In the summer of 2008, I moved into a little apartment in Portland, Oregon’s Kenton district. It would be my first experience of living alone. The great thing about living alone is that you can use your free time to do whatever you want. I spent the majority of my free time watching baseball and soccer (live and on the internet), making cocktails, comparing Scotches, perusing Goodwill, reading comic books and manga and watching Japanese movies and anime. The downsides are there is often nobody to share your experiences with or offer alternative suggestions for things to do.
That autumn, I found at Goodwill a gold sequin dress that I, for whatever reason, thought would make a hilarious Halloween costume. For obvious reasons, I didn’t try it on until I got home. I had always been skinny, but as I tried to squeeze myself into the dress, it became obvious that I had gained some weight. If any man wonders why so many females struggle with body image issues, I highly recommend he try wearing women’s clothes. They are highly successful at highlighting non-conforming areas.
I realized my lifestyle had been both unhealthy and lethargic of late. My solution was to purchase a mountain bike from a pawn shop. Now, to those that are only aware of Portland by reputation, this might sound like the hip thing to do. After all, doesn’t everyone in Portland ride bikes everywhere? No, not actually, but they do talk about bicycles a lot. Regardless, this was a mountain bike, with thick tires and more gears than the Antikythera mechanism, which is as repulsive to a Portlander as a Casio keyboard to a classically-trained pianist. Riding one was an open invitation for a lecture on the superiority of the “fixie.” Riding one while wearing a cotton t-shirt, blue jeans and no helmet was enough to give a large percentage of the population a nervous meltdown.
I started getting up early on weekends and riding my bike west to St. Johns and traversing the trails in a park at the northwest corner called Pier Park. These trails were intertwined with a disc golf course, which was a game I had played with friends back in the late 90s when I had lived in Cedar Falls. It was fun- more fun than riding a bicycle, which is, quite frankly, boring as hell. Turns out all you do is push one foot down and then push the other foot down ad nauseam. It struck me that disc golf might make for a more entertaining exercise option. So when I found a guy selling discs out of a truck in the parking lot, I bought a couple.
I practiced throwing these discs in a baseball field next to the course and then played the first hole. There was a group waiting at hole two, and they informed me that I should join them because the course was too busy for me to be playing by myself. I meekly replied, “That’s okay,” and walked away back towards my bike as someone in the group laughed, “I think we scared him off!” I learned that the best way to play the course on weekends was to be done before noon. I also found a friend that often played the course with me, but on those occasions he picked me up in his car, even though he was an avid biker.
The logical place to ride a bike from Pier Park is Cathedral Park under the St. Johns Bridge. One weekend, I decided to stop at an uninviting bar I passed along the way cheesily named “Your Inn.” I felt that the lack of a bike rack gave promise that this would not be the typical Portland hipster bar. But upon entering, I discovered the bartender was a girl with jet black hair, arm sleeve tattoos, a black spaghetti-strap top, jean shorts and fishnet leggings- typically hipster. Since this was Portland, I figured she was probably a lesbian. But next, I discovered the strangest thing of all: here were only three beers on tap- Bud, Bud Light and Ninkasi Total Domination IPA. No joke. I didn’t know of anybody in Portland who would even consider two of those three options.
The regulars, I would learn, were retired boaters. Although there was a lot of flannel being worn, they were, for the most part, oblivious that Portland had been taken over by hipsters. They drank Budweiser (and Old Milwaukie,) but preferred it out of the can. They would ask me what an IPA was, but had no interest in trying it. They watched NASCAR on the two televisions strategically hung in the little place and tried their luck at the video lottery machine.
By law, every bar in Portland has to serve food. There are weirder laws, like the one where a vehicle has to stop for a pedestrian in an uncontrolled crosswalk (regardless of whether they’re actually wanting to cross), but I’ll not digress. This bar had a menu written on a chalkboard… and only the French fries were vegetarian.
I became a vegetarian before I knew there was a word for it. I didn’t know another vegetarian for years. Back then, in Iowa, vegetarianism was seen by the vast majority as an affront to their entire way of life. Therefore, I learned to be as discrete as possible about my personal food choices so as to not seem judgmental or disrespectful. I realized, for example, that when I was a guest at someone’s house, the only polite thing to do is to eat what you are served.
Then I moved to the west coast. In Portland, specifically, nearly everyone you meet either claims to be, used to be or wants to be a vegetarian, or worse, a vegan. Vegetarianism is the “in” thing to do. Consequently, when vegetarians go to a restaurant in Portland, they expect, nay demand that their diet be catered to. Portland vegetarians tend to be smug and sanctimonious. So while I was grateful that vegetarian meals were easy to find in Portland, I didn’t relate to the vegetarian clique.
Back at Your Inn, I asked the waitress if there was anything else to eat besides what was on the chalkboard. “Oh, yeah, we have all kinds of stuff back there.”
“Do you have anything vegetarian besides French fries?”
“Uh, I’m not sure, but I love experimenting with things. How about I invent something for you?”
“That’d be great, thanks!”
The waitress disappeared into a room behind the bar for about fifteen minutes, peeking out every so often to ask questions like, “Do you eat cheese?” Someone entered the bar, and the patrons explained that she’d be there to wait on them shortly.
This waitress would make me various random sandwiches on many weekends throughout the next six months. None of them were particularly great, but I really appreciated the gesture. Then one week, she wasn’t there. The gossip was she had been fired after an argument about her giving away too many free drinks. That was the last time I went to Your Inn.
I killed it as Liza Minnelli in the sequin dress on Halloween.
Showing posts with label culture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label culture. Show all posts
Friday, May 15, 2015
Monday, January 5, 2015
The Importance of Candi
San Francisco is blessed with a large homeless population. When I moved to the Bay Area from Iowa in 2000, interacting with homeless people was a new experience for me. Willie Brown, the mayor of San Francisco at the time, was engaged in an active battle against the homeless. Millions of dollars were spent on things like confiscating shopping carts and removing park benches. There were no public restrooms and busking (street performing) required purchasing a permit. Meanwhile, housing costs soared, largely due to an influx of money from Silicon Valley, and the climate remained balmy year round, so the net effect of these policies were solely to increase the suffering of the homeless.
I couldn’t afford to live in San Francisco, so I lived in Richmond on the Easy Bay. When Amy and I moved there, I quickly got a part-time job as a barista at the coffee shop in Borders books in Emeryville, landed an internship at a recording studio complex in The City and joined a weekly jazz improvisation workshop. (For the unaware, “The City” is San Francisco’s rather smug and, if you live there, only acceptable nickname.) Amy got a full-time job in Berkeley. We shared a 1986 Toyota Tercel- she usually used it during the day and I used it whenever I had to haul my drumset somewhere. Most of the time, I got around using BART, the area’s monorail system, whose furthest north station was very close to our quadplex apartment, where rent was $800 per month plus utilities.
In San Francisco, I worked in the Tenderloin district, which is sort of in the middle of town but well removed from tourists, in a well-tagged (graffitied) area full of amazing Thai restaurants and taquerias. The recording studio was about four blocks north of the Civic Center Plaza BART station. The train ride took 45 minutes and costed something like $3.25 each way. The last train left the first station at midnight, and whenever I missed it I slept on a couch in a hallway of the studio.
One day, not long after I’d starting working at the recording studio, an engineer was chatting with me about the homeless in the area. He had a BMW motorcycle, and felt bad that he worried about parking it at the motorcycle parking area next to the BART station, because there were always so many people milling about it. What he would do, when he parked his bike, was give money to a nearby homeless person and say, “Could you watch my bike while you’re, please?” His worry was when he returned and if the same person was there, things could get socially awkward, because, well, dealing with homeless people is awkward.
During this conversation, I buzzed Paul Stubblebine in through the heavy blue door. Paul was a highly-regarded mastering engineer who had presumably worked at the studio for awhile, and was one of those guys who you immediately realized was highly competent. In truth, as I would find out later, he was an extraordinary human being. I’m going to segue a bit here so I can tell my Paul Stubblebine story:
On two occasions while I was there, Paul was hired as a recording/mixing engineer and I was assigned to be his assistant. During one of these sessions, Paul went to the restroom while the band was listening to a mix he had done. While he was away, one of the band members asked if I could turn the guitar up and vocals down a little. Strictly speaking, this was a major no-no; I had no business touching the famed Neve 8038 console. But, being a brash kid, I marked the location of the faders in question with a grease pencil and moved them both half a decibel. Now, answering the question, “How loud is a decibel?” is a complicated one; it doesn’t even make sense to describe decibels in terms of how far you move the fader. Roughly speaking, an increase of 10 decibels is twice as loud. (To truly understand how decibels are calculated, you have to understand the neper, and I don’t.) Half a decibel is about how far you need to adjust the volume to create a minimally perceptible difference. The minimum you can adjust most modern consumer volume knobs is a full decibel.
Paul returned to the mixing room, and while sitting down- so before he was even situated between the speakers- he nonchalantly reached out and adjusted the two faders back to where I had marked their original locations. Everyone who witnessed this realized the appropriate volumes of the guitar and vocals within the mix were definitive. I was too speechless to ever admit I had even moved the faders. It was, and is, the most superhuman thing I have ever witnessed a person do. The only other thing I can think of that comes close is watching Barry Bonds effortlessly crush a baseball.
Anyway, the engineer with the motorcycle asked Paul how he dealt with the homeless. Paul said he followed advice he had been given when he had first come to the area- find one homeless person that resonates with you and give them whatever change you have in your pocket every time you see them. When he said this, I immediately thought of a person who I had ignored asking if I wanted to buy a poem a few days prior.
The person in question was a gaunt, sickly woman draped in layers of rags who looked to be in her 50’s, with long, thinning reddish-brown hair. It was evident she had a drug problem.
People often say that they don’t like to give money to homeless because they will just spend it on booze and drugs. This rationalization hides behind the arrogant premise that we are qualified to judge what others spend their money on. These same people will then proudly explain that their concern is for the other’s health and safety. To follow this logic, the reason they don’t give is out of compassion and charity. They would rather give food, shelter or jobs to the homeless. They don’t do any of those things, of course, but that’s what they “would rather” do. It is telling of our society that those who have a place to sleep at night become so haughty toward those who don’t. I didn’t have food, shelter or jobs to offer, so I began giving this lady my spare change whenever I had it. When I did not have change, I would at least smile and say, “hi!”
In return, she would sometimes give me incoherent scribbling on scraps of paper. Some days, she would chat with me in slurred, garbled speech that I could barely decipher, and I would find myself struggling to stand, smile and listen instead of hurrying on my way. Other days she would be listless and sad and I would feel compelled to talk to her. I found out her name was Candi. I would not have pegged her as a Candi- those kinds of names were more common further up by Van Ness and Post- but I never did find out much about who she was or where she had come from.
One day Candi said she had written a poem especially for me. She fished through her pockets, found it and gave it to me. It was basically, “Andrew I love you.” I felt honored that she actually knew my name. For me, Candi was a face among the faceless. Until then, it had not really occurred to me that I was the same for her.
I would often see Candi twice a day for the next couple of years, and it was the thing I most looked forward to on my trips to and from work. Of course, sometimes she wouldn’t be there. If I didn’t see Candi for a week, I would begin to worry. She wasn’t the type of person about whom you’d think, maybe she found a place to live. In the end I was the one who disappeared for good- and I suppose this was something she was used to.
I have been privileged to meet many amazing people throughout the years, including Paul Stubblebine, but no one has been more important or influential on me and how I perceive the world than Candi. I wish I had thanked her.
I couldn’t afford to live in San Francisco, so I lived in Richmond on the Easy Bay. When Amy and I moved there, I quickly got a part-time job as a barista at the coffee shop in Borders books in Emeryville, landed an internship at a recording studio complex in The City and joined a weekly jazz improvisation workshop. (For the unaware, “The City” is San Francisco’s rather smug and, if you live there, only acceptable nickname.) Amy got a full-time job in Berkeley. We shared a 1986 Toyota Tercel- she usually used it during the day and I used it whenever I had to haul my drumset somewhere. Most of the time, I got around using BART, the area’s monorail system, whose furthest north station was very close to our quadplex apartment, where rent was $800 per month plus utilities.
In San Francisco, I worked in the Tenderloin district, which is sort of in the middle of town but well removed from tourists, in a well-tagged (graffitied) area full of amazing Thai restaurants and taquerias. The recording studio was about four blocks north of the Civic Center Plaza BART station. The train ride took 45 minutes and costed something like $3.25 each way. The last train left the first station at midnight, and whenever I missed it I slept on a couch in a hallway of the studio.
One day, not long after I’d starting working at the recording studio, an engineer was chatting with me about the homeless in the area. He had a BMW motorcycle, and felt bad that he worried about parking it at the motorcycle parking area next to the BART station, because there were always so many people milling about it. What he would do, when he parked his bike, was give money to a nearby homeless person and say, “Could you watch my bike while you’re, please?” His worry was when he returned and if the same person was there, things could get socially awkward, because, well, dealing with homeless people is awkward.
During this conversation, I buzzed Paul Stubblebine in through the heavy blue door. Paul was a highly-regarded mastering engineer who had presumably worked at the studio for awhile, and was one of those guys who you immediately realized was highly competent. In truth, as I would find out later, he was an extraordinary human being. I’m going to segue a bit here so I can tell my Paul Stubblebine story:
On two occasions while I was there, Paul was hired as a recording/mixing engineer and I was assigned to be his assistant. During one of these sessions, Paul went to the restroom while the band was listening to a mix he had done. While he was away, one of the band members asked if I could turn the guitar up and vocals down a little. Strictly speaking, this was a major no-no; I had no business touching the famed Neve 8038 console. But, being a brash kid, I marked the location of the faders in question with a grease pencil and moved them both half a decibel. Now, answering the question, “How loud is a decibel?” is a complicated one; it doesn’t even make sense to describe decibels in terms of how far you move the fader. Roughly speaking, an increase of 10 decibels is twice as loud. (To truly understand how decibels are calculated, you have to understand the neper, and I don’t.) Half a decibel is about how far you need to adjust the volume to create a minimally perceptible difference. The minimum you can adjust most modern consumer volume knobs is a full decibel.
Paul returned to the mixing room, and while sitting down- so before he was even situated between the speakers- he nonchalantly reached out and adjusted the two faders back to where I had marked their original locations. Everyone who witnessed this realized the appropriate volumes of the guitar and vocals within the mix were definitive. I was too speechless to ever admit I had even moved the faders. It was, and is, the most superhuman thing I have ever witnessed a person do. The only other thing I can think of that comes close is watching Barry Bonds effortlessly crush a baseball.
Anyway, the engineer with the motorcycle asked Paul how he dealt with the homeless. Paul said he followed advice he had been given when he had first come to the area- find one homeless person that resonates with you and give them whatever change you have in your pocket every time you see them. When he said this, I immediately thought of a person who I had ignored asking if I wanted to buy a poem a few days prior.
The person in question was a gaunt, sickly woman draped in layers of rags who looked to be in her 50’s, with long, thinning reddish-brown hair. It was evident she had a drug problem.
People often say that they don’t like to give money to homeless because they will just spend it on booze and drugs. This rationalization hides behind the arrogant premise that we are qualified to judge what others spend their money on. These same people will then proudly explain that their concern is for the other’s health and safety. To follow this logic, the reason they don’t give is out of compassion and charity. They would rather give food, shelter or jobs to the homeless. They don’t do any of those things, of course, but that’s what they “would rather” do. It is telling of our society that those who have a place to sleep at night become so haughty toward those who don’t. I didn’t have food, shelter or jobs to offer, so I began giving this lady my spare change whenever I had it. When I did not have change, I would at least smile and say, “hi!”
In return, she would sometimes give me incoherent scribbling on scraps of paper. Some days, she would chat with me in slurred, garbled speech that I could barely decipher, and I would find myself struggling to stand, smile and listen instead of hurrying on my way. Other days she would be listless and sad and I would feel compelled to talk to her. I found out her name was Candi. I would not have pegged her as a Candi- those kinds of names were more common further up by Van Ness and Post- but I never did find out much about who she was or where she had come from.
One day Candi said she had written a poem especially for me. She fished through her pockets, found it and gave it to me. It was basically, “Andrew I love you.” I felt honored that she actually knew my name. For me, Candi was a face among the faceless. Until then, it had not really occurred to me that I was the same for her.
I would often see Candi twice a day for the next couple of years, and it was the thing I most looked forward to on my trips to and from work. Of course, sometimes she wouldn’t be there. If I didn’t see Candi for a week, I would begin to worry. She wasn’t the type of person about whom you’d think, maybe she found a place to live. In the end I was the one who disappeared for good- and I suppose this was something she was used to.
I have been privileged to meet many amazing people throughout the years, including Paul Stubblebine, but no one has been more important or influential on me and how I perceive the world than Candi. I wish I had thanked her.
Monday, October 27, 2014
The Importance of Tattoos
Some consider tattoos a waste of money, and in many ways they are. I consider things like big houses, fancy vehicles and jewelry a waste of money, but I don’t have those things. I have tattoos. I believe tattoos offer something beyond the feelings of identity and pride that we Americans seek in the things we buy. I don’t know whether tattoos offer anything that justifies the expense, but I think there’s an unfair juxtaposition between the perceptions of having a sports car and getting tattooed- whereas one is lauded for indicating success, the other is derided for demonstrating a lack of judgment.
At the root of this issue is a significant misunderstanding among the uninitiated as to why people get tattooed. This in turn means there are vastly different reasons why people get their first tattoo and why they get their second one. I’m not going to pretend I know the myriad of reasons why people get tattooed; my intention is to use my subjective experiences with tattoos to attempt to give non-tattooed people a fuller perspective on tattoos than what American culture generally provides.
Part I: The First Tat
Most people want their first tattoo to be some object that is personally significant and meaningful. They usually want it to be small and hide-able. On the other hand, first timers who get large tats or tats in visible areas are likely either tattoo artists themselves or want to impress others; the latter might fit the stereotype of being socially defiant or in a gang. Personally, I’ve always thought tattoos were cool. The great philosopher Immanuel Kant recommended not trying to decipher human motivations because they are far too abstract.
First-timers figure it’ll probably hurt a bit. How getting tattooed actually feels depends on size, density, placement and, most importantly, mental state, and can run the gamut from ticklish to excruciating, but generally feels like a combination of being burned and scratched. Tats are generally created in three passes: hard lines, greyscale shading and then color- with color sometimes including several passes. There can be another pass of line detailing over the top of all that. Multiple passes over the same area of skin during a one-session tat can be a bitch. The process is accompanied by an endorphin rush that peaks after about an hour and a half to two hours and crashes around three and a half to four hours. Therefore, tats that take less than an hour can act as teasers where you end up wishing the experience had taken longer. (If you think a tattoo lasting less than an hour is extremely painful, I’d kindly suggest you are a wuss.) Tats lasting longer than four hours require either a high pain threshold or a strong mental attitude toward overcoming the pain.
