Episode XII: You Kids Get Off My Lawn!

DIARY OF A FADING ROCKSTAR - EPISODE XII: NEVER TRUST A MAN IN A BLUE TRENCHCOAT Or, You Kids Get Off My Lawn

Imagination creates reality. -- Wagner

Now look at them yo-yo's that's the way you do it /You play the guitar on the MTV /That ain't workin' that's the way you do it /Money for nothin' and your chicks for free -- Dire Straits

I was sayin let me out of here before I was

even born--it's such a gamble when you get a face

It's fascinatin to observe what the mirror does

but when I dine it's for the wall that I set a place

-- Richard Hell

[ YouTube links: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-og7aTnL8Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1iR2Wi3u5o ]

[WARNING: Marjor “Whooooaaaa, duuuuude!!!” moments up ahead.]

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I’m almost done talking about it as a precursor to actually doing it (again). Some of my friends wish I was done talking about it years ago. Sorry, friends.

Really, this whole Rock and Roll business -- it’s got very little to do with the fantasy. When all of the dross is removed, it is simply The Work. Laboring under the illusion that The Work interferes with Life, or that Life interferes with The Work, is like driving with your eyes closed. Open your eyes, and you will see that your Life IS The Work, and that there really is no other way to live.

People -- myself included of course -- waste an awful lot of time being unhappy, and to a large extent because they actually believe that they’re supposed to, that it’s expected of them. This may sound crazy and wrong to you, but if you turn around and look back at your life so far, maybe you’ll see all the places it was true for you. Caring what people think or say about you, doing what you’re told, marching in step with things you don’t believe in. Obedience isn’t bad, it just isn’t what we think it is. True obedience to that which is driving you from within would mean that you would never procrastinate again on those things that you want to do but didn’t because you weren’t required to by other people.

I think we are all obsessed with the metaphor of zombies these days because the classic zombie narrative is an extended metaphor for the way things really are. It’s not even really a metaphor.

I know I was supposed to talk about rock and roll, and I’m getting to that, but rock and roll is only one vehicle (albeit my favorite vehicle) for something important that lies at the heart of it, or beneath it, or behind it. Something that’s invisible. There may not be any good words for that thing. Wars are being fought over which words are the best. I’ve spend a lot of time studiously avoiding using words to describe it. But I have recently come to suspect that these words come close enough to at least convey my feelings around it:

My Teacher taught me (and this was probably her most important teaching) that even when not holding pen to page, the poet is writing. Similarly, we may stop playing, but the music continues. In fact, it has never stopped, whether or not we are able to hear it. When done correctly, the poems or paintings or songs or sculptures are like windows, or glass-bottomed boats. I’m not sure what “good” is any more, but a serious (if not good) musician will tend to be a good listener -- not simply to other musicians, but to that music that is always playing, into which she is only dipping her bucket.

I used to think I was crazy for falling in love with everyone I met -- even the people I disliked, even the people I thought were ugly, even the people I wanted to avoid. Actually I only thought I was crazy for doing this when I was able to admit to myself that I was doing it in the first place. Then I realized this was simply one of my tools. We suffer under a misunderstanding about what we’re supposed to do when we fall in love. We aren’t supposed to make an object out of that person; we’re supposed to let them go. We’re supposed to let our heart be broken. If you aren’t familiar with the names Anfortas or Prometheus, go look them up on Google or Wikipedia. Don’t worry if you don’t get it. There are folks who study those stories for decades and never even come close, and don’t even realize that they never got it. But if you’re lucky something will click and you will recognize those people. Mythology is a great tool for understanding The Work, and the great thing about it is you don’t need to pay some therapist hundreds of dollars to explain it to you, because there IS no explanation -- or, the stories are their own explanation. Rock and Roll is also mythology, and when you understand that, you understand better why it calls out to so many people the way it does.

There’s nothing particularly surprising about the number of rockstars who have killed themselves. There’s a lot of diverse factors involved in each individual case, but the main cause is the fact that the rockstar has the unacknowledged job of moving mass human energy, and burnout is endemic. You think rockstars are overpaid? It’s like messing with the fuel rods of a nuclear power plant with your bare hands. The hazard alone is drastically undervalued; and if the rockstar actually produces good music, that’s a huge bonus. It is my contention that if people REALLY knew what the job of rockstar entails, underneath all the trappings, the number of people who think they want to be one would dramatically decline. In reality, you’re pretty much born a rockstar, and then you either follow through with it and do your job, or you spend your life running like hell in the other direction. I believe that there a lot more undiscovered (even by themselves) rockstars riding the bus to their crappy jobs every day than any of us could possibly imagine. American Idol just scratches the surface because the frequency band they are scanning is so narrow.

Why are so many bar bands, church bands, wedding bands, cruise ship bands, party bands, [fill in the blank] bands so annoying? Because they aren’t practicing true obedience to The Work. It’s like making paté out of the liver of the goose that lays golden eggs. Now, there are bands that are just bands, that happen to do those things to get by -- you may even be in one of them, and more power to you -- but that’s not how they define themselves. If you DEFINE your band as a bar band or whatever, you probably suck. You probably also have no idea what the hell I’m talking about. And if you’re happy, there is no reason why you should care.

But if you are actually serious about this whole rock and roll business, it’s just The Work, which defines itself. You don’t have to surrender or sacrifice your life to it because it IS your life. I doesn’t demand everything, it IS everything. There are no obstacles in your path because you’re already there. And if you devote yourself to listening with your entire being, you won’t have time to worry whether you’re “good” or not. You’ll find yourself resonating like a glass harp. And people might even start listening to you.