Sometimes we’re really focused on the music; sometimes, the lyrics. Usually, the music takes precedence over the lyrics. If the tune is good, we’ll then look more deeply at the words.
Sometimes we like the tune so much that we really don’t care about the lyrics. Such was the case for the longest time with me with the song “1979” by the Smashing Pumpkins. “1979” begins with an interesting percussion-y type build up, then totally bursts into this driving force of a tune based on a catchy guitar riff and playful voice echo type thing. It just sounds awesome, so I didn’t need to know too much more. Plus, I totally understood the first few lyrics:
“Shakedown 1979/Cool kids never have the time.”
For years, I was more or less in the dark when it came to much of the rest of “1979”’s lyrics. But finally—finally—after years, I decided to check them out.
I was totally blown away.
“1979” is not even a song, I discovered: it’s a poem. There were so many lines that I had gotten so wrong for so many years—so many wildly creative lines.
Here are the lyrics to “1979.” I waited decades before reading them. But you shouldn’t delay. I think that knowing the lyrics will surely help enhance your appreciation of this strange song/poem.
Shakedown 1979 Cool kids never have the time On a live wire right up off the street You and I should meet
So last year I was in Paris with my mom, and I told her one afternoon that I wanted to go to the Louvre. She didn't want to go, and after she set out to do whatever she did that day, I went to our hotel's concierge to ask if they could book me a ticket for the museum. I learned that this is how many people book tickets to things in Paris, as it saves time. The woman behind the concierge desk phoned the Louvre and was told that the museum had no more regular entry tickets, but they did have tickets for a private guided tour. I asked how much a ticket for a private tour was and was told it was €75. This price was obviously too high, considering I was expecting to pay about €20 for a regular ticket. I told the concierge lady to say no, and she did.
Now with my plans dashed, I went over to a sitting area in the lobby to research what I could do for the day. About 10 minutes into my being there, the woman from the concierge came over to me and said that the museum had called back and said they'd found a normal entry ticket. I immediately said I would like it, and it was booked.
About 45 minutes later, I was at the Louvre. I was indeed able to save time by not standing in the ticket line, but I did have to wait to go through security. When it was my turn to put my backpack through the X-ray machine and walk through the metal detectors, I did so patiently and dutifully, just like everyone else. However, when I went to reclaim my bag, the security guard said, "The knife." At first, I was completely confused: What's he talking about? What knife? Then I realized: my Swiss army knife. I always keep a Swiss army knife in my bag, just in case. I immediately apologized, took out the knife and gave it to him for safekeeping.
About two hours later, when I was finished with the museum and about to leave, I realized that this guy still had my knife. On my way to pick it up from him, I had to laugh. This knife had been through a lot. See, I once erroneously tried bringing this very same Swiss army knife on a plane with me. However, security at Newark Airport told me this wouldn't be possible. So what I did was I took the knife, went outside the airport and hid it by an employee smoking area. After I came back from my trip—and this was a one-week trip—I got in my car and was about to leave when I remembered that I had hidden the knife. I remember thinking, "Oh, forget it; it's probably not there." But then, another little voice came into my head and said, "Oh, come on, Chad, you took the time to hide it. Go check. It might be there." And it was.
Anyway, back in the Louvre, the security guard gave me back my knife after I gave him a stub of paper that he had given me after he took the instrument into safekeeping. I thanked him graciously, and that was that.
One thing that I really like is T-shirts. I like to have T-shirts that reflect my personality or remind me of my past. One such T-shirt for me is my Zero T-shirt. Zero, you should know, is a skateboard company, and I bought my Zero T-shirt in 1998 when I was really into skateboarding.
Anyway, today I decided to wear this shirt. I wanted to take a walk, and the weather channel said it was about 70 degrees out, so I knew I could get away with wearing a T-shirt, and, well, the Zero one is the one I chose. Once dressed, I left my house and headed for this huge lake we have in Hamburg called the Alster.
Normally when I take walks at the Alster, I read. Yup, I like to read and walk. But today I decided I'd listen to a podcast. So once I arrived at a jogging path by the banks of the lake, I put my headphones in and cued something up on Spotify. The only problem was the podcast I chose was boring, and my mind began to wander. Instead of paying attention to the program, I began to think about, of all things, my shirt and about how other people might perceive its motif, a black cat. This train of thought led, actually, to my thinking about something else, something much more important and interesting: an old friend of mine named Milton.
Milton and I had been friends in high school, and we had skateboarded together. Sadly, he died a few years ago, but as the years have gone on, I haven’t stopped thinking about him.
Milton was one of a kind. If I only had one sentence to describe him, I would say this: Milton was a unique person who was preternaturally talented. I know “preternaturally” is not a common word, but what it basically means is “more than what would seem to be normal or natural.” And that’s exactly what Milton’s talent was when it came to things he sought to master.
I mean, it was like he would learn about a new skating trick on Friday and by Sunday would be able to do it perfectly. If you showed him how to juggle with three balls, he’d come in the next day and be able to juggle with five. I once showed Milton how to twirl a textbook on his finger like a basketball. Before long, he was not only able to twirl the book but also throw it up in the air and have it land back down on his finger, without missing a beat.