One’s own reaction to their first tattoo is either extreme pride or extreme shame; the basic thought in both cases being, “I can’t believe I did that!” Those experiencing pride will be the ones wearing a cut of clothing specifically chosen to show-off their tattoo, even if it is a bad one, which a normal outfit would have covered up. Wondering why another is not ashamed of their tattoo that you would NEVER get reveals your character to be wanting, not theirs. Our species could benefit from being a lot less judgmental and feeling a lot less shame.
These days, it seems like there’s a tattoo parlor on every street corner, but even now, on most days an artist that you don’t have to make an appointment with is either a novice or had a cancellation (which is very common). In the old days, you’d choose your tattoo from a set of “flash” or drawings the tattoo artist had displayed. Sometimes these were designs from the artist themselves, and sometimes they were cribbed or purchased from another tattoo artist. Today, everybody wants a “custom” tattoo. This causes two problems- you may be asking for something that that tattoo artist doesn’t know how to render in tattoo form and your idea might be stupid. I recommend considering any tattoo idea from the perspective of how you’d react to it if you saw it as flash advertised by a tattoo artist. Great t-shirt ideas do not always make good tattoos.
Artists tend to have photograph examples of pieces they’ve done and enjoyed doing. The best thing to do is find a portfolio with images you appreciate, and ask for something that you want done in that artist’s style. Tattoo placement is another important factor that the artist will likely understand the repercussions of better than the canvas. People may not realize that tattoo artists will generally ask questions like, “What do you do for a living?” and desire for a third-party reaction of, “Oh my god, who did that?” to be akin to that of a museum patron and not a homicide investigator. Tattoos should be thought of as collaborations, with the person holding the gun being the technical and artistic expert.
If you have some friend coercing or shaming you into getting a tattoo, that person is a douchebag that you should stop associating with. If you want “Believe” written on your ankle, you don’t need an artist with a six month waiting list. You do, however, want to see examples of lettering from the artist and need to make sure it gets spelled correctly. Another thing to be mindful of is to make sure an artist hasn’t accidentally mirrored an image when making the stencil- which can be especially confusing when you’re looking at the image in a mirror.
For the first few days, a new tattoo will feel like a sunburn; then it’ll start to peel and itch. Closely follow the artist’s recommended two week aftercare program- unless you want a splotchy, faded or infected tat. (On a back piece, assistance in applying cream/lotion during this time is essential.) Applying sunscreen is NOT the same as keeping it out of direct sunlight. One thing that is often not articulated is that if you apply pressure to a fresh tat, it will stick to and transfer itself to fabric. If this happens, you have to soak the fabric with water before gently removing it from your skin.
Part II: The Repeat Customer
The experience of getting a tattoo offers an acute, heightened awareness of one’s own body unlike anything else. The nervous system is a fascinating thing, with different parts of the body sending different interpretations of the same sensation to the brain. If you’re not watching, it is often impossible to guess exactly which part of a tattoo is being worked on. Adapting to the sensation of being jabbed with rapidly-vibrating needles is a skill that can be improved upon over time. Not only are coping strategies acquired, but your body builds up a tolerance to the pain. As you become accustomed to getting tattooed, future sittings hurt less. It still hurts, though.
The best way to deal with the pain is to accept it. Compared to the pain of having your limbs ripped off by horses or getting punched by Brock Lesner, it’s really not that big of a deal. When an artist is really digging in with a fifteen needle bar, I remind myself that’s the feeling of progress. You can also focus on appreciating the warmth of the tattoo gun, thinking of it as a localized heating device. Your body tends to want to go into fight-or-flight mode, but if you fight or struggle against it, not wanting it to hurt, you won’t be able to stay relaxed and your body will start to twitch, tighten and flinch. Distracting your mind (choosing the “flight” response) by thinking of anything and everything you can also works to make the experience less painful, but only in spurts. How you deal with pain reveals character. Tattoos not only demonstrate but also teach discipline, commitment and humility. This is why people go back for more. It is no wonder they are popular within organizations that value loyalty.
Eventually, it doesn’t matter to the wearer whether his tattoos are visible to others. These tattoos are not necessarily there for others to notice or comment upon. People will ask, “What’s that say?” and I’ll have no idea what their talking about because, in general, I don’t think about or notice my own tattoos any more than, for example, my own ears. When I see another’s tattoo, I might think, Wow, that’s small, but only an idiot would actually share their opinion of another’s tat as if it mattered. (Perhaps the strangest comment I’ve gotten from another upon seeing one of my tattoos has been, “Did you get bored one day or something?” I can’t relate to thinking of a tattoo as being something done on a whim.) The arms are the least painful area to get tattooed and the neck is the most painful, so those are incentives to get those areas done; reasons that have nothing to do with being socially defiant or a gang-banger. (For the curious, the shin, ribs and clavicle are the most painful areas I’ve had tattooed.)
Everyone with a tattoo participated in its creation. The shape and skin tone of your unique body irreplicably contribute to the finished piece. The final product becomes a literal part of its owner that can be felt for the rest of their lives. (Tats itch in cold weather.) Repeat customers understand that tattoos are a medium through which artists can express themselves. We respect and trust the tattoo artist fully. After the first, it is realized the meaning and symbolism of the tattoo runs deeper than whatever object it happens to be. Only a tattoo virgin would see someone with roses on their arm and declare, “You must really like roses!” What a tattoo is of is almost beside the point.
America is a country with a lot of spoiled brats- whites especially- getting through life by avoiding any experience that involves discomfort and pain. This strategy makes us vulnerable and unprepared when the inevitable illness, disease or confrontation occurs. Tattooing offers a safe and beautiful way of experiencing and overcoming pain, and leaves us with a permanent reminder of that achievement. There is nothing more dangerous than a culture that condones conformity, homogeneity, passivity and painlessness while rejecting individualism. Intolerance is the single greatest threat to humankind. When we eschew our ability to have personal experiences and preferences, we increase the risk of being stripped of those privileges. We should not be speaking disparagingly about the barbarism of tattoos but instead lauding them for being an essential part of a progressive civilization. Tattoos are art, and without art, life is meaningless.
At the root of this issue is a significant misunderstanding among the uninitiated as to why people get tattooed. This in turn means there are vastly different reasons why people get their first tattoo and why they get their second one. I’m not going to pretend I know the myriad of reasons why people get tattooed; my intention is to use my subjective experiences with tattoos to attempt to give non-tattooed people a fuller perspective on tattoos than what American culture generally provides.
Part I: The First Tat
Most people want their first tattoo to be some object that is personally significant and meaningful. They usually want it to be small and hide-able. On the other hand, first timers who get large tats or tats in visible areas are likely either tattoo artists themselves or want to impress others; the latter might fit the stereotype of being socially defiant or in a gang. Personally, I’ve always thought tattoos were cool. The great philosopher Immanuel Kant recommended not trying to decipher human motivations because they are far too abstract.
First-timers figure it’ll probably hurt a bit. How getting tattooed actually feels depends on size, density, placement and, most importantly, mental state, and can run the gamut from ticklish to excruciating, but generally feels like a combination of being burned and scratched. Tats are generally created in three passes: hard lines, greyscale shading and then color- with color sometimes including several passes. There can be another pass of line detailing over the top of all that. Multiple passes over the same area of skin during a one-session tat can be a bitch. The process is accompanied by an endorphin rush that peaks after about an hour and a half to two hours and crashes around three and a half to four hours. Therefore, tats that take less than an hour can act as teasers where you end up wishing the experience had taken longer. (If you think a tattoo lasting less than an hour is extremely painful, I’d kindly suggest you are a wuss.) Tats lasting longer than four hours require either a high pain threshold or a strong mental attitude toward overcoming the pain.
One’s own reaction to their first tattoo is either extreme pride or extreme shame; the basic thought in both cases being, “I can’t believe I did that!” Those experiencing pride will be the ones wearing a cut of clothing specifically chosen to show-off their tattoo, even if it is a bad one, which a normal outfit would have covered up. Wondering why another is not ashamed of their tattoo that you would NEVER get reveals your character to be wanting, not theirs. Our species could benefit from being a lot less judgmental and feeling a lot less shame.
These days, it seems like there’s a tattoo parlor on every street corner, but even now, on most days an artist that you don’t have to make an appointment with is either a novice or had a cancellation (which is very common). In the old days, you’d choose your tattoo from a set of “flash” or drawings the tattoo artist had displayed. Sometimes these were designs from the artist themselves, and sometimes they were cribbed or purchased from another tattoo artist. Today, everybody wants a “custom” tattoo. This causes two problems- you may be asking for something that that tattoo artist doesn’t know how to render in tattoo form and your idea might be stupid. I recommend considering any tattoo idea from the perspective of how you’d react to it if you saw it as flash advertised by a tattoo artist. Great t-shirt ideas do not always make good tattoos.
Artists tend to have photograph examples of pieces they’ve done and enjoyed doing. The best thing to do is find a portfolio with images you appreciate, and ask for something that you want done in that artist’s style. Tattoo placement is another important factor that the artist will likely understand the repercussions of better than the canvas. People may not realize that tattoo artists will generally ask questions like, “What do you do for a living?” and desire for a third-party reaction of, “Oh my god, who did that?” to be akin to that of a museum patron and not a homicide investigator. Tattoos should be thought of as collaborations, with the person holding the gun being the technical and artistic expert.
If you have some friend coercing or shaming you into getting a tattoo, that person is a douchebag that you should stop associating with. If you want “Believe” written on your ankle, you don’t need an artist with a six month waiting list. You do, however, want to see examples of lettering from the artist and need to make sure it gets spelled correctly. Another thing to be mindful of is to make sure an artist hasn’t accidentally mirrored an image when making the stencil- which can be especially confusing when you’re looking at the image in a mirror.
For the first few days, a new tattoo will feel like a sunburn; then it’ll start to peel and itch. Closely follow the artist’s recommended two week aftercare program- unless you want a splotchy, faded or infected tat. (On a back piece, assistance in applying cream/lotion during this time is essential.) Applying sunscreen is NOT the same as keeping it out of direct sunlight. One thing that is often not articulated is that if you apply pressure to a fresh tat, it will stick to and transfer itself to fabric. If this happens, you have to soak the fabric with water before gently removing it from your skin.
Part II: The Repeat Customer
The experience of getting a tattoo offers an acute, heightened awareness of one’s own body unlike anything else. The nervous system is a fascinating thing, with different parts of the body sending different interpretations of the same sensation to the brain. If you’re not watching, it is often impossible to guess exactly which part of a tattoo is being worked on. Adapting to the sensation of being jabbed with rapidly-vibrating needles is a skill that can be improved upon over time. Not only are coping strategies acquired, but your body builds up a tolerance to the pain. As you become accustomed to getting tattooed, future sittings hurt less. It still hurts, though.
The best way to deal with the pain is to accept it. Compared to the pain of having your limbs ripped off by horses or getting punched by Brock Lesner, it’s really not that big of a deal. When an artist is really digging in with a fifteen needle bar, I remind myself that’s the feeling of progress. You can also focus on appreciating the warmth of the tattoo gun, thinking of it as a localized heating device. Your body tends to want to go into fight-or-flight mode, but if you fight or struggle against it, not wanting it to hurt, you won’t be able to stay relaxed and your body will start to twitch, tighten and flinch. Distracting your mind (choosing the “flight” response) by thinking of anything and everything you can also works to make the experience less painful, but only in spurts. How you deal with pain reveals character. Tattoos not only demonstrate but also teach discipline, commitment and humility. This is why people go back for more. It is no wonder they are popular within organizations that value loyalty.
Eventually, it doesn’t matter to the wearer whether his tattoos are visible to others. These tattoos are not necessarily there for others to notice or comment upon. People will ask, “What’s that say?” and I’ll have no idea what their talking about because, in general, I don’t think about or notice my own tattoos any more than, for example, my own ears. When I see another’s tattoo, I might think, Wow, that’s small, but only an idiot would actually share their opinion of another’s tat as if it mattered. (Perhaps the strangest comment I’ve gotten from another upon seeing one of my tattoos has been, “Did you get bored one day or something?” I can’t relate to thinking of a tattoo as being something done on a whim.) The arms are the least painful area to get tattooed and the neck is the most painful, so those are incentives to get those areas done; reasons that have nothing to do with being socially defiant or a gang-banger. (For the curious, the shin, ribs and clavicle are the most painful areas I’ve had tattooed.)
Everyone with a tattoo participated in its creation. The shape and skin tone of your unique body irreplicably contribute to the finished piece. The final product becomes a literal part of its owner that can be felt for the rest of their lives. (Tats itch in cold weather.) Repeat customers understand that tattoos are a medium through which artists can express themselves. We respect and trust the tattoo artist fully. After the first, it is realized the meaning and symbolism of the tattoo runs deeper than whatever object it happens to be. Only a tattoo virgin would see someone with roses on their arm and declare, “You must really like roses!” What a tattoo is of is almost beside the point.
America is a country with a lot of spoiled brats- whites especially- getting through life by avoiding any experience that involves discomfort and pain. This strategy makes us vulnerable and unprepared when the inevitable illness, disease or confrontation occurs. Tattooing offers a safe and beautiful way of experiencing and overcoming pain, and leaves us with a permanent reminder of that achievement. There is nothing more dangerous than a culture that condones conformity, homogeneity, passivity and painlessness while rejecting individualism. Intolerance is the single greatest threat to humankind. When we eschew our ability to have personal experiences and preferences, we increase the risk of being stripped of those privileges. We should not be speaking disparagingly about the barbarism of tattoos but instead lauding them for being an essential part of a progressive civilization. Tattoos are art, and without art, life is meaningless.
Wednesday, September 3, 2014
The Importance of Jay Adams
Growing up in rural Iowa in the early 1980s, I was really into superheroes. I ran around the farmstead where I lived imagining super powers for myself and using them to defeat invisible bad guys. Around fourth grade I discovered Marvel comic books through a classmate, and soon couldn’t get enough of them. J.J. had inherited piles of 1970s era comic books from his older brothers that he doled out to three or four of us at school. I would sometimes sleep over at J.J.’s house over the weekends, where he would grab stacks of magazines from his brothers’ bedrooms for me to pick and choose from. Amongst the comic books were other magazines from the same era, including Mad (which I didn’t understand at all), Rolling Stone (which I had been led to believe was Satanic) and Skateboarder. The only thing I knew about skateboarding was that it had been invented by Marty McFly. Flipping through the pages of Skateboarder to see what it was all about, I came across this picture:
I was enthralled and confused. Somehow, this wasn’t a picture of a kid falling down. It was only after imagining the photo as a comic book drawing that I realized I’d seen that pose before- from Spider-Man. The incidental old man seemingly sinking into the pavement in the distance provided the perfect contrast to this death-defying kid. The only photograph I had seen with this combination of grace, skill and determination was a poster of Dr. J our principal had hanging in his office. I had to find out who this person was.
The picture was from a series of articles by Craig Stecyk III about a group of skateboarders in southern California called the Z-Boys. Stecyk was the graphic artist at Zephr surfboard shop, which was located in the rough slums of South Santa Monica known as Dogtown. Instead of rainbows and sun rays, Stecyk put graffiti-influenced designs onto surfboards handmade by Jeff Ho and sold them to the hoodlums from both South Santa Monica and Venice who surfed a cove containing the remains of an abandoned amusement park and frequently broke their boards on the pier pylons they maneuvered through.
When the waves died down, some of the surfers practiced their surf moves on skateboards. The owners of the shop promoted themselves by organizing first a surfing team and, in 1974, a skateboard team, to participate in competitions. Skip Engblom, co-owner of the Zephyr shop, set up a practice schedule for the members to follow. They slalomed down a street near the shop, skated at local school playgrounds with sloping concrete banks and in whatever abandoned and empty swimming pools they could find around town.
The signature style of the Z-Boys, as the skateboarders on Zephr Skate Team were called, was to emulate surfers by staying crouched low to the ground; not shying away from touching it. Stacy Peralta and Tony Alva would eventually move on from this group to become the first famous skateboarders. Although their hand dragging style did not ever wholly catch on, the Z-Boys changed the focus of the sport toward riding bowls, performing vertical jumps (Alva is generally credited with completing the first aerial) and street skating. Beyond these seminal contributions, there was one other essential thing that transformed the hobby of skateboarding into a multi-billion dollar industry, and that contribution came not from Peralta or Alva but rather another one of the original Z-Boys- Jay Adams.
Skateboarding had been a fad in the early ‘60s, but the thrill of standing on a piece of wood with wheels attached had quickly worn off, especially after parents started organizing to ban skateboards for being dangerous. But in 1973, a new type of wheel was invented that greatly increased the skateboard’s maneuverability and durability, and because of that, by 1975, growing interest had convinced organizers to hold the first national skateboarding competition of that decade. The chosen location for the event was in Del Mar, California, conveniently located just two hours from Dogtown.
Freestyle refers to skateboarding on flat ground. The Z-Boys didn’t do freestyle. Today, nobody except Rodney Mullen does freestyle, and even he mostly does street skating now. Back then, freestyle skateboarding was nothing other than a gymnastics routine with a prop, like what gymnasts still do today with ribbons, rubber balls and hula hoops. At Del Mar, freestyle was not only the main event, but the only event other than downhill slalom.
In 1975, Jay Adams was fourteen years-old but small enough to pass for younger. Like many of the other Z-Boys, he had flowing blonde hair. He was the first of the Z-Boys to compete, doing freestyle. The Zephyr Skate Team wore matching outfits, so everyone in attendance expected him to set the tone for the entire team. The first thing he did was ride his board across the platform at top speed and then slide by planting his hands behind him to keep from flying off the edge. The Z-Boys called this a “Bert,” which they had named after surfer Larry Bertlemann, who would often run his hands in the water as he surfed and was the biggest stylistic influence on the Z-Boys. Of course, nobody outside of the team would have even considered this a trick.
Then, in what was presumably an attempt to emulate something he had just seen from another competitor, he tried standing up straight while riding backward on one end of the board- and promptly fell on his ass.
At this point, the cameraman filming the event for posterity actually turns away in disappointment… but Jay Adams gets back on the board and skates backwards again- this time his way. Crouched down, he grabs the board on either side and angrily hops up and down.
And with that outburst, skateboarding is changed forever.
It is the perfect embodiment of the old way of skateboarding being replaced. Because it is so completely unintentional, it is beyond what anybody could have scripted. For the rest of the brief routine, he stays so close to the ground it’s difficult to differentiate whether he’s sliding on the board or on the ground- in actuality he’s simultaneously doing a little of both. He ends by jumping off the end of the platform.
