Day Of Change
I haven’t been able to hear.
That’s a bit of an overstatement, but not by much, and it’s lasted almost a complete week.
You see a cold was going around the condo, and just when I thought I’d escaped, it bit me in the ass.
But you’ve got to know my personality, nothing’s gonna stop me from hitting the slopes. Not because I want to, but because it’s my job. There’s so much we don’t want to do, but if we just put one foot in front of the other we discover unforeseen rewards.
Like on this day, New Year’s Day…when it was snowing and blowing and you couldn’t see a thing and I ended up on the front side skiing untracked bump runs I hadn’t been down in eons, it reminded me of years ago, and that’s why we do it, for the memories, for the inspiration, for the contact…oftentimes with ourselves.
And I’m flying home on the airplane and when we descend into Los Angeles (without a couple of keys, it was Colorado after all), my ears started to feel like they had sharp spikes being inserted into them from the inside and it lasted fifteen minutes and if I’d been under ten I would have been wailing.
Instead I internalized the pain. That’s what I do. They teach us to do this, and then…we get old enough and we realize no one’s listening anyway.
That’s what I’ve discovered. I’m the repository of people’s hopes and dreams and anxieties. Maybe that’s why I love writing so much, it’s only me, but I’m still worried…are people listening?
Do you think I don’t know what you want? Make it short, make it pithy, make it a list of how to make it in the music business, what’s good, make it optimistic, include pointers, be a cheerleader for your inner spirit. But one thing I’ve learned is giving the people what they want may be profitable but it kills your insides dead. Just ask Neil Young and Bob Dylan, who’ve killed their careers multiple times, because they just couldn’t fulfill expectations, and now we love them for it…but it was hard for them at the time.
Or it is for me. Because I’m a people pleaser. And a rock thrower. And if you think that’s a tough dichotomy, try living inside MY body.
And the longer I don’t write the harder it is to do it.
I know my game. If I’m inspired, it could be about anything. If I’m not, I might be working against myself, like now…three things in a day, do you know how many sign-offs I’m gonna get, on principle alone? But I’m frustrated… Because I want to reach you. That’s the screwed up part of the equation, I need you.
So I’ve got to squeeze out a Rhinofy last night and I just can’t do it, I normally only write on inspiration, and I wasn’t…inspired, that is. Oh, the tracks started to sound better and better, it’s just that I had nothing to say about them, nothing I wanted to share, I was feeling vulnerable. That’s the problem with gaining an audience, you second guess yourself, I try not to, but…
And I was so frustrated, surfing the net as the music played, that I got in touch with what had been bothering me for twenty four hours, the Christie thing, the disability thing, so I decided to write about it.
And once I started, I had so much to say, all the frustration of the previous week was flowing through my fingers. But would anybody be interested?
I knew the right wing would excoriate me, kind of like Reagan in that debate…”there you go again.”
But you can’t kowtow to the right wing, that’s their game, to get you to blink, to get you not to react, not to play. That’s our entire nation. The self-conscious, even the acts. Everything’s filtered, massaged, as if we rehearse sex and conversations.
But we don’t.
And the most painful part of writing is not putting words on the screen, but going through the bends after I hit send. Will people love it or hate it, be indifferent, will I get a lot of reaction or…
And then I got truly inspired.
Every song I listened to begat a story.
But it was too late. I’d already blown my wad. To write again would mean I’d never get to bed, because that’s another downside of writing, it takes six or eight hours to come down.
So I didn’t.
And then, I woke up in a good mood.
I’d gone to bed angry.
Isn’t life incredible?
And when I started to read the voluminous e-mail that flowed into my inbox I got inspired again, I needed to hear a track, Lee Michaels’s “Day Of Change.”
Only, in reality, it’s not about politics, it’s about relationships, unlike “What Now America,” from the same album, “Barrel.”
So here’s the point…
I went to college, and I heard “What Now America,” and had to buy “Barrel” and I know every note and now…
I’ve written too much to tell that story.
So I’m gonna tell you this story…
Yesterday I saw her
Now she don’t see me
I know some people are in control. They love ’em and leave ’em. Not me. I’m not saying I’ve never left, but that was after she threatened to first!
But I kind of feel like that guy in the Paul Simon song…when something goes wrong, I’m the first to admit it, but the last one to know.”
Yesterday I knew her
Now she don’t know me
They never do, you share your secrets and then you’re strangers.
All you can do is listen to a record.
And there’s nothing more satisfying…other than personal interaction.
But we were addicted to the sound, I was addicted to the sound, because I felt left out.
And my original point, when I didn’t write this, nine hours ago, was that Lee Michaels could write good music that was about politics, that meant something.
But now…
It’s a cry to all hold hands.
Now it’s an explanation when nothing of the sort is necessary.
I’m as confused by this world we live in as you are, if not more. I’m constantly reevaluating, wondering if I’m on the right path, and I’ll be honest, I’m not sure if I am, and since turning sixty I’m aware the sand is running out of the hourglass.
Yes, I’m sixty. My dick might not work as well, but I’m oh so much wiser.
But still gun-shy.
I want to write truth.
I want to be together.
And separate.
I’m angry.
And sometimes exuberantly happy.
So I don’t know if it’s a day of change or not. Because I’m bad with change, I’m afraid of loss in the process.
What now America?
P.S. Ask Irving Azoff about accompanying Lee Michaels to a gig in his Ferrari (that’s Lee’s, Irving was just a management lackey).
P.P.S. I still have to write about discovering “Barrel” at Middlebury.
P.P.P.S. I still have to write about taking _______ to see Lee Michaels with me at the Fillmore, mere weeks before the venue closed. Taking the train into the city…
P.P.P.P.S. This still isn’t what I wanted it to be. I got caught up in the lead-in and ran out of gas with the main story, which is… I’m dazed and confused and scared to play but I’m trying to anyway.
