The Weight of a Soul

 

Part I

 

She didn’t know the man who killed her. But she lived long enough to describe her assailant to police. He was caught, tried, and convicted. Court-appointed psychiatrists said he was “easily confused” and had “little control over his emotions,” but no reason for the assault was ever given.

 

Her name was Kathryn Oliveros. She was twenty-three years old when she died, in October of 1965. Her face slashed, stabbed in the chest by a man she’d never met, until a chance confrontation upstairs at the Old College Inn, across the street from the Murphree Area dorms at the University of Florida in Gainesville.

 

Although family and friends mourned Kathryn, she would have been lost to history, except for one thing...

 

She wouldn’t leave.

 

When I was promoting concert events in the early 2000’s, one of the club-sized venues I used was called the Blowhole – part of the world famous party complex known as the Purple Porpoise. It was in the same building that had been the Old College Inn.

 

Many of the employees had stories about upended chairs falling off tables or televisions turning themselves on and off after hours – when there was no one else around. They’d get chills in the otherwise stifling hallway on the second floor that was now mostly used for storage. Some of them eventually refused to go upstairs.

 

They said it was because of Kathryn.

 

I used a couple of rooms off that upstairs hallway as a green room, dressing room and restroom for the headlining bands.

 

One time the lead singer of a band was trying to take a much-needed nap on the old couch in the green room. As their stage time approached, I went up the stairs to make sure the band was getting ready. In a sleepy haze the singer asked me if some woman had been walking up and down the hallway while he was trying to sleep. I assured him there had been no one. The stairway at the far end was locked. The near stairway had security posted at the door. “Wow,” he said. “That’s weird. I would have sworn there was some girl in a white dress walking up and down the hallway.”

 

Another time, a band was fresh off the tour bus for load-in and I was leading their orientation walk-through so they knew where to hang out and get ready. As I indicated the open door to a large, tiled room, one of them took a step forward but stopped with the other foot in mid-air just before he entered. “What happened in here?", he asked. I wasn’t sure what he meant. I made some joke that maybe one of the stagehands had recently taken a rancid crap. “No,” he said. “Something happened in here.” He refused to go in.

 

It was the bathroom where Kathryn had been stabbed.

 

I am not religious. I don't believe in an afterlife. Over the course of five years or so, I spent hundreds of hours in that upstairs area. I never had an experience that seemed supernatural. I never even got a chill. But I didn't know how to explain those events I had witnessed. Those band guys were not local. They would have had no way of knowing about… Kathryn.

 

Is it possible that some essence of a person is left behind in places they’ve been? In some cases, for decades? And in such a way that some people can detect that essence?

 

Part II

 

In 1907, a physician named Duncan MacDougall conducted an experiment. He selected nursing home patients who were close to death, and weighed them in the moments immediately before and after their demise. He determined there was a small, but measurable, weight loss that coincided with the moment of death. And he decided this slight difference in mass resulted from the departure of the spirit.

 

Thus, he had determined the weight of a soul.

 

Twenty-one grams.

 

That was the difference he had detected. Three quarters of an ounce. The mass that contains the essence of each of us.

 

The results of this quest have long since been debunked. But it didn’t matter. The whole affair reinforced the notion, long held by generations of believers, that the soul is a tangible thing.

 

Part III

 

Recently, a friend of mine died after a terrible illness. As people paid tribute on his Facebook page, I couldn’t decide what to write. But, I pictured him in my mind, and thought of a funny story about him, and I wrote…

 

“Your energy will continue to light the world.”

 

And then it hit me… Energy and mass and light are closely related. Isn’t that what Einstein told us?

 

Isn’t it logical that we leave a trail of atoms wherever we go? And, in some places, more than others? Skin cells, saliva, and the very air we exhale – especially when we sneeze. Or cough.

 

Or die.

 

I found a scientific journal article that calculated the number of cells in the average human at three-point-seven-two times ten to the thirteenth power. For those who are bad at math that's more than 37 trillion cells.

 

And don’t they all contain some essence of us? Some molecular thumbprint?

 

It’s an interesting question to ponder, especially when you realize no one really knows how memories work. The human brain is just a gelatinous mass of wonder, a chemical playground where things go on that we can’t even begin to understand.

 

Somewhere there is a tiny clump of neurons in my skull that knows my first-grade teacher was Mrs. Zebunka. But how does my brain retain that information, and retrieve it whenever I want it?

 

How can it conjure up an image of one of my earliest memories of my dad – him playing porpoise in the warm, shallow waters of White Lake in New Hampshire, while I rode like a papoose Poseidon on his back?

 

If someone else gained access to that clump of neurons, would they see the same thing?

 

At the moment we expire, do zillions of molecules go drifting off, and, since matter can’t be created or destroyed, do they continue to exist, carrying forth some essence of us? Something we could think of as part of our soul?

