Junk

I’ve been thinking about junk. Junk and I, we're special together. I love to throw things away – even things that I kind of like, or have not necessarily completed their useful life.

It’s not that I don’t like junk – just the reverse. Without it, I couldn’t experience the pleasure of throwing it away.

But what is junk anyway? What makes something junk? This is something my wife and I discuss. She’s a keeper. We have a little game – she fills up various bowls, drawers, corners with junk – well I call it junk – and I laboriously, lovingly empty them out. Because you still have to look at each bit, just to make sure it really is junk.

While I’m carefully inspecting a crumpled ticket from a kid’s arcade, or an unusual but lost Lego head, or a piece of gum that is still wrapped but of uncertain provenance, I’m asking myself, “is this junk?” and so I think about that – what makes something junk? I know I said that already, but that’s exactly what happens when I’m futzing about with the junk – my mind wanders for a while, then comes back to … “what is junk anyway?”

Often it's something precious, in fact, treasure. To the junkie, nothing is more precious than junk. I know a guy who has a radio show called “Radio Junk Drawer” – the idea is, it’s not junk at all! It’s actually the best music in the world! Just a little obscure. Like something you’d find in a junk shop – a shop full of little treasures just waiting to be discovered.

What you gona do with all that junk, all that junk inside that trunk? I’m gonna get get get you drunk – get you love-drunk off my hump. Obviously, that’s some very special, treasure-y junk.

Hmm, confusing. How can this be? Junk is something becoming something else, transforming, releasing a little energy in the process. I think that’s the little jolt I feel when I chuck a long-dead cell phone charger, or an empty and cracked cassette case (for you young folks, cassettes are something they had before CDs, er, which came before MP3’s. But after vinyl. So not cool. The dumbest format ever, but also my favorite.) Junk is entropy happening, a little echo of the Big Bang, the work of the universe.

There’s a line in a Sparklehorse song: “there will come a time gigantic waves will crush the junk that i have saved”. Then, Sparklehorse guy happily sings, “la la la”. Precious junk, carefully saved, then crushed by the fury of the moon and turned into… junk. La la la...