Thursday Top Five II

"'I tell you,' he cried, 'this man has enlarged my mind.'"

Amongst Christians, there seems to be a lot of debate about who this man is, or who he can be. I find myself thinking a lot about the fact that, as a Christian, I'm surrounded by people who make a point of using the Bible to guide their lives. They live by the Scripture, using its verses to pick them up in the worst of times and remind them of how they got where they are in the best of times. God enlarges their mind.

I am not one of those people. 

Hold on - maybe that's not fair. I think a better description is this: I think there are a lot of people that are convinced the Bible is the only place one can find advice worth living by. This belief, in other words, is that only God can enlarge the mind - nominally, at least. I completely reject this notion. 

So maybe I am not one of those people. 

I heard a (Christian) speaker say, once upon a time, that one of the things that excites him about being a Christian is that, given that he believes that God is truth, he can claim all truth as His - no matter where he finds it. 

That's more like it. 

When I'm facing particularly emotional times, for better or for worse, I don't usually run to friends or relationships I know. Instead, I tend to run to my knowledge of the human experience - and, also for better or for worse, that knowledge usually comes from literature. I mostly just read the classics - because they are classics for a reason, and that reason is usually related to their representation of the human being. And so what I'm saying is that I try and let my mind be enlarged by whatever I can find that seems true and valuable. There is a disconnect between that modality of behavior and that expressed by most of my Christian friends. And it’s probably that that I think a lot about.
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The last seven paragraphs are all symptomatic, I think, of the fact that I have a very humanistic faith. I relate - a lot - to the deist idea of a watchmaker God: He put us here, gave us the tools to experience life, and He lets us live it. He loves us and wants only the best for us, but allows us to come to our own conclusions. Given that I believe that, I have to believe that there are great sources of truth besides the Bible. And perhaps, in a subconscious rejection of those who don't, I rely on these other sources more than the Bible. And in that spirit, here is Thursday Top Five #2: Quotations From Literature That I Think About More Than Quotations From the Bible.

1. "'And this also,' said Marlow suddenly, 'has been one of the dark places of the earth.'"

--Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

One way to start this off would be to say that this quote is defined by its context. I'd explain that, in the novella, Marlow says this sitting on a boat in the Thames, before even beginning to relate the story of Kurtz. And I'd also throw in something about the fact that Marlow's thoughts are preceded directly by a description of the scene off the deck of the boat - a description that seems to motivate his outburst... context, get it?

But that wouldn't be honest, because I think much more about the fact that this quotation needs no context. Marlow could say this from the deck of a ship or from the passenger seat of a car or from a mountaintop. It would always be true.

I think about it a lot because I feel confronted - often - by the fact there is an apparent darkness in all things. To be clear, I do mean this in the sense of night falling. I also mean this in a symbolic sense, but let’s start with the non-symbolic: In places without men, darkness changes everything. Different animals come out. Some processes stop and others begin. Things change.

And in places with men... well, things change here, too. Sometimes things change because men feel they can be different at night, and sometimes things change because men try to transform the darkness. We try to illuminate it, to make sure that our lives can continue as we want them to - despite the darkness. And that is indicative of the symbolic aspect of Marlow's statement. Is he implying that this place, albeit having once been one of darkness, has been transformed, illuminated? In light of the rest of the novella, maybe that is what he means. The Thames doesn't run through the Congo, after all - the dark, primitive part of man is gone from England, and from Europe. Maybe. But maybe he is also trying to say that, despite its current appearances, he now knows that it too is full of darkness.

Maybe he's trying to say that there's still darkness in all of us, no matter how hard we try to illuminate it.

I think about that a lot. I wonder what I'm like when the chips are down. I wonder what, at the most basic level, drives my actions. Because I do think its selfishness - but then, I'm not sure how dark selfishness is. But even when it comes to other people, I feel like I see darkness everywhere. I think most people's lives are defined by the things that they perceive to be darkness within them, whether or not they try to tame those things, and how they go about doing it; phrased a different way (or maybe on a different level), on what places they think have also been dark places of the earth.

