Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum

I was posed a question recently: What albums influenced you most, for better or worse?
Oh dear. My, my, my...look at the time!
Man Man is a local Philadelphia "experimental" musical group. I used quotes around experimental because that word is stupid. They are more akin to ancient honky tonk or, more specifically, what I imagine the residents of New York City's Bowery neighborhood were accustomed to a century ago. I picture a saloon thick with the haze of tobacco and weed and just the most terrible booze; lots of sailors, too. My kind of folk.
This is me pretending that those descriptions were less stupid than experimental.
Some years ago I saw them live in a basement downtown. Live, ha! These were risen monsters if never I saw them. Things were wet and it was hard to breathe and I was at peace with surviving as another disgusting tendril on the skin of some wet, overcrowded organism.
Everything was very wet.
And naturally, (neutrally/neuter me) since there are no accidents, I was enthralled. No surprise I was already quite taken with the recent discovery of certain quantities of whiskeys. No surprise I was bearded and drunk. Frequently.
All the time.
Essentially, the collective work of Man Man at the time enhanced everything I loved about myself while systematically extinguishing everything I loathed about everything else. A feat to be worshiped.
And oh, was I a true believer.
I was not changed by my exposure to these total freaking weirdos, but definitely influenced. Man Man was the gentle nudge toward every obscene decision I made over a twelve month period of absolute self-destruction. There were no voices, just soundtracks from which I, the stage-performer, felt secretly obligated to take queues. The pit would start up, "Faust this week, eh?"
This music illuminated the worst in me, and I loved it.
I still love it. But like most things worth having, it never feels as good as the first time. So now, occasionally, Man Man will pop up randomly in the computer. The disks will fall haphazard from the glove box. I will sigh deeply, play a few tracks, and wonder:
What happened to that guy?
---
He succeeded.