Moving and Shaking My Life

I've been listening to a wide variety of music; a lot of pre-WWII jazz, my typical 1968-1973 "it doesn't beat this era" stuff and Christmas music. While engulfed in great tunage, I was watching t.v. last night and realized I needed to renew my PBS membership. In the process, I inherited a newly-remastered copy of George Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh. I have never heard the record but was always haunted as a young kid in the record store by the emaciated young child on the front of the album, wondering why I should be so blessed and others have to suffer. Reading a review on amazon.com tonight, I saw that all benefits of the album, all 100% are still being sent to UNICEF. Buy the album, for nothing else, to send money to people who need it instead of ourselves with our venti lattes and designer cell phone faces. While you're at it, remember the Bay Area (or your) Rescue Mission, Habitat For Humanity, World Wildlife Fund, Amnesty International and any organization attempting to provide relief for the survivors of the horrific earthquake in Afghanistan. My pockets are being emptied and yes, I'm a self-righteous prig. I'll take the insult as long as I feel the responsibility.

Getting off my high-horse, I pulled out some more records that have just killed me from the first listen:

Led Zeppelin IV - the cliche of all classic rock albums, but I can still tell you the first time I heard Black Dog: the wee hours of the morning as I got dressed to go skiing at Bear Valley at my friend David's house in January, 1989 (sorry I don't know the day) and thinking, "damn, a rock riff doesn't get any cooler than that". Each song is an epic in itself, even the foreign Four Sticks. Of course I have a Stairway To Heaven memory but that one I get to keep.

U2's How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb. I've already sung this album's praises upon its release last November. While not hitting me the first time, my life was also irreversably changed with the release of The Joshua Tree.

All Things Must Pass - have you ever listened to someone who has lived a thousand lifetimes by the time he wasn't even thirty? George Harrison's album is a true masterpiece but one that makes you listen and wonder just how the precious gift of life slips by without you tasting every minute, appreciating every acquaintance, forgiving every transgression and attempting to better yourself? Somber introspection is the only way I can describe this album that is the best damn album The Beatles failed to make. The saddest thing about George's masterpiece is that it truly schools every, EVERY single solo album released by the Fab Four, including his own releases.

Speaking of somber introspection, I watched two movies that force an adult, while young, who is old enough to see the weariness of life, to determine what loves means. Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise (1995) and its recent sequel, Before Sunset (2004) are true classics in unrequited love. The first's story is of two people in their early 20s who meet and spend a single night together with the understanding that they may never see each other again. What develops is a raw, real and true love that only young hearts and honest passions can create. The second picks up nine years after this couple's parting as they randomly re-acquaint. Knowing that they only have an hour and a half before one of them has to catch a plane, they spend their eighty minutes catching up, seeing just how the past decade has hardened them to the worries and pain of life, love's labor lost and the reality of struggle. What occurs between the two is the lost love that both acknowledge to be "the love" of their lives; both of them had always asked, "what if" and "why didn't it happen" and share their most naked feelings and dreams with one another. These two movies are both the most romantic films I've seen and the most painful and soul-bearing stories I've had to contend with. While I'm not going to go to confession here, I can say that every single person probably has some relatively close story like this. The one person who has always made you wonder, "what if?" or "I wonder what they're doing now"; not that we're unhappy but that we still retain a tiny but special feeling for someone else who at one time captured your truest self. It really makes me wonder what "love" is - comfortability? safety? security? nakedness? passion? trust? curiosity? faith? Why we love people and for what reasons; I can't answer that here and probably can't for the life of me. I know why I love my beautiful wife and for what reasons and that I desire to do so for the rest of my life but how is it that one's heart has room for emotions that never die even though that person's existence may have ended years previously? I can think of my girlfriend from high school and those emotions come rushing back, as vivid as they were half my life ago. I guess it's one way of obtaining immortality; making an impression on someone so that they never forget you and possibly share their experience with others to keep "you" going. Who knows. If you've seen these movies, I'm curious as to how they've affected you.