2. "But I didn't call to him for he gave a sudden intimation that he was content to be alone - he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and far as I was from him I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seaward - and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock. When I looked once more for Gatsby he had vanished, and I was alone again in the unquiet darkness."

--The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

I'm not sure whose dock my green light burns at the end of. It might not even be a person. But I stretch out my arms and tremble.

Gatsby has a fortune and a huge house - but what he wants is something that is in plain sight and yet is separated from him by a dearth of water that he cannot cross. I relate to this feeling, though I tend to find that it happens for me in a slightly different way. I think I tend to stretch my hands out for things that I definitely want and that may be good for me, but in the process I forget to notice the house and fortune behind me. But in that vision of me, the house and fortune are good things, things that I should cherish - though what I actually do is forget that I have them.

But Fitzgerald is doing something different here. He's saying that, actually, all the money and fancy cars and giant houses, for this man, were a means to an end. They have no meaning. Its irony - everything that Gatsby is to other people is nothing to him. And that makes his life empty.

Now, while the similar vision of me that I described has a different point, I think that the reality for Gatsby and me is fundamentally the same - we've mixed up what gives us meaning with what we want. And that, I think, is a fundamental reality for many people - and one that is almost as hard to shake as it is to recognize.

3. "'What I mean is... maybe it's only us.'"

--Lord of the Flies by William Golding

I read Lord of the Flies for school two years in a row, in ninth and tenth grade. I moved after ninth grade, and apparently the two school districts put it on the syllabus for different years. The first time I read it, I didn't exactly have a great teacher, so while I enjoyed the book and got a lot out of it, I think it was probably mostly due to my own interest (though that teacher did make an interesting comparison about the role of society and the role of the individual by comparing Golding's book with Romeo and Juliet). Sophomore year, on the other hand, I had a great teacher - one that I'd have again as a senior and who probably turned out to be the teacher who had the most formative effects on my life. So in tenth grade, I studied the book.

I think that this study was the first time I learned about the literary concept of a Christ Figure. It was in regards to Simon. When Simon speaks the above quote, he's trying to help the group of boys determine the nature of the beast that has been frightening and dividing them. During the meeting, his explanation is met with a variety of responses, but as we all know, the real response is when he's murdered by the group in a lightning-fueled frenzy.

I mentioned earlier (parenthetically) that my ninth grade teacher used this book as part of a discussion about the role of the community versus the role of the individual - something about where good (or evil) come from. I tend to agree with Simon's assessment, but I think it's about more than good, or evil, or fear. I think almost all of our external conflicts are really about us.

I had a friend tell me, recently, that someone asked him if you could have a suburban mind set in an urban living space (or vice-versa). I had another friend, who is currently separated from his girlfriend by quite some distance, talk about how it made him sad that she was so unhappy with her choice of college. I think both situations kind of get at the same thing. So much of our mindset - how happy we are with where we are, whether or not we decide to participate in group killings under thunderstorms on the beach, etc. - have to do with our relationship with ourselves. What is in our heart? How does that inseparable part of us escape into the world? Probably - I'd think - as an intrinsic part of everything we do.

And so all these things... things that are right with the world; things that are wrong with the world... maybe they are only us?

4. "But, mastering his emotion, he half calmly rose, and as he quitted the cabin, paused for an instant and said: 'Thou hast outraged, not insulted me, sir; but for that I ask thee not to beware of Starbuck; though wouldst but laugh; but let Ahab beware of Ahab; beware of thyself, old man.'"

--Moby-Dick or, The Whale by Herman Melville

I think that through these first four quotations, a pattern is beginning to emerge. Apparently, it's a big deal to me (a) what is in the human heart and (b) if and how we recognize that.

I'm ok with that.

Here's what this book meant to me, about my heart: monomania. I read this book, read that word, and realized that it was a perfect description of me and my relationship with the past. I pursue it, single-mindedly and stupidly, even though it is always out of reach. Apparently the word "monomania" existed in common use for a very short amount of time before it disappeared. You definitely don't hear it now. Fitting.

