As I think may be fairly obvious from previous posts, I love music. I've devoted posts to specific musicians, I've referenced songs in other posts, I've even repurposed popular song titles as titles to some of my individual posts. Even the name of this blog takes its name from a Pretenders song.
Popular culture--specifically music and movies--is probably the closest thing I get to any kind of religion. I find it spiritually uplifting in ways that going to church never could do for me.
Every week on Facebook for about five years now, I have posted a YouTube link to an album I really like and a few words about why I'm drawn to that particular album. Since February, I have also been posting a film recommendation to accompany that with a link to the film's trailer.
On three occasions over the last few months, Facebook has made it very difficult to do this. For two of my film recommendations (including the one for this week, which I will present in my next post), when I attempted to add the trailer, I was informed that it violated Facebook's community standards, which I find laughable. One of those films is considered a classic by every measure and the other is just a supremely well-written 1990s rom-com.
The final straw occurred today when I found out that they had removed this week's album recommendation for similar reasons. I'm trying to appeal it, but since I'm sure no actual, sensible human being is actually, sensibly reading it and they didn't give me any way of explaining why I thought their decision was wrong (I basically just answered a multiple-choice form), I doubt my appeal will be successful. So, in response, I'm going to start posting my album and film recommendations here and then posting that link on my Facebook page. Let's see what their algorithm makes of that!
The Reverend Will the Thrill Presents the Album of the Week!
This week's musical "sermon" can be blamed on a movie (weirdly, I won't be focusing on that movie in my film "sermon" this week--maybe another time). I first heard the artist behind this week's album in that movie. Nick Cave's 1997 song "Into My Arms" was used in the soundtrack of the 2013 Richard Curtis film About Time. It was one of those perfect marriages of film and music. Clearly Richard Curtis (who also wrote the film) didn't believe any other song would have worked in that particular scene. In hindsight, I can honestly say that I firmly believe he was right. If you've not seen the movie, I won't spoil it for you. Just trust me when I say it was... well, perfect.
I fell in love with that song. I don't know if it was the kind of heaviness of the piano, the lyrics, or the deep world-weariness of the vocal--knowing me, it was probably a combination of those things. As the musician (and my cousin) Daryl Shawn pointed out once, you don't hear a lot of songs with the word "interventionist" in the lyrics. I knew I wanted to add the song to my collection, but I didn't just want the soundtrack to the movie--I wanted to hear more of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. About a year or so after watching the DVD a few times, my friend Mark Sniadecki was in the process of moving to Bloomington--something I've done twice myself. He decided to divest himself of his "physical media" and put a couple of boxes of CDs and DVDs on the breakroom table at Barnes & Noble and told his colleagues to take what they wanted. There were a number of things that looked interesting to me. I wound up with an underrated Coen Brothers movie, I doubled my collection of The White Stripes, tripled my collection of They Might Be Giants, and even picked up the Carpenters' 1978 Christmas album. But what I considered to be the true gem in the box was a CD titled The Boatman's Call by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. I looked on the back of the CD and was extraordinarily delighted to discover that it actually opened with "Into My Arms." To be honest, I probably would have taken the CD even if it didn't have that song, just because I already knew I wanted to hear more than just that one song. I even told Mark how excited I was to check it out. It's still one of my favourite "late night" albums. As I've discovered, it's also really good to play on a Suinday morning/early afternoon while driving around Lancaster County in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania... don't ask.
In 2016, I made a trip down to Bloomington to catch up with some old friends (something I really need to do again). I informed Mark I would be in town and wondered if he'd like to get together for dinner. He told me that there was going to be a special screening of a movie about the making of Nick Cave's new album which was to be released the following day and wondered if I wanted to go. The film, One More Time With Feeling, was one of the more moving documentaries I've ever seen (and it's not going to be my "Film of the Week" either). It was all about how he dealt with the loss of his 15-year-old son, Arthur, and how he channeled that grief into his album Skeleton Tree. It was also shot in 3D, which I thought was an odd choice for a documentary, but it made it a much more immersive experience. The only thing I wish I had done was buy the album at the theater that night just to say that I had gotten it before it was officially available.
Since then, I have to say I have unfortunately not explored his music further. I really need to. It's truly beautiful music, but it is kind of heavy and sometimes dark. One or two albums can go a long way sometimes.