 

Did your last bite of food contain a tiny bit of Julius Caesar or Joan of Arc? Take a good, deep breath. Perhaps you’re inhaling a few molecules of Mother Theresa or Abraham Lincoln. Although, I suppose it’s equally likely you’re inhaling a bit of Genghis Kahn or Adolph Hitler.

 

Maybe some people have a different perception of those molecules that float all around. Maybe they can experience the memories contained in those cells.

 

Maybe they’ve seen Mrs. Zebunka?

 

But isn’t that really the essence of all us? The memories and experiences that make up our existence…?

 

Could it be that some of us have the ability to decipher the code contained in these wandering bits of other people? Could it be that we all have that ability but most of us just don't do it in our conscious state?

 

That would explain many things… Weird dreams. The sensation of déjà vu. Even random ghost sightings.

 

If that’s true, we’d have to face one important, additional question… What if the ghosts are actually inside us?

 

In Memory of Brian Wilson

 

When my oldest sister was in high school, she sang in the chorus. We lived just outside of Boston then, and my father had finished off half of the basement into two bedrooms and I guess kind of a den. That's where the record player was. My sister would sit down there for hours practicing singing to certain records. Being a 9-year-old pain in the ass, of course, meant that I had to wander downstairs and bother her on occasion. 

 

When it was time to practice harmonies, she played two records in particular: Best of The Beach Boys Volume 2 and Surf’s Up. The songs were catchy, but it went deeper than that. Even my little punk ass noticed how pleasing the harmonies were. Lush and complicated. And delivered with incredible precision. 

 

I became a fan. 

 

Brian Wilson was my first musical hero. He was the genius behind the Beach Boys. The songwriter. The arranger. The producer. And a great singer with a lofty range that was clear and powerful even up into the falsetto.

 

Brian was a perfectionist. It's likely you've heard the song California Girls once or twice. While recording it in April of 1965, working with the legendary studio musicians known as the Wrecking Crew, it required 44 takes before Brian decided they had achieved a satisfactory recording of the backing tracks. God only knows how many takes it took to get the vocals.

 

By the time I was in middle school, I was reading Rolling Stone magazine regularly, whenever I could get my hands on one. I don't know, I must have read some mention of how brilliant the album Pet Sounds was, long before it ever achieved the mainstream appreciation it has now.

 

So I bought a copy.

 

Would it be fair to say it changed my life? Probably. 

 

Would it be fair to say it changed the future of popular music? I’d say, yes. Here are a few bits I stole from the internet…

 

“Pet Sounds revolutionized music production and the role of producers, especially through its level of detail and Wilson's use of the studio as compositional tool."

 

"It elevated popular music as an art form, heightened public regard for albums as cohesive works, and influenced genres like orchestral pop, psychedelia, soft rock, sunshine pop, and progressive rock/pop as well as the adoption of the synthesizer in popular music."

 

"The album also introduced novel orchestration techniques, chord voicings, and structural harmonies.”

 

Brian did this when he was 23 years old.

 

He’d begun hearing voices in his head when he was 20.

 

At some point, it was decided that he had schizoaffective disorder – which includes symptoms of schizophrenia and a mood disorder.

 

He struggled with mental illness for the rest of his life. 

 

Obviously, I can’t give you a complete bio here. He was a complicated and troubled man, but here’s the thing that always hits me… All his life, he had a simple goal; to communicate through his music to spread love and mercy to the world. 

 

After releasing an album by that name in 1988, that became his signature sign-off for any correspondence… Love and mercy.

 

If you haven’t already seen them, I recommend watching the 2021 documentary called Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road, and the movie from 2014 called Love and Mercy.

 

If you’ve never listened to the album Pet Sounds, I urge you to do so. As soon as possible. And I recommend you listen to it as Brian once said it should be heard, on headphones, in the dark, while high.

 

Brian Wilson died this morning. He was 82.

Questions on Writing

 

I’m not sure how I became a writer.

 

I didn't keep a journal as a kid. I still don't. I write a lot of my thoughts down, of course, but I'm kind of glad I didn't then. I can't imagine how silly it would seem to me now.

What was it like when the most important side effect of breaking my right arm was having to learn how to masturbate left-handed? …When my biggest concern was the giant zits that tragically appeared on my forehead overnight? And why did it always happen on a Monday or Tuesday? So I had to walk the school hallways for the rest of the week with Krakatoa erupting on my face?

 

Even when I realized I was good at this writing thing, I didn’t start with serious subjects. I had done bits and pieces for the local newspaper, but my first real writing job after college was in sports.

 

That’s when I discovered sports writers are assholes. I try to refrain from lumping an entire group of people into one derogatory category. But in this case, they deserve it. So I moved on to other things.

 

These days, when people ask me what I write, and I say, “Mostly creative non-fiction,” I get the most puzzled looks. “What does that mean? What do you actually write about?” 

“Well, anything I want.” 

That doesn’t seem to help. To most people, “anything” apparently means “nothing.” 