So if that's what the book means to me, then what this quotation has to be about is where that monomania comes from - or what, exactly, it is. I think Starbuck's warning, when it comes down to it, is a statement of the fact that monomania is an outward expression of an inward deficiency. It is what results when you have a hole somewhere inside (Ahab has no leg. His physical deformity has a point! Get it? Get it?), and you find something outside to chase down and fill it with. Note that this seldom works.

The warning, then, is a warning about understanding self; knowing the trouble you can get yourself into if you aren't careful. It's not about being cautious for the sake of caution; rather, about being cautious because if you understand yourself, you probably know that you should be, and if you don't understand yourself, you probably should be cautious until you understand yourself a bit better. It's a warning about the fact that the biggest danger to us comes from ourselves.

5. "Game, my ass. Some game. If you get on the side where all the hot-shots are, then it's a game, all right - I'll admit that. But if you get on the other side, where there aren't any hot-shots, then what's a game about it? Nothing. No game."

--The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

I'm not sure what my favorite book is. It might be Moby-Dick. It might be Kokoro. For a long time, it was To Kill a Mockingbird, and may still be. But I do know what book I've most related to, and its The Catcher in the Rye. I understand Holden, intrinsically. I get what he's about, I get what he's rejecting, and I get what he is refusing to accept.

I definitely get it when he talks about life being a game. I come from parents that started pretty poor, and because half of my dad's family still lives where he grew up, it’s never been out of sight for me. My family was, I'd say, lower middle class when I was younger, and worked their way up as I grew up. And I've always gone to school with kids who are, generally, wealthier than I am. So what I'm trying to say, I guess, is that I feel like I've always been aware of both sides: the one with the hot-shots, and the one without the hot-shots.

As a result, I've always hated the idea that life is playing games. I've played them, sure, because you probably have to sometimes. But I'm not happy about it. Business majors can play games, saying what they think they have to in order to get the second-round interview - but what kind of games are high school dropouts playing? I don't think trying to hold a job, so that they can pay rent, let alone for kids, feels like much of a game to them.

And what's the irony of the situation? The irony is that for both business major and high school dropout, what they do feels like everything to them. The business major holds that second interview above all else - it’s not any more or less important to him than the job is to the high school dropout.

That's kind of sad.

I'm not sure why life has to be a game. Maybe it's just because we conceptualize things using what we know. But life is too fragile to all be just a game. On one side, it’s a win or a loss; on the other side, it's life or death. And it's not about groups of people... sometimes, a person can straddle fence, like Holden - and it's especially dangerous when you aren't sure what you are playing for.

Game, my ass.

6. "'John Galt is Prometheus who changed his mind. After centuries of being torn by vultures in payment for having brought to men the fire of the gods, he broke his chains - and he withdrew his fire - until the day when men withdraw their vultures."

--Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

There's a lot here - a lot to unpack - but I'd like to try and keep this short. Also, talking about Atlas Shrugged right now is pretty much begging to discuss the economy. But I don't want to.

This quotation, essentially, is about abusing gifts. In the introduction to this list, I said that I relate a lot to deism; that one method for understanding God that works for me is to see Him as someone who gives us the tools to live and then lets us do it. But, to be clear, He is still a "someone." And I find myself wondering, often, what He thinks when He looks down and sees what we've done with the gifts he's given us. Does he want to come down and take back fire until we've learned, once more, to appreciate how much we need to keep warm?

I say no. I say that God values our freedom more than our "doing the right thing." But that's not to say that I'm not puzzled by some of the things man does. As a people, we tend to take our freedoms to the point that they scare us, get scared of them, and then restrict them. And that's a shame. It's a waste of what we have.

Looking at all of this after taking one giant step back, if I had to categorize this list, it seems that the first four quotations were about knowing oneself and knowing what men are about. The fifth quotation was about the nature of the play we are acting at. Is it a game? Is it not? I think that this quotation is probably about the ethic of how we act in that play. What or who do we have a responsibility to? To ourselves? To God?

I think, probably, that's the question that motivates this list.

Thursday Top Five

So I’m thinking of starting some kind of regular list feature.  I want it to be a weekly deal, and choosing Thursday nights might just work.  I guess we’ll just have to see how it goes.  Oh well.