A couple of weeks ago, Cave was a guest on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert." I was excited to hear he had a new album coming out. As big a fan of Colbert as I am, I particularly love it when he discusses music with musicians. He has a deep reverence for music and understands how it can touch us in inexplicable ways, and I always enjoy it when other musicians seem to have that same reverence. There was a deep spirituality to their conversation which I found rather comforting as I also have that same reverence for music. They also discussed the process of grief, the death of Cave's son, and how one progresses from such profound loss. I posted the interview a day or two after it aired, but I will post it again in the comments section if you want to check it out further.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds released their new album yesterday. I felt it was one of those that I had to buy the day of its release. In his interview with Colbert, Cave said, "I think it's essentially a joyful, uplifting kind of record, which is quite different than the records I normally make." This automatically intrigued me because what I had heard in the past tended to be rather somber. Listening to this new album brought up a lot of thoughts and emotions. I'll be the first to admit that I'm a cynic--I like to think of myself as a hopeful cynic, but a cynic, nonetheless. I don't know if this is something that occurs within me naturally, or if it's something that's come about from my own experiences, but it kind of makes sense that I would be drawn to Nick Cave's music. But this is quite different for him. It is--certainly compared to Skeleton Tree--quite joyful and uplifting. In listening to it, I find it consoling, which was not what I was expecting. To be honest, I don't know what I was expecting, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't consolation. For a self-professed cynic, I have to say, it seems to be giving me a lot of hope. Frankly, I haven't had this kind of experience listening to an album since Bruce Springsteen's The Rising 22 years ago.
Also, I don't know why, and perhaps it's just me and my eccentricities, but something about it reminds me of Khalil Gibran's The Prophet. You can listen to it for yourself and--if you're familiar with that book--maybe you can understand what I'm talking about. But I still think R.E.M.'s song "Losing My Religion" is a reworking of The Beatles' "I Am the Walrus," so... really, what do I know?
Either way, this week, I am more than pleased to submit Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds with their latest release, Wild God.
Until next week, stay safe, be good to your neighbours, and please remember that if at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't for you.
Earlier this month, singer/songwriter/author/entertainer/entrepreneur/pilot/sailor/beach bum Jimmy Buffett died from a rare form of skin cancer. As I said some time back regarding the death of Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts, I don't normally get bent out of shape over celebrity deaths just because I don't know them personally. I've had the pleasure of meeting a few and shaking some hands in my life, but I never got to know them as people. But as I get older, if a celebrity's work leaves a lasting impression on me, their death does tend to hurt. Like Charlie Watts, Jimmy Buffett's passing hurts.
I really became affected by Buffett's music in the early 1990s. Like most people, I knew his 1977 song "Margaritaville," his second of only two Top 40 hits in his career and the only one to crack the Top 10. But through the influence of my Uncle Frantz, who had a couple of his CDs, most notably the 1985 compilation album Songs You Know By Heart: Jimmy Buffett's Greatest Hit(s), I started to absorb other songs into my musical consciousness. I found myself quite drawn to his work. Perhaps it was his clever rhymes and wordplay. Maybe it was his mischievous sense of humour that isn't always as prevalent in pop music as it probably should be. It was almost as if he was daring people to enjoy themselves in spite of the dramas and traumas of everyday life.
("Dramas and traumas"--now there's a phrase I've used a few times in various essays I've written. I've never seen it used anywhere else, so I'll take credit for it, but I think it's safe to say that, if nothing else, Buffett certainly had an influence on me as a writer.)
Whatever it was, it began to resonate with me. Even today, when I listen to his songs, I feel like I'm actually inside of them, witnessing everything he's singing firsthand. He was first and foremost a storyteller which added a certain quality to his songs that is unusual... in a good way. By the time I was a senior in high school, I was regularly calling up my local DJ, the great Johnny Henderson ("The Big Guy"), to play some of his songs on the radio during my morning bus ride to school. They became part of the soundtrack of my life, especially after I went to college and started experimenting (badly) with poetry and/or songwriting. I actually found a lot of inspiration in Buffett's works. The titles alone were enough to bring a smile to anyone's face--songs like "Trying to Reason With Hurricane Season" (a particularly timely notion right now, especially down south), "Growing Older But Not Up," "The Weather Is Here, Wish You Were Beautiful," "Last Mango in Paris," "If the Phone Doesn't Ring, It's Me," "Please Bypass This Heart," "Son of a Son of a Sailor," and--one of my personal faves--"My Head Hurts, My Feet Stink, and I Don't Love Jesus." I also have to give him serious props for the greatest title ever bestowed upon a live album, 1978's You Had To Be There. The only other artist I've ever known who wrote such catchy titles was Frank Zappa and even he never came up with something as drunkenly silly as A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean.
His ability to tell stories transcended music. In fact it only seemed natural that he would expand this skill into the field of literature. Over the years, he wrote a number of bestselling books, both fiction and nonfiction, for both children and adults. In fact, he's one of only a handful of writers to top The New York Times Bestseller list in both fiction and nonfiction. His collection of short stories, Tales From Margaritaville: Fictional Facts and Factual Fictions is one of my all-time favourite books. As part of a media writing class in college, I even wrote a screenplay to his story "I Wish Lunch Could Last Forever." It couldn't have been too bad, I got a B on it... actually, it may have been a B-. I'd have to go back and look to make sure. I'm still waiting for someone to make a movie of his novel Where Is Joe Merchant? When I read it initially, I found that it had such a cinematic quality to it, that I was even casting the movie in my head (I seem to recall picturing Tommy Lee Jones in the role of the missing title character).
