Be Here Now

I've been putting myself under immense pressure these days to change my life. I suppose this is all part of my current internal conflict around approaching middle age without the cash and prizes I thought would be here. I can say in all honesty that my life is rather fucking grand. I don't really have much to gripe about other than the fact that I am stuck in a (decently paying) career that I don't want any part of because, beyond the fact that twice a month I receive an email from my bank indicating that my employer has deposited funds for me, there is nothing fulfilling about what I do. My employer insists that I do a good job, so it's not like I'm floundering in the workplace. The fact is that I do such a good job that there are no more challenges for me. All of the heavy lifting of my new job was done within the first 90 days and now, it's just a steady coast.

I used to see this every day from my desk at work:

Now I look at this:

I've come to realize that the sea of computer monitors I see before me all day long resembles a graveyard with plastic tombstones. I dread each day I'm there because it feels like my life is slowly being sucked out of my soul along with any aspirations I once had that my life would be glamorous. Some recent reminders of who and where I was a long time ago (mentioned here and here) have added fuel to the flames of my mid-life crisis. I'm doing some internal work to try and come to peace with all of this. One of the most important things I've ever read was this:

If you want to change your life, change what you do and your life will change as a result.

(I've tried to locate the author of this but have yet to succeed).

As I've mentioned in other posts, this blog was about doing something different. It was about finding things that interest me for their own sake and not the promise of gold bricks or magazine covers. Although I haven't paid as much attention to this blog as I would like, I can say that each post has been gratifying despite the fact that the readership can be measured in single digits. I figure that if I do this simply because I like doing it, I'm moving ever-so-slowy in the direction of self-fulfillment. As Paulo Coelho writes in “The Alchemist”, when you're moving towards your chosen path, the universe conspires in your favor by throwing a few bones your way that inch you closer to the promised land.

And that's the funny thing about where I'm at these days. There have been circumstances in recent memory where I had the chance to do different things in regards to career change. Each of those did not work out. What ended up working out was more jobs in a career that I've said for years that I was done with. Is this what the universe really wants for me or is it that I'm too damn complacent to do anything else?

That's where the picture at the top comes in. It's from “Be Here Now” by Ram Dass. I stumbled upon it in a story about the literary influences on the late Steve Jobs. The picture stopped me in my tracks. After viewing it, I realized that a cruise ship can't do a quick 180 in the middle of the ocean. I hate the idea that time takes time because I feel like I need answers Right Fucking Now. I have been trying to find the place where I am being patient yet am doing as much as I can to avoid complacency in my life. I'm clueless as to where my efforts and energies have to cease and where the universe needs to take over. I suppose it's safe to say that the knots in my back, my current state of constant fatigue, and the minor physical injury I've been nursing for two weeks are all indicative of the fact that I've been trying way too hard.

I'm sifting through piles of unfulfilled dreams, expectations that were never realistic, and abandoned opportunities that deserve reconsideration. I'm doing my best to take it all one step at a time. Shedding old skin, inch by inch.

Everybody Loves Our Town- A Love Letter To Seattle

Over the last few months there's been a great deal of reminiscing on the Seattle music scene of the early 90s with celebrations of the 20^th anniversaries of Nirvana's “Nevermind” and Pearl Jam (written about here) taking center stage. I was lucky enough to have been living in Seattle at that time having arrived just as the tsunami was building. This was before the point when the clothes I bought at thrift stores (or took from the “free” bin) were appearing on runway models and selling for laughably large sums of money. Back then, I was occasionally writing articles and reviews for Seattle's bi-weekly music paper The Rocket. I've been thinking about those years a lot lately with a range of emotions, much of them driven by being a guy in his early 40s trying to figure out how I got from long hair, flannel and Doc Martens to middle age. At times, I've been unsure if the mantle on which I place that era is simply due to the fact that Seattle is merely where I happened to be in my 20s. Other times, I see those years as the last run of good alternative music, just prior to the collapse of the record industry and the changes that have been wrought as a result. With “Everybody Loves Our Town”, Mark Yarm captures the full arc of the Seattle music scene. Through an immense oral history spread out over 544 pages, Yarm paints a comprehensive view of what I've been bragging about for 20 years to those who missed out on the party. If someone played even a small role, whether as a musician, promoter, manager, receptionist, etc., Yarm has that person covered.

One major theme I was happy to see in “Everybody Loves Our Town” is that the scene was much larger than the Big 4 bands that everyone rolls off their tongues when they hear the word “Seattle”. (Just so you know, not everyone in the city was drooling over Pearl Jam or Nirvana back then.) Yarm starts things off in the mid-80s with The U-Men and seemingly covers everyone in that town who ever put out a record. In the years that Seattle was changing from backwater town to Major City of Cool, there was a lot of unity and mutual support among musicians whose paths crossed as bandmates and drinking buddies. As Yarm unravels the family tree of Seattle music, it seems almost incestuous how these musicians' lives and careers were intertwined. For those who think that the scene was full of big-time wannabe posers, many of the musicians in the book were big punk rock fans and met each other at shows. It's also wonderful to see a lot of print devoted to bands like Mudhoney and The Melvins who got swept up in the undercurrents of Seattle hype but never got the due that I think they deserved (especially The Melvins who, in my opinion, were the foundation of much of Seattle's music). As I went through these pages, so many memories jumped out at me: seeing Soundgarden off-shoot band Hater opening at the OK Hotel for Dead Moon; buying the latest issue of Peter Bagge's “Hate” comic at Fallout Records on Capitol Hill; Tad Doyle egging on the crowd from the stage of The Crocodile Cafe. Ever since I started reading this book, I cannot prevent Mudhoney's “In 'N' Out Of Grace” from rattling around my noggin.

Yarm also unflinchingly covers the darker times of that era starting with the death of Andrew Love, whose band “Mother Love Bone” dissolved immediately thereafter and became reborn when members Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament formed Mookie Blaylock which was later re-christened as Pearl Jam. There are detailed accounts of the tragic losses that occurred: Mia Zapata; Kurt Cobain; Layne Stayley. Pearl Jam's performance at Denmark's Roskilde Festival in 2000, where nine people were accidentally killed, is also discussed in detail. Some of the stories are more of a sad fizzle, like the account of how Soundgarden faded away amidst disillusionment among the band members. Yarm's interview subjects pull no punches when they talk about their anger, sorrow, and disappointments. This is especially clear in the discussions about Courtney Love and her perceived influence on Kurt Cobain's life. (If you're a Courtney hater, there's lots here for your consumption.)

“Everybody Loves Our Town” is an essential addition to the bookshelf of anyone who has fond memories of the Seattle 90s or who wants to understand just what the hell was going on out there.