It reminds me of one of the early episodes of Seinfeld where Jerry and George Costanza are discussing how to pitch their show idea to NBC. 

George says: Everybody's doing something. We'll do nothing. 

Jerry: So we go into NBC, and we tell them we have an idea for a show about nothing. 

George: Exactly. 

Jerry: They say, "What's your show about?" And I say "nothing." 

George: There ya go. 

After a long pause, Jerry says: …I think you may have something there. 

When they say nothing, though, what they really mean is… everything. Everyday life. 

And it’s a little frightening that many people think it’s acceptable and possibly accurate to describe their daily existence as… nothing. If you don’t think something interesting happens to you almost every day, you might need to consider making some serious changes. 

But it’s more likely that you’re just not paying enough attention. 

I have written about watching a family with two young children become homeless, and then, months later, seeing them regain their footing – with help from the community they lived in.  This was a black family in a very white community. That story gave me hope. For a while.

I have written about a young woman at a bar who briefly left her own drunken birthday celebration to sidle up to me, a complete stranger, and tell me her mom had died years before… on her birthday. 

That was fifteen years ago, and I still think about it. 

I have written about karaoke and cover bands. About music, in general. And my involvement in the business. Which meant… writing about drugs, of course.

 

I have written about irrational fears. And rational ones. About happiness and heartbreak. About the incessant urge that creators have… to create. 

I have written about the time I was sitting in a coffee shop next to two women in their sixties when a news story came on the TV saying researchers, using stem cells… had made artificial sperm. One of the women was absolutely incredulous. And I don’t think she realized how loud she was when she said, "What? There’s no shortage..." 

Aren’t there moments that touch you? Moments that make you think? Moments that cause you to react in unexpected ways? Moments that make you laugh, or make you teary for reasons you can’t explain? 

 

One evening during my usual wanderings I noticed an older gentleman sitting in a car by himself watching the sunset over the Indian River. It was a nice little park with a boat ramp and some picnic tables. And the sunset was gorgeous as it often is there. Then I noticed a breast cancer awareness sticker on his rear bumper – you know - one of those pink ribbons. And around the license plate was a frame promoting a nearby hospice care center. And I realized that those two things were probably related. And that probably explained why he was alone.

 

One time, right on the heels of a passing hurricane, I drove out to the coast to see the damage. The weather was still bad - way worse than weather you'd normally drive in, but I was restless. Just before I went over the causeway bridge, I noticed one small man fishing off the long concrete pier. I stopped to watch and there was something about the way he was dressed and the urgency of his actions as he repeatedly cast and reeled. And it dawned on me that if he didn't catch a fish, he wasn't going to eat that day.

There’s a story in each of those moments. 

 

You can’t make this stuff up. Or, should I say, there’s no need to make this stuff up. It’s there. Everywhere. Every day. If you look for it. 

 

Until the last couple of years, the only fiction I'd ever written was on my tax returns. But now I dabble in fiction, too.

I’m willing to admit that the present reality is rather fucked up. So, it’s tempting to invent an entirely new one. But many fiction writers go on to create make-believe worlds that are even more fucked up than our own. 

I see no sense in escaping my own hell to visit one that’s even worse. 

I think I started with fiction because I go through these periods of self-reflection. And it's possible that's why I started writing in the first place. I had questions. Lots of questions. I thought they'd be answered, one by one, as I grew up. But I was wrong. Every time I answered one, another one came along. Sometimes they came in bunches.

Everything, of course, leads to the one big question: What is the fucking point of all this? WHAT is the point?

 

Then you wonder… Why is it that mankind has to try to find some meaning in life? I'm pretty sure cockroaches don't do this. Although, maybe I'm underestimating them.

How did I get to the point that, when I meet some wonderful woman, and have a nice conversation, I stop myself? I go no further. I walk away, thinking... no, she'd just break my heart anyway, if it wasn't already broken.

 

For me, I think writing – any kind of writing - is a process of trying to answer questions. But I’ve now realized it might be hopeless.

 

What if I’m wrong about the big question? What if there is no fucking point?

Lawnmowers and Leaf Blowers

I hate Mondays. 

Probably for many of the same reasons that lots of people hate Mondays. But also because I live in a busy, suburban neighborhood that comes alive at the beginning of every week with constant reminders of how truly pathetic we as a nation have become. 

Without fail, Mondays start early with the street sweeper, followed closely by the trash trucks. I especially admire the dedication of some of the drivers who are so determined to get every bit of trash out of the little dumpster that they use the mechanical arm to bang it several times against the top of the truck. Obviously, by the time I wake up, they’re already on their third cup of coffee. 

Just to be clear, these are necessary services that I do appreciate. I just wish they’d come around on Friday at about 4:00 in the afternoon – when I’m at happy hour. 

Normally, there is some construction or improvement project going on somewhere nearby, so the hammers and saws come next - occasionally accompanied by the staccato shots of an air gun spitting out roofing nails. Whenever these tools come out before 9 AM, I usually concoct detailed fantasy images about how they might be applied to the user – cracking skulls, sawing off limbs, or nailing hands to the shingles. 