I never had the opportunity to see the man in concert. There was a possibility of seeing a show in 1997, complete with backstage passes, but I was flat broke at the time. There was talk of seeing him again as a family event at Wrigley Field in 2005, but that never came to pass. I have a DVD of that specific concert so I can at least see what I missed. Like the Grateful Dead, he's one of those artists that I would like to have seen just to be able to say I had. I consider myself a "Parrot Head" just because I enjoy his music and have a weakness for brightly coloured floral print shirts, but I'm not as obsessive about it as some.
Perhaps my favourite thing that I like to point out about Buffett (and, sadly, I share this every chance I get) actually involves someone else's music. It was Labour Day Weekend, 1996. I was driving to Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, to pick up my sister for the holiday weekend. I got stuck in traffic somewhere between Indianapolis and Muncie and the classic rock station out of Indy played Gordon Lightfoot's 1976 epic "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" about... well the real life shipwreck. The song became an earworm and was stuck in my head the rest of the night. This would be fine except for the fact that--as is the case with any truly effective earworm--I didn't know the words. 27 years later, I still don't. So I substituted the only other song I knew regarding boats, Buffett's 1978 song "Son of a Son of a Sailor." Amazingly enough, I found that you can actually sing the lyrics of Buffett's song to the melody of Lightfoot's. In 2017, Buffett released an album of early recordings that had been presumed lost and suddenly resurfaced titled Buried Treasure. In the liner notes, he wrote that he had been heavily influenced by Gordon Lightfoot's music. The whole connection suddenly made so much more sense to me. *
In April of 1996, I performed my own rock concert for my Senior Honours Thesis. As I always say, this just shows you what kind of leeway they give you in the Honours College at Ball State University. For the show, I decided to perform a cover of Buffett's 1974 song "A Pirate Looks at Forty." Buffett once said of the song, "I guess I wrote this for an old friend of mine a few years back that could just not find his occupation in the twentieth century. So he just chose to live in a fantasy world. And then I looked at him and I went, 'well, what the hell is wrong with that?' So if this song has been able to ease your pain ever so slightly, I'm glad I wrote it, 'cause that's what it's for."
I found I identified with the character in that song. In the written portion of my thesis, I wrote, "I sometimes think I was born about eighty years too late and I would have had a very successful career in vaudeville. 'My occupational hazard is/My occupation's just not around.' Nobody my age really has any respect for the way things use[d] to be anymore. Sometimes I feel old, even though I'm only twenty-one at the time of this writing. That's why this song means so much to me--It's for all those pirates and vaudevillians who are lost and forgotten in this God-forsaken, computerized wasteland known as the 1990s." Damn--that's pretty good if I do say so myself. Damn--it's amazing how certain things never seem to change.
Jimmy--and, even though I never met him, I do feel like I'm on a first name basis with him--is one of those rare celebrities whose work not only meant something to me, but one that I've been exceptionally grateful for over the years. If nothing else, he's one of those people that I've always wanted to meet just to thank him for his art. He was never a favourite among critics and most music snobs (at least the ones I know) always seem to exhibit disdain for his work, but he never seemed to care about any of that. His goal always seemed to be to put a smile on people's faces, make them forget their troubles for a bit, and not take anything--including himself--too seriously. And while his songs may not be as revered as those by Dylan, The Beatles, Marvin Gaye, The Stones, Joni Mitchell, Carole King, Bruce Springsteen, Willie Nelson, or any number of artists who are known for writing their own material, they've left a permanent impression on my psyche and my world viewpoint. Personally, I think we need more people like Jimmy Buffett in this world. Whether we realize it or not, I believe society has lost one of its greats and we are poorer for it.
* If, like me, you don't know the words to "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," you can also substitute the lyrics to Billy Joel's "Piano Man" as well as "Amazing Grace." Go ahead--you know you want to try it.
For about a year, I had a digital subscription to The New York Times. Unfortunately, about a year ago, the economy went to pot. Since pot is still illegal in the state where I live, I found myself in a position where I had to drop the subscription in order to save a few bucks each month. However, I still get their daily newsletter in my email (and I play Wordle on the app).
In the newsletter for Saturday, 18 March, 2023, Melissa Kirsch mentioned a list of likes and dislikes by the author Susan Sontag which she "stumble[s] across" with what would appear to be some degree of regularity. Sadly, whenever Sontag's name is brought up, I'm always reminded of one reviewer who described her novels as "self-indulgent, overrated crap." Since I've never read any of her novels and, therefore, can't back up that opinion, I looked at her list of likes and dislikes.
