The Moving Target and the North Star

Sorry, been a little busy lately.  Got a new job you see, so I’ve been a bit preoccupied with that as you might guess.  As I start to settle in, get used to the new office and new department, a time of introspection has started about career, life and personal goals.  If you’ve read this blog at all, you know a fair amount about me, what I’m passionate about, to what I aspire.  Taking a new job makes me think about where I am both personally and professionally and where those things intersect.

When I started blogging, way back in the heady days of MySpace, I was still working on the Ph. D and was a new(ish) father.  I thought of my career was on a certain trajectory, a traditional scholarly path; get the Ph. D, get a job, work toward tenure and there you go.  That path became more and more unrealistic for a number of reasons.  Yes the job market was, and is still, very bad.  Pick up the Chronicle of Higher Education and there will probably be at least one story about the dire straights of the academic profession, more than likely more than one story or column.  Talk to most academics/professors and it seems like the work in a gulag, not a university.  I dropped my share of CV’s prior to finishing the dissertation, in many cases I didn’t even receive a rejection letter.  I remember as I was going through the process, I had an opportunity to teach 3 courses a semester and one in J term for $10,000.  For about a thousand less, but no 2 hour commute(each way no less) and a tuition stipend, I got a dissertation fellowship and skipped the “opportunity.”

I eventually got a job in higher education, even before I finished the Ph. D, but it was on the administrative side of things.  As it turns out, teaching experience, if you actually like students, is a great prep for advising.  It was a lot like teaching, except without all of grading.  However, it lacked that overall exchange of knowledge that I truly enjoy.  I did get to share a lot of experience, but that is different, still satisfying, but not as exciting.  I think most of all when I teach, I love to tell a story, to share with students what excites me and still inspires and challenges me.  Advising had many other pluses, but it didn’t quite scratch that itch.

A couple of months ago, I moved on to the aforementioned new position.  It has new challenges, even a couple of opportunities to teach, all to the good.  I don’t have as much contact with students, but it is still a component.  What put the brakes on the writing, beyond the new job and acclimation, was an urge to reexamine why I do all of this.  Including a full-time job, a full-time family I write this blog, write another blog, try to do a podcast on a semi-regular basis* and slowly putting more and more work into bigger projects, I kind of hit upon the questions, “what is the point to all of this? why am I doing this at all?”

*After almost a month of trying to set up a new website to host the podcast, I finally got it working in the order I want.  If you’re interested in US history, like my dulcet tones and if I dare say, a dash of wit, go check it out at History of the United States.

It is probably no coincidence that this was happening around my 45th birthday.  I think that number is quite the generous bulls eye of mid-life. I think the number signifies the end of  a big chunk of life to be examined, 25-45.  And looking to the future, that next block 45-65 (the historic retirement age) is looming.  After hitting 45, it is amazing how fast 20 years can go and will go, probably even faster.  So, I’ve been looking back and looking forward.

What kind of got the dust off of this post was a friend who mentioned his desire to stay true to his artistic northern star.  I was left wondering, “what is that for me?”  Pretty much all of those things I listed, blogs, podcast and something to really sink my teeth into.  What makes it tough is that a full-time job is a pain in the ass when it comes to writing for free, no matter how fulfilling it can be.  As the Grateful Dead sang, “keep your day job until your night job pays.”  I’m not sure if that will ever happen, but I know I don’t want to quit.

A final piece of the puzzle that has come into focus, or better put, placed in the right spot were the dual feelings of inspiration and realization.  First, the inspiration: my friend Jennie just published a book and is a critically acclaimed graphic novel author.  I was sure she was doing the writing thing full-time at this point.  Nope, still has that day job.  Not to find comfort in her misery of a full-time job (for the record, Jennie is not miserable) but knowing she is still doing it filled me with hope that I can keep at old things and try new things.  That I can stick to my artistic north.

The realization came as I was reading a blog from a person who hasn’t been blogging much lately.  I posted a comment about the feeling that I know how she feels, that I just can’t seem to get it going anymore.  The realization was that I’m holding back.  When I started writing a blog, it was reflective, personal, but also timely.  It was what was on my mind and influencing me at that time.  I still have my set things to write about, Phish, the White Sox, general randomness but a part of my fourth step that I still see as a challenge was the phrase, “stand up and tell the truth.”  I don’t feel like I’ve been doing that lately.

Finally, in August, I threatened to start writing something on these pages of a fictional nature.  I even wrote the first installment, but it hasn’t left the draft box on the dashboard.  I’m not ready to tell you all what my big project is just yet, but it’s fictional too.  Basically I need practice writing outside of my comfort zone.  In a weird way, to get back to telling stories.  So, another list of goals, another writing schedule and another chance to keep writing.  Watch this space.

Thick as a Brick?

It may explain why I don’t have the greatest physique ever, but I routinely lifted weights in high school while listening to Jetho Tull.  I may be off on that theory, my friend Bill, who I lifted with, still looks good after all these years, but either way, I couldn’t help but think of lifting weights while I was attending Ian Anderson’s Thick as a Brick Parts 1 and 2.