Jay Adams had dared to thrust aggression into a sport where simply demonstrating balance and acrobatic prowess had been the only point. Suddenly, skateboarding had attitude, and not just any attitude- it had Jay Adam’s attitude. Whereas Peralta was a mild-mannered and disciplined pretty boy and Alva came across as a self-centered prick, being a skateboarder would come to mean being raw, brazen, authentic, flawed and stubbornly determined regardless of ability or success. Adams was comparable to Janis Joplin or John Coltrane in not overtly seeking to innovate but doing so anyway by being obsessed with finding their voice. But if you’re going to compare him to a musician, it would surely be Iggy Pop, whose band The Stooges had broken up the year before but whose legend and popularity were continuing to grow. Adams embodied, and because of him, skateboarding represented what would become known as punk.
The competitors other than the Z-Boys hated Jay’s performance. Adams wasn’t particularly thrilled by it either. His reaction to anybody else’s opinion about his skating tended to vacillate between anger, indifference and disgust, which was proof that he was not a caricature, persona or act. He probably decided right then that competitive skateboarding was bullshit.
After Del Mar, sponsors came crawling out of the woodwork to capitalize on the allure of the Z-Boys, and the Zephyr Skate Team soon dissolved as the members ran after money and fame. Adams didn’t go anywhere, but instead became part of a team organized by his abusive step-father. The next few decades would not be good ones for Adams.
The Bones Brigade videos would herald a new preferred media for being able to watch skateboarders from afar, but there really was something special about imagining what might be possible from trying to decipher a still photo. There are three photographs from my childhood that even as an adult my mind wanders back to: a National Geographic cover of a Afghan woman with haunted green eyes, a lone man standing in front of a row of tanks at Tiananmen Square and Jay Adams slaloming down a hill.
Well, that’s sort of true. When I was in high school, I went searching for the picture of Jay Adams that had inspired me so many years prior, and found this one instead:
Now, I think of both photographs like one of those holograms where you see different poses when you look at it from different angles.
For those of you still wondering what’s the big deal about some rebellious kid bouncing up and down on a skateboard, let me try and frame it another way. Without Jay Adams, this picture certainly wouldn’t have the same connotations, and probably wouldn’t even exist:
Jay Adams: Born, February 3, 1961; Died, August 15, 2014
I was enthralled and confused. Somehow, this wasn’t a picture of a kid falling down. It was only after imagining the photo as a comic book drawing that I realized I’d seen that pose before- from Spider-Man. The incidental old man seemingly sinking into the pavement in the distance provided the perfect contrast to this death-defying kid. The only photograph I had seen with this combination of grace, skill and determination was a poster of Dr. J our principal had hanging in his office. I had to find out who this person was.
The picture was from a series of articles by Craig Stecyk III about a group of skateboarders in southern California called the Z-Boys. Stecyk was the graphic artist at Zephr surfboard shop, which was located in the rough slums of South Santa Monica known as Dogtown. Instead of rainbows and sun rays, Stecyk put graffiti-influenced designs onto surfboards handmade by Jeff Ho and sold them to the hoodlums from both South Santa Monica and Venice who surfed a cove containing the remains of an abandoned amusement park and frequently broke their boards on the pier pylons they maneuvered through.
When the waves died down, some of the surfers practiced their surf moves on skateboards. The owners of the shop promoted themselves by organizing first a surfing team and, in 1974, a skateboard team, to participate in competitions. Skip Engblom, co-owner of the Zephyr shop, set up a practice schedule for the members to follow. They slalomed down a street near the shop, skated at local school playgrounds with sloping concrete banks and in whatever abandoned and empty swimming pools they could find around town.
The signature style of the Z-Boys, as the skateboarders on Zephr Skate Team were called, was to emulate surfers by staying crouched low to the ground; not shying away from touching it. Stacy Peralta and Tony Alva would eventually move on from this group to become the first famous skateboarders. Although their hand dragging style did not ever wholly catch on, the Z-Boys changed the focus of the sport toward riding bowls, performing vertical jumps (Alva is generally credited with completing the first aerial) and street skating. Beyond these seminal contributions, there was one other essential thing that transformed the hobby of skateboarding into a multi-billion dollar industry, and that contribution came not from Peralta or Alva but rather another one of the original Z-Boys- Jay Adams.
Skateboarding had been a fad in the early ‘60s, but the thrill of standing on a piece of wood with wheels attached had quickly worn off, especially after parents started organizing to ban skateboards for being dangerous. But in 1973, a new type of wheel was invented that greatly increased the skateboard’s maneuverability and durability, and because of that, by 1975, growing interest had convinced organizers to hold the first national skateboarding competition of that decade. The chosen location for the event was in Del Mar, California, conveniently located just two hours from Dogtown.
Freestyle refers to skateboarding on flat ground. The Z-Boys didn’t do freestyle. Today, nobody except Rodney Mullen does freestyle, and even he mostly does street skating now. Back then, freestyle skateboarding was nothing other than a gymnastics routine with a prop, like what gymnasts still do today with ribbons, rubber balls and hula hoops. At Del Mar, freestyle was not only the main event, but the only event other than downhill slalom.
In 1975, Jay Adams was fourteen years-old but small enough to pass for younger. Like many of the other Z-Boys, he had flowing blonde hair. He was the first of the Z-Boys to compete, doing freestyle. The Zephyr Skate Team wore matching outfits, so everyone in attendance expected him to set the tone for the entire team. The first thing he did was ride his board across the platform at top speed and then slide by planting his hands behind him to keep from flying off the edge. The Z-Boys called this a “Bert,” which they had named after surfer Larry Bertlemann, who would often run his hands in the water as he surfed and was the biggest stylistic influence on the Z-Boys. Of course, nobody outside of the team would have even considered this a trick.
Then, in what was presumably an attempt to emulate something he had just seen from another competitor, he tried standing up straight while riding backward on one end of the board- and promptly fell on his ass.
At this point, the cameraman filming the event for posterity actually turns away in disappointment… but Jay Adams gets back on the board and skates backwards again- this time his way. Crouched down, he grabs the board on either side and angrily hops up and down.
And with that outburst, skateboarding is changed forever.
It is the perfect embodiment of the old way of skateboarding being replaced. Because it is so completely unintentional, it is beyond what anybody could have scripted. For the rest of the brief routine, he stays so close to the ground it’s difficult to differentiate whether he’s sliding on the board or on the ground- in actuality he’s simultaneously doing a little of both. He ends by jumping off the end of the platform.
Jay Adams had dared to thrust aggression into a sport where simply demonstrating balance and acrobatic prowess had been the only point. Suddenly, skateboarding had attitude, and not just any attitude- it had Jay Adam’s attitude. Whereas Peralta was a mild-mannered and disciplined pretty boy and Alva came across as a self-centered prick, being a skateboarder would come to mean being raw, brazen, authentic, flawed and stubbornly determined regardless of ability or success. Adams was comparable to Janis Joplin or John Coltrane in not overtly seeking to innovate but doing so anyway by being obsessed with finding their voice. But if you’re going to compare him to a musician, it would surely be Iggy Pop, whose band The Stooges had broken up the year before but whose legend and popularity were continuing to grow. Adams embodied, and because of him, skateboarding represented what would become known as punk.
The competitors other than the Z-Boys hated Jay’s performance. Adams wasn’t particularly thrilled by it either. His reaction to anybody else’s opinion about his skating tended to vacillate between anger, indifference and disgust, which was proof that he was not a caricature, persona or act. He probably decided right then that competitive skateboarding was bullshit.
After Del Mar, sponsors came crawling out of the woodwork to capitalize on the allure of the Z-Boys, and the Zephyr Skate Team soon dissolved as the members ran after money and fame. Adams didn’t go anywhere, but instead became part of a team organized by his abusive step-father. The next few decades would not be good ones for Adams.
The Bones Brigade videos would herald a new preferred media for being able to watch skateboarders from afar, but there really was something special about imagining what might be possible from trying to decipher a still photo. There are three photographs from my childhood that even as an adult my mind wanders back to: a National Geographic cover of a Afghan woman with haunted green eyes, a lone man standing in front of a row of tanks at Tiananmen Square and Jay Adams slaloming down a hill.
Well, that’s sort of true. When I was in high school, I went searching for the picture of Jay Adams that had inspired me so many years prior, and found this one instead:
Now, I think of both photographs like one of those holograms where you see different poses when you look at it from different angles.
For those of you still wondering what’s the big deal about some rebellious kid bouncing up and down on a skateboard, let me try and frame it another way. Without Jay Adams, this picture certainly wouldn’t have the same connotations, and probably wouldn’t even exist:
Jay Adams: Born, February 3, 1961; Died, August 15, 2014
Monday, July 14, 2014
Fishbone/Identity
"There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on the plot of ground which is given him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried. Not for nothing one face, one character, one fact, makes much impression on him, and another none. It is not without pre-established harmony, this sculpture in the memory."
-from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Self Reliance
I arrived at the site of the all-day music festival early and looked around for a spot to claim for a hacky-sack circle where I could wait until my friends arrived. Hearing my name, I looked down and saw two girls sitting in the grass, making sideways glances at each other. Suddenly I seemed to be sitting next to one of the girls looking up at a nineteen year-old kid with shoulder-length hair parted down the middle, a goatee, blue-tinted circle-cut sunglasses and a distressed Levi jean jacket over a black Miles Davis t-shirt. “Hey, what are you doing here?” he dumbly asked, avoiding eye contact by looking at his shuffling feet.
Perspective shifted itself back to its normal state as Sarah answered, “Soothing Syrup of course.” Disoriented and confused, I struggled to remember that Phil, the drummer, and she were both music majors. “Yeah, Measure and House of Large Sizes are going to be good, too,” I responded in a ridiculous attempt at one-upmanship. Not much was said after that, and I wandered away, pondering what had just happened, feeling simultaneously embarrassed and proud.
It was the first time I’d seen Sarah since January, when I’d awkwardly brought her flowers in a failed attempt to apologize for not having spoken to her over Christmas break, during which I had been helping my dad build a house in Missouri that was several years removed from having a telephone installed. I thought back to the late nights the semester before, watching Kids in the Hall, Mystery Science Theater 3000, Monty Python’s Flying Circus and whatever British comedy was playing on PBS. I sometimes still glanced at the rock I had kicked across campus between our dorms, which was still stashed outside the door of Dancer Hall, and realized if I was still making that trek I’d play keepy-uppy with my hacky-sack instead. Then again, I would have probably never learned how to play hacky-sack if we hadn’t broken up, because I would have never gotten bored enough to work up the courage to knock on Brad and John Paul’s dorm room door. One can only sit alone listening to the first two Zeppelin albums, Van Morrison’s “Moondance” and “Tupelo Honey” and John Coltrane’s “Kind of Blue” and “A Love Supreme” hoping for the phone to ring for about a month, it turns out.
It was now April 27th; in two weeks my second year of college would be over.
Brad, JP, Erin and Jacie finally arrived, along with three of their friends from Iowa City whom I’d never met. We started up a hacky-sack circle and the Iowa City guys were good, one of them amazingly so. I tried to copy his moves and failed miserably. After about an hour, the Iowa City crew got tired of playing and wandered off in search of other entertainment, taking the others with them. I couldn’t fathom this at all, thinking if I was as good as them I would never want to stop playing.
I spent the rest of the afternoon coercing people, including the Soothing Syrup members after their set, into playing hacky-sack while the music festival bands played in the background. The headlining band was Fishbone, who I’d never heard of. Since it was getting too dark to continue hacky-sacking, I got right in the middle of the mosh pit. This was something I’d never done before, and being someone who generally doesn’t like crowds, was surprised to find the experience exhilarating- for a while at least. I couldn’t really decide whether I liked the band or not. Most everybody else seemed to be loving them, and the band members were certainly not lacking in confidence. During at least one song, the singer stuck his mic out so that enthusiastic crowd-members could pretend they knew what they were supposed to be singing.
When the show ended, I finally found my friends and followed them back to Brad and JP’s room. I learned that, while I had continued playing hacky-sack, they had been hanging out with the Fishbone members. “You should have asked if they wanted to play hacky-sack,” I offered.
The dorm room was even busier than usual, and included two girls I’d never met on Brad’s bed in the corner giggling at each other while prattling off rap lyrics. I found them utterly obnoxious. I sat next to Brad as he repeatedly asked, “Who are these girls on my bed?” while rolling his head and chuckling to himself. I tried to reenact the occurrence from that morning and see myself from the girls on Brad’s bed’s perspective, but couldn’t, so I pondered it instead.
I wondered whether, even after all these months, my bond with Sarah was such that I could empathically enter into her mind. I quickly realized I had no idea what she was thinking or doing, especially after the months that had passed. In fact, I had been struck in that early morning moment by an awareness that I had completely changed since I’d last seen her. I hadn’t seen myself from another’s point of view- I had seen how I guessed I looked from another’s point of view. It was like watching a movie with someone and spending the whole time guessing what they thought of it. Or, if you knew what they thought of it, trying to attain that same feeling. Either way, the influence of company on a movie being viewed is undeniable, but in the end, everyone watches their own movie. A fondness for Monty Python, which had been cultivated by Sarah, was part of my identity now, even though I’d sort of forgotten about it. “Does anybody like Monty Python?” I asked aloud, starting a chain of conversation that I didn’t bother to follow because it was beside the point. They didn’t know Monty Python like I knew Monty Python.
An acquaintance from a few doors down was fiddling with something on the sink just to my left. He took a bill from his wallet, rolled it up and held it to his nose as the other end traced a line on the counter framing the sink. That was something I’d never witnessed before, and it was startlingly disgusting.
I was struck by a profound awareness of the present. I understood that everybody else was experiencing a reality that I couldn’t step into, and that I was experiencing a reality that only existed because of this encounter with others. I sat on the couch and absorbed everything, finally realizing my existence was a gestalt of the choices I’d made from the options I’d been given, and as such, it was of utmost importance that my choices were a reflection of my own convictions, standards, goals and desires. If my choices were based upon what I thought another would have me do, my being, which is all I could really ever own in this world, would dissolve into nothingness. "What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude." -Ibid.
I had to laugh at myself. While surrounded by chaos, here I was- remaining focused on some mental philosophical exercise. Why did I take everything so seriously? But that wasn’t it, exactly. I was only earnest about things that excited me. Half-heartedness was not in my psyche. I desired to excel at whatever I endeavored, not solely in the eyes of others, but also not solely in my own estimation. One thing I had learned from drumming was that I had thought I was really good at it as long as I had never paid attention to other drummers. Like drumming, hacky-sack gave immediate personal and public feedback regarding ones prowess at the improvisational and technical execution required, but unlike drummers, people who played hacky-sack were generally not dickheads. Hacky-sack also demonstrated that I wasn’t as un-athletic as my high school experience of sports had led me to believe. The thing I’d learned I appreciated about sport was its effectiveness at illustrating the maxim, “talk is cheap.” Unlike life, sport has a built-in measure of objective success.
In some class during college, I read an analysis of the myth of Narcissus that determined the vain hunter, after falling in love with what he thought was somebody else swimming in a river, needn’t die after refusing to take his eyes off his reflection or commit suicide after realizing the futility of loving something he couldn’t have, as the story is commonly told. Instead, he could evolve by incorporating his newly learned ability to judge himself objectively in all his contributions to the external world. After all, genuine self-awareness can be attained only after contemplating how our selves, including our actions, would be viewed by a neutral observer.
In another class, aesthetics, we spent one period with an artist and art professor analyzing his own paintings. The rest of the class was appalled at how much he loved the work he produced. I, on the other hand, was inspired to produce work I loved as much. "A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise shall give him no peace." -Ibid.
Confident, informed and independent people are useless to those with something inferior to sell. The only thing a truly self-reliant person needs others for is friendship, and that isn’t a sellable commodity. Competition, not cooperation, drives capitalism. Winning is lauded at any cost, and is defined by our ability to convince others we’re better than they are. In its demand for us to try and impress it, society tries to beat the integrity out of us. The important thing is not the validity of our claims but our ability to convince others they are valid. Because of the “Halo Effect,” the phenomenon which causes us to trust those we find attractive, outward beauty becomes crucial in this effort. To keep the individual powerless, our culture stresses an absurd notion that when we look at ourselves, we shouldn’t like what we see. It convinces us to conform by teaching us to loathe ourselves. The ignorant and vulnerable are easily manipulated, and so we are raised to look for and obsess over our flaws, weaknesses and imperfections while revering an unrealistic ideal. We survive by pointing blaming fingers while eschewing responsibility, which only deepens our guilt. In the end, power is split between those fitting society’s definition of beauty and those most willing to destroy the self-confidence of the masses.
Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring,
Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish,
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d,
Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,
Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?
Answer.
That you are here—that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.
-from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass
April 27th, 1996 remains a seminal part of my life. I wouldn’t trade that day of playing hacky-sack for anything. I’d only have a couple years of hacky-sack playing left before it would become impossible to find anybody to play with. In five years, I’d end up meeting up with Fishbone at a recording studio in San Francisco where I was working as an intern, but there was nothing memorable about that occasion. Today, one of those girls on Brad’s bed I contemplated from the couch and futilely tried to switch minds with remains one of my oldest, dearest and closest friends.
-from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Self Reliance
I arrived at the site of the all-day music festival early and looked around for a spot to claim for a hacky-sack circle where I could wait until my friends arrived. Hearing my name, I looked down and saw two girls sitting in the grass, making sideways glances at each other. Suddenly I seemed to be sitting next to one of the girls looking up at a nineteen year-old kid with shoulder-length hair parted down the middle, a goatee, blue-tinted circle-cut sunglasses and a distressed Levi jean jacket over a black Miles Davis t-shirt. “Hey, what are you doing here?” he dumbly asked, avoiding eye contact by looking at his shuffling feet.
Perspective shifted itself back to its normal state as Sarah answered, “Soothing Syrup of course.” Disoriented and confused, I struggled to remember that Phil, the drummer, and she were both music majors. “Yeah, Measure and House of Large Sizes are going to be good, too,” I responded in a ridiculous attempt at one-upmanship. Not much was said after that, and I wandered away, pondering what had just happened, feeling simultaneously embarrassed and proud.
It was the first time I’d seen Sarah since January, when I’d awkwardly brought her flowers in a failed attempt to apologize for not having spoken to her over Christmas break, during which I had been helping my dad build a house in Missouri that was several years removed from having a telephone installed. I thought back to the late nights the semester before, watching Kids in the Hall, Mystery Science Theater 3000, Monty Python’s Flying Circus and whatever British comedy was playing on PBS. I sometimes still glanced at the rock I had kicked across campus between our dorms, which was still stashed outside the door of Dancer Hall, and realized if I was still making that trek I’d play keepy-uppy with my hacky-sack instead. Then again, I would have probably never learned how to play hacky-sack if we hadn’t broken up, because I would have never gotten bored enough to work up the courage to knock on Brad and John Paul’s dorm room door. One can only sit alone listening to the first two Zeppelin albums, Van Morrison’s “Moondance” and “Tupelo Honey” and John Coltrane’s “Kind of Blue” and “A Love Supreme” hoping for the phone to ring for about a month, it turns out.