As a compulsive list-maker myself, I was thoroughly fascinated by these brief glimpses into Sontag's personality. Part of me wants to know the context, although, strangely, I really enjoy the mystery of not knowing--why, for example, did she like Louis XIII furniture? Why did she not like Robert Frost? And, since she didn't specify, did she not like Frost the man, or was she just not a fan of his poetry? Or, perhaps maybe she knew a completely different person named Robert Frost who was just an asshole?
As Kirsch writes, "Each item taken alone could be passed off as a caprice, but in the list, there are clues to the person--a person who likes babies but dislikes couples, who likes the smell of mowed grass but dislikes the cold... Absent any explanation, the meaning of the list is malleable." Frankly, I like that about lists like this. I particularly enjoy the possibility of one's likes and dislikes seeming to be contradictory. And I love the fact that it probably is not contradictory to the person who made the list.
Another point that tickles my fancy is that, as Kirsch also points out, "One's likes and dislikes are forever changing, too, which permits a person to be complicated and fickle and to change their mind." While my likes and dislikes have been cultivated from a lifetime of personal experience, I like a lot of things that I didn't like when I was younger, like punk rock. The reverse is also true--when I was a child, I loved bananas. I ate them frequently. Today, I'm physically repulsed by them. Even just the smell of a banana makes me nauseous.
As I said, I am a compulsive list-maker myself. My lists are usually centered around popular culture--best cinematic death scenes, best songs to play in the car, favourite guitarists, etc. I seldom find myself making practical lists--I don't have "to-do" lists, for example. Even my ability to make grocery lists is spotty. For some reason, though, I've never made a list as simple as basic likes and dislikes.
I was surprised by the amount of soul-searching that went into it, particularly my list of dislikes. I found myself asking how revealing I wanted to be. After all, a lot of the items I put on the list could potentially bring some questions and criticisms (an admittedly unlikely possibility, given the number of people likely to read this). As much as I enjoy screwing with people, how contradictory do I want to sound? Should I let the reader ponder the fact that I like Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, but I don't like peanut butter... or even peanuts?
One of the things I like about this is that I can't be comprehensive. There are too many things I like and dislike that I can't possibly mention all of them. There are also a lot of things that, at this point in my life, I've never experienced. For example, I've never had escargot, therefore, I don't know if I like it or not. Consequently, I'm sure I'll revisit this in a future post... one day, after I've had some new experiences and don't have anything else to write about. In the meantime, I've kept my lists to fifteen items apiece.
Things I like: Watching old black and white movies on a rainy Saturday afternoon, watching Steve McQueen films on a Sunday morning (the actor Steve McQueen, not the director), medium rare steak, bagpipe music, peeling dried rubber cement from any object, slowly opening a two-liter bottle of soda for the first time and feeling the label crumple in the palm of my hand, psychedelic rock music of the 1960s, women who don't shave their body hair, emptying a really full three-hole punch, stick shifts, cheeseburgers, the feeling of my teeth biting into a mushroom, bibliosmia, Art Deco, and single malt Scotch.
Things I dislike: Cole slaw, parking garages with cheaply produced automatic gates, having to repeat myself, bureaucracies, the ringing of a telephone, texting abbreviations (OMG, it's like we live in a world of eight-year-olds. Seriously, WTF?), human stupidity (especially my own), people who mispronounce the word "nuclear," cooked tomatoes, raw celery, people who say "unquote" instead of "end quote," our collective dependence on cell phones (especially my own), Daylight Saving Time, and having to repeat myself.
Now that I've gotten that off my chest, please feel free to share some of yours and I'm actually happy to discuss my list if you really want context.
Frankly, I'm kind of hurt and really pissed off right now. And while the reasons for this seem kind of stupid, petty, and childish in the grand scheme of things, knowing that doesn't necessarily alleviate the anger and hurt feelings that I have in the moment. So I'm dealing with it the only way I know how--I write (what's your superpower?).
For the last month or so, I've been really looking forward to this past Friday's release of Florence + The Machine's new album, Dance Fever. Along with The Rolling Stones and Bruce Springsteen, Florence + the Machine is the only other artist whose new studio albums I feel compelled to buy the day of their release. I've been following her Twitter feed for updates, I've watched every new video posted to YouTube (some multiple times), I made a point of recording her appearances this past week on Jimmy Fallon and "CBS Mornings." And when I went to buy the album Friday morning, guess where I was able to find it? NOWHERE! Not one damn retailer in my area that sells music had it available in their stores to buy. I'm still trying to figure out what was more insulting--the fact that Barnes & Noble didn't have it, or the fact that their website had the unmitigated gall to list it as a bestseller. Here's a tip--if it's a bestseller, make sure I can buy it at my local store. What kind of crap is that? You can damn well better believe that this never happened when I ran your music department, I can tell you that right now.
