Now look. Understand that I was 11 years old. And, without question, I didn't know shit.
I was feeling competitive with my older brother's musical opinions, and my words were purely intended to piss him off. (It backfired - if you hadn't already noticed...)
So, within the context of the situation, I hope you'll agree - it doesn't matter: I still don't deserve to be forgiven. I've accepted that. But from that point forward, I forged a path of musical knowledge and understanding that ultimately has made that 30 year old statement not only embarrassingly trite, but incredibly ironic.
As I entered my teens I immersed myself in music, exposing myself to as many styles, artists and genres as I could find. In college I hooked up with a couple friends, one of whom could play the guitar, and we would sit around for hours (every single night...and some entire days as well) writing songs and working harder and harder to make them clever, professional and sophisticated.
Granted, it's difficult to accomplish this when (a) I couldn't play an instrument (well, a musical instrument...), and (b) the subject matter of every single song we constructed was an unfortunate guy we worked with who had bad teeth, a bad afro, and made minimum wage at the over-the-hill age of 30 (which, in defense of our situation, felt ancient to us at the time, as if his life had long ago come to a definitive conclusion: failure)
...but even within that regrettable inspiration, there was something there...some promise of creativity within such an offensive, adolescent, Beavis & Buttheadish mentality...
After I graduated from college, my guitar-playing friend, Anthony, moved to New York, and I realized that if I wanted to continue down a path of musical exploration and creativity, I would need to take things into my own hands. I bought a guitar, started teaching myself chords, played for hours every day, and soon found myself actually carving out some interesting progressions. I was elated.
But my road was rough. With visions of Beatlemania soon knocking on my door, I aimlessly continued playing, stretching, learning...creating bizarre chords and believing I'd found the next Sgt. Pepper. My musical future was not promising...
A year or two later, Anthony came back west for a week, and we decided to write and record some songs for a whole album. Sitting in the front room of a house I rented in Belmont Shore at the time (south of Long Beach, close to the ocean) at noon on a weekday, I set up my amp and began playing Anthony this song I had been working on - one of the first things I'd ever written. It was a beautiful day: the sun was shining brilliantly, the seagulls were scavenging triumphantly, the ocean air was softly caressing our naive young faces through the front screen door as the first chords from my song crunched through my amp as loud as it would go, blasting out into the heavens.
Literally three seconds later, we were interrupted by a growing, rumbling sound...
"aaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!"
...building somewhere out front in the street...
"STOOOOOOOP IIIIIIIIIT! STOOOOOOOOOOP!!! TUUUUUUURRRRRRN IIIIIIT DOOOOOWN!!!!"
Through the haze of pure distorted volume, Anthony and I turned to see a short, fat, waddling old lady come puffing helter-skelter up my stairs from the street and, nearly hyperventilating with emotion, shimmy up towards my door with her flabby arms waving over her head as if trying to take flight.
"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!! TUUUUUURRRRRRRN IIIIIIIIT OOOOOOOOOOOOFF!!! WAAAAAH!!! WAAAAARRRRGGGGHHH!!!"
Shocked, I reached over and calmly turned the amp down, turned back toward the door...but the lady had already turned and was now quietly waddling away. Within seconds, she had completely disappeared. Anthony and I looked at each other, wordlessly wondering if we had truly just experienced the same thing, numb in the realization that we couldn't say for sure that it had actually happened.
I didn't know what to make of it. Clearly this lady, and maybe the world, had a problem with my music. A big problem.
But I was undeterred. I had confidence in my passion, my drive, my will, my twisted and unique sense of anti-humility.
I must forge ahead.
That afternoon, I sat down and wrote lyrics to the song I had been playing. They came to me effortlessly, and seemed to fit the chords perfectly, as if I was simply reciting something from memory... I sat down at the 8-track reel-to-reel machine and laid my vocals down in one take. Done.
"Shoreline and around the corner
Sit back and relax until the
Old lady from seemingly nowhere
Cuts loose in the middle of my street
She's running crazy
She likes her mushroom gravy
I don't mean maybe
Dark spirals in her Cream of Wheat
Shoreline and around the corner
Short pants and getting shorter
Eclipse from her big goiter
She's screaming bloody murder"
...there's more, but, well, you get the point...
Two months later, album complete, I mailed a single copy of the cassette to BAM Magazine - a staple in Los Angeles in the 70's, 80's and 90's. Two weeks after that, my phone started ringing: bars wanted to book our "band"; promoters wanted to talk to our "manager"; and a production company even wanted to purchase one of our songs - in particular, the song I had written about the crazy old lady.
What the hell...???
I asked one of the callers how they had heard of us and he said, "I read your stellar review in BAM; I'm dying to hear it myself!"
I rushed out to the nearest store and picked up a copy of BAM: there we were - the lead review, and the critic LOVED it. After going through a few of the songs in detail, he wrote, "The tape's highlight may be a chuckle-inducing look at an old lady titled, obviously enough, 'Old Lady.' Sample lyric: 'She's lumbering up my stairs / Four tummies worth of eclairs / Been years since she used Nair / Old lady, old lady.' Pure poetry!"
As I watched last night's Survivor, I couldn't help but imagine that Russell must have felt exactly the same way last night as I did that day reading that review. Adversity overcome. Irony twisted back on itself. Unexpected success. Delicious Vengeance.
Pulled from the nadir of hopelessness...perservering in the face of hairy legs...tramping on life's goitered obstacles to live yet another day...
(I bet you had no idea how I was going to tie this all together...)
Last night's episode was monumental. Not only the best we've seen in a long while, but indisputably one of the best of all time.
Since the day CBS concocted the hidden immunity idol, THIS was what they had in mind.
And how many times have I complained over the years how frigging USELESS these Survivors are when they find the immunity idol and then refuse to play it? How many times have we seen them get booted because they think they're safe?
Russell was badmouthed by the tribe for playing the idol last week when he wasn't in danger of being targeted (which is, of course, ridiculous - it was 100% the right move). And for him to pre-emtively search for another idol without any clues, any disclosure whatsoever that there would even be another idol...
Tremendous.
People: forget the ire and disgust you felt for the man earlier this season. Embrace the journey we've taken together. Laugh in the face of wild, ranting psychopaths scrambling to quiet the noise and control their own sad, depressing environment. Appreciate the relentless drive, focused determination, unwavering desire to continue...
How can't you just love this man?!
OK, fine - he is an asshole. But, damn, he makes good TV.
So now, assuming Shamwow goes with Foa Foa, we're looking at a 5-5 tie.
Glorious. Let the backstabbing drama escalate!
By the way, has anyone else noticed that Shamwow is wearing Andre Agassi's weave?
Coincidence...or crystal meth?
So, as I think fondly on that jiggling tub of octogenarian goo lumbering up my stairs 15 years ago, I can't help but think about those dark spirals in one's proverbial Cream of Wheat.
Russell can play my guitar and turn it up to 11 any day of the week.
Until next week,
PB
I must say, I couldn't agree more. I am the guitar player who left but who keeps coming back, in all probability it has to do with "Old Lady". I remember hearing that and thinking that Chris was on to something. That he had somehow became a better songwriter than I ever could. I am, at the end of the day, a guitar player, not a songwriter. Over the years Chris has come up with brilliant chord progressions and great melodies. I then fly into town and add my guitar and leave, very satisfied. I hated Russell and I now want him to win. Awesome article.
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