Here are the rules:  there aren’t too many.  I’m not going to pick a length – I don’t want it be a Thursday Top Five or anything like that.  Also, the lists will always be numbered, but said numbers may or may not represent a rank.  I don’t think that most of the stuff I’ll choose to write about will lend itself to ranking… but then, I like ranking things.  I like knowing that some things are the best and some aren’t.  I abhor absolutes almost as much as I love them.

Anyways, this is the first one.  It’s a list of albums that have changed my life.  It’s hard to define what it means for an album to “change my life,” so here are some things it doesn’t mean:

1.  This isn’t a list of my favorite albums.  These are all among my favorite albums, but a lot of favorites are missing… and it’s even possible that the albums listed aren’t even my favorite by each represented artist. 

2.  I’m not trying to make a list of albums that have personally affected me, though many of these have; rather, I’m trying to make a list of albums that have changed my relationship with music.  There won’t be any explanations on here that start with “After my girlfriend broke up with me, this was all I listened to for four months with a cup of cognac…”

3.  This list isn’t definitive, and by definition can’t be.  That’s what is great about music.

 So, here it goes…

 1.  Francis the Mute, The Mars Volta

 I picked this album up on a whim.  At the time, I was into System of a Down.  I’ll say that again:  at the time, I was into System of a Down.  The Mars Volta had just toured with them, and this album showed up as a top rock pick in Rasputin’s holiday buying guide.  And it was on sale for $6.95.  $6.95!  Needless to say, I picked it up… and blew my mind.  I was so engaged, surprised, impressed, amazed, shocked, et al, that I bought a copy to and mailed it to my best friend!  I think what I told him, at the time, was that it was like watching a movie with your eyes.

 I’m not one given to sensory hyperbole.

 This album plays out on a different level than other albums.  The lyrics aren’t often discernible, and when they are, they aren’t usually understandable (not that they aren’t cool).  But Cedric’s voice is actually an instrument here, and it’s used incredibly – the high pitched emoting in the loooong intro to “Miranda, This Ghost Just Isn’t Holy Anymore,” the synthesized creepiness in the intro to “Cassandra Gemini”…

 But let’s go back to the I-can-watch-this-with-my-ears part, because ultimately, that’s what makes this album make this list.  Most TMV albums are concept albums based around a single narrative.  This narrative plays out like a great sci-fi story.  It fades in and out with the same acoustic melody, it has musical motifs that twist and turn and double back on each other, and when it comes down to it, you really are watching a narrative unfold while you listen.  The lyrics don’t tell a story as words, but they do tell a story as another layer in the musical composition – and that’s the point.

 2.  Blonde on Blonde, Bob Dylan

 In August 2005, I came back from an exodus.  I found out that the Virgin Megastore in my hometown was closing down, so I went to pick up some music – which I had a newfound appreciation for.  One sale item that seemed worth looking at was The Essential Bob Dylan, a two disc set of tunes from throughout the bard’s career.  This was my first exposure.

 I was hooked.

 I needed to buy a proper studio album.  I liked everything on the Essential, so I went online to see which albums were the most well-regarded.  I ended up with Blonde on Blonde.

 So here’s the thing:  I had a friend ask me recently which Bob Dylan “era” was my favorite.  That’s a tough question to answer, I said, but if I could only have one album forever, it’d probably be Blood on the Tracks (His response:  Dude, that’s so depressing!  I guess that’s just me…).  That was a true answer.  But Blonde on Blonde was what sold me.  Dylan fascinated me because he was a poet in every sense of the word, sweeping through so many aspects of life… and in this album, among other things, was humor (“Rainy Day Women #12 & 35”), absolute beauty (“Visions of Johanna”), and – I can’t stress this enough – love (“Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands”).

 While I would find Bob Dylan albums that I liked more, this was the one that changed things.  This was the double album so full of brilliant writing that it couldn’t be ignored.  And this was the album that made me understand the full range of emotion that music can present.