But what this kid was talented at was skateboarding. He could do the most insane tricks…and with the cheapest of skateboards. With some of the cheapest of skateboards—skateboards with nubby wheels and ground-to-death trucks—he could do it all. Milton was preternaturally talented.
And I thought of Milton as I walked along the Alster. I actually uttered this exact question to myself as I strolled: “What’s my favorite Milton memory?” At first, I couldn’t answer that because I had many. But I finally settled on a few of my favorites. I’d like to share them with you now.
One day after school, Milton asked me to come over to his house and show him something. He wanted me to teach him to play guitar. Milton’s father was the superintendent of a building, and Milton and his family lived in the basement apartment of that building. Milton had access to an all-purpose room, and we went there that afternoon and sat with an old acoustic guitar of his. The guitar was a replica of an iconic Gibson, the one that has hummingbirds on the pickguard. I don’t remember if Milton ever got good at the guitar—he sure could have if he wanted to—but I certainly remember the joy he had trying to learn.
Milton
Another great memory was the time we made a skate video. Milton and I loved watching skate videos together, and, as it so happens, we loved one particular video that featured a pro skater named Jamie Thomas who rode for, you got it, Zero. For the video that Milton and I were making, though, he wanted me to do a few tricks near the Great Neck train station, and I remember immediately after doing one, I looked back to see Milton right behind me. He was on his own skateboard, dutifully holding the video camera at an angle that I knew would make the trick I just did look cool. He looked so professional and in control at that moment, and I loved that.
I continued to think of other Milton memories as I walked, but they were more fragmented. I thought about how, if you were to pass through Great Neck Plaza at any given point in the mid- or late-90s, there would have been a good chance of seeing Milton on his skateboard or his bike or even sometimes his rollerblades. I remember seeing him from my mom’s car a million times, and each time just thinking to myself, “Uhp, there goes Milton.” I thought about the outfits that he would wear and how much he loved shoes, especially Vans. I thought about how when I first met him, he had a thick accent—I think he was originally from El Salvador—but how his English and accent just kept improving over time.
Anyway, after I decided that I had walked enough and that it was time to go home, I decided to listen to a song that always reminds me of Milton. The song is by Santana and it’s called “Samba Pa Ti.” “Samba Pa Ti” is played at the end of that skateboarding video we loved. Jamie Thomas, the skater for Zero, ollies onto a waist-high rail and proceeds to grind it for what feels like an eternity, all while “Samba Pa Ti” plays and the credits roll. Milton and I loved this part of the video.
Actually, I recently learned that the words “samba pa ti” translate to “samba for you.” Well, Milton, brother...this one’s for you.
You know, there's this very famous poem by John Donne in which he says that you shouldn't look at a death as a thing that happened to someone else. Rather, you should think of death—anyone's death—as something that affects you, too, because you are a part of mankind, and any death, essentially, diminishes mankind. The poem, "For Whom the Bell Tolls" is fancily worded, but here it is.
No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.
I mention this poem because recently I have been reading a lot about '90s rockers. Specifically, '90s rockers who have died. In January, I read Scott Weiland's memoir "Not Dead and Not for Sale," and I'm currently close to finishing "Alice in Chains: The Untold Story," which documents, among other things, Lanye Stayle's losing battle with heroin.
Because I've been so immersed in the grim details of these rockers' lives, I've found myself on many occasions asking myself what attracts me to them. Am I just that morbidly obsessed? I won't lie, there is definitely an element of morbid curiosity behind my desire to read about these musicians as well as other ones who have died tragically. But, to be honest, what I've really found myself doing in large part during the course of all my reading is mourning myself.
What the hell do I mean?
Well, in a way, when I read about these two guys, Scott Weiland and Layne Staley, I'm reminded of my own mortality and the fact that the '90s was an era that I lived in and can never be gotten back. This was a period in time that, like other periods in time, can never be revised or revisited.
For some reason, reading about these musicians and thinking about where I was in my own life when major things were happening for them helps me see with more of a bird's eye view my course, my timeline in this life, and doing so helps me feel and appreciate my own life and the current moment more exquisitely.
People die, and when they do, it's important to carry on the torch of life. But we also have to remember that in some way their deaths kill little parts of us. Their deaths carry the truth that time can never be recaptured.
So, in a way, what John Donne once wrote is certainly true: "Send not to know for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee."
One afternoon when I was in the sixth grade, a girl picked a fight with me. I remember I was standing in front of the middle school waiting for the bus when it happened. She just approached me and for no good reason started giving me problems—and she wanted to trade blows.
Now, you’re probably thinking, “So what, a girl picks a fight with you? You can handle yourself.” Right, but this girl, who I’ll call Val, was big, bigger than I was by weight, and she was tough. She had a streetwise attitude, and people were scared of her.
I told Val I wasn’t going to fight her, but I didn’t stand down to her, either. I probably made some wise-ass remark. In fact, it was my wise-ass attitude, or rather the one I was known for, that probably irritated her so much in the first place. We wound up not fighting, but the interaction that day did make me fearful of her.