Did I mention I hate Monday morning noises? 

After that come the noises that really irritate me... lawnmowers and leaf blowers. 

The concept of leaf blowers is ludicrous to begin with. 

Here's the thought process… someone spends a half hour creating a horrendous racket to blow this yard debris into the road several feet away, entirely ignoring the fact that this very same debris will return the minute a few cars drive by or the wind picks up. 

Remember that hit song by the band Kansas called Dust in the Wind? I’m now convinced that was part of a late-70s conspiracy to sell leaf blowers. Black and Decker, Craftsmen, they were all in on it. Dust belongs on the ground, not in the wind. 

Then Big Pharma got into it. 

That’s right. They realized all this dust in the wind would leave us hacking and coughing and mopping our runny noses. Claritin, Zyrtec, Allegra, Flonase, Nasacort… They’re all in on it. Everything was fine until someone realized that if you could somehow collect fifty pounds of Sudafed, you could make crystal meth with it. 

So they started selling us phenylephrine as a substitute. Everybody bought it. I have some right now. 

Recently, it was discovered that phenylephrine's decongestant effects may not be significantly different from that of a placebo. I swear, I’m not making this up. I found an article from USA Today last September – “FDA Panel Declares Decongestant Phenylephrine Ineffective.” There’s a study from the Yale School of Medicine in October – “Phenylephrine, a Common Decongestant, Is Ineffective.” 

And it all started with leaf blowers… 

 Lawnmowers are equally ludicrous. 

Think of all the effort people put into creating a nice, thick, green lawn. 

So they can cut it. 

Then they feed, and water and coax it into growing back. 

 So they can cut it. 

Does this make sense? What the hell is wrong with people? 

Americans spend about $33 billion annually on lawn care. $33 billion. It’s a tragic waste of money, not to mention the effect on the fresh water supply and the impact of fertilizers and pesticides on the environment. 

And it’s all about keeping up with the Joneses. 

According to an article I found somewhere… “With the rise of suburbia in post-World War Two-America… a lawn expressed the national ideal that, with hard work, sacrifice and perhaps a little help from Uncle Sam, home ownership and a patch of land could be within reach for every American.” 

Then some bastard from Missouri named Leonard Goodall invented the rotary lawnmower in 1935. According to some other article I found, power mower production increased from under 35,000 before World War II to 362,000 in 1947 to nearly 1.2 million in 1951. 

 All that dust in the wind. Oh, the humanity… 

Lawnmowers. And leaf blowers. 

Again, it’s just a reminder of how truly pathetic we as a nation have become. We choose to showcase our alleged prosperity by using our limited resources to create shit that we then have to cut down and blow away. 

Does this make sense? What the hell is wrong with people? 

There is a growing trend toward turning lawns into gardens that support biodiversity while reducing the use of water and dangerous chemicals. I’m all in favor of it, but I don’t feel like I have seen much evidence of this trend. 

I’ll be glad to participate in any movement that helps to reduce the use of lawnmowers and leaf blowers… and support anything, ANYTHING we can do to let me sleep in on Monday mornings.

What If Your Parents Were Right?

 
“This is horseshit,” I said.

“Can you be more specific?," he asked.

“The vocals are auto-tuned. The backing tracks are electronic – processed loops made on someone’s laptop. God forbid they should pluck a guitar string or take a stick to a drumkit. The vocal melody gives you a sweet morsel to chew on, but then repeats it in an abusive way. As the initial sweetness dies from excessive repetition, it becomes meaningless goo. It’s like audio bubble gum; once you chew on it for a few minutes the flavor’s gone. Someone spent money to record that. Hard to believe.”

"Wow," he said. "You're serious?"

“Let's put it this way... If I ever accidentally ingest rat poison, I’ll listen to this to make me puke.”

For years, that’s how the conversation went any time someone tried to introduce me to a new pop artist. If they persisted, I would eventually threaten violence.

No, I’m just kidding. Sort of.

You know the Pharrell Williams song, “Happy?” That’s a great example. First time I heard it, it caught my ear. After about the fifth time, it started to annoy me. After about ten times – and every time since then – I want to punch him in the face.



Were there occasions in your youth that you’d be in your bedroom cranking something on the stereo loud enough that you parents could hear it down the hall? And they’d pound on your door to get you to turn it down, and then, afterward, at dinner, they’d be sure to let you know how awful that music was?

Surely, I’m not the only one?

Often, they would include something like… “music isn’t as good as it was in the old days” or “today’s music isn’t as good as it used to be.”

"Yeah, mom, yeah. Right, right. Whatever..."

But, you know what? Every time I hear a popular song now, I think, “What if your parents were right? What if music isn’t as good as it was in the old days?”

Well, as it turns out, there’s evidence.

