Stillwater Runs Deep..

Certain pieces of media, be it a film or an album or a favorite poem you’ve memorized, seem to seep into your soul and stain it forever, like coffee or blood on your favorite t-shirt. When I get into that strange place where the world stops making sense and starts to resemble a rambling, out of focus fever dream, I tend to reach back to those soul-staining classics that have long made my heart ache and my ass shake. I’m not usually a creature of habit, but sometimes you have to wrap up in the blanket and look to reaffirm that feeling of belonging that often gets lost in translation in this overanalyzed and under tenderized world. So, a few nights ago, feeling bewildered by a project that seems to be going off the rails with no end or solution in sight, I decided to traverse the technological tightrope for tacit truth and stumbled upon a familiar beauty: Cameron Crowe’s “Almost Famous,” his semi-autobiographical, Academy-Award winning ode to the rock scene of the early 1970’s. This is probably the 15th time I’ve seen it, and it has never been anything other than exactly what I needed it to be. 

Cameron Crowe has a history with me. His book “Fast Times At Ridgemont High,” where Crowe pulled a 21 Jump Street and infiltrated a Southern California High School, was developed into a film which, for better or worse, remains my favorite movie of all-time. The kids in it go through some serious stuff. Thhe subjects are not treated like children, with kid gloves, as difficult adult themes permeate the film. It’s not your typical 80’s teen faire – a horny boobs and bozo romp.  It cuts far deeper than most other teen movies of the era. And it also doesn't hurt that the soundtrack is phenomenal. 

A few years later, Crowe brought “Say Anything” and the tender neurotic beauty of Lloyd Dobler (played by John Cusack) into my life. I was hooked. But it might be his 1992 film “Singles” that was the clincher for me – a flick seat in Seattle during a time, an era, which I remember fondly and loved. It came out when I was 15 and it spoke to me. I’m half-embarrassed to say, more than three decades later, it remains a go-to movie when I want to feel like I felt during the days of movie-watching parties with friends, late night MTV and schlocky horror, wandering hands, aimless meanderings with friends and fucking "figuring it out, man."

Every last character in Almost Famous is on their own full-blown odyssey, fraught with Kalypsos, Medusas and angry gods galore. Furthermore, their journey is thinly disguised under a barely veiled cloak of various human frailties, all of which threaten to drag the individual and collective down into the anguished depths. 

Wild-eyed teenage rock scribe William Miller is pushing against his innocence, chipping away, as best he can, at his upbringing, at the lack of understanding from his peers, at the isolating reality of an upbringing in his mother’s strange and unconventional home – seeking growth, freedom and maybe an answer or two along the way through the only healing solace he’s ever found: rock n’ roll. In the end, one of the heaviest realizations has to do with those very chains of youth he endeavored to escape. He finds a kind of peace and beauty in the things he sought to run from, going home to mom and finding a respite from a cruel and chaotic world. The road, the music, the escape doesn’t equate to fewer problems, just different ones. Wherever you go in life, whatever far off corner you run to, you will always find yourself there.  

Penny Lane and her gloriously merry band of Band-Aids are battling for respect and love; fighting against perceptions about who they are during a time when women across the country were beginning to raise a collective middle finger to patriarchal convention.  

Russell Hammond, the brooding but immensely talented and surprisingly insightful guitarist of burgeoning superstar rock band Stillwater is navigating the heavy burden of being the most talented man in a band he has stylistically outgrown, all while trying to maintain a leadership role among the brothers he cares for despite knowing they limit his creative freedom.  

His frontman, Jeff Bebe, is battling imposter syndrome and having a difficult time keeping himself from falling apart over the ongoing war in his psyche.  

Anita, William’s older sister, is frantically trying to escape their mother’s protective clutches, while their Mom (brilliantly played by Frances McDormand) is doing everything she can think of to keep her kids safe in a rapidly changing world that has already claimed her husband and that she not-so-secretly fears will lure her kids away, too.  

It was everything I needed to upend my funk the other night. The film is funny where it needs to be (Philip Seymour Hoffman’s take on iconic rock journalist Lester Bangs is inspired -- “You’ll meet them again on their long journey to the middle”), serious when it is called for (“Most people are just waiting to talk, but you listen”) and always seems to lead with is heart (“The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you’re uncool.”) Crowe has always written characters and dialogue that deeply resonate with me, and, I would assume, with many of you.  

