I’ve figured it out, you know, the answer to the bleak void that marks my days.

Everywhere I go there is drama in some form. The clash of fists and faces, the whistle of bullets, the screech of sirens, the howls of drama queens downtown.

Drama, all of it. And yet within that clamor, there is silence, and I am more vividly aware of what each moment lacks than what it offers.

I need a soundtrack, is what I’m saying. I need a musical score that changes in accordance to the situation at hand. Sly Pink Panther music when I’m sneaking up on a scene; bold, audacious music when I discover the horror it holds.

I need to mark my foibles – and there are many of these – with a good, old-fashioned “mwap, mwap, mwap mwaaaaa” like you’ll hear in the better cartoons. Get told off by a potential source? “Mwap, mwap, mwap mwaaaaa…” Show up at a crime scene with no pen and not a scrap of paper? Bring on the mwap music.

It wouldn’t hurt to have a little falling down effect when I or someone near me loses footing on the ice. That kind of thing can be pilfered from any Scooby Doo episode if you can get around the royalties.

Every time I walk into the newsroom, a police station or a smoky bar, I’d like to have the ominous tune from “Cape Fear” play at full volume. Whenever I’m ringside for a downtown brawl, cue up “Enter Sandman,” would you, chum? That’s fighting music.

Movies weaken dreadfully without a musical backdrop and so does real life. I need melodies to mark the magic or sound effects to serve as exclamation points where called for.

It happens in my head all the time.

The “Psycho” slashing theme plays whenever I face a killer on the street or editor at my desk. A simple “plink!” will do at those times that I have big ideas. When I’m at home in the middle of the night, a simple, solemn Adagio serves to illustrate that I am deep in thought and heavy of spirit.

(Cue laughter at the idea of me entertaining deep thoughts or big ideas.)

And that’s another thing. How about a simple laugh track so funny things I utter all day long don’t go unnoticed? The drones I spend my time with wouldn’t know high wit if it chewed off their fingers. Give them a simple cue in the form of crowd laughter and they will join along. Laughter brings merriment to their day and strokes my ego as it needs to be stroked.

(Cue gasps of collective unease, like the sitcoms used for long-awaited kisses back in the 90s.)

Every person, no matter his station in life, feels the importance of his every move with great profoundness. The guy who stocks shelves at the Quiki Mart is as worthy of a musical score as the guy fleeing natives in the Brazilian forest on the never-ending hunt for the Holy Grail.

(I could have prompted the laugh track by writing “quail” instead of “grail” but you will see that I don’t mean to abuse this innovative idea.)

Every human life is an adventure worthy of its own soundtrack and instinctively, we know this. Maybe that is why we carry music everywhere we go, in the form of expensive car stereos and portable MP3 players.

But it’s not enough. We need sounds that are perfectly cued to play in those moments when our imaginations are soaring with the perceived drama of even little moments.

If you have never heard a tremulous roll of music in your head while making your way across a bar to ask a lady to dance, there is something wrong with you. If you have never wished for the windy sweep of violins while watching your lover sleep, there is something wrong with you. If you don’t hear the “Rocky” theme when you launch a workout after a four year hiatus, there is something wrong with you.

Or maybe there is something wrong with me. Every moment of perceptible drama seems incomplete without a score playing in the background. When my hackles are up because something just crashed in the basement, I want the pointed notes from the “Halloween” theme to be stabbing the air around me. When I say something witty, I want a classic rim shot to sound, indicating to everyone in earshot that it’s not only OK to chortle, it’s required.

I don’t need Danny Elfman following me around with a full orchestra here, people. But this could be a nice job for one of you; someone strong enough to carry an oversized boom box and quick-witted enough to know what each new situation calls for.

Mark has thrown his Kansas City Royals hat to the ground for the 40th time this season. Cue cartoon explosion.

Mark has poked himself in the eye with a pen again. Call up a Three Stooges sound effect, stat! Doink!

The next time you climb to the corporate office to demand a promotion, think of how much more charge you would get if you had some hockey music behind you. Da da da, dun dun da! (Charge!)

When you’re flying off on a plane and leaving the family behind, think of how much more profound the moment would be with Air in G weeping along with you.

Movie makers live in mansions with pools larger than our entire neighborhoods because they get this. They understand that man was meant to move through his world to a rhythm that is inexplicably not provided by nature.

Life is a melodrama, yours and mine. We deserve this.

(Cue applause, tentative at first and then becoming thunderous)

Hey, thanks. Thanks very much.


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