A perceptive chap named Colin Morris published an article in which he looked at compressibility. As MP3 files are created, they’re compressed according to something called the Lempel-Ziv algorithm. That makes MP3’s smaller, and, therefore, easier to share.

Morris explains, “The Lempel-Ziv algorithm works by exploiting repeated sequences. How efficiently LZ can compress a text is directly related to the number and length of the repeated sections in that text.”

So this is a way of measuring repetition in lyrics.

He looked at the compression rate for all 15,000 of the songs that made the Billboard Hot 100 between 1958 and 2017. His conclusion?

“The songs that reached the top 10 were, on average, more repetitive than the rest in every year from 1960 to 2015!”

Among the prominent recent artists in the 45-55% repetitive range - Ed Sheeran, Taylor Swift, Blake Shelton, and Coldplay.

Those above the 55% repetitive range include Justin Bieber, Beyonce, One Direction, Maroon 5, Demi Lovato, and Rihanna.

Please, get me an emesis basin.

Among the top ten most repetitive songs of all time, he listed K.C. and the Sunshine Band’s 1977 hit, “Keep it Comin’ Love.”



Back then, when you were shoveling blow into your nostrils and sweating all over the dance floor at Studio 54, I guess it was only the beat that mattered. Who could hear the lyrics anyway?

By the way, I’m sorry if I’ve now planted that song in your skull.

But, wait. There’s more.

Dan Kopf noted another significant change.  He writes, “Popular music is shrinking. From 2013 to 2018, the average song on the Billboard Hot 100 fell from 3 minutes and 50 seconds to about 3 minutes and 30 seconds. Six percent of hit songs were 2 minutes 30 seconds or shorter in 2018, up from just 1 percent five years before.”

On the streaming music services that have become so pervasive, artists are paid according to the number of times a song is delivered to a listener via a digital “stream.” So it literally pays better if you have more shorter songs rather than fewer longer ones for your fans to stream.

But, wait. There’s more.

A study by C.N. DeWall and others, published by the American Psychological Association found that lyrics are darker and more self-focused than they used to be. Just what the goth and emo kids need…

But, wait. There’s more. And this is the clincher.

As reported in Scientific American, one study looked at the sonic characteristics of over a million songs – 464,411 of which date from 1955 to 2010. They looked specifically at three aspects; timbre, pitch and loudness.

Here’s how those were defined… Timbre is the sound color, texture, or tone quality. Pitch is the harmonic content of the piece, including its chords, melody, and tonal arrangements.  Loudness is not the listener-controlled volume, it’s the level when the audio signal is recorded and stored.

Here’s what they found: “After peaking in the 1960s, timbral variety has been in steady decline to the present day... That implies a homogenization of the overall timbral palette, which could point to less diversity in instrumentation and recording techniques. Similarly, the pitch content of music has shriveled somewhat. The basic pitch vocabulary has remained unchanged—the same notes and chords that were popular in decades past are popular today—but the syntax has become more restricted. Musicians today seem to be less adventurous in moving from one chord or note to another, instead following the paths well-trod by their predecessors and contemporaries. But the loudness of recorded music is increasing by about one decibel every eight years.”

There’s only one conclusion we can draw: mainstream music has been getting shittier in every conceivable way. More repetitive. More depressing. More homogenous. Less adventurous. Shorter. And louder.

Your parents were right!

So what do you do?

First of all, if your folks are still around, go to them, maybe take them out to dinner, and admit they were right. I’d suggest giving them a bit of advance notice so they don’t fall down or have a heart attack. It might make for one of those warm, fuzzy moments you’ll always remember.

After that, patronize venues that support original music, not karaoke and cover bands. Look for new artists that suit your existing tastes but also challenge you to accept different approaches. Sometimes it’s dissonant. Often they don’t follow traditional song structure.  But its ok. There’s recent music out there that has moved me just as much as anything I've heard that dates from 1955 to 2010.

But don’t listen to contemporary hit radio. Don’t watch the Grammy’s – at least until they find a way to incorporate more diversity in their telecast. Don’t let anyone shove a popular song down your throat. And if they want to know why you don’t want to listen, tell them – in the nicest way possible - it’s horseshit.

Popular Music

 Many years ago, I had a friend named "Gus."

Gus liked weird music. Some of it was good - he was the one who introduced me to Killing Joke - but some of it was unlistenable.



He was very punk in a post-punk world.

One day, I asked him, "Why do you like this crap?"

I'll never forget his answer.

"Because I know no one else will."

In his mind, the term "popular" meant "bad." Granted, Gus was a man of extremes, but he purposely sought out music that was not popular. I think the logic went something like this... Most people are stupid. So, if too many people like something, it can't be good.

I've often used a slightly less judgmental explanation with musicians who were puzzled by the success of bands they saw as "generic" or operating according to simple songwriting formulas. Creed took much of the brunt of this criticism from rock purists, along with Nickelback.