 3.  In The Aeroplane Over the Sea, Neutral Milk Hotel

 Remember, up above, when I said that this wasn’t a list of albums that have personally affected me?  Well, forget it for a second.  I can’t talk about this album without talking about the back story.  Two of my best friends who were a couple awhile back (and spent a lot of time with my girlfriend at the time and me) got really into this band.  It was recommended to me, and I had heard this album briefly at a party, but never really listened.  Then, one day, we were at the park playing Horse Balls (kind of like horseshoes but with a ladder and a pair of, uh, horse balls…), and the girl and I bet an album on the outcome.  I won.  Then her boyfriend played me, same bet, and he won.  So I gave him My Morning Jacket’s At Dawn, and he gave me In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. 

 Now, the back story is important because I finally received the album at the girl’s going away party.  She was leaving for the Peace Corps for two years.  He hung around for another few months and then left to teach English in China.  But I was there for their last goodbyes, and it was sad, and this is a sorrowful album – and so for me, those two are always wrapped up in this music.

 That being said, it’s not why the album is on the list.  I just feel like, for the sake of journalistic integrity, I have to divulge.

 Here’s why the album is on the list:  This album reminds me what music is like in its purest form.  Everyone has that friend who is incredibly musically talented, can’t hold down a job, and can’t get their stuff together to get off the couch and into a studio.  That friend made this album.  It has fuzzed out guitars, weird instruments, and vocals sung with too much emotion to have much melodic quality.  It lacks pretense and any major label/studio sensibility.  And more than anything, it has lyrics about love and sex that sound like they were written by someone before they were famous and had to consciously write profound things.  That’s a quality that cannot be overvalued. 

 4.  Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Wilco

 I think Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is the Midwest.  I don’t mean the place, obviously, but it’s certainly a crystallization of the idea.  Music does that in a way that nothing else can.  This was the first Wilco I ever listened to – ever – and it was obvious that they were from the Midwest.  A lot of times, Jeff Tweedy writes lyrics about being wary of urban sprawl and the loneliness it engenders.  In this album, he seems to write to write about the loneliness of relationships… and yet, somehow, the two never seem that different.

 In a larger sense, Wilco fascinates me because they aren’t tied to any one musical identity.  Every one of their albums has its own distinct personality (and this is why they are called the American Radiohead), but they always seem to be playing at the same things.

 But this was the first one I heard.  And the first song I heard was “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart.”  And hearing Jeff Tweedy’s voice plead, broken but confident, “What was I thinking when we said, hello?” told me that I had found something incredible. 

 Buying this album was a part of a project that I’ve undertaken recently to find music that I actually like from my own time.  I’d heard good things, and I picked Yankee Hotel Foxtrot up with a little faith but mostly due to another timely Rasputin sale.  Ultimately, it changed my relationship with recent American Rock.  It wasn’t what I remembered from alternative stations in high school.  It was actually a landscape of artists trying to understand what was left in the wake of the eighties, as people were getting more (less) connected in ever-larger numbers.  In the midst of this, Wilco wanted to see Ashes of American Flags.

 Not too long ago, I saw Wilco perform at a music festival.  Broken Social Scene played before them, and when they left, they said “America’s greatest band is up next!”  That’s a tough mantle to carry, but in Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, I think they succeeded in making the Great American Album.

 5.  Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles

 This is kind of a buzz kill, right?  What can I say that hasn’t already been said?  So I guess this will be my shortest explanation.  I think it comes down to this:  The Beatles are the band that made me appreciate the process that goes into making music.  Their popularity meant that their every move was documented, and their creativity meant that this was completely justified and rewarding.  Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is the apotheosis of this idea.

 I love this album musically and I love it as a concept album.  But I also love that the Beatles decided to leave the road, hit the studio, forget about trying to reproduce anything live, and start making up new ways to make music.  I love knowing that Paul McCartney wrote “When I’m 64” when he was 16.  I love the idea that Rita was the first one to find Paul after he died.  I love that John and Paul each had a song that they didn’t know what to do with – and then decided to smash them into “A Day in the Life” (still my all-time favorite Beatles song).  I love the groove in the finale that goes on forever.  And I love knowing that the final chord took three pianos and ten hands to produce.