Being born in 1977, I missed out on this fantastic era of rock history, save for what I’ve been able to glean from books, documentaries and decades of crate digging, but the age’s siren song has always called out to me. So many of the bands I grew up loving all grew up worshipping Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and the like. And so it goes, the rolling wheel of life, love and rock n’ roll, no? 

In this decaying age of Influencers putting forth fool’s gold on their virtual dopamine farm platforms, I still mine for the real deal. It certainly doesn’t feel like it’s in abundance anymore (though I may be curmudgeonly and about to yell at the kids to get off my lawn), but the odd nugget of beauty can still be excavated, provided your eyes are open, your mind remains sharp or your ears can still feel the real. "Almost Famous" celebrates the real as well as any cinematic love letter to rock n' roll that ever graced the big screen.

I wish I could direct you to dozens of similar films, but in truth, it has very few contemporaries. These moments are beautiful and scarce. The intoxicating beauty of rock n' roll is just hard to capture. But when the moment happens, even if it’s rare, it’s magic. It’s forever. It calls to you, again and again. It gets deep into your soul. All you can do is dance with it because It’s All Happening.

A Terror Way Beyond Falling..

"The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling."

 - David Foster Wallace, "Infinite Jest"

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David Foster Wallace took his own life 15 years ago today. The rest of the world never got to see his next creative masterstroke (which became the posthumously released "The Pale King") in the way it was intended. He had been working on it for a decade and it became his White Whale.  But, if you will allow me the cliche, the work he left behind was truly the stuff of staggering, mesmerizing, heartbreaking genius.

I'm grateful to have absorbed his magnum opus  "Infinite Jest" and to have studied and enjoyed his many incredible essays; many of which have made profound impact on the way I looked at the possibiliies of art and, perhaps more importantly, on what kind of creative human being I wanted to be in the world. 

For me, his writing was the literary antidote to postmodern cynicism, which, even a decade and a half later, remains utterly rampant and seems to permeate most of the art my generation continues consume. Reflexive naysaying, mean-spirited criticism, rampant cynicism and performative contrarianism are far too common. It has  became so normal to weaponize humor, to be cynically detached and uninterested in how your cruelty may effect the mental health of others (see: internet trolls). Incredulity to metanarratives is fine, but writing with love and hope and curiosity is far more courageous to me. Showing the world your soul is much more brave and interesting than being another cynic that cuts people down. Much like my literary hero James Baldwin, DFW struck a blow for vulnerability, tenderness and the notion that there is beauty to mine even in our darkest moments. We are flawed, we are human, we are beautiful. 

Clearly, David Foster Wallace summoned as much courage as he could for as long as he could, and then his pain got the best of him. I know the battle all too well. I'm thankful to have glimpsed his enormous talent, which was teeming with the kind of warm-hearted vulnerability that I've long aspired to allow in my own life and art. It was quite a gift to the world, no matter how short. It means so much to me.

With that being said, just so we are clear, I'm not romanticizing his exit. I have tremendous sympathy, in part,  because I am no stranger to ideations. Tell your friends you love them. Check in on them. Make it weird. Hopefully, they won't die with their music still in them.

You would have been 61 today, David. Damn, I wish you were still here.

This, I Believe..

I believe coffee tastes better in a ceramic mug with a story, paired with a bean with it's own story (of fallow field and seedling turned ready to harvest, plucked, selected and roasted with deep love and care). Bonus points, of course, if the mug was picked for you by a beloved friend or loved one. This deeply savored coffee ritual means a great deal to me. It is a vital part of my mental health routine and it feels fundamentally full of light. 

I believe that nature contains vibrant healing properties; that our very souls can lift and our stress can ease when our flesh comes into contact with dirt and leaves and bark and cold water from rivers, lakes and oceans. 

I believe that music has the power to heal and restore. That the right four chords on a Sunday morning are rhythmic liturgy and can reconnect your mind and body with stories and tones and words and corporeal movements that live deep in your skin and soul (and in your ancient cellular DNA). And when you let the songs seep into your bones, I believe it allows you to commune with your ancestors, to hear Their stories, and to feel the unbroken connection from their hearts and their world to yours.

