The Greatest MRI Mix You Will Ever Hear (Unless You Hang Out with Charlotte Gainsbourg, I suppose)

Guess who had an MRI today? Well, your mom might have had one, too, but yours truly most certainly had one, as well.

For those of you not in the know, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) essentially is a good way for doctors to look at your insides. To accomplish this, you're put inside of a large metal tube and blasted with Monkey knows what kind of rays. Now, i've been assured that no ionizing radiation is used, only simple magnetic fields. If that were entirely true, though, why did the technician hang out on the other side of a wall from the tube? Exactly. Let me tell you, this is not an activity for the claustrophobic. Fortunately, i wore a sleep mask and thought about what the inevitable MRI mix was going to sound like.

That's right, instead of contemplating being crushed by tons of steel in a coffin-like tube, i thought of you bastards. My canonization is imminent, i tell you what.

The process itself is loud as hell, so much so that i was offered (and accepted) ear plugs. The most interesting lesson today, though, came from ink. i was asked if i had any tats on the sign-in sheet and marked "yes." As they were getting ready to put me in the tube, the nurse asked me where my tattoo was. "Which one?," i replied. As the MRI was for my lumbar, she asked if i had one on my lower back. While i am a lot of things, fortunately i am not the kind of guy who has ass antlers. It appears that certain tat inks contain metal, so there was an outside chance of the magnets fucking with them during the procedure. Again, i didn't fall into that tramp stamp category, so it was a moot point, but thoughts of having a tat ingloriously ripped from one's flesh did keep my mind occupied for a moment or two.

All in all, the process wasn't too horrific. Of course, i was on my usual dose of meds and wearing a mask and earplugs, so i have no doubt it could have been much rougher. Ever since i got locked in a locker at the Y as a little kid, tight places haven't been too high on my list. But that, of course, is a story for a different campfire. Now back to the mix.

mp3: If I Don't Die (Some dude from a badly dubbed kung-fu flick)

What up, RZA? Like he's the only Mix Master with a cache of karate movie dialogue.

mp3: IRM (Charlotte Gainsbourg from IRM)

Leave it to those pesky French to go change the word order. Miz G underwent a number of MRIs herself recently. Where as most folks simply freak out while in there, she decided to use the noise as inspiration for her new CD. i guess if my old man was on Bridget Bardot's speed dial, i'd probably do weird shit like that, too.

mp3: tubed (drum please!!!) (Tsutchie from Samurai Champloo - Masta)

While simply having Samurai Champloo tracks in a mix is enough to make it stellar, this track has the added bonus of actually sounding similar to all those blips and pings Charlotte seems to love so bad. At least, i was adding bass lines and keys to the mechanical drum solo i was hearing in my head to try to make it sound more like this. Again, though, i get good drugs.

mp3: Reno Dakota (Magnetic Fields from 69 Love Songs, Vol. 1)

i really wanted to use a Magnetic Fields track that had something to do with the medical profession, but i don't have such a song in my personal library. So i bring you one of my faves from their major opus. The pantone and Nino Rota lines are some of the most clever i've ever heard.