Now I know what you're thinking--this isn't the end of the world, I can just order it and pick it up later. Trust me, I'm way ahead of you. It's not like I don't want the album just because places like B&N and Target didn't have enough foresight to stock it. You're also probably thinking that I'm making a mountain out of a molehill and that I'm being stupid, petty, and childish. And if you think that, I challenge you to re-read the first paragraph of this missive. Look, I know that overall, this is a pretty trivial thing and that I'm overreacting. All I can say is that it may not be that important, but it is important to me. It's been a long week and I knew it would be going into it. This was literally the only thing I was looking forward to this week and the whole thing's been ruined. Sure, I can wait, but it's not the same thing as buying the physical copy as soon as the store opens and knowing that you're one of the first to do so. This is why we go see movies on Thursdays that actually open on Fridays. I actually had to listen to the album on YouTube where I was subjected to at least one ad between every song. And I know YouTube has a premium service that I can pay for and not have to see the ads, but dammit, that was the whole point of buying the album in the first place!
Now I know what you're thinking--people still buy physical media? Can't you just download it from iTunes? Well, yes, I suppose I could, but, like waiting past the release date to buy it, it's not the same thing. I like having something to hold on to while I'm listening. I like to read liner notes and look at pictures of the artist, maybe even read the lyrics while listening to the songs if the artist included them. You know--all the ephemera that digital downloads can't provide... those little things that to my, admittedly overly romantic view of music appreciation, just make the whole listening experience better. I read somewhere once that a vinyl record is a handwritten love letter. A digital download is a text. Friday was one of those days where I deeply felt what I refer to as the ongoing struggle of an analogue soul searching for his place in an increasingly digital universe. And in the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that I was looking for it on CD, which sounds a bit blasphemous, but to me it's a happy medium between analogue and digital. I get all the ephemera of the vinyl and I can play it in the car. Not that it matters anyway since I'm sure I'll buy it on vinyl eventually. Again, I realize this is an overly romantic viewpoint that even a lot of self-professed music lovers don't understand. Honestly, I don't expect them to. However, I will go on record as saying that the followers of that cult leader Marie Kondo don't know what they're missing.
So that's why I'm pissed, but like I said, I'm also kind of hurt. I've been waiting in anticipation for this album for over a month. Yeah, okay, Florence Welch is one of my top three celebrity crushes (Tina Fey and Zooey Deschanel being the other two), I do have a severe weakness for redheaded women, especially those with musical talent, blah, blah, blah, etc., etc., etc. But it's much more than that. Her music actually speaks to me on an emotional level. I remember listening to her MTV Unplugged album one afternoon while sitting on a bench and drinking a cup of tea while snow fell around me. The whole thing was beautiful. That live performance of "Dog Days Are Over" combined with the snow literally had tears streaming down my face. I described it later as a religious experience. It makes me wonder if there was something in the tea other than lemon and honey. The albums she's released since have had similar effects on me, regardless of the weather. I even bought a book of her writings (Useless Magic: Lyrics, Poetry and Sermons, in case you want to check it out for yourself). There's something mystical, comforting, magical, even healing in her voice. And while she's been very open about how many of her songs get written as a way to help her deal with her own dramas and traumas, I think I speak for many of her listeners when I say they help us deal with ours too. Again, I realize I'm overreacting when I say this, but I feel like my life and the things that matter to me were casually brushed aside in the name of streaming convenience. I was essentially robbed of the opportunity to listen to her new album because I'm some romantic old fart who prefers physical media. Her music makes me feel like it's okay to be this hopeless romantic. Not being able to buy it on the day of its rather hyped release reminds me that I'm just... well, different.
The great irony, of course, is that I'm venting about this in a digital, social media format. That's okay. I've always been a fan of irony.
When I was thirteen years old, I came home from school to discover that the Soviet Union had done something that they couldn't possibly do (I think they somehow repealed the Bill of Rights to the United States Constitution). The U.S. considered this an act of war and responded with nuclear weapons. Of course, the Soviets retaliated in kind. From my kitchen window, I watched as a missile was about to explode just up the road. The only thing I could do was pick up the phone and frantically try to call you to tell you I loved you. I don't remember my call getting through.
Of course, this is the point where I woke up to discover the whole thing was just a bizarre dream/nightmare. But I did get an uneasy feeling that if I didn't tell you how I felt about you that something globally catastrophic would happen.
Two weeks later, I finally worked up the courage to tell you I loved you. Your reaction was pretty much what I predicted. I walked away from it feeling the way I thought I'd feel--rejected, dejected, and thoroughly humiliated. But, hey, the world didn't end, so I must have done something right.