I believe community, in and of itself, to be a sacred thing; whether this is a community of your fellow creative misfits, a tribe connected by shared culture or a loose aggregate of wild-eyed wanderers that feel like home. Because I also believe that we humans bear the image of our creator and that the universe longs to know itself, to see and be seen, to love and be loved. So I believe that when we gather, whatever our particular beliefs, stories, backgrounds; if goodness flows and people are held, heard, safe and loved, community is a sacred thing. 

And I believe, as Henri Nouwen wrote, that hospitality is the act of meeting people where they are, loving people for who they are, and affirming their dignity as deeply, ineffably loved. 

What do you believe?

Commandeer the Manosphere (Let's Talk, Fam!)

You're not a Lone Wolf. You're not an Alpha Dog. You're not a Warrior Stoic. You're not a solitary Viking marauder on some ancient quest. You're a man. Your back was built to carry your children (and the children in your community). Your heart was built to protect and hold space for the vulnerable and to show up for the people you love. Your hands were built to build and maintain the structures (both physical and emotional) that keep your loved ones and your community safe, protected, loved.

Come back to the pack, Brother. Come home. Come find reservoirs of strength, love and courage you never knew you had. Enough with this toxic alpha shift. Enough with blaming everyone else. Enough with being a victim of your own story. Enough with performative masculinity. Enough with equating manhood with violence, manipulation and power. Enough aggrieved entitlement. You have the gifts and the strength to rebuilt, redesign and radically create a beautiful life.

Time to Grow Up and Come Home.

Be a steward. Listen. Heal. Break destructive cycles, toxic patterns and generational curses. Embody the healthiest version of yourself. Go to therapy. Read, Improve. Apologize. Move your body. Forge new traditions to pass on to your children or your community. Dance. Lift heavy things. Laugh, Go to doctor's appointments. Let your tribe know you love them. Love them hard. Be open with your feelings and express them. Set better examples. Become the person you needed when you were a child. Be worthy of the unconditional love and trust your children, your family and your community have in you. 

That Familiar Human Surge Of Inspiration..

For all of the hell, darkness and isolation I endured as a child, growing up two blocks from the beach was certainly a highlight. Truth be told, it probably saved my life. 

I don't remember the first time I dipped my little toes into the Pacific, but I'm sure, even as a little tyke, I felt a surge of inspiration. Even to this day, as a man in the firm grip of middle age, that feeling has not left me. When I get my old, grumpy ass down to the beach, I kick off my shoes and plunge my bare feet into the frigid water and feel that familiar surge. 

If you're willing to head just a little further south down the California coast this time of year, you can experience this magical moment all while a super bloom of wild mustard and lupines and poppies creep down the hillsides above the beach, flooding the horizon with their starkly contrasting colors set against majestic sunsets unlike anywhere else in the world. No matter how much I lament the impossibility of living in Southern California, it is not hard to become mesmerized, overtaken by the awe-striking beauty dispersed along our coastlines. You can step outside here and smell the salty ocean, and more often than not, the smell of citrus wafting in the breeze as well. 

These days, inspired words don't come easily. It's not so much that I suffer from writer's block, but something more akin to a clanging mind; a soul distracted by the exhaustive stream of everyday minutiae and its often deleterious effects. Even in my darker days, I realize I am blessed in more ways than I ever could have imagined. Not just in my personal life - that's a given - but in the physical space of the locale I inhabit. I am surrounded by breathtaking beauty, but I often still don't know how to unearth the words I want to say; still unsure of, and grappling with, the lessons this gorgeous place can teach me. 

Perhaps, I only need call on the years of meditation practice; to remember to be still, to sit unrushed as the waves crash all around me and the sun illuminates the water across the distant horizon. 

Many days, I feel a kind of growing discomfort about the AIs and algorithms taking over the natural flow of life and creativity; out-thinking and out-writing us at every turn. No matter how soulless it may seem, the future is here, and it is a thought that is frequently difficult to dismiss. But then, when I take that deep breath, when I slow the clang and clatter down, I remember that no computer or app or technologically advanced creation can feel the rush of cold salt water on bare ankles, or gently touch petals basking in the warm sunlight.