 I love the Beatles for a lot of reasons.  But apart from the Beatles mythos, this album made me understand everything that goes into the creation of an album, and how the story of its creation is often as integral a part of its importance as the music itself.

 6.  Kid A, Radiohead

 Pitchfork:  “Comparing this to other albums is like comparing an aquarium to blue construction paper. And not because it's jazz or fusion or ambient or electronic. Classifications don't come to mind once deep inside this expansive, hypnotic world.”

 Kid A is an album that makes you re-think what an album is.  Radiohead, up to this point, had been a good, then great, arena alt-rock band that understood their day and age.  But Kid A was a whole different animal.  It wasn’t necessarily rock.  It wasn’t even necessarily songs.  But it was beautiful and a continuation of what they’d been working on up to that point.

 When my old roommate gave me The Bends, OK Computer, and Kid A, he told me to listen to them in order.  So I did.  And when I heard the opening of “Everything in its Right Place,” I was a little thrown… but in a good way.  By the end of the album, I knew it was cohesive, I knew it was thought-provoking, and I knew it was music, but I didn’t know what it was.  It broke down the walls of what an album is.

 And that’s what Radiohead does.  They are still at the forefront of the music world because they continue to break rules and pursue their own ideas.  They are a band with the potential to redefine everything they touch.

 I think this album signaled the legitimacy of that potential.

 7.  Trout Mask Replica, Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band

 Pitchfork is a bunch of pretentious bastards, so if I’m giving them a quote, I’m sure as hell going to give The People (read:  Wikipedia) one, too.  Ok, so actually it’s a quote from BBC DJ John Peel that I found on Wikipedia… but I don’t want to give those Pitchfork bastards an inch.

 Anyways, here is what Peel said:  “If there has been anything in the history of popular music which could be described as a work of art in a way that people who are involved in other areas of art would understand, then Trout Mask Replica is probably that work.” 

 Now, if I’m going to cite that quote, I need to have a reason.  And here’s what it is:  Trout Mask Replica is troubling in a way that only true art can be.  When I listen to it, I know that it’s either the act of a complete presence of genius or a complete absence of genius, but I never consider the latter an option.  I don’t how I know that, but here’s what I think it is:  this is album is always on the verge of being normal… but it’s the weirdest album I own.  The lyrics are strange, but not really any more so than some of the other albums on this list, not to mention in my library.  The Captain’s voice is unusual, but not that far from Howlin Wolf and certainly not far from Tom Waits.  And the music… well… I think there are 1-2 minutes of melody in the whole 79 minute album.  But they arise suddenly and without much change.

 And that’s the point, I think.  Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band were making new music by ripping apart established music and reassembling it for themselves.  I don’t know much of the rest of their catalogue, but I know they played some fairly straightforward blues (Safe as Milk) – so I feel like this album has to be analogous, somehow, to Picasso’s Cubist paintings (or something).

 In my mind, there is a clear dividing line between published art and all other art.  Published art is populist: books, music, and movies are all designed to be mass-reproduced and given to the people.  Other art – call it fine art, maybe – is one-off.  An individual creates it and it cannot be reproduced.  I’ve always favored published art, but at the same time, you can’t help but feel like it’s less, uh, “fine.”  But this album?  This is fine art.

 8.  Rain Dogs, Tom Waits

 Rain Dogs are dogs who are away from home when a storm comes and washes away all the scents, so that they can’t find their way back.  That is the essence of this album, and you know it as soon as you hear Tom Waits’ voice for the first time.

 I’ve only gotten into Waits recently, and what I’ve been telling people is that he, like Dylan, doesn’t write his songs – he plucks them from the earth.  They aren’t him.  They are something more.  They come from the ether.  But anyways, that’s not entirely true.  Bob Dylan plucks his songs from the earth… Waits plucks his from the street.  This album is a collection of people that are trying to make it.  Trying.

 I guess if Bob Dylan expresses the gamut of human emotion, Tom Waits expresses the gamut of human experience.  But that’s about Bob Dylan and Tom Waits, not about Rain Dogs.