"Imagine you're a wine connoisseur," I would say. "You have a refined and highly-developed taste in wine. You're horrified by the fact that there are people out there who drink white zinfandel off the grocery store shelf when they could have a Winbirri Bacchus. But, the thing is, there's a lot more white zinfandel drinkers out there than there are connoisseurs."

I would pause a few seconds to let the analogy sink in, and then continue.

"Between them, they've sold somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 million albums. So, Creed and Nickelback are just the white zinfandels of nu rock." (I had to be careful not to say "infidels").

Eventually, I discovered that most people thought the logic behind that explanation was sound. I also discovered that most people are incapable of arguing with you when you've used a wine drinking analogy.

My first job in radio was at a Top 40 (contemporary hits) station. Think back to the popular songs of 1994 (if you were beyond the embryonic phase of life at that point). Some were genuinely good. And some still cause me to retch at the mere thought of them. The fact that I heard each of those songs 10,000 times probably doesn't help.

But that brings us to the key question. Do you choose the music you listen to because you think it's good? Or are you listening just because everyone else seems to be?

We're certainly subject to many influences on our musical taste, especially in our developmental years. Parents, siblings, friends, and various media have a profound effect.

So, do we like some music just because other people do? The answer is... yes. Of course. But we should be careful, shouldn't we? Choosing music based on what's popular is the cultural equivalent of chasing the latest cold virus that's going around. Just because other people have it doesn't mean it's good.

At some point in my early teens, I began developing my own taste. Do you remember the old music clubs - Columbia House and BMG? I started buying albums, and reading the liner notes. I devoured artist interviews from CREEM and Rolling Stone. I made a habit of visiting the local record store.

The first two things I remember saving money for were an import copy of the Who's "Live at Leeds," and an original Capital Records release of "Pet Sounds" by the Beach Boys.

I explored different types of music, within certain boundaries, and occasionally ventured outside those boundaries. I don't do country music of any sort. Ever.



I'm a rock guy. Although, for me, the term "rock" covers an enormous variety of artists. From Joni Mitchell to Alice in Chains, the Animals to Tame Impala.

Led Zeppelin is the greatest hard rock band that ever was and ever will be. Although they're really good at light rock too. I've seen Sevendust live twenty times. But I love Steely Dan. I'm a huge fan of Fuel's first three albums. I also love the Fixx. I like Rage Against the Machine. And Fiona Apple. And Little Feat.

Despite numerous attempts to convince me otherwise, by people whose opinion I respect, I don't like Janis Joplin's voice. I'd rather hear the sound of kittens being thrown into a wood chipper. I like Bob Dylan's songs. I just don't want to hear him singing them. And, please, Bob, don't play the harmonica. It's not your thing.

I've never been a fan of the Velvet Underground. Or the Clash. Or the Ramones. I never liked Bruce Springsteen. Or Bob Seger. Or Black Sabbath. Or the Smashing Pumpkins. Or Radiohead. Or the White Stripes.

I'm perfectly willing to admit they're good at whatever it is they do. I just don't want to hear it.

If I'm dating myself with my lists of bands, now you know why I've undertaken this quest - to find newer music I can enjoy and appreciate.

The point is... once you've put some thought and effort into exploring and discovering what you like - once you've developed your taste - there must be certain things you don't like, right? I've met people whose taste in music is so broad and eclectic I can't even fathom. To me, it's like having no taste at all. Either you've put no thought and effort into digging beyond the generic horseshit music that is thrown at us every day in huge volumes, or you're a mindless moron.

Now I'm starting to sound like Gus...

But there's a middle ground here, isn't there? You don't have to like things just because you think no one else will, but why not take a chance and stop liking things just because everyone else does?

If you'd like a personal introduction to good music you've probably never heard before, you're welcome to come to my house one evening for a good listening session.

Be sure to stop at the grocery store on the way to pick up a bottle of white zinfandel...

Pieces of Albert

 

Albert Gallagher and Bobby Lewis joined the recon platoon in the boonies on the same day. As replacements, they would be viewed as outsiders until they proved themselves. They were aware of this. They may have even given some thought to the fact that FNG’s (fucking new guys) wouldn’t be necessary unless the old guys had been killed or wounded. An optimist might have concluded they had served out their enlistment and survived to be sent home.

 

But there wasn’t much use for optimism in the jungles of Vietnam.

 

Albert and Bobby met in a sandbagged tent at a forward fire base the day before a helicopter dropped them into the midst of their new outfit. Overwhelmed, disoriented, and apprehensive, they soon became the most unlikely of friends, no doubt, in part, because of their shared FNG status.

 

Albert was from Connecticut. He’d been a high school nerd, complete with pocket protector and slide rule. His notable activities mostly included calculus or chemistry, and, therefore, involved none of the popular kids. His father made just enough money to disqualify Albert from Federal grant programs, but not enough to pay for the college he hoped to attend. One day, after arriving home from his job as a cashier at the local grocery store, his mother handed him the letter from the draft board. Her eyes were red and teary.