AI can't do what you and I do - wrestle deep within our souls through the sacred work of making; the work of actually creating something out of the things we think and feel.

And so what do I do with all of this? Do I give in to the clang and scattershot of my mind's unease? Or do I take that deep breath, pay clear attention and remain distinctly, messily human? It seems like the better option most days, if I can muster it. To let the water run over my toes and trust, not only in everything I'm seeing and feeling, but also in the idea that the words will eventually come. 

Insisting On Reality.

I work a lot. I'm tempted to say something ridiculous like "All I do is work." Believe it or not, such a statement does not feel even remotely disingenuous, so I'm gonna say it: All I do is work. Well, I get weekends off. I get to go home at night. But during the day, throughout the week, it's just work. It gets busier and busier at my job with each passing year, as if the whole entire goal is to somehow gradually take away every little semblance of joy from me a little at a time. These moments have gone from fleeting to something akin to slowly running down the drain.

Now, here's the part where I should probably say, lest the gods strike me down, that I'm grateful to have a job. Not only that, but I have a job that some people find rather exciting and would probably give their left nipple to have themselves. I'm grateful for my job. The only thing that's worse than having a job is not having a job. 

On the weekends, I get to be Dad. Not play Dad, mind you, but BE Dad. That's pretty good. I get to be with the people I love and try to be present. But that doesn't leave much room for art, which, I'm sorry to say, is probably my reason for being on this planet at all. I get a little time to write on Sunday evenings. I'm pretty exhausted by then, but I sit down and meditate for twenty minutes, and some of the dreck that has accumulated in my head all week dissolves. Then, I go to my notebook. I'm trying to write a novel. I write a few more pages every time. It's all disjointed now, and the fragments that come out are often absurd. There's no bright, blazing, holy inner pathway guiding me through the act of narration. I always used to hope I would find something like that when I was younger. When I was half-baked and reading Kerouac's "The Dharma Bums" as a young idiot, the process of writing seemed magical. But as an adult with a job and a life, I'm here to bring that youthful dream of a notion crashing back to reality. You never get lifted up into some kind of ecstasy. There's no roaring pile of euphoria to leap into, no game winning home run high fives from your teammates after finishing a chapter. Nope. You have to just sit down and write; insisting on a reality, again and again. 

David Foster Wallace talked a great deal about that. About how art, and life, was about enduring tedium. He's probably right. So I keep chipping away in stolen moments, remembering the beauty in fragments, in syllabic bursts and clean sentences. Who knows if it'll amount to anything. I'll keep insisting, I guess. The alternative, just letting my entire life be work and brief blank periods away from work, makes me want to leap head-first into a wood chipper. 

Sometimes, I think I write to remember the days before work took up my entire life; to just sit in that elusive fading joy for a little bit of time. Like pushing back the grey clouds of autumn and getting one more day of childhood blue sky summer, one more day of riding BMX bikes and playing on the ball field until the streetlights came on. 

I'm still coming out of the trance of childhood. But when I put pen to paper, though I see those memories in flashes, there are towering ruins almost everywhere. I see the crumbling alleyways of my youth in there, too, but the vision mostly feels like the decaying facade of an ancient, vanished world. I can feel those fleeting childhood images, longing to be the backdrop of the words I'm trying to craft. Begging not to be forgotten. Maybe that's my version of the bright pathway. It's not the mystical Kerouacian guide I anticipated, but it's something, and it certainly beats the wood chipper. So I keep on writing, insisting on a reality, again and again. What else is there to do? 

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If you ever dig what I write, or find it adds some kind of value to your life, feel free to buy me a coffee at: http://www.buymeacoffee.com/dugganwrites

Even Walls Fall Down..

The Nazis spent the modern equivalent of $200 billion dollars building the Atlantic Wall over a period of two years. Built by slave labor, manned by hundreds of thousands of German soldiers, and commanded by the Irwin Rommel, the Wall was one of the largest defensive structures of all time, considered by Hitler to be utterly impregnable.

The Allies shattered it within a matter of hours. 

Just a fun fact to think about.