 Rain Dogs starts in a foreign land and ends up just trying to find home.  It’s among the most cohesive artistic statements I’ve ever encountered.  It makes you laugh, it makes you cry.  Waits chews you up and spits you out.  And he does it with one of the strangest collections of melodies and instruments I’ve ever heard.

 I think that’s what lands it on this list.  This album is about Tom Waits the performer.  He’s known for his songwriting, and this album obviously wouldn’t be the same without the incredible songs, but Waits fills so many roles and puts so much into every word and arrangement that you know that every song would be lessened with a different rendition. 

 When it comes to music, I tend to get caught up in the musicianship aspect or the lyrical aspect… and this album reminds me that a great story is nothing without a willing and capable storyteller to perform it.

The Heart of Things

Recently, 80’s rock band Journey decided to find a new lead singer in a truly modern way:  YouTube.  It makes sense, I guess, because 80’s rock bands that still play today are, more often than not, beloved novelty acts with a catalogue of signature, beloved songs.  Replacing your lead singer is a dangerous thing because it runs the risk of changing your sound – which might not be bad, if you were a band that was loved for its creativity and new output, but is probably horrible if you have a fan base that loves you – almost exclusively – for your past work.  So I guess YouTube makes sense:  cycle through a world’s worth of karaoke singers, cover bands, and parodies to find that one voice out there who perfectly matches yours.  And Journey did just that, which is how they found Arnel Pineda, a 41-year-old Filipino vocalist who previously fronted an 80’s rock cover band.  Sounds like a dream job…

A recent issue of Rolling Stone has a story in it, called “Sad ‘Journey’ for New Singer,” that describes the difficulty Pineda has had adjusting to life on the road with a real, big-time, beloved 80’s rock band.  Here’s what he says:  “It’s very, very sad.  There are days I just break down and cry.  This is a job I’m doing for my family.  That’s all the consolation I’m getting…  It’s a fantastic job, but at the same time it’s a curse.”

It’s hard, it seems, to be someone else.

Now, its apparent from his quotes in the story that Pineda’s struggles have a lot more to do with the unexpected rigors of life on the road than with the pressure of having to sing like Steve Perry, the former lead singer.  But life on the road is a part of being Perry.  And that’s exactly what I think is strange and interesting about this whole saga:  Pineda was hired to be Steve Perry.  He was chosen because he sounded remarkably like him, he’s being asked to tour with his band, and, the story explains, Journey even re-cut old classics with Pineda singing, and released these re-vamped classics with their latest album.  What Journey did, essentially, was pick a guy up off the street who possessed the most defining quality of their former band mate, and then ask him to do everything else that their old band mate did, too.  When Arnel Pineda accepted their offer, for all intents and purposes, he stopped being Arnel Pineda and started being Steve Perry.  The problem was that everything else in Arnel Pineda’s life didn’t stop with this transformation – he still had a girlfriend, a kid, a home, etc… and it sounds like there hasn’t been time in Steve Perry’s life for Arnel Pineda’s obligations.

I’ll just say that this all makes sense to me.  Don’t try to be someone else; just be yourself; be happy with who you are; etc., etc., etc.  Sounds like a fairly straightforward morality tale – and maybe it is.  I think there is a lot to be learned.  But I’ve learned something else, too:  people try to be someone else for lots of reasons.  Let me tell you another story…

At church a few weeks ago, a friend of mine who is Asian spoke about growing up Asian in an affluent, white community in the Southeast.  His friends were white, and, he explained, he quickly convinced himself that he was white, too… and that was that.  His image of himself was a white kid like any of friends, and he lived his life like a typical, Southeastern white kid – except that he wasn’t. 

One day, he told us, he was walking along and saw his own reflection on a glassy surface.  He didn’t know who he was looking at.  When he realized it was him, he was shocked, and confused, and he had to come to terms with the reality of his own identity.

I’ll come right out and say what, 99% of the time, I would think when I heard a story like that:  that it is one of the most melodramatic, sensationalist things I’ve ever heard.  But this time, I didn’t think that.

 I’d heard the story before from someone else.

