March 23, 2009

• in-studio pain ritual

  a ritual has risen among us during the recording process and it goes something like this:

  well, wait. actually, i was premature in the colon placement. i first feel it necessary to include a warning and announce that the word, “gringo,” will be used a number of times in the following grouping of words. according to my widget dictionary, “gringo,” is a noun and its use is, “informal, often offensive.” so, if you are white, and english speaking, and sensitive to nouns indicating as much, then please, accept my apologies.

  and now, for the colon.

  :

  walk to fridge. open fridge. pull out “gringo killer” salsa. pour “gringo killer” salsa into a bowl. open cabinet. pull out tostitos corn chips. start dipping tostitos corn chips into “gringo killer” salsa and placing them in mouth. begin pacing around the studio kitchen talking loudly about how tasty this salsa is and exclaiming that, “it will take more than that!” while wiping sweat from upper lip and eye brows.

  now when i say this salsa is hot, it will not express the magnitude of its hotness. for instance, when i say, “it is hot,” you will think of things that you have eaten that are spicy and you will place this salsa in that category, but you would be wrong to do so. it is categorically beyond categorization (the hotness of the “gringo killer” salsa), as in, there is no classification able to accommodate the “gringo killer’s” hotness appropriately. (actually, that is completely false, my last statement. salsa is completely categorizable [sic] since there exists a scale (the scoville scale) to classify just such things as the hotness, or piquancy, or amount of capsaicin present in a pepper, which means i’m being dramatic and using hyperbolical exaggeration to communicate my point, and my point is this: this salsa is hot.) regarding the “gringo killer” salsa, the felt pain is all encompassing. on the scoville scale, i’d place it just below law-enforcement grade pepper spray. also, there is this: i seem to derive much pleasure from it, the dipping of a chip in irritant ammunition. what is transpiring within me, on an emotional and physical level, is literally a mind trip. here’s what’s happening: the capsaicin is exciting skin receptors called polymodal nociceptors. these are the receptors that customarily respond to temperature extremes or intense mechanical stimulation such as pinching. so, when you put the “gringo killer” salsa on the tostitos chip and choose to put said thing into your mouth you are confusing the central nervous system. it is fooled by the “gringo killer” into thinking something has been set on fire or is pinching you ferociously and this something that is fully ablaze and pinching is located exactly inside of your mouth. this then triggers an ambiguous (at best) neural response. so, you, with no knowledge or experience in the ways of the “gringo killer”, might then choose to grab a cup of water and start drinking. this would be an inappropriate decision, the result of which would be the spreading of the capsaicin around your mouth, more fully coating it. this is the moment you would declare aloud, “the roof of my mouth is in great physical pain!” to which i would respond, “the best thing you can do is offer more mechanical stimulation. this will quell the perceived violation by presenting clearer nerve stimuli for your brain to interpret and this will buy you some time,” which basically means you need to eat another chip full of “gringo killer” salsa. this cycle will most likely continue until you lose feeling in, and control of, the left side of your face. that is when i say, “seriously, you’ve had enough. nothing to do but wait it out.”

  the good news is that endorphins are now coursing through your body, which is nice.

  

  • 8:45 pm
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