It was a pretty amazing show along with a pretty special night.  The night was special, because the aforementioned Bill made the trip to Chicago along with another high school friend, John, and we got to have dinner and catch the show together.  Thinking about it, even after so many years, they are probably the two people that I’ve seen the most concerts with.  Granted, I tend to see most shows by myself, but keeping the connection up in such a way is pretty awesome.  All three of us have come quite a way since high school, all married, all with kids, all three doing pretty well.  I’ve lost touch a bit more, but not completely.  I only managed to stick my foot in my mouth a couple of times, not remembering key events, like the birth of another child and the like.  Even so I’m so glad we got to catch up and getting to see a performance of a record that was a pretty important piece of my high school experience.

The show had a nostalgic air about it as well, but as I watched, it was apparent that our collective memory was a key to the performance.  Ian Anderson not only counted on our memory, like the Rolling Stones or Bruce Springsteen does, but from start to finish, the show was more than just a rolling out of a couple of concept albums, but a meditation on growing up, getting old, and moving forward.  The great nod to this was Ian Anderson bringing in a lead singer for the performances.  Between the flute solos and singing chores over the course of forty plus continuous minutes of music, his 65 year-old pipes just can’t handle it.  The singer was also dressed in motley and carried a wooden stick like a flute, harkening back to a younger Ian, who definitely used the motif of minstrel throughout his career.  Adding to this reality of age, Anderson would often be side by side with the singer, or they would move in tandem saying, “this is my young reflection, pay attention!” The use of an additional voice worked.  I never felt distracted or felt like it was taking away from what I was watching.  It reminded me a great deal of Frank Zappa and how for much of his career, he used much more talented singers in his bands and stuck mostly to composing and guitar playing.  Paul McCartney could learn a lesson or two from this.

Speaking of Frank Zappa, at the point in the album that once meant it was time to flip the record Anderson used the break in the action to give a PSA about the importance of prostate checks.  If that isn’t a realization of aging, I don’t know what is.  It might have been a bit of a shock to some, but I respect his use of the time.  The announcement was also one of many instances where Anderson broke the 4^th wall as it were.  Not only was he addressing the audience, but he stepped out of the 1972 era musical performance and planted himself and the show firmly in the 21^st century.  Throughout the show a video screen was used, utilizing mocked up versions of YouTube, Skype and other multimedia tricks that could only have been imagined when Thick as a Brick was released.  Anderson even got a bit cheeky with the video clips, as is his character, by having a man dressed in scuba gear, or an “Aqualung” wander through the videos.  Not just a nod to his best known album, but a minor reflection within the show of the idea of what might have been.

Admittedly I was completely out of the loop regarding the second half of the show.  I didn’t even know there was a Thick as a Brick 2 released earlier this year.  Honestly, Jethro Tull and most of the music I listened to back in high school is pretty far from my normal playlist these days.  For the most part I was looking forward to hearing the new music, but a bit of dread was also in my thoughts.  I was slightly worried it was going to be an experience like listening to Meatloaf perform his sequel album Bat out of Hell II: Return to Hell.  Luckily even my smallest fears weren’t realized.

In keeping with the overarching theme Brick 2 is an older, more mature sounding record.  It isn’t even a Jethro Tull record, but an Ian Anderson record, as if to say that even he has moved on from his younger days.  Brick 2 isn’t nearly as ambitious as Brick one, it is a collection of thematic songs as opposed to one long composition.  It also doesn’t reach the musical heights and challenges as its predecessor, but it stays within itself.  It is a record, quite frankly, written by an older man and while I’m not 65, I still appreciate the slowing down, the more even pace.  The lead singer still had some duties during the second set, but Anderson took on more of the vocals.  Like any of us getting older, there were times when it felt like Anderson was able to reach back and capture the abilities of his younger days, like my friend said, “a great blend of the old and the new” but in truth it was a much more subdued sound.  The mood and performance mirrored the central question of Brick 2, “What if?” A question, I think, get’s played by so many of us as we get older. What if I went to this college, decided to move here, choose this job? and so on.  In the case of the main character of the Brick story it goes much darker than some of us do in our backward glances, but the impulse is the same, “What could have been?”  As a matter of fact the last song of the album is entitled “What-Ifs, Maybes and Might-Have-Beens” with trills and teases from the former album, but more deliberate, more standard rock and roll than the earlier prog-rock predecessor.  It finishes with the famous ditty closing the first record, “and your wise men don’t know how it feels to be thick as a brick” even so it isn’t the same line.  The weight of 30 years in between was evident, not just in Anderson’s appearance, but in his voicing of that last line.  Somehow, I think we all know a little bit more what it is like to be thick as a brick.

The encore was a little short for my taste.  I would have preferred if Anderson came out and brought the house down with another 4 or 5 songs.  In retrospect though, it’s best that he didn’t.  This wasn’t so much a rock concert as it was wonderfully staged performance of two linked, but distinct pieces of music, much like an orchestral performance.  Instead it was a reminder really, that Anderson is a rock performer, and he can still wear that hat, but tonight wasn’t the time.  The choice of Locomotive Breath was perfect; a really strong song, with a refrain about not being to slow down, not being able to stop the progress of one’s lifetime.  Watching both halves of Thick as a Brick, over the course of these thirty years, there is in fact, “no way to slow down.”