I’m having trouble with my Slingbox. It won’t connect.

But it’s worse than that. It says it’s not connecting to the Internet in my own house! Good luck having it make a connection in Colorado so my girlfriend can watch cable TV finales.

So I get home and start to troubleshoot…and end up nowhere.

I disconnect the power. I restart the router. But I cannot reset the Slingbox, despite what the online instructions say. Talk about frustrating… Before we had all this electronic crap there were answers. You called someone, took your device somewhere, somebody knew how to fix it, or told you so… But today we’re on our own. I feel like I’m a full time IT person. Sure, I’m connected, I can call someone, but I’m the kind of guy who wants to know how something works and why it does not. Because if it breaks down once, it’s gonna again.

So, frustrated with my Slingbox, I decide to fire up some music to soothe my nerves. And the Sonos app on my iPhone won’t connect. And won’t connect. And won’t connect.

So I go to my iPad. Which says an update is required. Which I execute. But my iPhone still won’t connect. And I’m wondering why.

Turns out the issue is bigger than that. My iPhone isn’t even connected with my wireless network. LTE is so fast at my home I didn’t even realize it. And I’m not sure why the iPhone dropped the connection. And maybe this has got something to do with the Slingbox… But when I select my home network and enter the password I finally get to try…

The most incredible new feature.

Yes, you can now stream your music wirelessly from your iPhone.

It’s like magic.

I know, I know, I can do the same from Spotify. But it’s not the same. I mean I’m not connecting to the pipe, it’s coming straight from the phone itself! Wirelessly!

So I’m in the bedroom, listening to “Stephen Stills 2” on that zone. But I click to hear the Silencers’ “Answer Me” in the living room. And it’s not quite loud enough for me to hear over Stills so I switch the bedroom zone to the living room zone and…

Jimme O’Neill comes pouring out of the speakers and all of a sudden all of my frustration slips away!

Silencers – Answer Me – A Blues for Buddha – 1988

Yes, check it out. You won’t hear it anywhere else. It’s not on Spotify.

But it is on my living room stereo right now…

Won’t you answer me
Said the coal miner
It’s dark down here
Gas creeps through the walls

It’s dark inside my mind. Do you get that feeling? That there’s a plethora of stimuli surrounding you but there’s a force field between you and the rest of the universe? That you’re locked inside your head and you can’t break out? That no one understands you and you’re dying to make a connection but it’s impossible?

I feel that way all the time. My whole life is about trying to eradicate this feeling, I’m trying to make a connection. That’s what’s got me sending these missives morning noon and night. The desire to find someone else who feels like me, who thinks like me, who isn’t an automaton inured to the world I find so confusing.

And I get blowback from people telling me I’m not entitled to an opinion and I should crawl back into my hole despite the fact that they keep reading and writing to me. But still I soldier on. Because of you. No one specific. Just the people who write back and testify, who tell me they’re on the same path, have the same questions, feel the same way.

Once upon a time the band was called Fingerprintz. And despite being on Virgin Records, they never broke through. Then they reconstituted as the Silencers and released a masterpiece known as “A Letter From St. Paul” with the radio track “Painted Moon” and it looked like another band from the U.K. was gonna break through. But they were on RCA Records and Bob Buziak was too busy promoting Michael Penn and the second album, “A Blues For Buddha” made a giant thud which almost no one heard.

But it’s absolutely one of my favorite albums.

It starts off quietly, like there’s a troupe of merrymaking musicians coming over the rise, through the Scottish fog, and then Jimme hums and the bass starts to thump and the drums start to pound and the strings start to wail and…you’re enthralled.

Won’t you answer me
Said the exile
Is there a message for me?
Now I feel so far away

I made it this far. I didn’t O.D., I wasn’t hit by a bus, I know so much more than I once did, but the world changed to the point of unrecognizability and I’m completely flummoxed. I’m never gonna be rich, without money few listen, and I wonder if the joke is on me. I spent decades of my life listening to records but don’t feel akin to those enthralled by the punks, to those who think everything mainstream sucks. But then I hear a record…

Won’t answer you me
Said the soul singer
There’s a murmur in here
Sound thunders through the wall

That’s who I am. A soul singer. This is coming directly from my heart to yours. Do you feel it? Do you have more questions than answers? Do you feel you just weren’t made for this world?

I’M HERE! I’M WITH YOU! CRANK THIS MUSIC! IT WON’T CHANGE YOUR LIFE BUT IT WILL MAKE YOUR LIFE WORTH LIVING!

IT’S STREAMING FROM MY PHONE! CAN YOU FUCKING BELIEVE IT?

I love technology.