 Another close friend is married to a woman who is half white, half Japanese (military parent).  She told me over dinner a while back that she had a similar experience.  She lived in a homogenous community with white friends, and she herself was white.  She just was – until one day, when she looked in the mirror, and saw herself.  And she rejected that identity, rejected the idea that that could be her.  She rejected it for awhile, at least.  In fact, I think that was the biggest common thread between the two stories – the shock, confusion, and rejection that both experienced when their identities were “revealed” to them.

 To hear two stories like this, so similar, from people that I knew and trusted was a bit jarring.  I didn’t really know what to make of it.  I’d never lived someplace particularly homogenous, and, realistically, I’m a WASP – so I’ve never really been in a situation where I needed to force myself to fit in.  But more than anything, it really challenged my idea of what identity is.  If you truly believe you are someone else, does it make you them?  And what, psychologically, are the effects of having to realize you are someone completely different than who you think you are?  I don’t know… and I don’t even know if my two friends would have an answer to that.  But it’s a question that really interests me.

 Questions of identity make me think – almost immediately – of James Gatz.  Here is a man who made himself into something “great” in pursuit of a goal.  I think that the fact that his goal was the love of a woman is important, but I also think that the point of the transformation renders the goal immaterial.  What is tragic about Gatz, in some way, is that he makes himself into something else, and finds life to be an empty place as he struggles to succeed in his pursuit.  It begs a question about the validity of the notion of “self-made,” a notion heavy with American underpinnings, and perhaps an idol for the entire country.  But that’s not why I think about James Gatz.

 When my mind drifts immediately to James Gatz it’s about me.  It’s about my own desire to make myself into something great.  Actually, it’s not about the desire – it’s about the practice.  I decide what I think a great person should be, and then I attempt to attain those qualities or characteristics; to remake myself in their image.  I try to be tough, but in touch with my emotions; interested in art but enjoying full-contact sports; to be a blue-collar intellectual.

 But there is another layer to this, too:  I don’t just try to remake myself into one image; I try to be different things for different people.  More often then not, these versions of myself are truly unselfish… it’s about me trying to be the friend or lover that I need to be for the person that I’m with.  In fact, I even find satisfaction from what (I think) is a talent for being able to do that really well. 

 I just don’t want to end up staring at a green light for the rest of my life.

 But then, there are times when I just want to know who is at the middle of everything.  Someone once said that Bob Dylan went so far into “Bob Dylan” that he didn’t really have an authentic self left.  Now, I know that the “me” I make for myself is probably more true than the me that I consciously choose to show others – and at times that true me is the me that I consciously choose to show others.  So maybe the question about who is at the center of it all is just something I ask myself to keep it all in check…

 …but there is a different question at play here, too.  It is suggested by Arnel Pineda, and by the stories of my two friends:  is any attempt to change one’s identity fundamentally an act of destruction?  Is it fundamentally an act of denial?  Of rejection?  I think Pineda probably just thought he was getting a new, better job.  And I don’t feel that I’m losing any part of myself in trying to make manifest my ideas of the ideal man.  But it seems clear that Pineda, my two friends, and myself all recognize that something is at stake.  I guess that thing would have to be identity, but identity is a slippery character – because how can our identity be anything other than what we ourselves say it is?

 And so I guess I come back to my friends’ stories.  I think what they amount to is that you do have an identity, but you can project an identity over that, as well.  When the non-reality of their projections were laid bare, my friends were forced to face their true identity, and it was a singular moment, because the rejection had, in fact, been an attempt to destroy their true identity, or at least to brick it up like Fortunato from The Cask of Amontillado.  I guess, sometimes, Fortunato sobers up too quickly and you realize you’re going down an unhappy path.  That’s like what happened with Arnel Pineda.  And sometimes you hear him shaking the chains, and instead of stopping to enjoy it, you stop and realize what you are doing, knock the bricks down, and set him free.  That’s like what happened with my friends.  But sometimes you get to the top, and he pleads with you, laughs at your “joke” – and then you seal him in anyways.  50 years later, maybe you narrate the story, and maybe you don’t.  But at that point, you’ll probably never get caught.  And I guess that’s what I’m afraid of for myself sometimes.

 Because it’s hard, it seems, to be someone else.