When I was 27, those feelings were still there. We'd been through a lot together since the end of the Cold War--good times, bad times, two weeks in England and Scotland. You were my best friend. I've never in my life been closer to anyone. No matter how much I tried to convince myself that any youthful, romantic feelings I had for you were in my more youthful, romantic past, everyone around me seemed to know otherwise. Clearly I was in denial.
I debated putting my heart on the line once again. I didn't say anything because we'd just moved in together with my cousin a month earlier and I didn't want to make things awkward for any of us, especially him. I also knew there was no way I could compete with a British accent that was fifteen years my senior. So I said nothing. I'd been through that humiliation before and it still stung. I didn't see the point in subjecting myself to it again.
I think it's safe to say that the events of 11 September, 2001, constituted a global catastrophe. Arguably the ramifications of it persist to this day. When I was first informed as to what was going on in New York and Washington, DC, the first thing I thought of was that dream I had when I was thirteen and the virtually public humiliation I forced myself to endure in order to prevent a calamity such as what we were now experiencing. Did I really save the world that autumn day in 1987? Probably not. I find it highly unlikely that I have that kind of influence over international politics. But on the off, off, off chance that I did, what if I could have prevented 9/11 simply by telling you that I love you? That would have also prevented a 20-year war in Afghanistan, a side boondoggle in Iraq... honestly, who knows how differently the world might have turned out?
I tend to look at the human race as God's failed third grade science project--put specimens in a jar and see which one(s) will eat the other(s) first. In the intervening two decades, I've watched the human race, specifically America, decline drastically. Wars, plague, climate change, mass shootings, road rage, partisan politics--we all know how to fix these things, but we refuse to do so because ultimately it negatively affects the bottom line. There's no real money in it for the greedy, corrupt people who are running everything. We can fix a lot of problems, but the real root cause of it--mass human stupidity--is incurable. And I've lost so much faith in my own species, that I'm not sure it's worth saving.
As I write this, it would appear that all hell is on the verge of breaking loose in Eastern Europe. I'm predicting that if (more likely when) it does, it will start World War III. Honestly, I genuinely don't care anymore. I figure it's been roughly 80 years since the last one, we're overdue for another. And yet, in spite of my possibly apocalyptic apathy, I feel I have a moral obligation to try to prevent it if I can.
Yes... after all these years, I'm still in love with you. I don't know why--I mean, after all, you're a lying cunt--but I am.
I know I'm not supposed to feel this way, but falling in love is the only thing in my life that I truly regret. It cost me my heart, my soul, my best friend (a couple of times), arguably my immune system, and my left hip. It turned me into a bitter, cynical old man before I was 30. It brings out the absolute worst traits in me as a human being. Frankly, I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. And I don't know if I regret falling in love or if I regret falling in love with you, but since you're the only person with whom I've ever truly been in love, I can't really make a proper distinction.
Many years ago, I gave up on ever finding anyone with whom to share my life. I realize that's bleak, but I figure if you can't measure up to married men and suicidal drunks in the eyes of your own best friend, you probably won't find anyone. Besides, you can only get called a "really nice guy" so many times before you start to believe your own bad press. I get it--I'm no one's ideal man. The good news is, I no longer feel like I have to impress anyone. Besides, I've never found anyone who made me feel the way you did... and I mean that in a good way.
As cynical, bitter, resentful, and angry as I am toward you (and, believe me, I am), for some fucking ungodly reason, every time I see an old picture of you, something inside me melts and I begin to ache in ways that only missing someone you love can cause. In those moments, all I want to do is hold you as tightly as I can for as long as you'll let me. If I'm honest with myself, that's really all I've ever wanted since we were eleven years old.
I know you don't feel the same toward me (or at least that's what you claim). Hell, you probably won't even read this, but at least it will be out there in all its humiliating glory. I doubt that it will change the world, certainly not for the better. As I said, I'm not sure humanity as a whole is worth saving, and I know I no longer care. But, just in case it does make a difference, I suppose it would be immoral of me not to at least try to do the right thing. And if World War III doesn't break out in the next few weeks, I guess it will have worked.
I should have written this back in August of 2021 when it first happened. I did write something for a Facebook post and quite a bit of this is lifted verbatim from that post. But, for some reason, I find myself still affected by the death of Rolling Stones' drummer Charlie Watts.
I don't usually get bent out of shape over celebrity deaths as--at least at this point in time--I've never actually known any celebrities. I've had the privilege of meeting a few and I've shaken a couple of hands, but it's never been possible for me to spend enough time to get to know them as people. However, the older I get, I find that the deaths of certain entertainers tend to bother me if their work has had a lasting impact on me. I won't lie. Charlie's death hurts... even four months after the fact.
