was just random chords. I found it odd that this was one of those electric ukuleles you could plug into an amp, yet there was none in sight. It was eerily similar to the Ovation situation as he always bragged about having an acoustic guitar he could “plug in” if he wanted to. Yet he never did, I never saw him use an amp (or even a pick for that matter) during his entire life as I knew it.

I suppose you want to know about the dream, The dream was of the lucid variety, the kind where you know you’re in a dream, so you try your darndest to keep it going as long as possible. It got weirder and weirder, but I didn’t care because it really felt like I was with my dad. For some reason we had the neighbors over and my stepmother was there too. She was younger and had short hair. My half-brother was bouncing from room to room as well, and he was a child instead of being 38. The neighbors turned out to be a television host I used to work as an adult and her husband. Their child was playing with my age-reversed brother. We were supposed to be babysitting for the neighbors, but when my dad came home everyone was having so much fun that they decided to stay. It all took place in the house I lived in during high school. 

I held onto this vivid, insane madness for as long as I possibly could until I woke up at 3 or 4am. When I awoke, I was so happy, happier than I’ve been since at least 2020. I had seen and talked to my dad, and I had seen and spoke to the television host who stopped talking to me once the network started going in the shitter. The google A.I. machine (see potential employers I can use A.I.!) tells me that a deceased loved one in your dream can sometimes signify a need for reassurance during times of transition or uncertainty in your life. So, I got that going for me… which is nice. Anyway, I went back to sleep and woke up with the alarm at 7:25am. It was time to go to my yearly physical and I had to use someone else’s insurance (my wife’s) for the first time since I was in college some 28 years ago. I think that’s the part that sent me into the Dave Pirner doom spiral. Toxic masculinity to the rescue!

I have another brother who can’t drink the N/A beer yet, I offered him one of mine at a BBQ recently, but he said he couldn’t. He’s a year out of Hazelden and I’m so proud of him. I told him it was 4 whole years before I got up the courage to drink one, lest I get “the taste” again. I still have an entire mini fridge packed with actual beer from 2018 in my basement. I just left there when I quit cold turkey. I can’t stomach much more than 2 N/A beers now. They make me feel bloated and gross, how’d I ever drink 12 of them things in a sitting? 

I’m coming up on 7 years sober on October 1st. So, I am here to say it’s possible to make it through a bad year or two. It’s possible to take on death, taxes, unemployment, high cholesterol, heartbreak, anger, fear, non-alcoholic beverages, and everything under the sun. All you have to do is just adhere to these three simple words – Keep. Fucking. Going. That stupid Runaway Train song will keep going with or without you, even if most of the people from the milk cartons in the MTV video were never found. Give in to the long-standing troubadour tradition of Minnesota Melancholy. Go ahead, hit for the cycle why dontcha? The Man in Me by Bob Dylan, Here Comes a Regular by The Replacements, Runaway Train, hell even Purple Rain can slide right in there if played badly enough on an acoustic guitar. What do they all have in common? An A minor? An E minor? A G chord? Maybe none of the above. How about a crackling, jangly sadness bonfire with a silent hope stalker walking around it in circles? Yeah, let’s go with that.

I feel like that damned earworm of a song now, roaming aimlessly through lives and grocery stores. I’m just a human checklist for my wife and kids. A giant notepad to be scribbled on. Nobody to lead, nobody to follow, nothing to plan, nothing to create outside of more nothingness. Maybe I should just shut my brain off and let it happen for a while. Maybe it will be good for me. Let’s see how we’re doing. Still sober of course but also…

So tired I that I couldn’t even sleep? Check.

Promised myself I wouldn’t weep? Check.

That’s one more promise I couldn’t keep? Check.

This time I have really led myself astray? Check.

Life’s mystery seems so faded? Check.

Seems like I should be getting somewhere? Check.

Somehow I’m neither here nor there? Discount Double Check.

So I’m 4 months in with maybe 4 or 5 transmissions to the outside world of employment that don’t involve some kind of pre-worded rejection spam. Just another mad man laughing in the rain, with one thousand cover letters in his brain. I talked to a former colleague for over an hour today and when I got off the phone I had 4 more rejection emails. There they were like Cracker Jack prizes waiting to be found amongst the endless Glassdoor, Jobot, Ziprecruiter and Indeed refuse. 

“I just want to be a cog in a machine again.” he said. 

I guess that’s just easier than dealing with the pain.

Thank you for your time and consideration of my resume, I look forward to speaking with you.