 

Every afternoon until he left, she would pace in the kitchen wringing her hands and then sit down to dinner barely able to hold a knife and fork because of her aching knuckles.

 

During basic training Albert was bullied, at first. But he discovered that the stubborn streak that drove him to spend hours solving mathematical and chemical equations also drove him to conquer obstacle courses and other advanced infantry training problems, once he’d added a little muscle.

 

In the army, he continued to wear thick corrective lenses in the black, plastic regulation frames. He soon discovered that spitting on them helped to keep them from fogging up in the heat and humidity of the dense jungle.

 

Bobby was from Alabama. He was a linebacker and co-captain on his high school football team, second baseman on the baseball squad. His academic pursuits mostly involved desperate measures to stay eligible for sports. He had begun working on the family farm as soon as he was old enough to be helpful. He had built his strength plowing fields, harvesting vegetables, wrangling animals, and tossing bales of hay around like pillows. He had also built his strength defending himself from his three older brothers.

 

He had enlisted because he thought it was the patriotic thing to do, something his parents would expect of him. When his father heard the news, he gave him an attaboy, clapped him on the back and walked away. His mother pretended nothing had happened. He took a cab to the train station the day he departed. After boarding, he sat and stared out the filthy window at other people’s families bidding goodbye to their sons. Bobby left behind a sweetheart who appeared to miss him, and even wrote him letters for a while.

 

Albert had never had a girlfriend.

 

The first night spent in a foxhole was the worst in both of their lives to that point. Bobby, accustomed to bluster and aggressiveness, could do nothing but stay quiet and try to stem the torrent of sweat dripping down on his face. Albert, who preferred to be controlled and analytical, was paralyzed with fear. Every shadow looked like a Viet Cong guerilla creeping up on them. Any leaves that fluttered in a rare, scorching breeze looked like a whole squad.

 

It never got better. But they got used to it.

 

The men of an infantry platoon form close bonds out of necessity, each one fighting for the man next to them, each one expecting to be fought for. This was especially true in recon outfits who were often far from support units or reinforcements. As Albert and Bobby gained combat experience, their sergeant and their platoon leader lieutenant assigned them joint tasks by default. They worked well together.

 

A patrol had to ease its way along narrow jungle trails in single file, spaced nine meters apart for safety. Someone had to guard the tail end of the line. He was the drag. Someone had to lead the front. That first man in the column was known as the point. Right behind him was the slack man, or slack. These were the most vulnerable spots if the unit stumbled into an ambush or failed to detect a booby trap. While it was customary for the men to take turns up front, Lieutenant King wanted Albert and Bobby on point and slack as often as possible.  

 

Albert was methodical and precise. He had the patience necessary to move with stealth and caution, eyes scanning the trail beneath his feet for trip wires and mines while still looking ahead for signs of enemy movement. He communicated using hand signals. He stopped frequently, to take deep breaths, to relieve the tension.

 

To spit on his glasses.

 

Bobby always carried extra ammo and grenades despite the strain of the added weight.  When they spotted the enemy in close proximity, he unleashed a destructive torrent, spraying an entire clip from his M-16 on full auto and then pitching grenades in a matter of seconds. While that was happening, Albert dove for the nearest cover and watched for any return fire while Bobby reloaded, and the rest of the platoon got into position.

 

They became the eyes and ears of the platoon. They were each other's eyes and ears as well. Their effectiveness added to the success of the platoon’s reconnaissance missions. But when success is measured not in terms of territory controlled but in terms of enemy killed, every patrol added to their enormous emotional strain.

 

A reconnaissance force was, by design, lightly armed, sacrificing strength for mobility. In the event of contact with a large enemy force, they would radio for help from artillery or close air support. The effect of these strikes on any NVA left exposed was catastrophic. Afterward, the platoon would ease forward to measure its victory in blood, pulling human remains from holes or tunnel entrances that hadn’t offered quite enough protection. This became normal, assembling corpses like gory puzzles so they could be added to the all-important body count.

 

            It was unusual for the same men to be on point and slack so often. But Bobby and Albert were good at it. They trusted each other. The rest of the platoon trusted them and were happy to avoid point and slack duty themselves. But they wore down, physically and mentally. Their energy drained. Their senses dulled.

 

One day, on a long patrol in the boonies, Albert stopped. He held up his hand to halt the men behind him. He stood still to listen for signs of the enemy and heard none. He took a deep breath, and then another. He pulled the glasses off his face to spit on the lenses and wipe them clean. He dropped one knee to the ground for a quick rest.

 

The concussion hit Bobby with the force of a car crash. He was blown backward by the explosion, landing at the feet of the man who had been standing nine meters behind him. He couldn’t see. He couldn’t hear. Everything hurt.

 

The medic ran forward and stooped to pour water from his canteen over Bobby’s face. The blast had filled his eyes with dirt and debris and burst his eardrums. Blood ran from both ears down the sides of his neck.