I've never felt that I could fully describe or explain what the Rolling Stones' music has meant to me. I first heard them at the tender age of twelve and it was not like anything I had ever heard before. Initially, their music got me exploring not just their own extensive musical catalogue (which has gotten more extensive in the intervening years), but other artists that became known during the 1960s, particularly anything I could find worth listening to in my parents' vinyl collection. I started to read anything I could find regarding those artists. I sought out the artists who influenced them. The Stones had started out in the early-1960s idolizing American blues musicians. Knowing this, I got turned on to the likes of Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter, and my blues idol, the one and only John Lee Hooker. The Stones' appreciation for country and reggae music led me down even more interesting musical paths. I even began exploring artists who cited the Stones and their contemporaries as influences which then broadened my appreciation of rock music as well. Today, I still read liner notes religiously, a habit I picked up somewhere in high school. I like to know who played what instrument for what song on what album for a particular artist in a certain year. I think I would have always turned out to be a music lover, but the Stones turned that love into a geeky passion--at a time when being a geek wasn't exactly cool (come to think of it, neither was being a twelve-year-old Stones fan in the 1980s).
It was through their music that I started paying attention to the individual instruments used within a song, particularly the drums. I frequently will play out the drum parts to some of my favourite songs on any hard surface that happens to be near while I'm listening (much to the annoyance of anyone who happens to be with me at the time). Charlie taught me what a drummer was supposed to do--keep time. He didn't play a lot of lengthy intricate solos, he didn't have a huge setup with twenty different drums and a large gong behind him. He played a simple jazz drummer's kit (Gretsch drums, specifically) and he played with the sensibility of a jazz drummer. He wasn't flashy, he just kept the beat. Somehow, that made his drumming seem flashier to me.
When I think of the concept of what God might look like (something I believe to be subjective), I don't think of the guy with the long flowing white beard that we've seen in so many Renaissance paintings. I don't even think of film depictions like George Burns or Morgan Freeman (both good choices, by the way). I think of a photograph of Charlie Watts that I first saw in a coffee table book I have about the Stones. It was taken by photographer Jill Furmanovsky at her London studio in the early 1990s. It's a black and white picture of his profile. When combined with the colour picture on the opposite page (from the same photoshoot), something in my head said that, at least for me, this is what God looks like--an incredibly snazzy dresser with a very dry sense of humour who also happens to be one hell of a drummer. Today, I actually refer to God as "Charlie"--it takes the formality out of it for me... but that's another story, hopefully, for a later posting.
I suppose this continued sense of loss has a lot to do with my late father. I get much of my taste in popular culture from him. He was the one who introduced me to the Stones when I was twelve. Obviously, he had been a fan long before I was even born. I claim that my appreciation of music transcends genre because of Dad--he played not just rock records growing up, but also classical and country music. He liked everything from Wagner and Beethoven to Merle Haggard and Leon Redbone. He also had a deep love of jazz and blues which I'm sure would have been passed to me with or without the Stones' influence.
In 1989, the Stones announced that they would be releasing a new album (Steel Wheels) and embarking on a North American tour--their first major tour in seven years. It was Dad who suggested that we should try to get tickets if they were playing anyplace close. Lo and behold, along with some church friends, Dad managed to get tickets for their concert in Louisville, Kentucky, scheduled for 19 September. (I still find it amusing that essentially a church group went to a Stones concert. It sounds like the setup for a bad joke. We may as well have walked into a bar.)
I was fifteen years old and it was my first concert. Prior to this, the only "famous" person I had ever seen was Rip Taylor in a stage performance of Peter Pan when I was in the third grade. This was something considerably different. It was the first time I ever felt like I was part of something bigger than myself--particularly when they played "You Can't Always Get What You Want," which is still my favourite song all these years later.
Along with the Chicago Cubs game I wrote about in a previous post some years ago ("What the 2016 World Series Means To Me"), this was one of those father/son moments that I'll always treasure. I was out until 2:00 in the morning on a school night with my dad at a rock concert. How many of you can say you did that when you were fifteen? I got my shoelaces soaked in beer (which I still have), ate my first White Castle hamburgers, and found out what marijuana smells like. (At one point, before the opening act even took the stage, Dad looked at me and said, "Do you smell that?" I said, "Yeah, what is that?" He said, "That's grass. Don't inhale. Let me do that.")
As the Righteous Brothers once sang, "If there's a rock and roll heaven, well you know they've got a hell of a band." Sadly, that band is getting bigger and bigger with each passing year. Even Bobby Hatfield is a member. But I do take comfort in the belief that my parents have a front row seat and Dad's probably hanging out backstage with a lot of them... possibly even picking up a few musical tricks of his own.