It was now April 27th; in two weeks my second year of college would be over.
Brad, JP, Erin and Jacie finally arrived, along with three of their friends from Iowa City whom I’d never met. We started up a hacky-sack circle and the Iowa City guys were good, one of them amazingly so. I tried to copy his moves and failed miserably. After about an hour, the Iowa City crew got tired of playing and wandered off in search of other entertainment, taking the others with them. I couldn’t fathom this at all, thinking if I was as good as them I would never want to stop playing.
I spent the rest of the afternoon coercing people, including the Soothing Syrup members after their set, into playing hacky-sack while the music festival bands played in the background. The headlining band was Fishbone, who I’d never heard of. Since it was getting too dark to continue hacky-sacking, I got right in the middle of the mosh pit. This was something I’d never done before, and being someone who generally doesn’t like crowds, was surprised to find the experience exhilarating- for a while at least. I couldn’t really decide whether I liked the band or not. Most everybody else seemed to be loving them, and the band members were certainly not lacking in confidence. During at least one song, the singer stuck his mic out so that enthusiastic crowd-members could pretend they knew what they were supposed to be singing.
When the show ended, I finally found my friends and followed them back to Brad and JP’s room. I learned that, while I had continued playing hacky-sack, they had been hanging out with the Fishbone members. “You should have asked if they wanted to play hacky-sack,” I offered.
The dorm room was even busier than usual, and included two girls I’d never met on Brad’s bed in the corner giggling at each other while prattling off rap lyrics. I found them utterly obnoxious. I sat next to Brad as he repeatedly asked, “Who are these girls on my bed?” while rolling his head and chuckling to himself. I tried to reenact the occurrence from that morning and see myself from the girls on Brad’s bed’s perspective, but couldn’t, so I pondered it instead.
I wondered whether, even after all these months, my bond with Sarah was such that I could empathically enter into her mind. I quickly realized I had no idea what she was thinking or doing, especially after the months that had passed. In fact, I had been struck in that early morning moment by an awareness that I had completely changed since I’d last seen her. I hadn’t seen myself from another’s point of view- I had seen how I guessed I looked from another’s point of view. It was like watching a movie with someone and spending the whole time guessing what they thought of it. Or, if you knew what they thought of it, trying to attain that same feeling. Either way, the influence of company on a movie being viewed is undeniable, but in the end, everyone watches their own movie. A fondness for Monty Python, which had been cultivated by Sarah, was part of my identity now, even though I’d sort of forgotten about it. “Does anybody like Monty Python?” I asked aloud, starting a chain of conversation that I didn’t bother to follow because it was beside the point. They didn’t know Monty Python like I knew Monty Python.
An acquaintance from a few doors down was fiddling with something on the sink just to my left. He took a bill from his wallet, rolled it up and held it to his nose as the other end traced a line on the counter framing the sink. That was something I’d never witnessed before, and it was startlingly disgusting.
I was struck by a profound awareness of the present. I understood that everybody else was experiencing a reality that I couldn’t step into, and that I was experiencing a reality that only existed because of this encounter with others. I sat on the couch and absorbed everything, finally realizing my existence was a gestalt of the choices I’d made from the options I’d been given, and as such, it was of utmost importance that my choices were a reflection of my own convictions, standards, goals and desires. If my choices were based upon what I thought another would have me do, my being, which is all I could really ever own in this world, would dissolve into nothingness. "What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude." -Ibid.
I had to laugh at myself. While surrounded by chaos, here I was- remaining focused on some mental philosophical exercise. Why did I take everything so seriously? But that wasn’t it, exactly. I was only earnest about things that excited me. Half-heartedness was not in my psyche. I desired to excel at whatever I endeavored, not solely in the eyes of others, but also not solely in my own estimation. One thing I had learned from drumming was that I had thought I was really good at it as long as I had never paid attention to other drummers. Like drumming, hacky-sack gave immediate personal and public feedback regarding ones prowess at the improvisational and technical execution required, but unlike drummers, people who played hacky-sack were generally not dickheads. Hacky-sack also demonstrated that I wasn’t as un-athletic as my high school experience of sports had led me to believe. The thing I’d learned I appreciated about sport was its effectiveness at illustrating the maxim, “talk is cheap.” Unlike life, sport has a built-in measure of objective success.
In some class during college, I read an analysis of the myth of Narcissus that determined the vain hunter, after falling in love with what he thought was somebody else swimming in a river, needn’t die after refusing to take his eyes off his reflection or commit suicide after realizing the futility of loving something he couldn’t have, as the story is commonly told. Instead, he could evolve by incorporating his newly learned ability to judge himself objectively in all his contributions to the external world. After all, genuine self-awareness can be attained only after contemplating how our selves, including our actions, would be viewed by a neutral observer.
In another class, aesthetics, we spent one period with an artist and art professor analyzing his own paintings. The rest of the class was appalled at how much he loved the work he produced. I, on the other hand, was inspired to produce work I loved as much. "A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise shall give him no peace." -Ibid.
Confident, informed and independent people are useless to those with something inferior to sell. The only thing a truly self-reliant person needs others for is friendship, and that isn’t a sellable commodity. Competition, not cooperation, drives capitalism. Winning is lauded at any cost, and is defined by our ability to convince others we’re better than they are. In its demand for us to try and impress it, society tries to beat the integrity out of us. The important thing is not the validity of our claims but our ability to convince others they are valid. Because of the “Halo Effect,” the phenomenon which causes us to trust those we find attractive, outward beauty becomes crucial in this effort. To keep the individual powerless, our culture stresses an absurd notion that when we look at ourselves, we shouldn’t like what we see. It convinces us to conform by teaching us to loathe ourselves. The ignorant and vulnerable are easily manipulated, and so we are raised to look for and obsess over our flaws, weaknesses and imperfections while revering an unrealistic ideal. We survive by pointing blaming fingers while eschewing responsibility, which only deepens our guilt. In the end, power is split between those fitting society’s definition of beauty and those most willing to destroy the self-confidence of the masses.
Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring,
Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish,
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d,
Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,
Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?
Answer.
That you are here—that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.
-from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass
April 27th, 1996 remains a seminal part of my life. I wouldn’t trade that day of playing hacky-sack for anything. I’d only have a couple years of hacky-sack playing left before it would become impossible to find anybody to play with. In five years, I’d end up meeting up with Fishbone at a recording studio in San Francisco where I was working as an intern, but there was nothing memorable about that occasion. Today, one of those girls on Brad’s bed I contemplated from the couch and futilely tried to switch minds with remains one of my oldest, dearest and closest friends.
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Jay, My Hero
I spent a significant portion of fourth through sixth grade, which spanned 1985-1988, reading Marvel comic books. My main source for reading material was my classmate JJ, who had two or three much older brothers, which meant he had a library of comics that covered some of the 60’s, mostly what was available as reprints, and all of the 70’s and 80’s. I read them as often as possible during class, keeping them hidden beneath my desk and ready to slip into the storage area under the hinged top in case of an emergency. It is difficult to convey how steeped I was in the Marvel Universe without inciting incredulity, but among the comics I read included: some Fantastic Four, Alpha Flight, Punisher, Captain America and Master of Kung Fu; a lot of Spider-Man, especially the Venom suit saga; the bulk of Thor, The Incredible Hulk and The (East Coast) Avengers (all of which were already long-running titles) and virtually the complete works of X-Men, both the “Classics” written by Stan Lee and the more familiar revamp mostly authored by Chris Claremont, Silver Surfer, Daredevil, West Coast Avengers, Iron Man, Moon Knight, The New Mutants, X-Factor, Excalibur and, of course, Wolverine. I asked the art teacher if she could teach me how to draw super heroes and she suggested I might be better suited at being a comic book writer. Chris Claremont was my favorite writer but it seemed obvious to me that the penciller had the superior job, and John Buscema and Frank Miller were my favorite artists. Bescema was a pioneer who had established the typical style of the time, but Miller did his own heavy, high-contrast inking that would set the tone for the future.
Something hard-wired into my nature, which would take me, oh, about 35 years to realize is not a trait ingrained in everyone, is a compulsion to be loyal. I am passionate, some would say to a fault, about the things and people I enjoy. I stand by my convictions, which fortunately prioritize the importance of conceding to logic and humility, and don’t do ambivalence well. Once I start on a course, I tend to see it through to its completion. I don’t jump ship and never make alternate plans. One thing that highly irritates me is when others start second-guessing or changing plans. I always try to keep my word, even when I know doing so will be detrimental to me, because from my perspective, my word is more important than myself. In my worldview, this is known as integrity, which, if I am to be frank, is a thing few others seem to understand.
Anyway, it should go without saying that I didn’t read DC comics… that is, until Frank Miller wrote and drew their Batman: The Dark Knight Returns saga. It was good; really good. This created not only a moral but practical dilemma, because the only person I knew who had DC comics was a junior high kid named Jay, whom I had never personally spoken to, although I often stood beside JJ while they quickly traded comics between backpacks. Jay had a quirk of being highly secretive about his comic book reading habits, which I found strange. Beyond that, discussing comics with him was complicated by the fact that I have always been and probably always will be uncomfortable engaging in conversations with people I don’t know well.
I went to a Kindergarten-12th grade school which had 100 students total, so we all ate lunch at the same time. One day during lunch, when I was in sixth grade, the cafeteria was disrupted by a kid in the table behind me loudly taunting another kid. The latter, I discovered when I turned around, was Jay. Suddenly, and without speaking a word, Jay slammed down his fist onto the other kid’s lunch tray and smashed the unopened milk carton with a loud pop that exploded white liquid all over everyone in the vicinity. Then, Jay stood up and walked straight into the principal’s office. This was a highly-unique and therefore memorable event. In other words, it was basically the coolest thing I had ever seen. Without ever knowing the full story, I egocentrically assumed Jay was being mocked for reading comic books and milk-smashing was his Marvel-esque way of defending his honor. I resolved to always defend my comic book-reading ways no matter how old I got.
I never did speak to Jay. After sixth grade we moved, and I found myself in a school where nobody read comics. I wouldn’t pick them up again until several years later, when I was 16 and armed with a driver’s license. There were three comic book shops in Des Moines, and I started a routine of driving from one to another, getting caught up on X-Men and Wolverine as well as discovering Frank Miller’s Sin City and Neil Gaiman’s Sandman. Along the way, I would also read the current issues of those same comics at Barnes & Noble. In this fashion, I could read 10-12 comics in a day while paying only for gasoline, although I did occasionally purchase Wolverine back-issues. I also began reading Shakespeare’s plays precisely because they had been a sub-plot in several Sandman issues. Even after college, Sandman and Frank Miller’s 300, as well as Howard Zinn, inspired an interest in world history that I had never had while in school.
When I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2000, I got a part-time job as a barista at Borders Books and began reading Japanese manga while there. Eventually, I once again started hanging out in comic book stores to discover more manga and even got into playing sanctioned Yu-Gi-Oh tournaments until the cards got too expensive and I sold my two decks for a profit. I still read manga occasionally today, religiously refusing any edition that doesn’t read right to left. A couple weeks ago, I found myself correcting a random lady in a thrift shop calling it “anime.” I watch a lot of anime, too, but it should go without saying that graphic novels and television shows are vastly different mediums. One advantage of comics is the pace of the story’s development is dependent upon the reader. Instead of passively watching the characters, you move alongside them, discovering as they do. Another difference is instead of viewing a rectangle of a fixed size, comic panels can change size, shape and location at will. This can be used to great effect in keeping the reader actively engaged in both focus and mood. During a chaotic climax, for example, a reader can find himself feverishly attempting to decipher the order in which the panels unfold.
Even with the exploding popularity of conventions like Comic-Con, comic books themselves have mostly remained a niche consumed by introverts. One difference is many characters that began their lives there are now popular mainstream successes. To say I have mixed feelings about this would be a lie; I flat out hate it. I’d like to smash the milk carton of every jock in America who thinks he’s a big Thor fan but doesn’t even know who Jack Kirby is. You have to be pretty pathetic to be too lazy to read a picture book. I can’t really explain why I find it so annoying, but it has something to do with loyalty and integrity.
A couple years ago I was dating a talented poet who, presumably for lack of anything better to do, attended a Neil Gaiman lecture at the university where she was attending grad school. She had never heard of him before, so was very confused as to why hundreds of students had shown up to see him talk. “He read a few excerpts and they weren’t very good,” she declared. I shrugged and said, “Yeah, his work is pretty popular but maybe he’s not that great of a writer.” I am ashamed to admit I had forgotten about Jay. In part, I knew any attempt to defend Gaiman’s work to this person in particular would be futile. But, to be honest, the first thought to cross my mind was, Well, he does just write comics.
And Shakespeare just wrote skits.
Something hard-wired into my nature, which would take me, oh, about 35 years to realize is not a trait ingrained in everyone, is a compulsion to be loyal. I am passionate, some would say to a fault, about the things and people I enjoy. I stand by my convictions, which fortunately prioritize the importance of conceding to logic and humility, and don’t do ambivalence well. Once I start on a course, I tend to see it through to its completion. I don’t jump ship and never make alternate plans. One thing that highly irritates me is when others start second-guessing or changing plans. I always try to keep my word, even when I know doing so will be detrimental to me, because from my perspective, my word is more important than myself. In my worldview, this is known as integrity, which, if I am to be frank, is a thing few others seem to understand.
Anyway, it should go without saying that I didn’t read DC comics… that is, until Frank Miller wrote and drew their Batman: The Dark Knight Returns saga. It was good; really good. This created not only a moral but practical dilemma, because the only person I knew who had DC comics was a junior high kid named Jay, whom I had never personally spoken to, although I often stood beside JJ while they quickly traded comics between backpacks. Jay had a quirk of being highly secretive about his comic book reading habits, which I found strange. Beyond that, discussing comics with him was complicated by the fact that I have always been and probably always will be uncomfortable engaging in conversations with people I don’t know well.
I went to a Kindergarten-12th grade school which had 100 students total, so we all ate lunch at the same time. One day during lunch, when I was in sixth grade, the cafeteria was disrupted by a kid in the table behind me loudly taunting another kid. The latter, I discovered when I turned around, was Jay. Suddenly, and without speaking a word, Jay slammed down his fist onto the other kid’s lunch tray and smashed the unopened milk carton with a loud pop that exploded white liquid all over everyone in the vicinity. Then, Jay stood up and walked straight into the principal’s office. This was a highly-unique and therefore memorable event. In other words, it was basically the coolest thing I had ever seen. Without ever knowing the full story, I egocentrically assumed Jay was being mocked for reading comic books and milk-smashing was his Marvel-esque way of defending his honor. I resolved to always defend my comic book-reading ways no matter how old I got.
I never did speak to Jay. After sixth grade we moved, and I found myself in a school where nobody read comics. I wouldn’t pick them up again until several years later, when I was 16 and armed with a driver’s license. There were three comic book shops in Des Moines, and I started a routine of driving from one to another, getting caught up on X-Men and Wolverine as well as discovering Frank Miller’s Sin City and Neil Gaiman’s Sandman. Along the way, I would also read the current issues of those same comics at Barnes & Noble. In this fashion, I could read 10-12 comics in a day while paying only for gasoline, although I did occasionally purchase Wolverine back-issues. I also began reading Shakespeare’s plays precisely because they had been a sub-plot in several Sandman issues. Even after college, Sandman and Frank Miller’s 300, as well as Howard Zinn, inspired an interest in world history that I had never had while in school.
When I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2000, I got a part-time job as a barista at Borders Books and began reading Japanese manga while there. Eventually, I once again started hanging out in comic book stores to discover more manga and even got into playing sanctioned Yu-Gi-Oh tournaments until the cards got too expensive and I sold my two decks for a profit. I still read manga occasionally today, religiously refusing any edition that doesn’t read right to left. A couple weeks ago, I found myself correcting a random lady in a thrift shop calling it “anime.” I watch a lot of anime, too, but it should go without saying that graphic novels and television shows are vastly different mediums. One advantage of comics is the pace of the story’s development is dependent upon the reader. Instead of passively watching the characters, you move alongside them, discovering as they do. Another difference is instead of viewing a rectangle of a fixed size, comic panels can change size, shape and location at will. This can be used to great effect in keeping the reader actively engaged in both focus and mood. During a chaotic climax, for example, a reader can find himself feverishly attempting to decipher the order in which the panels unfold.
Even with the exploding popularity of conventions like Comic-Con, comic books themselves have mostly remained a niche consumed by introverts. One difference is many characters that began their lives there are now popular mainstream successes. To say I have mixed feelings about this would be a lie; I flat out hate it. I’d like to smash the milk carton of every jock in America who thinks he’s a big Thor fan but doesn’t even know who Jack Kirby is. You have to be pretty pathetic to be too lazy to read a picture book. I can’t really explain why I find it so annoying, but it has something to do with loyalty and integrity.
A couple years ago I was dating a talented poet who, presumably for lack of anything better to do, attended a Neil Gaiman lecture at the university where she was attending grad school. She had never heard of him before, so was very confused as to why hundreds of students had shown up to see him talk. “He read a few excerpts and they weren’t very good,” she declared. I shrugged and said, “Yeah, his work is pretty popular but maybe he’s not that great of a writer.” I am ashamed to admit I had forgotten about Jay. In part, I knew any attempt to defend Gaiman’s work to this person in particular would be futile. But, to be honest, the first thought to cross my mind was, Well, he does just write comics.
And Shakespeare just wrote skits.
Friday, November 15, 2013
The Importance of Ice Cube
Growing up in rural Iowa did not provide many opportunities for interacting with black people, so my exposure to them came through 80’s mass media. If Run DMC and The Cosby Show were any indication, black people were talented, popular and well-respected. Besides those two examples, every black on television was either a fast athlete with trend-setting attire, an excellent singer and/or dancer with trend-setting attire or a good-natured, naïve orphan dependent upon white adults and peers to prevent them from making poor decisions. In retrospect, this may seem like a joke or exaggeration, but, um, nope. Remember, MTV was very hesitant to show blacks and only did so selectively and calculatedly until Michael Jackson blew that barrier apart after he began making elaborate and impressive videos that couldn’t be refused or ignored in 1983.
This disturbing reality is the backdrop for the most shocking thing I’d ever encountered in my 12 years of life, when, in seventh grade, I heard “Fuck Tha Police,” By NWA, being played through a boombox in the clay modeling area of the art room.
Upon hearing the unavoidable chorus, I wondered why anyone would say something like that. Simply listening to the verses reveals this song is about racial prejudice within the LA police enforcement and judicial system. More importantly, this song is a series of first-person accounts of what it is like to be a young black man living in the LA projects. As a young white man living in rural Iowa, I had literally no first-hand experience of police enforcement or the judicial system. One of my favorite television shows, however, had been Dukes of Hazzard, and so I sort of just figured cops were incompetent, unthreatening blowhards who ticketed bad drivers.