 

Albert had kneeled on a booby trap, an artillery shell buried upright in the middle of the trail with a contact fuse so it would detonate when enough pressure was applied. His body had absorbed most of the blast. When Bobby was able to sit up, he looked around the place where his friend had been and saw what was left. Ragged bits of burned flesh, bloody shreds of olive drab fatigues, broken white twigs that might have been bones.

 

Bobby couldn’t hear the radio operator making the call for the medevac. And he couldn’t hear the sound of his own screaming, but he could feel the vibrations in his head. There were no wounds from the blast itself, except the eardrums. In one sense, he’d been lucky. But the volume and frequency of his screams grew until the medic popped a morphine syrette into his leg out of desperation.

 

When the chopper arrived, four men grabbed Bobby and ducked under the downwash from the massive rotors to slide him on to the floor past the door gunner.

 

There was not enough left of Albert to grab.

 

Bobby was dropped at the evac hospital, but they could do nothing for him. He was conscious but not coherent. They sent him on to the main support hospital in Danang, then on to the Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu.

 

Unless he was heavily medicated, he was in a constant state of agitation. During the day, he would fidget in anger and despair, unable to focus or function. At night, sleep escaped him. He could be drugged into a coma that resembled slumber and it was possible that it was sometimes restful, but they couldn't be sure. Whenever they tried to let him drift off naturally, he would wake up screaming.

 

Every time.

 

And these were no normal nightmare reactions. He would kick and writhe in his bed and pull at the restraints that held him with a fierceness fed by some unseen fury.

 

But he never spoke a word. He never looked anyone in the eye. For months. And months. 

 

The army doctors wouldn't allow his parents to visit. They couldn't be sure how - or if - Bobby would respond.

The doctors began experimenting, constantly tweaking and titrating the chemical cocktail in his bloodstream. It was their hope that he could one day return to something resembling functionality.

 

After weeks of hopeless experimentation, weaning and adding, compounding and simplifying, liquefying and solidifying, they decided they were on the verge of a breakthrough. Someone thought there was an occasional twinkle in Bobby's eye. It sometimes appeared that he would glance to the left or right rather than staring vacantly ahead. So, they thought it was time to see if they could determine what it was that churned in his mind and denied his inner peace.

 

What was it, they wanted to know? Where was his mind during all the time he sat in a state of catatonia?

 

His eyelids lifted giving the appearance of awareness. His eyes shifted as if he were in thought. His face showed flashes of emotion no one there had ever seen; horror, anger, and then sadness. Desperate sadness.

 

This was encouraging, they thought. So, they prompted him. They prodded him. How could they help him? What image was so vivid in his mind when he tried to sleep?

 

He turned his gaze forward into the empty distance, the dim light left his eyes, his head tilted forward, and he said, “Pieces of Albert.”

 

Eventually, one of the men carrying a clipboard decided this was a sign of progress. Perhaps they were close to a chemical balance that would revive Bobby and maybe restore some sense of normalcy. Bobby was given stimulants during the day in the hope it would stir him into some mental or physical activity. But he continued to sit motionless in his chair. He would be loaded with intravenous liquids at bedtime and the nights would pass in calm silence.

 

No one stopped to consider what this metabolic roller coaster ride might do to him. They merely hoped he might emerge into a moment of sensibility and utter a few more words. This would be considered success. Then the clipboard carriers would take copious notes and perhaps even publish a journal article and earn praise from their peers.

 

As months passed, he did make progress. He still didn’t speak, but he could swing himself sideways out of bed, stand on his own, and place himself in the wheelchair they used to roll him into the day lounge where he could stare at the TV, or at anything else they placed him in front of. A few times a week, an assistant would roll him outside for a trip around the grounds of the institution. They felt Bobby behaved differently while being pushed around in the fresh air of the gardens – more engaged, more alert. And it was ordered that these outings should occur daily, the assistants smiling and chatting to him cheerfully, mindlessly.

 

Bobby, terrified, gripping the armrests, looking for trip wires.

 

As they made their rounds and talked to Bobby, the white-coated clipboard carriers would smile and scribble. The slightest movement of his head or the twitch of a finger was cause for celebration. To encourage his remarkable recovery, he was given more privileges. An occupational therapist would spend time trying to get him to feed himself. One day, after months with no apparent nightmares, no heaving, screaming fits, they decided he could now be left unrestrained at night.

 

This was a special night. The assistants were almost as pleased as the doctors to see Bobby making progress. To ensure a comfortable night’s sleep, they had Bobby sit in his wheelchair while they changed the bed. They found a complete set of linens with no holes or other evidence of wear; one of the nicer, blue blankets in the fresh laundry bin, a new pillowcase, a fitted sheet and a flat sheet. Pleased with themselves, they helped Bobby into bed, tucked him in, turned out the light and tip-toed down the hall.

 

And it was with that clean, white sheet that Bobby made a noose.