I don't usually like getting political in these writings, but I do feel that it helps me process everything that's been going on the last few months.
As a teenager, I realized that Donald Trump was a fraud. I may not have thought of that exact word when I was sixteen, but I definitely realized that the man who would become the 45th President of the United States more than a quarter of a century later definitely had no concept of what it's like to be an "average American."
In 1990, Trump was going through one of his financial crises, and he had to be put on an allowance of $450,000 a month (you can read all about it at https://www.nytimes.com/1990/06/26/business/quick-who-d-have-trouble-living-on-450000-a-month.html). Many media outlets of the time raised the question about whether or not he could survive on that amount of money. My first thought was, "Why don't you ask the average American if they can survive on that amount?" I know I could get by on that. Hell, I could get by on $450,000 a decade and still make more money than I make right now! The whole incident certainly made me skeptical toward the ultra-rich in general and Trump specifically.
Don't get me wrong, I actually respect and even admire many rich people, particularly if they use their wealth to make the world a better place. I appreciate everything the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation does to help people in poorer countries improve their lives. I'm impressed by the fact that Warren Buffett is upset over the fact that he pays a lower tax rate than his secretary who makes considerably less than he does. Even people in the entertainment industry like Matt Damon, George Clooney, and Brad Pitt (among others) have my deepest, utmost respect for their charitable works. These people know they are financially better off than the average individual and feel an obligation, even a duty, to better the lives of those who have less. I don't care if a person has a lot of financial wealth. I also wouldn't mind having it myself, but it's not something that motivates or defines me.
I do, however, get concerned when a person is motivated by or defines themselves by their wealth, like Donald Trump consistently has. It's as if he thinks that having money makes him a better person than someone who has less than he does. His public behaviour has always indicated to me that he is incredibly shallow, he has no real friends except for sycophants and hangers-on, and that he would sell out any one of them--even his own children--at a moment's notice if he thought he could get more money out of it. Underneath his gold-plated, spray-on tanned, combed over veneer is a churlish, friendless little boy who has to bully/buy his way into getting exactly what he wants exactly when he wants it. Sad, really. Of course, that's just one man's opinion.
Kenneth Gamble, Leon Huff, and Anthony Jackson wrote a song called "For the Love of Money," which was a hit for the O'Jays in 1974. A sample of the lyrics include:
"For the love of money
People will steal from their mother
For the love of money
People can't even walk the street
Because they never know who in the world they're gonna beat
For that lean, mean, mean green...
For the love of money
People will lie, Lord, they will cheat
For the love of money
People don't care who they hurt or beat
For the love of money
A woman will sell her precious body
For a small piece of paper it carries a lot of weight
Call it lean, mean, mean green
Almighty dollar...
I know money is the root of all evil
Do funny things to some people
Give me a nickel, brother can you spare a dime
Money can drive some people out of their minds."
The great irony is that this became the theme song of his hit show, "The Apprentice" (or as I always liked to call it, "The Biggest Loser"). I never actually watched the show (like I said, I lost any respect I might have had for him when I was a teenager). For all I know, the song may have only been used in the show's advertising campaign. Either way, I wonder if Trump actually knew those lyrics ahead of time or, like most people, he only knew the "Money money money MOOOOO-NEY" chorus with its slinky bass line. If he did know them, was he really confessing all the things he'd do in order to acquire that "lean, mean, mean green"?
I can't decide if Trump is a narcissistic sociopath or a sociopathic narcissist. He is a bully. Like any bully worth his salt, he has an incredibly thin skin that houses an easily bruisable ego. Therein lies his real weakness: he can dish it out, but he can't take it. If anyone points out a flaw in anything he says or does (especially if it's factual), he goes off on some kind of screed, usually on Twitter, mocking the person or persons who have the unmitigated audacity to point out the flaw in the first place, throwing around terms like "fake news" and "witch hunt" and crying like a whiny little bitch about how he's being treated "very unfairly." And don't even get me started on how many times he's "doubled down" on however many specious claims he's made over the last five years--naturally without a scrap of evidence to back up any of it. He seems to believe that if you repeat a lie enough, people will eventually believe it's true. Some will even believe it immediately.
Reviewing that New York Times article again, I find myself questioning Trump's brand--something I started doing the moment he announced his candidacy for President. Particularly, I question whether or not he's really a billionaire. Personally, I don't think he is. He has been far too reluctant to release his tax returns to make me believe he isn't hiding something. And the returns that have been leaked seem to indicate a considerable amount of debt, much of it to foreign interests. That reluctance to back up his claims of his own self-worth make me doubt whether there's as much wealth there as he says there is.
Regardless of how much money he actually has, let's not confuse wealth with worth. More importantly, let's not confuse the lows to which he sinks with any kind of depth. There is nothing really there. I doubt there ever was.