Public outcry protesting both the song and the band was loud and furious. The FBI sent the members of NWA a threatening letter accusing them of “advocating violence against and disrespect” for police officers. Parental Advisory stickers, which had been a compromised result of a 1985 Senate censorship hearing but had rarely been used, were suddenly omnipresent. (The first use of the sticker had been on Ice-T’s debut album in 1987.) It is extraordinarily important to recognize that, despite all the attention and backlash “Fuck Tha Police” received, nobody seemed at all concerned with investigating the LAPD or the California judicial system. The general public was shocked that this song was exposing their children to the f-word, not that this song was exposing racial injustice. It was deemed crucial that anger and violence should not leave the black neighborhoods; that was their problem… and their fault. When you peel away the layers, you find that the real concern was not to protect the children, but to silence the voice of the minority daring to speak against the unfair treatment they are receiving.
This wasn’t the first time I had encountered lyrics that shocked me. The first time was on a bus enroute to a little league baseball game, when I heard The Beatie Boys’…
“(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party!)”
You wake up late for school, man, you don't wanna go
You ask you mom, "Please?" but she still says, "No!"
You missed two classes and no homework
But your teacher preaches class like you're some kind of jerk
You gotta fight for your right to party
You pops caught you smoking and he said, "No way!"
That hypocrite smokes two packs a day
Man, living at home is such a drag
Now your mom threw away your best porno mag (Busted!)
You gotta fight for your right to party
Don't step out of this house if that's the clothes you're gonna wear
I'll kick you out of my home if you don't cut that hair
Your mom busted in and said, "What's that noise?"
Aw, mom you're just jealous- it's the Beastie Boys!
You gotta fight for your right to party
This asinine song encouraging teenage disobedience has no socially redeeming qualities. However, of all the songs on Beastie Boys debut album, Licensed to Ill (1986), this one is the least offensive. Some of them have a verse about shooting people followed by one about raping girls. The rest are about drinking, eating junk food and dealing with girls. “Paul Revere” even mentions cops: The sheriff's after me for what I did to his daughter- I did it like this, I did it like that, I did it with a whiffleball bat. Why didn’t anybody freak out about The Beastie Boys lyrics? They were hugely popular and influential while avoiding disparaging mass protests, threatening government letters or even a parental advisory sticker. They are also three Jewish kids from New York, so perhaps there couldn’t be more of an apples and oranges comparison.
Straight Outta Compton (1988) opens with the declaration, “You are now about to witness the strength of street knowledge.” Besides “Fuck Tha Police,” it contains songs that run the spectrum from “Parental Advisory Iz Advised” and “Express Yourself” to “Gangsta, Gangsta” and “Dope Man.” (Another highly controversial song, “A Bitch Iz A Bitch,” was a single added to the remastered version of Straight Outta Compton in 2002) Almost all of the lyrics on the album were written by O’Shea Jackson, using the pseudonym Ice Cube. His lyrics never quite go where you’d predict, for example “Dope Man” derides drug addicts. The characters in his songs almost always end up in prison. Ice Cube refuses to turn a blind eye to grim realities, and black on black violence is a central issue. Despite the grim subject matter, there is always wittiness in spades, and this is the key to NWA’s success. “Gangsta, Gangsta,” which is about a group of black kids driving around and terrorizing the neighborhood because they are bored, contains this gem:
Sweatin all the bitches in the biker shorts (but) we didn't get no play from the ladies- with six niggaz in a car, are you crazy?
One mustn’t lose perspective that Ice Cube is primarily an entertainer. He’s not a politician, physicist, psychologist or whatever- he’s a goddamn rapper. Ice Cube is a persona, a caricature played by a man named O’Shea Jackson. His lyrics weave freely between clowning and sincerity, gravitating toward whatever’s most entertaining. Ain’t nothin’ in life but to be legit- don’t quote me now; I ain’t said shit. He consistently defrays anyone from looking up to him as a role model, and makes it obvious that he’s exposing inner city violence as something to escape and not glorifying it.
Ice Cube’s lyrics contain a lot of tough talk and posturing, and while the outside world would cite that as a reason why they are baseless fiction to be ignored, in the inner city this is a necessary survival tactic. Street knowledge is basically the art of knowing how to handle yourself in a hostile environment. In the inner city, you have to wear a thick skin and retain a strong will to protect yourself from various pressures from people desperate to make a buck.
From 2000-2004, I lived in a neighborhood known as the “Iron Triangle” in Richmond, California. It was a close-knit community where knowing your neighbors was not an option but of the essence. During that same time, I was working late nights at a recording studio in the Tenderlon District in San Francisco, where I met and worked with dozens of rap artists, and playing avant-garde and experimental music in underground clubs in Oakland, including several centers run by the Black Panther party. In 2004, I moved to Oakland for a year. Those five years taught me a lot of lessons and showed me a lot of things, some of which would raise the hairs on the back of your neck. I will attest that to this day, when I feel threatened by someone or that they are trying to intimidate me, my first thought is to exclaim, I from fucking Oakland bitch; don’t even try an’ fuck wit’ me. Similarly, when I see a car driving down the street at five miles per hour, which is a frequent occurrence in the sleepy rural Iowa town in which I now reside, I still think, They either lookin’ to shoot or get shot. You never, ever act suspiciously in the ‘hood. You don’t want to look like a tourist. In Iowa, everyone basically acts like a tourist. Of course, they would likely have no idea what I mean by that, but it’s a convenient coincidence that the state’s name is an acronym for Idiots Out Wandering Around.
People in the inner city enjoy competition in a sporting sense. It is common to see men in open garages playing cards or families gathered around dominoes while cooking large meals together. This helps generate a strong bond of community. Gangs consist of a few greedy control freaks and a whole lot of teenagers desperate for a modicum of recognition and respect, but the vast majority of the community works hard to discourage gangs and remain safe. Moments of intense violence are borne from desperation, a lot of which relates to drugs, but also inner-turmoil stemming from deep-seated values of pride and familial loyalty. You don’t dare talk badly of anyone behind their back unless you are also willing to say it to their face. Speaking directly, decisively and frankly is expected and appreciated.
In contrast, people in Iowa tend to survive by being insular. They stay close to those they’ve known for years and try not to attract too much attention from outsiders. Iowans are not neighborly; in fact most prefer no or few neighbors. The degree to which Iowans will go to avoid communication or even eye contact with strangers in a public place is beyond impressive. Iowans are not used to handling stressors. They think traffic is a slow-moving vehicle (aka a tractor) that they’d need to pass to continue toward their destination at the speed limit. When confronted with any sort of direct challenge to any behavior, Iowans tend to completely lose their shit and respond with passive-aggressive immaturity and back-stabbing. As a result, Iowans are very suspicious of each other. People in Iowa enjoy staying in agreement and away from any competitive friction. They watch sports but don’t generally play them. They talk about the weather and how messed up the rest of the world is. Iowans think anything outside of their comfort zone sounds awful and is best avoided.
These culturally based ways of experiencing the world are mutually exclusive. No black person can go unnoticed in a rural Iowa town for the simple reason that there just aren’t that many people of color around here. An easy way to overwhelm an Iowan with panic and fear is to drop one in the ghetto. Even in places where it is more common, white people throughout the United States tend to be much more comfortable with blacks in isolation rather than in groups.
Iowans think, “If you don’t want trouble from the cops, don’t do anything illegal.” In the ‘hood, that assumption is straight up ign’ant. This assumption comes from experiences such as one that happened a few months ago, when a police officer in Iowa City hollered out the window at my white girlfriend while parked next to her at a stoplight that she had a headlight out. About a month ago, I was pulled over on a country road and given a warning for speeding, and as I drove off, I noticed I had three empty beer bottles sitting on my passenger seat which the officer didn’t inquire about. The fact that many are suddenly wondering the story behind the bottles illustrates my point perfectly. Two weeks ago, an officer in almost the same location flashed his lights at me to signal to slow down, and I obliged. I highly doubt any black person in America can relate to these experiences. Perhaps the biggest similarity between Oakland, California and the tiny towns littering Iowa is the main roads leading out of both are often hidden and unmarked. However, two other important shared traits are an appreciation for church and self-referential humor. One big difference is that if you talk shit about the ghetto to a hoodlum, it’s understood, but if you say anything bad about Iowa to an Iowan, heaven help you.
Part II
1990 was a world dominated by MC Hammer and The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, but it was also the debut of In Living Color on Fox, which shone like a ray of hope above anything on television featuring blacks. At first, I would watch it on Sunday nights in secret, not knowing whether it would be considered a bad influence. It laughed loudly at both the cultural treatment and media portrayal of skin color and race in America. Eventually, I used its sketches as starting points to instigate conversations about race relations, because the show seemed able to delineate the line between absurd and unacceptable.
1990 was also the year of Amerikkka’s Most Wanted, Ice Cube’s superb solo debut album produced by The Bomb Squad, best known for their work with Public Enemy. Many of the songs begin with sampled clips of mass media degrading American blacks and himself, contextualizing his lyrics as responses to and the result of white majority attitudes. A parody of himself being electrocuted after spouting the last words, “Fuck all ya’ll” is followed by a defiant rap that loudly mocks the claim that he’s the villain while drawing parallels between his lyrics and a drive-by shooting. He also demonstrates that the solutions are just as absurd as the problems.
"The Nigga Ya Love To Hate"
I heard payback's a motherfucking nigga
That's why I'm sick of gettin’ treated like a goddamn stepchild
Fuck a punk cause I ain't him
You gotta deal with the nine-double-M
The damn scum that you all hate
Just think if niggas decide to retaliate
They try to keep me from running up
I never tell you to get down it's all about coming up
So what they do go and ban the AK?
My shit wasn't registered any fucking way
So you better duck away, run and hide out
When I'm rolling real slow and the light’s out
‘Cause I'm about to fuck up the program
Shooting out the window of a drop-top Brougham
When I'm shooting let's see who drop
The police, the media and suckers that went pop
And motherfuckers that say they too black
Put ‘em overseas they be begging to come back
They say keep ‘em on gangs and drugs
You wanna sweep a nigga like me up under the rug
Kicking shit called street knowledge
Why more niggas in the pen than in college?
Now ‘cause of that line I might be your cellmate
That's from the nigga ya love to hate
(background voice) Fuck you, Ice Cube!
Yeah, ha-ha, it's the nigga you love to hate
(background voice) Fuck you, Ice Cube!
You know, baby, your mother warned you about me
It's the nigga you love to hate
Yo, you ain’t doing nothin’, pops
You ain’t doing nothin’, pops, fo’ us boys
What you got to say for yourself?
You don’t like how I'm living? Well, fuck you
Once again it's on, the motherfucking psycho
Ice Cube the bitch killa cap peeler
Yo runnin through the line like Bo
There's no pot to piss in I put my fist in
Now who do ya love to hate
‘Cause I talk shit and down the eight-ball
‘Cause I don't fake you're begging I fall off
The crossover might as well cut them balls off
And get your ass ready for the lynching
The mob is droppin’ common sense in
We'll gank in the pen
We’ll shank any Tom, Dick and Hank or get the ass
Fakin’ it ain't about how right or wrong you live
But how long you live
I ain't with the bullshit
I meet cold bitches no hoes
Don't wanna sleep so I keep popping No-Doz
And tell the young people what they gotta know
‘Cause I hate when niggas gotta live low
And if you're locked up I dedicate my style in
From San Quentin to Rykers Island
We got ‘em afraid of the funky shit
I like to clown so pump up the sound
In the jeep make the old ladies say
Oh my god wait it's the nigga ya love to hate
(background voice) Fuck you, Ice Cube
Yeah, come on fool
It's the nigga you love to hate
(background voice) Fuck you, Ice Cube
Yeah, run up punk
It's the nigga you love to hate
(Yo-Yo) ‘Who the fuck do you think you are you calling girls bitches?
You ain't all that
That's all I hear, bitch, bitch
I ain't nobody's bitch!’
A bitch is a....
Soul Train done lost their soul
Just call it train cause the bitches look like hoes
I see a lotta others damn
It almost look like the Bandstand
You ask me did I like Arsenio?
About as much as the bicentennial
I don't give a fuck about dissing these fools ‘cause they all scared of the Ice Cube
And what I say what I portray and all that
And ain't even seen the gat
I don't wanna see no dancing
I'm sick of that shit listen to the hit
Cause yo if I look and see another brother
On the video tryin to out-dance each other
I'm a tell T-Bone to pass the bottle
And don't give me that shit about role model
It ain't wise to chastise and preach
Just open the eyes of each
‘Cause laws are made to be broken up
What niggas need to do is start loc’ing up
And build, mold and fold they-self into shape
Of the nigga ya love to hate
Throughout the album, Ice Cube loudly rejects the status quo and refuses to yield his perspective. He reminds the listeners he still hates cops. In a song featuring the annoying Flavor Flav called, “I’m Only Out For One Thang,” Ice Cube very subtlely admits that not having his voice silenced has become a high priority. From his NWA days, Ice Cube had frequently declared his motivations were “money and bitches.” This is patently offensive, but also jarringly honest. Imagine if everyone who was motivated by those things admitted it. He specifically says this to cynically demonstrate his shortcomings: In “Gangsta, Gangsta,” he writes, Do I look like a motherfuckin’ role model? To all the kids lookin’ up to me- life ain’t nothin’ but bitches and money, which is juxtaposed by a KRS One sample in the chorus that says, It’s not about a salary, it’s all about reality. Anyway, in what sounds like an improvised throw-away outro of “I’m Only Out For One Thang,” Flavor Flav jokingly persists in asking Ice Cube to clarify what one thing he’s after and Ice Cube finally responds, I’m out for the pussy, the money and the mic. The humor reminiscent of Monty Python’s Spanish Inquisition sketch is obvious, but even keeping that intact, any long-time listener would have anticipated his answer to be “bitches and money.” This makes the addition of “mic” stick out as a declaration that being able to speak whatever it is he has to say is an essential goal.
The rap genre as a whole, and Ice Cube specifically, have been heavily criticized for being misogynistic. This is somewhat justified and one factor is the cultural impact of outspoken black male-chauvinists like Louis Farrakhan. Amerikkka’s Most Wanted introduces a female rapper named Yo-Yo in a song which attempts to reconcile perspectives on gender. Ice Cube takes the role of someone who thinks women should serve men, and Yo-Yo insists women deserve equality and respect.
Yo-Yo would go on to put out at least three very good albums, one of which Ice Cube co-produced and rapped on, and when Ice Cube started his own record label in 1994, he put Yo-Yo in charge (according to wikipedia.org). Although she had moderate success, Yo-Yo somehow never became a huge hit like her male peers. This ugly fact demonstrates the accuracy with which Ice Cube successfully captures not only localized attitudes but those of America as a whole in his lyrics. Like Archie Bunker, Ice Cube is both entertaining and relevant because he is publicly echoing thoughts that are claimed to be outdated but many silently cling to.
On March 3, 1991, a black man named Rodney King was filmed being brutally beaten by several Los Angeles police officers while other police officers stood by. After this incident became the top news story, the members of NWA should have received a whole lot of letters of apology for having criticized and been insulted by their claims of police violence on blacks instead of giving them diligent consideration. Instead, a jury demonstrated it wasn’t that the claims weren’t believed, but that police violence on blacks was acceptable. Inaction in striving for equality of justice could no longer be blamed on ignorance, but wholly on apathy. Tom Brokaw’s frank assessment that “Outside the South Central area few cared about the violence, because it didn’t affect them,” which had been used as a sample on Amerikkka’s Most Wanted, was once again validated.
John Singleton’s directorial debut, Boyz N the Hood (1991), came to theaters almost immediately after the Rodney King video broke with the tagline, “Once upon a time in South Central L.A... It ain't no fairy tale.” The title is borrowed from the title of the Ice Cube penned song that became the impetus for forming NWA, and includes Ice Cube in his acting debut. Today, the movie comes off as clunky and dated, but it accelerated the cinematic concept introduced by Spike Lee of giving an uncensored portrayal of the challenges and obstacles faced by black teens in the projects in movies like the seemingly prophetic Do the Right Thing (1989).
Death Certificate (1991) and Predator (1992), Ice Cube’s second and third solo albums, are just as good as Amerikkka’s Most Wanted. He also helped introduce Del the Funky Homosapien and produced Da Lench Mob’s magnificent Guerillas in the Mist (1992). In 1992, he also married Kimberly Woodruff. They are still married and have four children. In late December 1992, so basically 1993, another former NWA member Dr. Dre, now signed to a label financed by a real-life gangster named Shug Knight, released his solo debut. Although Dre was the famous name on The Chronic, it showcased the talent of a young unknown named Snoop Doggy Dogg and acted both as an introduction and test market warm-up for Snoop Doggy Dogg’s Doggystyle (1993). Both of these albums are over-rated, but they had a ton of commercial success. The failure of Ice Cube’s fourth album, Lethal Injection (1993) was that he seemed to lose confidence that the stuff he had been doing in the years between NWA and The Chronic was way better than The Chronic.
Acting is possibly a better fit for what Ice Cube attempts to communicate than rap. For example, when you rap about being a drug dealer, people assume you’re a drug dealer, whereas when you play the role of a drug dealer in a movie, people realize you’re acting. Ice Cube is not an exceptional actor, but he exudes confidence in front of the camera. When he turned down the male lead in John Singleton’s second movie, Poetic Justice (1993), Ice Cube recommended another gifted songwriter named Tupac Shakur.
For two years, I was the Assistant Engineer for the engineer who had mixed Digital Underground’s self-titled breakthrough album, and he often recounted the quickness and ease with which Tupac could listen to a beat, write a verse of lyrics and rap those lyrics over the beat in such a way that you could never imagine one had ever existed without the other. It is unfortunate that those who have decided they don’t like rap music will never get to appreciate how much more advanced rap lyrics are than what is found in any other American musical style.
With the successful rap producer DJ Pooh, Ice Cube co-wrote the hugely-successful comedy Fridays (1995), which launched the acting career of stand-up comedian Chris Tucker, and two sequels. He would re-join the cast in Singleton’s third movie, Higher Learning (1995), which is a creepily poignant depiction of how gangs are formed.
Hopefully the day will come when American blacks are given the same recognition and respect as white Americans, but, until then, it will remain essential for people like Ice Cube to bring the voice of the minority to the masses. This needn’t require heavy-handed preaching; simply re-telling entertaining stories from the point of view of those oppressed can be enough to trigger discussion, generate empathy and remind us of injustices. This will always bring strong resistance from those benefiting from the desperate, but boldly persisting in defying the roles society assigns us offers hope, at least for a time.
