As I recently whined, I've been forcing myself to take break from the iPod these days, prompted by another worrying spike in my tinnitus. I did cheat a bit last weekend, treating myself to a brief spell of music while running some errands, exclusively for the purposes of hearing that new Beatles project, Love (I haven't yet decided if it's blasphemous trash or inspired reinvention -- but it's well done, at least). Apart from that, however, I've decided to put the headphones on ice for a while. I simply cannot afford to have the perpetual ring in my right ear get any worse.
As such, my daily commute to and from work has become a duller, drabber experience. Without the galvanizing buoy of music to quicken my pace and fire my imagination, my walk up the avenues of Manhattan towards Times Square has become a slower, quieter, less colorful trudge. It's still a thousand times more preferable than taking the subway (itself often a toll on my embattled ears, even without blaring headphones), but the trip up Broadway without, say, the propulsive jolt of the Buzzcocks or the lilting warble of the Cocteau Twins or the breakneck pummel of Motörhead or the fractured funk of Gang of Four or the rapturous flourish of Queen, etc. etc. etc. leaves me alone with my thoughts, the cacophonous bleat of traffic and, of course, … the ring.
Heartened by seeing his band play live a couple of weeks back, I reached out -- via MySpace -- to Mission of Burma's frontman, Roger Miller. Roger's been grappling with tinnitus since the early 80's (his condition effectively forced the band to split, being that touring was taking too much of a toll on his ears). As I mentioned in that earlier post, Roger wore rifle-range ear protection on the band's final tour (which was well-warranted, given their penchant for high volume). The band reformed, however, in 2002 and I was surprised to see Roger not wearing any immediately discernible ear-protection that night. Had he found a solution? I thought I'd ask.
Encouragingly, Roger got back to me, although it turns out that he was wearing ear protection that night, specifically customized earplugs that were specially molded to fit his ear canal. Between that and various other precautions onstage, Roger said he "survives." By the same token, though, he says his tinnitus has not "improved" at all (and he's been living with it for decades now). He hears just fine, but hears "other sounds" as well.
I'm hoping that this surge in ring-intensity is as temporary as the ones that have preceded it. Until then, my walks to work will be scored solely by the sounds of the city.
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