Who’ll walk me down to church when I’m sixty years of age
When the ragged dog they gave me has been ten years in the grave

"Sixty Years On"
Elton John

It was like a death in the family.

Last week I watched the show at Monica and Gregg’s.  They’ve got one of those
giant Pioneer plasma sets.  Surround system to die for.  All the images were
sharp, I saw detail I never noticed before.  But I didn’t enjoy the
experience.  I need to watch "Six Feet Under" alone.

This art is the most important thing in my life.

I know, to most people it’s the spice.  Atop the family life.  Atop the
relationship.  Maybe it’s even subsidiary to hobbies, like snowboarding and
fly-fishing even.  But I live for the art.  It’s the most important thing to me.

That’s why I hate seeing it commercialized.  It would be like having an ad on
the back of the ass of the girl you were having sex with.  Oh, you’d be
having a good time, your mind would have left the everyday world behind,
but when you flipped her over, for a little doggie, and you saw that ad…
oh, you wouldn’t withdraw, you’d still come, but the experience wouldn’t be the same.  And I’m all about the experience.

I won’t only go to the bathroom alone, I’ll go to the gig alone.  The movies.
I don’t want to take anybody who’ll wreck the experience.  Who’ll need me to
fawn over them.  Who will ask me questions, will get up in the middle to go
to the bathroom.  That’s how sensitive I am.  Even though you’re living YOUR
life, I read it.  I’m overwhelmed by the input.  I feel I must react, play the
correct role.  Whereas when I’m experiencing art I can be the real me, only me.
Just me and the record or the movie or the show.

Now and again, I nail a business concept.  My e-mail box overflows.  I feel
good.  But it’s meaningless.  A hundred years from now no one will ever care. 
It’s all transitory, part of process.  But human life, nature, when I write
from the heart and nail a LIFE experience I might not get as much e-mail but the
people who respond were touched.  They don’t pay compliments, they tell their
story.  How they got to where they are.  Who they are.  Their hopes and
dreams and disappointments.  THESE are the elements of great art.  THIS is what’s
missing from most of today’s music and movies…the ESSENCE!

"Six Feet Under" wasn’t quite "Seinfeld", it wasn’t a show about nothing, it
wasn’t like nothing ever happened.  But really, it was all about the
characters.  Even in a shitty episode, you’d get insight.  You’d see the humanity.  And that’s what I watched for.  Not for plot.  One revealed truth in a show could
make my whole night.

It stuns me that this truth, this essence of life, is not the core of today’s
art.  It’s like the one key element has been eviscerated, it’s like all the
purveyors are Jack Nicholson and they believe the public can’t handle the
truth.  But the public loves the truth. 

The truth sinks in.  It’s not something you get right away.  But it sticks
with you.  Like this very first Elton John album.  I can barely listen to "Your
Song", but I’ve never ever tired of "Sixty Years On".  "Sixty Years On" FEELS
lonely, like a wasted life.  It’s playing to the front row, whereas "Your
Song" plays to the back row.  I’ve got news for you, we’re all sitting in the
front row.

Probably the core of the show was Ruth.  Ruminating over wasting her life. 
Wanting her daughter not to ruin her own.

Then again, David’s always been lost.  And his way out is to make peace with
himself.

And despite my characterization of myself above, maybe it is all about
family.  That’s the key.  That’s what David and Keith and their two boys represent.

I was not going to write about the show.  It was too personal, too raw.  But,
I’ve been getting notes all day from people, even those who’d written me
before saying they HATED the show.

"Six Feet Under" will live on.  In DVD.  It won’t be in the public’s
consciousness like "The Sopranos", then again, inherently people are less concerned with funeral homes than the Mafia.

But "Six Feet Under" was about death.  We’re all gonna die.  Are we going to
live to a ripe old age, or get killed in an accident, or take our own lives? 
And what’s the meaning of our lives anyway.  That’s what the end of the show
represented.  We all pass.  And life goes on.  To see Brenda with a new love…
But why not, should her life stop?  That’s the tragedy, when those still
here stop living.

So, I was mourning privately.  My yearly fix is done.  I’ll probably get
hooked on another show in the future, but "Six Feet Under" will be like an old
girlfriend, you couldn’t stay together forever, but that doesn’t mean you forget
her.