"Once Upon A Time In The Projects"
Once upon a time in the projects, yo,
I damn near had to wreck a ho
I knocked on the door - "Who is it?"
“It's Ice Cube, come to pay a little visit to you
And what's up with the niggas in the parking lot?”
She said, “Fuck ‘em, ‘cause they get sparked a lot.”
I sat on the couch but it wasn't stable
And then I put my Nikes on the coffee table
Her brother came in he's into gangbanging
‘Cause he walked up and said, "What set you claiming?"
I don't bang I write the good rhymes
The whole scenery reminded me of good times
I don't like to feel that I'm put in a rut
By a young nigga that needs to pull his pants up
He threw up a set and then he was gone
I'm thinkin to myself, Wont this bitch bring her ass on.
Her mother came in with a joint in her mouth
and fired up the sess it was sess no doubt
She said, “Please excuse my house,” and all that
I said, “Yeah,” ‘cause I was buzzed from the contact
Lookin’ at a fucked up black and white
Her mom's bitching ‘cause the county check wasn't right
She had another brother that was three years old
And had a bad case of the runny nose
He asked me who I was then I had to pause
It smelled like he took a shit in his little drawers
I saw her sister who really needs her ass kicked
Only thirteen and already pregnant
I grabbed my forty out the bag and took a swig
‘Cause I was getting overwhelmed by BeBe Kids
They was runnin’ and playin’ and cussin’ and yellin’
and tellin’ and look at this young punk bailin’
I heard a knock on the door without the password
and her mom's got the 12 guage Mossberg
The nigga said "Yo, what's for sale?"
and the bitch came out with a bag of ya-yo
She made the drop and got the 20 dollars
from a smoked out fool with ring around the collar
The girl I was waiting for came out
I said, “Bitch, I didn't know this was a crack house!”
I got my coat and suddenly...
(Stop, the police, don’t move. Freeze, or I’ll kill ya!)
The cop busted in and had a Mac-10 pointed at my dome
and I said to myself once again it's on
He threw me on the carpet, and wasn't cuttin’ no slack
stomped on my head and put his knee in my back
First he tried to wrap me up, slap me up, rough me up
They couldn't do it so they cuffed me up
I said, “Fuck, how much abuse can a nigga take?
Hey yo, officer, you're making a big mistake!”
Since I had on a shirt that said I was dope
He thought I was selling base and couldn't hear my case
He said, “Get out of my face!” He musta had a grudge
His reply, “Tell that bullshit to the judge.”
The girl I was with wasn't saying nothin’
I said, “Hey yo, bitch, you better tell ‘em something.”
She started draggin’ and all of a sudden
we all got tossed in the patty wagon
Now I beat the rap, but that ain't the point
I had a warrant so I spent two weeks in the joint
Now the story you heard has one little object
Don't fuck with a bitch from the projects!
This disturbing reality is the backdrop for the most shocking thing I’d ever encountered in my 12 years of life, when, in seventh grade, I heard “Fuck Tha Police,” By NWA, being played through a boombox in the clay modeling area of the art room.
Upon hearing the unavoidable chorus, I wondered why anyone would say something like that. Simply listening to the verses reveals this song is about racial prejudice within the LA police enforcement and judicial system. More importantly, this song is a series of first-person accounts of what it is like to be a young black man living in the LA projects. As a young white man living in rural Iowa, I had literally no first-hand experience of police enforcement or the judicial system. One of my favorite television shows, however, had been Dukes of Hazzard, and so I sort of just figured cops were incompetent, unthreatening blowhards who ticketed bad drivers.
Public outcry protesting both the song and the band was loud and furious. The FBI sent the members of NWA a threatening letter accusing them of “advocating violence against and disrespect” for police officers. Parental Advisory stickers, which had been a compromised result of a 1985 Senate censorship hearing but had rarely been used, were suddenly omnipresent. (The first use of the sticker had been on Ice-T’s debut album in 1987.) It is extraordinarily important to recognize that, despite all the attention and backlash “Fuck Tha Police” received, nobody seemed at all concerned with investigating the LAPD or the California judicial system. The general public was shocked that this song was exposing their children to the f-word, not that this song was exposing racial injustice. It was deemed crucial that anger and violence should not leave the black neighborhoods; that was their problem… and their fault. When you peel away the layers, you find that the real concern was not to protect the children, but to silence the voice of the minority daring to speak against the unfair treatment they are receiving.
This wasn’t the first time I had encountered lyrics that shocked me. The first time was on a bus enroute to a little league baseball game, when I heard The Beatie Boys’…
“(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party!)”
You wake up late for school, man, you don't wanna go
You ask you mom, "Please?" but she still says, "No!"
You missed two classes and no homework
But your teacher preaches class like you're some kind of jerk
You gotta fight for your right to party
You pops caught you smoking and he said, "No way!"
That hypocrite smokes two packs a day
Man, living at home is such a drag
Now your mom threw away your best porno mag (Busted!)
You gotta fight for your right to party
Don't step out of this house if that's the clothes you're gonna wear
I'll kick you out of my home if you don't cut that hair
Your mom busted in and said, "What's that noise?"
Aw, mom you're just jealous- it's the Beastie Boys!
You gotta fight for your right to party
This asinine song encouraging teenage disobedience has no socially redeeming qualities. However, of all the songs on Beastie Boys debut album, Licensed to Ill (1986), this one is the least offensive. Some of them have a verse about shooting people followed by one about raping girls. The rest are about drinking, eating junk food and dealing with girls. “Paul Revere” even mentions cops: The sheriff's after me for what I did to his daughter- I did it like this, I did it like that, I did it with a whiffleball bat. Why didn’t anybody freak out about The Beastie Boys lyrics? They were hugely popular and influential while avoiding disparaging mass protests, threatening government letters or even a parental advisory sticker. They are also three Jewish kids from New York, so perhaps there couldn’t be more of an apples and oranges comparison.
Straight Outta Compton (1988) opens with the declaration, “You are now about to witness the strength of street knowledge.” Besides “Fuck Tha Police,” it contains songs that run the spectrum from “Parental Advisory Iz Advised” and “Express Yourself” to “Gangsta, Gangsta” and “Dope Man.” (Another highly controversial song, “A Bitch Iz A Bitch,” was a single added to the remastered version of Straight Outta Compton in 2002) Almost all of the lyrics on the album were written by O’Shea Jackson, using the pseudonym Ice Cube. His lyrics never quite go where you’d predict, for example “Dope Man” derides drug addicts. The characters in his songs almost always end up in prison. Ice Cube refuses to turn a blind eye to grim realities, and black on black violence is a central issue. Despite the grim subject matter, there is always wittiness in spades, and this is the key to NWA’s success. “Gangsta, Gangsta,” which is about a group of black kids driving around and terrorizing the neighborhood because they are bored, contains this gem:
Sweatin all the bitches in the biker shorts (but) we didn't get no play from the ladies- with six niggaz in a car, are you crazy?
One mustn’t lose perspective that Ice Cube is primarily an entertainer. He’s not a politician, physicist, psychologist or whatever- he’s a goddamn rapper. Ice Cube is a persona, a caricature played by a man named O’Shea Jackson. His lyrics weave freely between clowning and sincerity, gravitating toward whatever’s most entertaining. Ain’t nothin’ in life but to be legit- don’t quote me now; I ain’t said shit. He consistently defrays anyone from looking up to him as a role model, and makes it obvious that he’s exposing inner city violence as something to escape and not glorifying it.
Ice Cube’s lyrics contain a lot of tough talk and posturing, and while the outside world would cite that as a reason why they are baseless fiction to be ignored, in the inner city this is a necessary survival tactic. Street knowledge is basically the art of knowing how to handle yourself in a hostile environment. In the inner city, you have to wear a thick skin and retain a strong will to protect yourself from various pressures from people desperate to make a buck.
From 2000-2004, I lived in a neighborhood known as the “Iron Triangle” in Richmond, California. It was a close-knit community where knowing your neighbors was not an option but of the essence. During that same time, I was working late nights at a recording studio in the Tenderlon District in San Francisco, where I met and worked with dozens of rap artists, and playing avant-garde and experimental music in underground clubs in Oakland, including several centers run by the Black Panther party. In 2004, I moved to Oakland for a year. Those five years taught me a lot of lessons and showed me a lot of things, some of which would raise the hairs on the back of your neck. I will attest that to this day, when I feel threatened by someone or that they are trying to intimidate me, my first thought is to exclaim, I from fucking Oakland bitch; don’t even try an’ fuck wit’ me. Similarly, when I see a car driving down the street at five miles per hour, which is a frequent occurrence in the sleepy rural Iowa town in which I now reside, I still think, They either lookin’ to shoot or get shot. You never, ever act suspiciously in the ‘hood. You don’t want to look like a tourist. In Iowa, everyone basically acts like a tourist. Of course, they would likely have no idea what I mean by that, but it’s a convenient coincidence that the state’s name is an acronym for Idiots Out Wandering Around.
People in the inner city enjoy competition in a sporting sense. It is common to see men in open garages playing cards or families gathered around dominoes while cooking large meals together. This helps generate a strong bond of community. Gangs consist of a few greedy control freaks and a whole lot of teenagers desperate for a modicum of recognition and respect, but the vast majority of the community works hard to discourage gangs and remain safe. Moments of intense violence are borne from desperation, a lot of which relates to drugs, but also inner-turmoil stemming from deep-seated values of pride and familial loyalty. You don’t dare talk badly of anyone behind their back unless you are also willing to say it to their face. Speaking directly, decisively and frankly is expected and appreciated.
In contrast, people in Iowa tend to survive by being insular. They stay close to those they’ve known for years and try not to attract too much attention from outsiders. Iowans are not neighborly; in fact most prefer no or few neighbors. The degree to which Iowans will go to avoid communication or even eye contact with strangers in a public place is beyond impressive. Iowans are not used to handling stressors. They think traffic is a slow-moving vehicle (aka a tractor) that they’d need to pass to continue toward their destination at the speed limit. When confronted with any sort of direct challenge to any behavior, Iowans tend to completely lose their shit and respond with passive-aggressive immaturity and back-stabbing. As a result, Iowans are very suspicious of each other. People in Iowa enjoy staying in agreement and away from any competitive friction. They watch sports but don’t generally play them. They talk about the weather and how messed up the rest of the world is. Iowans think anything outside of their comfort zone sounds awful and is best avoided.
These culturally based ways of experiencing the world are mutually exclusive. No black person can go unnoticed in a rural Iowa town for the simple reason that there just aren’t that many people of color around here. An easy way to overwhelm an Iowan with panic and fear is to drop one in the ghetto. Even in places where it is more common, white people throughout the United States tend to be much more comfortable with blacks in isolation rather than in groups.
Iowans think, “If you don’t want trouble from the cops, don’t do anything illegal.” In the ‘hood, that assumption is straight up ign’ant. This assumption comes from experiences such as one that happened a few months ago, when a police officer in Iowa City hollered out the window at my white girlfriend while parked next to her at a stoplight that she had a headlight out. About a month ago, I was pulled over on a country road and given a warning for speeding, and as I drove off, I noticed I had three empty beer bottles sitting on my passenger seat which the officer didn’t inquire about. The fact that many are suddenly wondering the story behind the bottles illustrates my point perfectly. Two weeks ago, an officer in almost the same location flashed his lights at me to signal to slow down, and I obliged. I highly doubt any black person in America can relate to these experiences. Perhaps the biggest similarity between Oakland, California and the tiny towns littering Iowa is the main roads leading out of both are often hidden and unmarked. However, two other important shared traits are an appreciation for church and self-referential humor. One big difference is that if you talk shit about the ghetto to a hoodlum, it’s understood, but if you say anything bad about Iowa to an Iowan, heaven help you.
Part II
1990 was a world dominated by MC Hammer and The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, but it was also the debut of In Living Color on Fox, which shone like a ray of hope above anything on television featuring blacks. At first, I would watch it on Sunday nights in secret, not knowing whether it would be considered a bad influence. It laughed loudly at both the cultural treatment and media portrayal of skin color and race in America. Eventually, I used its sketches as starting points to instigate conversations about race relations, because the show seemed able to delineate the line between absurd and unacceptable.
1990 was also the year of Amerikkka’s Most Wanted, Ice Cube’s superb solo debut album produced by The Bomb Squad, best known for their work with Public Enemy. Many of the songs begin with sampled clips of mass media degrading American blacks and himself, contextualizing his lyrics as responses to and the result of white majority attitudes. A parody of himself being electrocuted after spouting the last words, “Fuck all ya’ll” is followed by a defiant rap that loudly mocks the claim that he’s the villain while drawing parallels between his lyrics and a drive-by shooting. He also demonstrates that the solutions are just as absurd as the problems.
"The Nigga Ya Love To Hate"
I heard payback's a motherfucking nigga
That's why I'm sick of gettin’ treated like a goddamn stepchild
Fuck a punk cause I ain't him
You gotta deal with the nine-double-M
The damn scum that you all hate
Just think if niggas decide to retaliate
They try to keep me from running up
I never tell you to get down it's all about coming up
So what they do go and ban the AK?
My shit wasn't registered any fucking way
So you better duck away, run and hide out
When I'm rolling real slow and the light’s out
‘Cause I'm about to fuck up the program
Shooting out the window of a drop-top Brougham
When I'm shooting let's see who drop
The police, the media and suckers that went pop
And motherfuckers that say they too black
Put ‘em overseas they be begging to come back
They say keep ‘em on gangs and drugs
You wanna sweep a nigga like me up under the rug
Kicking shit called street knowledge
Why more niggas in the pen than in college?
Now ‘cause of that line I might be your cellmate
That's from the nigga ya love to hate
(background voice) Fuck you, Ice Cube!
Yeah, ha-ha, it's the nigga you love to hate
(background voice) Fuck you, Ice Cube!
You know, baby, your mother warned you about me
It's the nigga you love to hate
Yo, you ain’t doing nothin’, pops
You ain’t doing nothin’, pops, fo’ us boys
What you got to say for yourself?
You don’t like how I'm living? Well, fuck you
Once again it's on, the motherfucking psycho
Ice Cube the bitch killa cap peeler
Yo runnin through the line like Bo
There's no pot to piss in I put my fist in
Now who do ya love to hate
‘Cause I talk shit and down the eight-ball
‘Cause I don't fake you're begging I fall off
The crossover might as well cut them balls off
And get your ass ready for the lynching
The mob is droppin’ common sense in
We'll gank in the pen
We’ll shank any Tom, Dick and Hank or get the ass
Fakin’ it ain't about how right or wrong you live
But how long you live
I ain't with the bullshit
I meet cold bitches no hoes
Don't wanna sleep so I keep popping No-Doz
And tell the young people what they gotta know
‘Cause I hate when niggas gotta live low
And if you're locked up I dedicate my style in
From San Quentin to Rykers Island
We got ‘em afraid of the funky shit
I like to clown so pump up the sound
In the jeep make the old ladies say
Oh my god wait it's the nigga ya love to hate
(background voice) Fuck you, Ice Cube
Yeah, come on fool
It's the nigga you love to hate
(background voice) Fuck you, Ice Cube
Yeah, run up punk
It's the nigga you love to hate
(Yo-Yo) ‘Who the fuck do you think you are you calling girls bitches?
You ain't all that
That's all I hear, bitch, bitch
I ain't nobody's bitch!’
A bitch is a....
Soul Train done lost their soul
Just call it train cause the bitches look like hoes
I see a lotta others damn
It almost look like the Bandstand
You ask me did I like Arsenio?
About as much as the bicentennial
I don't give a fuck about dissing these fools ‘cause they all scared of the Ice Cube
And what I say what I portray and all that
And ain't even seen the gat
I don't wanna see no dancing
I'm sick of that shit listen to the hit
Cause yo if I look and see another brother
On the video tryin to out-dance each other
I'm a tell T-Bone to pass the bottle
And don't give me that shit about role model
It ain't wise to chastise and preach
Just open the eyes of each
‘Cause laws are made to be broken up
What niggas need to do is start loc’ing up
And build, mold and fold they-self into shape
Of the nigga ya love to hate
Throughout the album, Ice Cube loudly rejects the status quo and refuses to yield his perspective. He reminds the listeners he still hates cops. In a song featuring the annoying Flavor Flav called, “I’m Only Out For One Thang,” Ice Cube very subtlely admits that not having his voice silenced has become a high priority. From his NWA days, Ice Cube had frequently declared his motivations were “money and bitches.” This is patently offensive, but also jarringly honest. Imagine if everyone who was motivated by those things admitted it. He specifically says this to cynically demonstrate his shortcomings: In “Gangsta, Gangsta,” he writes, Do I look like a motherfuckin’ role model? To all the kids lookin’ up to me- life ain’t nothin’ but bitches and money, which is juxtaposed by a KRS One sample in the chorus that says, It’s not about a salary, it’s all about reality. Anyway, in what sounds like an improvised throw-away outro of “I’m Only Out For One Thang,” Flavor Flav jokingly persists in asking Ice Cube to clarify what one thing he’s after and Ice Cube finally responds, I’m out for the pussy, the money and the mic. The humor reminiscent of Monty Python’s Spanish Inquisition sketch is obvious, but even keeping that intact, any long-time listener would have anticipated his answer to be “bitches and money.” This makes the addition of “mic” stick out as a declaration that being able to speak whatever it is he has to say is an essential goal.
The rap genre as a whole, and Ice Cube specifically, have been heavily criticized for being misogynistic. This is somewhat justified and one factor is the cultural impact of outspoken black male-chauvinists like Louis Farrakhan. Amerikkka’s Most Wanted introduces a female rapper named Yo-Yo in a song which attempts to reconcile perspectives on gender. Ice Cube takes the role of someone who thinks women should serve men, and Yo-Yo insists women deserve equality and respect.
Yo-Yo would go on to put out at least three very good albums, one of which Ice Cube co-produced and rapped on, and when Ice Cube started his own record label in 1994, he put Yo-Yo in charge (according to wikipedia.org). Although she had moderate success, Yo-Yo somehow never became a huge hit like her male peers. This ugly fact demonstrates the accuracy with which Ice Cube successfully captures not only localized attitudes but those of America as a whole in his lyrics. Like Archie Bunker, Ice Cube is both entertaining and relevant because he is publicly echoing thoughts that are claimed to be outdated but many silently cling to.
On March 3, 1991, a black man named Rodney King was filmed being brutally beaten by several Los Angeles police officers while other police officers stood by. After this incident became the top news story, the members of NWA should have received a whole lot of letters of apology for having criticized and been insulted by their claims of police violence on blacks instead of giving them diligent consideration. Instead, a jury demonstrated it wasn’t that the claims weren’t believed, but that police violence on blacks was acceptable. Inaction in striving for equality of justice could no longer be blamed on ignorance, but wholly on apathy. Tom Brokaw’s frank assessment that “Outside the South Central area few cared about the violence, because it didn’t affect them,” which had been used as a sample on Amerikkka’s Most Wanted, was once again validated.
