Music courses through my body, blood, and soul. Music is the salve, the spirit which animates my mind, body, and soul. Greater than any other singular force, refreshing, sustaining, pushing, and motivating, I have elicited a lifetime of benefits from all that is musical. I am in deep gratitude for such divine gift. Inspiration drawn from music has sustained my spirit during the deepest, darkest hours especially when staring down seemingly insurmountable adversity.
During my approximate year long legal battle against Mortgage Bank WF, I can define a particular genre of music that dominated my world: hard rock.
One band in particular, Slipknot, produced a double live album called “9.0. Live.” This work single handedly accompanied and sustained my soul during the countless hours consumed researching law and writing legal documents and briefs. The spectacle of the live show this album memorialized, a stage full of musicians and performers, identities concealed in horrid, goulish, zombie like dress, simply blew me away. I found the front man’s attitude and explicit commentary between songs regarding his stand against corporate record labels to be immensely satisfying, especially when introducing the album’s platinum status to his cheering audience. I played this album over and over again, day after day, and at high volume levels.
Normally a “riff” rather than a “lyric” man, the line “I fight for the ones who can’t fight” in the song “Pulse of the Maggots” resonated with particular clarity and meaning during this period. Further, I could relate the sheer, unrelenting pain in the singer’s repeated scream “SHE ISN’T REAL, I CAN’T MAKE HER REAL” in the song “Vermillion” to indignation borne by a judicial system not capable of administering justice for all.
Ironically, Mortgage Bank WF, N.A., the division strategically placed in the front and center of the battle by Mortgage Bank WF legal counsel, is headquartered in none-other than Des Moines, Iowa, the same location the band Slipknot calls home!
I declare my gratitude to the people of Des Moines, Iowa, to the band Slipknot, and to the city’s burgeoning creative class!
- Gary Edward Geraci