I'm 43 today.
I've really hit a wall about what I wanted to write about for this momentous occasion. Birthdays are just...mehf. I come from Patton Oswalt's stance on the matter: when you're an adult, a celebration once a decade until you're 90, then a slap on the ass the other nine birthdays. Is it a sign of a depressed personality? Almost certainly; I'll own it. I'm part of that last "great" generation of white men who were raised to believe that no one really gives a shit about your feelings, and that you should do something that really "matters" if you think you should be celebrated. No wonder I'm fucking depressed. What a hell of a way to be raised.
I've often thought about musicians dying young as I've grown older. I once thought I wouldn't make it past 22 (Buddy Holly, Darby Crash). 1999 was such a shit year, having sold a big chunk of my record collection, split up with the first love of my life, and moved off to a college I'd fail out of within a year. I slept with a pistol under a pillow for months, begging myself not to use it. I blew past the 27 Club. I got married, finally got a degree, and bought a house. Within another five years, most of that would be gone, the only thing left another several years of student debt. I hit 40, and I felt like I finally had the world by the balls. I lived in a place I loved, with a woman I adored, making a living wage for the first time ever. I even took a real staycation for the first time ever. I returned to work three days later, and got laid off. I haven't had a stable job since.
Can you see why I'm not high on my birthday? There are times where it feels like it's the herald of a new load of misery.
Augustus Pablo was 44 when he died of a collapsed lung in 1999. There are two ways I look at this. One is that I'm almost as old as he was, and that I'll never make a work of art as great or lasting as "East of the River Nile". The man made the melodica sound as cool as Coltrane's sax or Watt's bass. What can I possibly do to measure up? The other is that I'm still here; I can still discover the genius in a piece of art like this. It's in the discovering that, even when everything else feels like it's shit, I find the momentum to keep moving. Crate digging can make a bad day good, a good day great. I found a Canadian cassette of this a couple years ago that had never been entered on Discogs; at 19 cents, it's probably one of my favorite thrift store finds from the past few years.
Depression is an anchor that weighs me down every day. I take medicine and participate in therapy and work on myself every day and it's a fucking drag even on the best days. Yeah, even on a day like today, it can be tempting to let myself drown. It's music like this that helps me float, sometimes even surf in life.
4 comments:
Yup, depression is a drag, even on the best of days. I sometimes think it's the reason that I won't ever produce a lasting work of certifiable genius, although it's easy to think of any number of people who struggled with depression but made masterpieces or changed the world.
Regardless of whether any of us accomplish anything remarkable, the fact remains that a major aspect of depression is what some refer to as negative self talk. You nailed it when you wrote that we "were raised to believe that no one really gives a shit about your feelings, and that you should do something that really 'matters' if you think you should be celebrated." We bait ourselves with this poison.
I credit my own survival to focusing on things that really matter to me (like family and friends), as well as small pleasures (like crate digging) that "can make a bad day good, a good day great". Great music, literature, and film (or a walk in the woods) also help; they take us out of our own heads for awhile.
Happy birthday anyway! 2020 has been a shitshow, and losing your father is a major blow. Celebrate your survival!
Thanks for the, um, riddims. For what it’s worth, let me add that your mini-bio resonates with some of my own experience. Of course, reading your post also makes me feel that I’ve been more fortunate at dodging bullets than you have. I was born in London – in an area called Islington, which I now see (from the Augustus Pablo track listing) happens also to be the name of a place in Jamaica. As a teenager in the mid-70s, I felt sure I’d never make it past the age of 30. I was in any case too arrogant and jaundiced ever to make anything of myself in life. But my family moved to Southern California (to one of the towns that make up Greater Los Angeles) and I happened into several oddly magnetic social circles. As a case in point, on the Monday morning when everybody else was mourning for John Lennon, all of my closest friends were mourning for Darby Crash. I was drawn towards relationships that would necessarily fuck me up; one girlfriend in particular left me in a black hole which I’ve internalized and carry around to this day. I most improbably finished up three whole academic degrees – tuition was more affordable back then -- and I ended up teaching, for decades, at a community college. After, let’s say, 2/3 of a lifetime’s worth beating my head against the wall, and in a generally toxic environment at that, I lucked into a way of cashing out while still behind. And after years and years and years of paying rent, I now live in an actually quite nice house with a surprisingly patient wife and two fantastic little dogs. I turned 60 less than a week ago, and the fact of my own survival strikes me as simultaneously miraculous and unjust. For me, too, certain moments in music (but also in literature, in film, in conversation -- even, every little once in a while, in class) have been the staycations when I can get away from myself. And, truth be told, what you’ve written to mark your own birthday is helping me remember why something is better than nothing.
A staycation to get away from myself -- nicely put, Crab Devil! Congrats on your 60th trip around the sun.
Damn bro. Happy belated birthday. You have shared so much great music with me including inviting me to play in South Carey I am forever grateful to you. I feel and relate to every word of your post. I have been on the decline a bit myself lately, feeling like I'm struggling to keep my head above water. Keep writing and sharing your gifts with us. I miss having you around.
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