John Singleton’s directorial debut, Boyz N the Hood (1991), came to theaters almost immediately after the Rodney King video broke with the tagline, “Once upon a time in South Central L.A... It ain't no fairy tale.” The title is borrowed from the title of the Ice Cube penned song that became the impetus for forming NWA, and includes Ice Cube in his acting debut. Today, the movie comes off as clunky and dated, but it accelerated the cinematic concept introduced by Spike Lee of giving an uncensored portrayal of the challenges and obstacles faced by black teens in the projects in movies like the seemingly prophetic Do the Right Thing (1989).
Death Certificate (1991) and Predator (1992), Ice Cube’s second and third solo albums, are just as good as Amerikkka’s Most Wanted. He also helped introduce Del the Funky Homosapien and produced Da Lench Mob’s magnificent Guerillas in the Mist (1992). In 1992, he also married Kimberly Woodruff. They are still married and have four children. In late December 1992, so basically 1993, another former NWA member Dr. Dre, now signed to a label financed by a real-life gangster named Shug Knight, released his solo debut. Although Dre was the famous name on The Chronic, it showcased the talent of a young unknown named Snoop Doggy Dogg and acted both as an introduction and test market warm-up for Snoop Doggy Dogg’s Doggystyle (1993). Both of these albums are over-rated, but they had a ton of commercial success. The failure of Ice Cube’s fourth album, Lethal Injection (1993) was that he seemed to lose confidence that the stuff he had been doing in the years between NWA and The Chronic was way better than The Chronic.
Acting is possibly a better fit for what Ice Cube attempts to communicate than rap. For example, when you rap about being a drug dealer, people assume you’re a drug dealer, whereas when you play the role of a drug dealer in a movie, people realize you’re acting. Ice Cube is not an exceptional actor, but he exudes confidence in front of the camera. When he turned down the male lead in John Singleton’s second movie, Poetic Justice (1993), Ice Cube recommended another gifted songwriter named Tupac Shakur.
For two years, I was the Assistant Engineer for the engineer who had mixed Digital Underground’s self-titled breakthrough album, and he often recounted the quickness and ease with which Tupac could listen to a beat, write a verse of lyrics and rap those lyrics over the beat in such a way that you could never imagine one had ever existed without the other. It is unfortunate that those who have decided they don’t like rap music will never get to appreciate how much more advanced rap lyrics are than what is found in any other American musical style.
With the successful rap producer DJ Pooh, Ice Cube co-wrote the hugely-successful comedy Fridays (1995), which launched the acting career of stand-up comedian Chris Tucker, and two sequels. He would re-join the cast in Singleton’s third movie, Higher Learning (1995), which is a creepily poignant depiction of how gangs are formed.
Hopefully the day will come when American blacks are given the same recognition and respect as white Americans, but, until then, it will remain essential for people like Ice Cube to bring the voice of the minority to the masses. This needn’t require heavy-handed preaching; simply re-telling entertaining stories from the point of view of those oppressed can be enough to trigger discussion, generate empathy and remind us of injustices. This will always bring strong resistance from those benefiting from the desperate, but boldly persisting in defying the roles society assigns us offers hope, at least for a time.
"Once Upon A Time In The Projects"
Once upon a time in the projects, yo,
I damn near had to wreck a ho
I knocked on the door - "Who is it?"
“It's Ice Cube, come to pay a little visit to you
And what's up with the niggas in the parking lot?”
She said, “Fuck ‘em, ‘cause they get sparked a lot.”
I sat on the couch but it wasn't stable
And then I put my Nikes on the coffee table
Her brother came in he's into gangbanging
‘Cause he walked up and said, "What set you claiming?"
I don't bang I write the good rhymes
The whole scenery reminded me of good times
I don't like to feel that I'm put in a rut
By a young nigga that needs to pull his pants up
He threw up a set and then he was gone
I'm thinkin to myself, Wont this bitch bring her ass on.
Her mother came in with a joint in her mouth
and fired up the sess it was sess no doubt
She said, “Please excuse my house,” and all that
I said, “Yeah,” ‘cause I was buzzed from the contact
Lookin’ at a fucked up black and white
Her mom's bitching ‘cause the county check wasn't right
She had another brother that was three years old
And had a bad case of the runny nose
He asked me who I was then I had to pause
It smelled like he took a shit in his little drawers
I saw her sister who really needs her ass kicked
Only thirteen and already pregnant
I grabbed my forty out the bag and took a swig
‘Cause I was getting overwhelmed by BeBe Kids
They was runnin’ and playin’ and cussin’ and yellin’
and tellin’ and look at this young punk bailin’
I heard a knock on the door without the password
and her mom's got the 12 guage Mossberg
The nigga said "Yo, what's for sale?"
and the bitch came out with a bag of ya-yo
She made the drop and got the 20 dollars
from a smoked out fool with ring around the collar
The girl I was waiting for came out
I said, “Bitch, I didn't know this was a crack house!”
I got my coat and suddenly...
(Stop, the police, don’t move. Freeze, or I’ll kill ya!)
The cop busted in and had a Mac-10 pointed at my dome
and I said to myself once again it's on
He threw me on the carpet, and wasn't cuttin’ no slack
stomped on my head and put his knee in my back
First he tried to wrap me up, slap me up, rough me up
They couldn't do it so they cuffed me up
I said, “Fuck, how much abuse can a nigga take?
Hey yo, officer, you're making a big mistake!”
Since I had on a shirt that said I was dope
He thought I was selling base and couldn't hear my case
He said, “Get out of my face!” He musta had a grudge
His reply, “Tell that bullshit to the judge.”
The girl I was with wasn't saying nothin’
I said, “Hey yo, bitch, you better tell ‘em something.”
She started draggin’ and all of a sudden
we all got tossed in the patty wagon
Now I beat the rap, but that ain't the point
I had a warrant so I spent two weeks in the joint
Now the story you heard has one little object
Don't fuck with a bitch from the projects!
Sunday, September 8, 2013
The Importance of Nirvana (and Josh)
When he was in tenth grade and I was a junior in high school, Josh carried around a navy blue (or was it red?) Mead notebook containing, according to him, every single Nirvana lyric, which he had presumably spent that summer transcribing. The first time or two I asked to see it he said no, but eventually acquiesced. The first inevitable thing I was struck by was Josh’s penmanship, which I had seen before but not to this degree. It was nearly impossible to differentiate between Josh’s handwriting and a typewriter. His small a’s and g’s, for example, were the kind a keyboard makes instead of how we learn in school. This was not hastily written and barely legible scrawl, but focused and pristine devotion, replete with bracketed alternate possibilities for words he was unsure of.
The content of these lyrics varied from angry, unfocused rants to stark, desperate pleads, most of them dealing with the inevitability of change, the restrictions imposed by our environment and the stress of trying to cope with these realities. This author wanted to let others know that he was totally screwed up, but not as screwed up as they are. A motif uniting these lyrics was a defiant mocking of everything: parents, teachers, popular kids, unpopular kids, the status quo, rebels, himself, etc. I wasn’t quite sucked into pretending Nirvana’s lyrics were remarkably insightful or well-constructed, but they offered something I could relate to. In contrast to nearly every song aimed for a teenage audience I’d ever heard, there was no bragging about sexual exploits or other conquests that I knew absolutely nothing about. In fact, these songs suggested he was as confused about that stuff as I was. This writer was helplessly trapped within his own mind, a predicament I understood all too well.
Here’s a verse from “Paper Cuts” which serves nicely as an example: (The last line before the chorus, which consists of repeating the word “Nirvana,” is pretty much incomprehensible, but I tried my best.)
Black windows of paint
I scratch with my nails
I see others just like me
Why do they not try to escape?
They bring out the older ones
They point in my way
They come with the flashing lights
And take my family away
And very later I have learned
To accept some friends of ridicule
My whole existence is for your amusement
And that is why I'm here with you
To tear me with your eye on her
I didn’t know much about contemporary music. My girlfriend listened to bad hip-hop, dance music and, well, for example, her favorite song was “Vogue,” by Madonna. I asked Josh if I could borrow a tape of… what were they called again? Josh was high-strung and easily annoyed. He also didn’t like me very much. I once tried going over to his house to play video games, and when he discovered that’s why I was there, he loudly and forcefully kicked me out, accusing me of “using” him. To this day I have no idea what purpose he wanted me to have for hanging out. Anyway, he wouldn’t let me borrow a tape, but he would let me listen to one inside a band practice room while he stood outside guarding the door so I couldn’t get caught and have the cassette confiscated.
He had me start by listening to Nirvana’s first album, Bleach (1989) and followed that up with a bootleg (a real one, not the excellent compilation of live material called Insecticide (1992), as this was a few months before it came out). After having read such neatly-written lyrics, I was startled to discover not only the music but also the insanely-strained lyrical delivery were heavily distorted and incomprehensible. I now realized how much time Josh had spent listening to this band. I couldn’t really make much out of it, so in an attempt to understand it, I did what I always do and sought to discover its roots. I asked my mom for bands with songs like “Louie, Louie” and “Helter Skelter.” It’s interesting to note that, looking back at this moment twenty years later, I must have known more about music than I generally give myself credit for back then, because that is a damn fine question. I don’t really remember what music my mom came up with to listen to, but it unfortunately wasn’t The Stooges or Syd Barrett. She did, however, have me read The Catcher and the Rye, which contained that exact same magic of offering a character that I felt I could closely relate to even though we had absolutely nothing in common.
After the success of Nevermind (1991), seemingly every band from Seattle got signed to a major label, and one thing the best of them had in common was being influenced by The Melvins, perhaps the most under-rated rock band of all time. They spent the mid-80’s churning out the best music at the time, and continue to do so today. No band from that region was worse than Pearl Jam. Little annoys me more than mediocre music with insipid melodies backing up a self-absorbed, pretentious frontman, and in those ways Pearl Jam has more in common with U2 than the so-called “Seattle Sound.”
The third Nirvana studio album, called In Utero (1993), was released as I began my senior year of high school. Although I feel like I know the lyrics to every one of its songs, another album was released by a group from Chicago at almost the same time which I would argue is one of the greatest rock albums of all time: Siamese Dream (1993), by The Smashing Pumpkins. There has been a copy sitting in a used bin at a thrift store for several weeks, which is absolutely appalling. In fact, that is what inspired me to write this homage to contemporary popular music from my high school years. Billy Corgan’s wall of perfectly overlayed guitars backing odd, strainy vocals was probably heavily influenced by REM, but sounds nothing like them. Ironically, I was introduced to The Smashing Pumpkins at church. Our pastor, apparently recycling a sermon from twenty years previous, contrasted the lyrics from Chuck Berry’s “School Days” with Alice Cooper’s “School’s Out” in order to demonstrate how troubled and confused “kids today” were. He then offered hope that our misguided youths were seeking answers and vulnerable to be “saved” through “proper guidance” by presenting the Pumpkins song, “Quiet”:
Quiet, I am sleeping in here
We need a little hope
For years I've been sleeping
Helpless, couldn't tell a soul
Be ashamed of the mess you've made
My eyes never forget, you see…
Behind me
Silent, metal mercies castrate boys to the bone
Jesus, are you listening up there to anyone at all?
We are the fossils, the relics of our time
We mutilate the meanings so they're easy to deny
Be ashamed of the mess you've made
My eyes never forget, you see…
Behind me
Quiet!
I am sleeping
Quiet!
I am sleeping
Quiet!
I don't trust you
I can't hear you
Be ashamed of the mess you've made
My eyes never forget, you see…
Behind me
Behind me, the grace of falling snow
Cover up everything you know
Come save me from the awful sound…
Of nothing
I found this sermon so poignant that I went right out and purchased both Siamese Dream and a Chuck Berry two-disc compilation. (The Alice Cooper album covers were creepy enough that I figured I could take the preacher’s word about that one.) A large number of the Chuck Berry songs were preoccupied with the attractiveness of underage girls….
Part II
Shannon Hoon was born to sing. I’d put his voice up there with Roy Orbison and Freddy Mercury in terms of irreplicable natural ability. Rogers Stevens and Christopher Thorn have an uncanny symbiotic way of weaving deceptively sophisticated parallel guitar parts. This is not your grandma’s rhythm guitar/lead guitar duo. Brad Smith and Glen Graham are a rock-solid rhythm section, capable of understanding the nuances of any tempo. These musicians co-wrote both the music and lyrics as the band Blind Melon. Their big hit, “No Rain,” is probably the worst song they ever did, which is not to say that it’s a bad song. They were one of the few bands that could have lured me away from Star Trek: Next Generation or Northern Exposure to watch on that asinine David Letterman show, which is precisely what they did on April 8, 1994. After an absolutely sublime performance of “Change,” Hoon started talking seriously about I didn’t know what, until it ended with, “…goodbye to Kurt Cobain.” The blood rushed out of my head as I began flipping through all six channels in a futile attempt at making sense of this. All these years later, I still weep inconsolably when I hear that performance.
It seems like every revolution in American music is halted by drugs, especially heroin. The problem is so well-known that Eric Dolphy, whom I would argue is THE greatest musician of the 20th century, died after falling into a diabetic coma and being left untreated in a hospital bed because it was assumed he’d overdosed and they were waiting for the drugs to wear off. Even so, I’d suggest the problem is even worse than generally advertised. For whatever reason, my parents told me Janis Joplin died of alcohol poisoning even though it was really a heroin overdose. It has been stated by those that were there that Jim Morrison died of a heroin overdose. Vomit asphyxiation, which is how Jimi Hendrix died, is common with a heroin overdose, because the drug causes the lungs to cease working. Further, I’d be willing to bet that the same government employees encouraging heroin use among blacks to halt the Black Power movement have something to do with this. To borrow a Joseph Heller quote that I thought was Kurt Cobain because he used it in the song “Territorial Pissing,” “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.”
Josh asked me what I did to become a member of National Honor Society. “Absolutely nothing,” I replied. He said he wanted to get in but hadn’t been chosen as a member. “It’s not really a thing. All you do is get a group picture taken once a year for the yearbook. That’s it.” But since he still seemed upset about it, I went and spoke to the teacher who coordinated the NHS photograph for our school. He explained that the voting board didn’t feel Josh demonstrated the community leadership required to be a member. I tried to retort that I didn’t have any community leadership abilities either, but he deftly cited the current conversation as an example that I did. When I graduated from high school, Josh had compiled over a hundred credit hours from Iowa State University and was the only one of the four of us in Advanced Computer Programming IV who actually succeeded in learning Fortran. I’m sure he became a successful person regardless of whether he was ever accepted into NHS or any other club.
When I got to college, I was completely confused by the omnipresent Nirvana t-shirts and posters, and assumed they must have jumped on the bandwagon after he died. In my high school, the popular kids listened to Garth Brooks and Shania Twain. I had never watched MTV, and honestly never realized Nirvana was a successful and popular band. I didn’t even know there was a version of Nevermind with a hidden track. It was only looking back that I realized there was a veritable army of kids scattered all over the country who had been united by an unkempt, flaxen-haired, awkward young man whose raspily screeching voice successfully expressed their sense of alienation while simultaneously obliterating it.
In 2006, Kurt Cobain became the highest-earning dead celebrity, unseating Elvis Presley. However, I just glanced at the current list, and Cobain’s name is nowhere to be found. I personally never cared for much that Elvis did other than his early Sun recordings, and even those are average at best, so I can totally understand how people today might listen to Nirvana and wonder what the big deal was. Some things are truly impossible to explain to anybody who didn’t live through it. From my perspective, I wonder how kids today survive high school at all if the crappy music on contemporary radio is any indication of what they’re listening to.
Although Shannon Hoon constantly altered the lyrics on live versions of this song, here is the transcription of “Change” from the debut album by Blind Melon (1992):
I don't feel the sun’s coming out today
It’s staying in, it’s gonna find another way
As I sit here in this misery
I don't think I'll ever, no Lord, see the sun from here
And oh, as I fade away
They'll all look at me and say, and they'll say
Hey look at him! I'll never live that way
And that's okay
They're just afraid to change
When you feel life ain't worth living
You got to stand up and take a look around and then you look up way to the sky
And when your deepest thoughts are broken
Keep on dreaming boy, ‘cause when you stop dreaming it's time to die
And as we all play parts of tomorrow
Some ways will work and other ways we'll play
But I know we can't all stay here forever
So I want to write my words on the face of today
And then they'll paint it
And oh, as I fade away
They'll all look at me and say, they’ll say
Hey look at him and where he is these days
When life is hard you have to change
When life is hard you have to change
The content of these lyrics varied from angry, unfocused rants to stark, desperate pleads, most of them dealing with the inevitability of change, the restrictions imposed by our environment and the stress of trying to cope with these realities. This author wanted to let others know that he was totally screwed up, but not as screwed up as they are. A motif uniting these lyrics was a defiant mocking of everything: parents, teachers, popular kids, unpopular kids, the status quo, rebels, himself, etc. I wasn’t quite sucked into pretending Nirvana’s lyrics were remarkably insightful or well-constructed, but they offered something I could relate to. In contrast to nearly every song aimed for a teenage audience I’d ever heard, there was no bragging about sexual exploits or other conquests that I knew absolutely nothing about. In fact, these songs suggested he was as confused about that stuff as I was. This writer was helplessly trapped within his own mind, a predicament I understood all too well.
Here’s a verse from “Paper Cuts” which serves nicely as an example: (The last line before the chorus, which consists of repeating the word “Nirvana,” is pretty much incomprehensible, but I tried my best.)
Black windows of paint
I scratch with my nails
I see others just like me
Why do they not try to escape?
They bring out the older ones
They point in my way
They come with the flashing lights
And take my family away
And very later I have learned
To accept some friends of ridicule
My whole existence is for your amusement
And that is why I'm here with you
To tear me with your eye on her
I didn’t know much about contemporary music. My girlfriend listened to bad hip-hop, dance music and, well, for example, her favorite song was “Vogue,” by Madonna. I asked Josh if I could borrow a tape of… what were they called again? Josh was high-strung and easily annoyed. He also didn’t like me very much. I once tried going over to his house to play video games, and when he discovered that’s why I was there, he loudly and forcefully kicked me out, accusing me of “using” him. To this day I have no idea what purpose he wanted me to have for hanging out. Anyway, he wouldn’t let me borrow a tape, but he would let me listen to one inside a band practice room while he stood outside guarding the door so I couldn’t get caught and have the cassette confiscated.
