THE STUFF FROM THE TOP OF THE CLOSET SHELF

 

Lester Bangs passed away April 30. 1982, at age 32, a significant tragedy for rock criticism in particular and American literature in particular. Like hundreds of others who aspired to be tastemakers in music and add an inflamed commentary on the cultural turns of our time, I loved Bangs and his swagger, the rhythm of his prose, I loved how completely alive and hyperbolic his writing could be.

He had the best aspects of Henry Miller and Jack Kerouac, but he also had a heart and a willingness to question his own motives, a recurring theme being when was he (and the rest of us) were going to finally grow up and stop treating musicians as heroes. Rather, Lester came to regard those he admired as flawed as he was, maybe even more so. His deep diving into the psychology of his own obsession with certain musicians -- Lou Reed, most notoriously, convinced me that just because some has a specific skill, even genius, for creating memorable art (whether music, poetry, novels, plays, film making, acting, painting) does not by default make them a saint, nor should an audience expect enlightened attitudes merely because they do interesting things creatively. He seemed to be getting to the notion that art is not liberation or transcendence of the difficulties of a quirky mind, but rather was a symptom of something more problematic and intransigent.

Bangs was a moralist and a realist in his own fashion, and felt deeply when regarding his subject, writing at times so empathetically that you'd think the wound was his own and not a character in a song, as in his splendid masterpiece on Van Morrison's "Madame George" when writing about Astral Weeks in the Marcus collection Stranded. What made Bangs unique was that he didn't project the poetic evocations or dysfunctions of rock music upon the larger culture--he didn't view rock music as a method of social critique--but rather as a means of self-examination. He often wrote badly, but at his best he could not equaled.

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In future years,
the younger folks might be nostalgic as they reminisce about the supposed fun and convenience of Horton Plaza before it eventually became a dead mall now being repurposed. the truth of the matter is that even in its prime, it was an alienated space, full of architectural distractions, detours, and dead ends that seemed designed to magnify your unease and increase your desire to escape your sense of uselessness by exhausting your credit limit and begging creditors for an increase in your credit line. I worked there for a number of years as a bookseller and made my number one spot to see new movies, and over time you couldn't help by note the waning numbers of people coming to the Plaza, the number of stores advertising off-Holiday Sales with things up to 70 percent off, the closing of stores and the draping of butcher paper over the display windows with a sad sign promising a new retailer coming in soon, watching the calendar pages fly away and noting again the stores were still vacant and that more stores had joined them, that Horton Plaza had become an empty series of angular paths, walkways, bridges to more locked up storefronts, a structural case of architectural schizophrenia where all the eaves, overhangs, arches and such unusual twists cast deep and despairing shadows over the dead concrete few have reason to walk.

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Someone on Quora a short shorty beginning with the sentence

“I am completely disappointed at your behaviour”. This is what I wrote:

“I am completely disappointed in your behavior” said Jen. I had just gotten home , drunk from the whisky I bought at a liquor store with the twenty dollars she gave me earlier to get some hamburger buns and party hats with. I parked the car on top of the mailbox and left the engine running while I staggered into the house, pausing to bend over, stick a finger down my throat and produce a loathing wretch of lumpy stomach content over the unmowed lawn. Now I stood on the porch, not even in the front door, while Jen glared at me.

“We’re going to have to reevaluate the terms of our relationship she said. Her voice was a harsh, trembling whisper, it had the texture of sand paper.

“But babe…” I tried to say something conciliatory, but the words never came when I tried to drop to one knee to beg her to forgive me like so many times before, but I lost my balance and fell down the porch steps, landing on my back. I was looking at the clouds in the sky through bare tree branches and power lines.

“I am beyond contempt here” said Jen. She went back into the house and closed the door behind here.

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There's a difference about caring less about music and no longer loving music that provided the soundtrack of your youth. It may be that you're simply tired of songs and albums that have been overplayed for decades. In that sense, it matters little if I ever hear any Pink Floyd records again, love them thought I do. And half the Led Zeppelin songs can also be consigned to the dustbin. Well, maybe not half, but at least two album sides of tracks I no longer get a thrill from, or songs that were weak to begin with. When you get older, your heroes from yore are no longer bulletproof, considering that by the time I turned 71 I had experienced the situations, loves, traumas , celebrations and catastrophes our friends Dylan, Cohen, Mitchell, Young et al adroitly crystallized in their tune craft. Many of us in the day sat around dark bedrooms and dens with the lights off, stoned or unstoned, listening to the heaviness of the message and thought we were really learning something about life. Aging, though, is the great equalizer , a very efficient means of changing the status and emotional attachments untested youth had on their record collections. Gauged against a few decades of actual lived experience, some songs still resonate , while others pale with revisiting. It helps if you've been a music writer and critic , a habit and occasional part-time job I've indulged myself in over six decades: the unreasonable standards I bring , standards hardly set in stone, has allowed me to have a private canon I can rely on when mood and manners require an unsullied equivalent of the prevailing zeitgeist. Also, it's not necessarily a matter of being uninterested in new music artists as such, as its simply an issue that new music striving for the love of the masses are written for young people and , damn it, I am no longer young. But I do have a considerable record collection. Let it be said that it's a wonderful thing when I can add a new and younger artist to my collection , though the instances are rare.