Anyway, skip ahead a few months, and I’m standing in one of the middle school hallways waiting for my next class to begin. An acquaintance of mine, someone in a grade above me, comes up to me and says he’s got a question for me. Naturally, I ask what it is.
“What do you think of Val?” he says.
“Val, you mean 7th grade Val?” I say.
“Yeah. Do you like her?”
“Do I like her? No, I’ve never thought that.”
“Because she likes you. She wanted me to tell you that she likes you and she wants to go out with you.”
I was truly shocked. The girl who wanted to beat me up a few months prior now likes me? I didn’t know what to say.
“Um, I’m not sure about that.”
“Is it OK if she talks to you today? She wants to talk to you.”
I said OK, and later in the day Val came over to me and asked me if her friend (the acquaintance) had spoken to me. She then asked me what I thought of what he said. I don’t remember what I said, but I felt very intimidated, so when Val asked me if I would go out with her—if I would be her boyfriend—I said yes. I gave her my number and walked away stunned.
That evening Val called me at my house. Though all the details I have thus far related, admittedly, have been kind of hazy, I clearly remember one thing Val asked me during this phone call. (I even remember where I was when she asked it. I was in the bathroom. I have no idea why I was in the bathroom, and even weirder was the lights were off. I mean, it wasn’t pitch-black in there, moonlight was coming through the window, but it was dark.)
Anyway, this was the question she asked me: “Now that we’re dating, how far do you think we’ll go?”
Of course what she meant was “Do you think we’ll just kiss, or will there be heavy petting or even sex?”
I told her that I didn’t know—a fuzzy answer that betrayed my true feelings, which were that I didn’t like Val and now felt between a rock and a hard place.
I’m sure you can kind of figure out where things went next, but if you can’t, I’ll help you. After getting off the phone, I realized that what I was doing was crazy, and I needed to break it off.
So the next day that’s exactly what I did. I can’t remember the details of the break-up, only that I was completely sure that it was what I wanted. I also know Val didn’t threaten me or anything like that. It was just the end.
Except that it wasn’t the end. The end was a few years later when I found out that Val had died. There were rumors that her death was due to a drug overdose, or that a drug she had taken had precipitated a medical emergency. But, again, all I have are rumors.
Every now and then I’ll think about Val. It’s strange to think that a person who once found you special is no longer of this earth. I still wonder why she wanted to fight me. Were her actions some warped way of showing that she was interested in me? Who knows. What I do know is that I wish that life hadn’t ended for her so quickly and that she would have been able to enjoy it with someone who cared for her.
The thing about playing guitar is if you don't keep playing a song you've learned, you tend to forget how to play it.
Such was the case with a song I once learned, "Pitseleh" by Elliott Smith.
The song itself isn't that hard. In fact, like many other Elliott Smith tunes, the most challenging part is the timing. Still, if you asked me to play "Pitseleh" today, I couldn't—I've forgotten.
But I'll never forget where I was when I learned how to play it.
I learned to play "Pitseleh" in a small bedroom I rented in an East Village apartment during the summer of 2007.
The apartment, which I shared with three other people, was in a four-floor walk-up on 2nd Avenue between East Fifth and Sixth Streets. The rent was super high, and the room was literally only big enough for a bed and a desk, but I had always wanted to live in Manhattan.
Of course, things are always rose-colored in hindsight, but I remember really enjoying myself that summer. I'd go to the West Village for dinner or to St. Mark's Place to check out the awesome second-hand shops there. Sometimes I'd just go up to Central Park for a walk or to Midtown for ShakeShack.
Despite all the places I'd go, though, I remember often thinking the same thing when I'd be on my way back home at night: "I can't believe I live in Manhattan!"
And it was in that little rented room of mine, that little postage stamp of a space, that I learned to play "Pitseleh."
I don't remember if I printed the tabs to the song or just read them off my laptop, but I know I would practice the piece over and over.
What really sticks out in my memory, though, when thinking back to learning "Pitseleh,” was just how unbearably hot my room was. The summer of 2007 in New York City was a scorcher, with a high of 96 degrees in July, and my room had no air-conditioner. I just remember sitting on the edge of my bed with my acoustic guitar, pouring sweat as I played. Eventually, I did convince one of the roommates to help me install an air-conditioner, but until then, man, was it blazing up there.
As for the song itself, learning "Pitseleh" was a rewarding experience. I say rewarding because the riff that Elliott Smith plays at the beginning is so resonant, distinct, and, frankly, easy that you immediately feel you've made great leaps forward once you learn it. Plus, the song is basically all acoustic guitar, so what you're strumming sounds exactly like what's heard on the album.
But, anyway, yeah, that room. I actually wound up moving out of it at the end of the summer. I had a full-time job when I moved in but decided to give it up to focus all my energies on journalism school, which was set to begin in September. I moved back to my mom’s apartment, which was where I lived until finishing graduate school. But that room, little as it was, really gave me a taste of a life I liked.