He had me start by listening to Nirvana’s first album, Bleach (1989) and followed that up with a bootleg (a real one, not the excellent compilation of live material called Insecticide (1992), as this was a few months before it came out). After having read such neatly-written lyrics, I was startled to discover not only the music but also the insanely-strained lyrical delivery were heavily distorted and incomprehensible. I now realized how much time Josh had spent listening to this band. I couldn’t really make much out of it, so in an attempt to understand it, I did what I always do and sought to discover its roots. I asked my mom for bands with songs like “Louie, Louie” and “Helter Skelter.” It’s interesting to note that, looking back at this moment twenty years later, I must have known more about music than I generally give myself credit for back then, because that is a damn fine question. I don’t really remember what music my mom came up with to listen to, but it unfortunately wasn’t The Stooges or Syd Barrett. She did, however, have me read The Catcher and the Rye, which contained that exact same magic of offering a character that I felt I could closely relate to even though we had absolutely nothing in common.
After the success of Nevermind (1991), seemingly every band from Seattle got signed to a major label, and one thing the best of them had in common was being influenced by The Melvins, perhaps the most under-rated rock band of all time. They spent the mid-80’s churning out the best music at the time, and continue to do so today. No band from that region was worse than Pearl Jam. Little annoys me more than mediocre music with insipid melodies backing up a self-absorbed, pretentious frontman, and in those ways Pearl Jam has more in common with U2 than the so-called “Seattle Sound.”
The third Nirvana studio album, called In Utero (1993), was released as I began my senior year of high school. Although I feel like I know the lyrics to every one of its songs, another album was released by a group from Chicago at almost the same time which I would argue is one of the greatest rock albums of all time: Siamese Dream (1993), by The Smashing Pumpkins. There has been a copy sitting in a used bin at a thrift store for several weeks, which is absolutely appalling. In fact, that is what inspired me to write this homage to contemporary popular music from my high school years. Billy Corgan’s wall of perfectly overlayed guitars backing odd, strainy vocals was probably heavily influenced by REM, but sounds nothing like them. Ironically, I was introduced to The Smashing Pumpkins at church. Our pastor, apparently recycling a sermon from twenty years previous, contrasted the lyrics from Chuck Berry’s “School Days” with Alice Cooper’s “School’s Out” in order to demonstrate how troubled and confused “kids today” were. He then offered hope that our misguided youths were seeking answers and vulnerable to be “saved” through “proper guidance” by presenting the Pumpkins song, “Quiet”:
Quiet, I am sleeping in here
We need a little hope
For years I've been sleeping
Helpless, couldn't tell a soul
Be ashamed of the mess you've made
My eyes never forget, you see…
Behind me
Silent, metal mercies castrate boys to the bone
Jesus, are you listening up there to anyone at all?
We are the fossils, the relics of our time
We mutilate the meanings so they're easy to deny
Be ashamed of the mess you've made
My eyes never forget, you see…
Behind me
Quiet!
I am sleeping
Quiet!
I am sleeping
Quiet!
I don't trust you
I can't hear you
Be ashamed of the mess you've made
My eyes never forget, you see…
Behind me
Behind me, the grace of falling snow
Cover up everything you know
Come save me from the awful sound…
Of nothing
I found this sermon so poignant that I went right out and purchased both Siamese Dream and a Chuck Berry two-disc compilation. (The Alice Cooper album covers were creepy enough that I figured I could take the preacher’s word about that one.) A large number of the Chuck Berry songs were preoccupied with the attractiveness of underage girls….
Part II
Shannon Hoon was born to sing. I’d put his voice up there with Roy Orbison and Freddy Mercury in terms of irreplicable natural ability. Rogers Stevens and Christopher Thorn have an uncanny symbiotic way of weaving deceptively sophisticated parallel guitar parts. This is not your grandma’s rhythm guitar/lead guitar duo. Brad Smith and Glen Graham are a rock-solid rhythm section, capable of understanding the nuances of any tempo. These musicians co-wrote both the music and lyrics as the band Blind Melon. Their big hit, “No Rain,” is probably the worst song they ever did, which is not to say that it’s a bad song. They were one of the few bands that could have lured me away from Star Trek: Next Generation or Northern Exposure to watch on that asinine David Letterman show, which is precisely what they did on April 8, 1994. After an absolutely sublime performance of “Change,” Hoon started talking seriously about I didn’t know what, until it ended with, “…goodbye to Kurt Cobain.” The blood rushed out of my head as I began flipping through all six channels in a futile attempt at making sense of this. All these years later, I still weep inconsolably when I hear that performance.
It seems like every revolution in American music is halted by drugs, especially heroin. The problem is so well-known that Eric Dolphy, whom I would argue is THE greatest musician of the 20th century, died after falling into a diabetic coma and being left untreated in a hospital bed because it was assumed he’d overdosed and they were waiting for the drugs to wear off. Even so, I’d suggest the problem is even worse than generally advertised. For whatever reason, my parents told me Janis Joplin died of alcohol poisoning even though it was really a heroin overdose. It has been stated by those that were there that Jim Morrison died of a heroin overdose. Vomit asphyxiation, which is how Jimi Hendrix died, is common with a heroin overdose, because the drug causes the lungs to cease working. Further, I’d be willing to bet that the same government employees encouraging heroin use among blacks to halt the Black Power movement have something to do with this. To borrow a Joseph Heller quote that I thought was Kurt Cobain because he used it in the song “Territorial Pissing,” “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.”
Josh asked me what I did to become a member of National Honor Society. “Absolutely nothing,” I replied. He said he wanted to get in but hadn’t been chosen as a member. “It’s not really a thing. All you do is get a group picture taken once a year for the yearbook. That’s it.” But since he still seemed upset about it, I went and spoke to the teacher who coordinated the NHS photograph for our school. He explained that the voting board didn’t feel Josh demonstrated the community leadership required to be a member. I tried to retort that I didn’t have any community leadership abilities either, but he deftly cited the current conversation as an example that I did. When I graduated from high school, Josh had compiled over a hundred credit hours from Iowa State University and was the only one of the four of us in Advanced Computer Programming IV who actually succeeded in learning Fortran. I’m sure he became a successful person regardless of whether he was ever accepted into NHS or any other club.
When I got to college, I was completely confused by the omnipresent Nirvana t-shirts and posters, and assumed they must have jumped on the bandwagon after he died. In my high school, the popular kids listened to Garth Brooks and Shania Twain. I had never watched MTV, and honestly never realized Nirvana was a successful and popular band. I didn’t even know there was a version of Nevermind with a hidden track. It was only looking back that I realized there was a veritable army of kids scattered all over the country who had been united by an unkempt, flaxen-haired, awkward young man whose raspily screeching voice successfully expressed their sense of alienation while simultaneously obliterating it.
In 2006, Kurt Cobain became the highest-earning dead celebrity, unseating Elvis Presley. However, I just glanced at the current list, and Cobain’s name is nowhere to be found. I personally never cared for much that Elvis did other than his early Sun recordings, and even those are average at best, so I can totally understand how people today might listen to Nirvana and wonder what the big deal was. Some things are truly impossible to explain to anybody who didn’t live through it. From my perspective, I wonder how kids today survive high school at all if the crappy music on contemporary radio is any indication of what they’re listening to.
Although Shannon Hoon constantly altered the lyrics on live versions of this song, here is the transcription of “Change” from the debut album by Blind Melon (1992):
I don't feel the sun’s coming out today
It’s staying in, it’s gonna find another way
As I sit here in this misery
I don't think I'll ever, no Lord, see the sun from here
And oh, as I fade away
They'll all look at me and say, and they'll say
Hey look at him! I'll never live that way
And that's okay
They're just afraid to change
When you feel life ain't worth living
You got to stand up and take a look around and then you look up way to the sky
And when your deepest thoughts are broken
Keep on dreaming boy, ‘cause when you stop dreaming it's time to die
And as we all play parts of tomorrow
Some ways will work and other ways we'll play
But I know we can't all stay here forever
So I want to write my words on the face of today
And then they'll paint it
And oh, as I fade away
They'll all look at me and say, they’ll say
Hey look at him and where he is these days
When life is hard you have to change
When life is hard you have to change
Saturday, August 31, 2013
Being (an Introverted) Vegetarian
A couple weeks ago an employee meeting was held at my job, and fried chicken, mashed potatoes and turkey gravy and dinner rolls were served. After getting my food, I spied an empty table in the back corner of the room and headed that way, using my arm to partially shield my plate. Somehow, I managed to eat my mashed potatoes and roll with butter without anyone noticing that I am a vegetarian, which I am aware of because this conversation didn’t happen:
“Didn’t you get any fried chicken?”
“Why didn’t you get any gravy?”
“How long have you been a vegetarian?”
“I could never be a vegetarian because I like eating meat too much!”
“Are you okay with me eating the chicken?”
“You eat butter, though?”
“But butter is an animal product, isn’t it?”
“Do you eat fish?”
“Do you eat a lot of salad?”
“Can you eat French fries?”
“I’m practically a vegetarian myself.”
None of these questions/comments are that big of a deal in and of themselves, but it is kind of annoying to be quizzed on your food choices while you’re simply trying to eat. The truly obnoxious part comes later, when the person you had that conversation with makes a huge announcement and spectacle about you being a vegetarian anytime food is discussed or present. Being singled out as an anomaly that must be dealt with is both embarrassing and unnecessary. Suddenly, my eating habits create a huge amount of confusion over what everyone can eat, and others act as if I am incapable of avoiding meat unless none is present. Somehow, even though I have not asked anybody else about their eating habits, they are made to feel that I am judging them.
It would perhaps be helpful to consider if this were actually true and every time I sat down with someone eating meat, I spent the meal asking questions about their meat-eating habits. Of course, I would never do such a thing because it would be disrespectful and inappropriate. This would be the case even if I was “just curious” and didn’t know why they’d get so defensive. It’s simply impossible for a vegetarian to non-judgmentally learn about a meat-eater’s eating choices; the act of questioning a meat-eater about eating meat cannot be perceived as anything but hostile. The difference is that it’s relatively difficult to feign curiosity about eating meat.
Probably my eating habits are inviting as a conversation starter simply because they attract attention. Being a vegetarian in Iowa is unique. In this case, asking about it is simply rude. These are the type of adults who start a conversation with someone with a physical disability by saying, “So, do you have cerebral palsy?” It’s never a good idea to immediately acknowledge something that another wishes you would look beyond, so that’s only an excusable gaffe for children.
The easiest way for me to enter another’s shoes is to imagine eating with a gluten-free dieter. I only learned what gluten was about a year ago, and my default position was to assume the whole thing was a nonsense fad. I egocentrically project that incredulousness onto those questioning vegetarianism, which I am aware may not be fair. Oftentimes others are legitimately curious and confused about vegetarianism. The level of ignorance regarding what people consume is truly frightening, and honestly, the surest way of maintaining that ignorance is by never asking questions.
An advantage of writing things out is that it forces us to logically construct a cohesive rationale. This is both more difficult and flaw-revealing than rapid-fire queries around a dinner table. Sometimes, writing our thoughts forces us to encounter the short-comings in our assumptions. I’ll readily admit oftentimes when this happens whatever I was writing is sent to the “unpublished drafts” file and is never heard from again. However, an essay, as any conversation, should be something deeper than a demonstration of one’s competence or defense of one’s beliefs.
One personality type I have a very difficult time keeping up with is extroversion. Unlike extroverts, I am neither skillful at nor appreciative of mindless chatter. I don’t enjoy saying the first thing that comes to mind and attempting to come to agreement with everything another says. I instead take everything as literal, and dissect, analyze and critique it with prejudice. It does not occur to me that some people simply prefer to fill silence with yapping gums even while they are eating.
Another personality that utterly confounds me is that of people-pleasers. These types insist upon saying what they guess another wants to hear. They absolutely refuse to reveal their own perspective or opinion directly, but will usually not hesitate to spread gossip behind your back. These people seem to enjoy the skill of trying to guess what others are thinking, which I am horrible at. Once these people have convinced themselves of something, it is very difficult to change their mind. This is because the possibility that someone could be telling them what they literally mean doesn’t occur to them. They instead attempt to fulfill the Golden Rule by doing for others what they assume the other wants done.
Maybe others are simply attempting to engage in a conversation about a subject that apparently interests me in order to get to know me better. Maybe they want to explore an unfamiliar topic or learn. Maybe they are generously trying to be helpful. In other words, my complaint that is the thesis of this blog is probably an over-reaction. My annoyance probably has less to do with the topic or the intent of the other than with my personal perspective regarding small talk in general. I am, at my core, a private person. I don’t appreciate others meddling in my affairs. I have seldom been accused of being friendly. But since I can’t expect the world to just shut the hell up and let me eat my food, I should do a better job of accommodating it. Why not just answer the questions in an honest and friendly manner?
“No.”
“I’m a vegetarian, and it is made with chicken.”
“13 years.”
“That is precisely why I eat seafood on rare occasions.”
“Of couse.”
“Yes.”
“I’m not vegan, but I agree mass market cow milking practices should not be supported. I became a vegetarian because I don’t like the idea of killing, but have stayed one because of the horrible conditions under which many animals destined to become food are raised. Life consists of choosing your battles.”
“High-quality sushi is my favorite food. I used to eat it about twice a year, but less now as it is rare in Iowa. That’s a pun, by the way.”
“Not really. I eat a variety of different dishes from all over the world. I enjoy discovering foods and learning how to cook.”
“Yes.”
“My rule of thumb is to not support anything being done that I’d be unwilling to do myself, but I do appreciate those who are willing to do things that must be done.”
I immediately worry about the adequacy of these answers, but that is a problem I run into while answering virtually any question. Some of these answers would likely act as quality conversation starters. In the end, this entire essay acts as an example of how we often look upon others with scorn for what is, in the end, our own egocentric short-comings and hang-ups that we loathe taking responsibility for.
“Didn’t you get any fried chicken?”
“Why didn’t you get any gravy?”
“How long have you been a vegetarian?”
“I could never be a vegetarian because I like eating meat too much!”
“Are you okay with me eating the chicken?”
“You eat butter, though?”
“But butter is an animal product, isn’t it?”
“Do you eat fish?”
“Do you eat a lot of salad?”
“Can you eat French fries?”
“I’m practically a vegetarian myself.”
None of these questions/comments are that big of a deal in and of themselves, but it is kind of annoying to be quizzed on your food choices while you’re simply trying to eat. The truly obnoxious part comes later, when the person you had that conversation with makes a huge announcement and spectacle about you being a vegetarian anytime food is discussed or present. Being singled out as an anomaly that must be dealt with is both embarrassing and unnecessary. Suddenly, my eating habits create a huge amount of confusion over what everyone can eat, and others act as if I am incapable of avoiding meat unless none is present. Somehow, even though I have not asked anybody else about their eating habits, they are made to feel that I am judging them.
It would perhaps be helpful to consider if this were actually true and every time I sat down with someone eating meat, I spent the meal asking questions about their meat-eating habits. Of course, I would never do such a thing because it would be disrespectful and inappropriate. This would be the case even if I was “just curious” and didn’t know why they’d get so defensive. It’s simply impossible for a vegetarian to non-judgmentally learn about a meat-eater’s eating choices; the act of questioning a meat-eater about eating meat cannot be perceived as anything but hostile. The difference is that it’s relatively difficult to feign curiosity about eating meat.
Probably my eating habits are inviting as a conversation starter simply because they attract attention. Being a vegetarian in Iowa is unique. In this case, asking about it is simply rude. These are the type of adults who start a conversation with someone with a physical disability by saying, “So, do you have cerebral palsy?” It’s never a good idea to immediately acknowledge something that another wishes you would look beyond, so that’s only an excusable gaffe for children.
The easiest way for me to enter another’s shoes is to imagine eating with a gluten-free dieter. I only learned what gluten was about a year ago, and my default position was to assume the whole thing was a nonsense fad. I egocentrically project that incredulousness onto those questioning vegetarianism, which I am aware may not be fair. Oftentimes others are legitimately curious and confused about vegetarianism. The level of ignorance regarding what people consume is truly frightening, and honestly, the surest way of maintaining that ignorance is by never asking questions.
An advantage of writing things out is that it forces us to logically construct a cohesive rationale. This is both more difficult and flaw-revealing than rapid-fire queries around a dinner table. Sometimes, writing our thoughts forces us to encounter the short-comings in our assumptions. I’ll readily admit oftentimes when this happens whatever I was writing is sent to the “unpublished drafts” file and is never heard from again. However, an essay, as any conversation, should be something deeper than a demonstration of one’s competence or defense of one’s beliefs.
One personality type I have a very difficult time keeping up with is extroversion. Unlike extroverts, I am neither skillful at nor appreciative of mindless chatter. I don’t enjoy saying the first thing that comes to mind and attempting to come to agreement with everything another says. I instead take everything as literal, and dissect, analyze and critique it with prejudice. It does not occur to me that some people simply prefer to fill silence with yapping gums even while they are eating.
Another personality that utterly confounds me is that of people-pleasers. These types insist upon saying what they guess another wants to hear. They absolutely refuse to reveal their own perspective or opinion directly, but will usually not hesitate to spread gossip behind your back. These people seem to enjoy the skill of trying to guess what others are thinking, which I am horrible at. Once these people have convinced themselves of something, it is very difficult to change their mind. This is because the possibility that someone could be telling them what they literally mean doesn’t occur to them. They instead attempt to fulfill the Golden Rule by doing for others what they assume the other wants done.
Maybe others are simply attempting to engage in a conversation about a subject that apparently interests me in order to get to know me better. Maybe they want to explore an unfamiliar topic or learn. Maybe they are generously trying to be helpful. In other words, my complaint that is the thesis of this blog is probably an over-reaction. My annoyance probably has less to do with the topic or the intent of the other than with my personal perspective regarding small talk in general. I am, at my core, a private person. I don’t appreciate others meddling in my affairs. I have seldom been accused of being friendly. But since I can’t expect the world to just shut the hell up and let me eat my food, I should do a better job of accommodating it. Why not just answer the questions in an honest and friendly manner?
“No.”
“I’m a vegetarian, and it is made with chicken.”
“13 years.”
“That is precisely why I eat seafood on rare occasions.”
“Of couse.”
“Yes.”
“I’m not vegan, but I agree mass market cow milking practices should not be supported. I became a vegetarian because I don’t like the idea of killing, but have stayed one because of the horrible conditions under which many animals destined to become food are raised. Life consists of choosing your battles.”
“High-quality sushi is my favorite food. I used to eat it about twice a year, but less now as it is rare in Iowa. That’s a pun, by the way.”
“Not really. I eat a variety of different dishes from all over the world. I enjoy discovering foods and learning how to cook.”
“Yes.”
“My rule of thumb is to not support anything being done that I’d be unwilling to do myself, but I do appreciate those who are willing to do things that must be done.”
I immediately worry about the adequacy of these answers, but that is a problem I run into while answering virtually any question. Some of these answers would likely act as quality conversation starters. In the end, this entire essay acts as an example of how we often look upon others with scorn for what is, in the end, our own egocentric short-comings and hang-ups that we loathe taking responsibility for.
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