365 # 24: Jai P.

Let me see if I can explain this in a way that makes sense. You loved music, or rather the idea of music, so much, you were so very passionate about this concept of organizing sound into pleasing arrangements, that it actually caused you to loathe 99.743% of the actual music in existence because it simply did not live up to the greatness that music could be. You yourself actually starting learning about and creating your own music out of frustration at the shortage of reasonably listenable tunes. That about captures it, right?

Now Jai, somebody might read that paragraph above and get the crazy idea that you were some kind of annoying asshole. And they would indeed be partially correct, but only partially, because the funny thing about you was that all those strongly expressed opinions, all that anger directed at other musicians, all that insistence that all music was shit, it was all somehow kind of endearing. It made you likable in the way that grumpy old men can be likable. Our friend Jai the music crank.

Of course, all your snobbery might have seemed a bit more plausible if your tastes extended beyond industrial thrash sci-fi dance metal dun-dun-dun-RAAAAHHH!!! or whatever you called it.

You came to one of my mid-twenties birthday parties and I hadn't seen you in years. You'd chilled out a lot, so much so that you even expressed appreciation for Tom Petty at one point. It took some getting used to.