What Do You Want?

I saw a shooting star last night.

I should probably note here that when it comes to religion, superstition, and other things supernatural, I'm about as practical as they come. I don't believe in the Christian God (or any other god, for that matter), I'm uncomfortable with spirituality, I don't believe in Fate, I don't believe in feng shui, and if a ladder is in my way, I won't hesitate to walk underneath it. My family had a black cat while I was growing up - if I had bad luck every time she crossed my path, I'd be dead by now.

However, pop culture has ingrained in my head, just about since birth, that when you see a shooting star, you make a wish. So when I saw the shooting star, my first thought was, "I should make a wish." I expected something to spring immediately to mind. In the past, I've always had a wish ready to go, something that just leapt out when the occasion to make a wish arose. I never really expected any of these wishes to come true (at least, not as a result of my coin in the wishing well or the wishbone breaking in my favor), but always felt that it couldn't hurt. But this time nothing came to mind. "Anything your heart desires," as the song goes, and I couldn't think of a damn thing.

Sure, there are things that I would like to have: a G5 with a broadband internet connection, the ability to write a good song, a really nice set of surround speakers on which I could listen to the work of people who have the ability to write a good song, a slightly larger paycheck, Achtung Baby on vinyl... But these are very casual and trivial desires - it took me a half an hour to think of that many. If I was given a wish that was guaranteed to come true, I wouldn't waste it on any of those things. And in my unsuperstitious world, I always felt that shooting stars weren't the place to make material wishes. (Or impossible ones, such as anything relating to my musical ability. Even nearly-omnipotent cosmic forces have some limits.)

But if not a material item, what was I going to wish for? What did I want that I couldn't acquire by carefully saving money for a month or two?

I gave my life a quick review and tried to identify something that was missing or lacking. I wasn't able to. Every day I enjoy the benefits of having a loving, supportive, completely selfless family, the best friend anyone could ever ask for (who also provides me with a second family - his), a job I love that pays the bills (if not much more), co-workers I like (or, at the very least, that I can tolerate), an 80 gig video iPod, the ability to get enormous satisfaction out of music even if I can't create it myself, a nice, affordable apartment, and countless simple things that make me happy ranging from the color blue and chocolate chip cookies fresh out of the oven to that middle section of Sister Blue's Human and watching the sun set behind the mountains on my drive home from work. What more can a person ask for?

According to many that I've spoken to, the answer to that question is "a lot." Just a few days ago I said to someone, "I'm happy, and really, what else can you ask for?" His reply was, "You can always ask for more." Well, sure, that's true, but I fail to see how it will make me happier. It's the classic "glass half empty" mentality that seems all too prevalent in the world today, particularly among members of my own generation - the habit of measuring your life by all the things you don't have.

There's a line in a Wallflowers song called How Far You've Come that has resonated with me since the first time I heard it: "You'd have a wonderful day if you could see how lucky you are." That line gave a voice (and a nice melody) to an idea that I'd been struggling for years to put into words - that happiness is achieved not by getting what you want, but by realizing - and appreciating - what you have. I've been blessed with a life in which what I have amounts to a hell of lot.

Still, shooting stars are rare, and I wouldn't want to let a wish go to waste. I don't know how quickly the window of opportunity to make a wish closes after you see the star, but when a couple of minutes had passed I started to figure I was pushing the limit. I needed to take advantage of my wish pretty soon. Now what the heck did I want?

In the end, I simply wished for everyone I love to have a life as fulfilling and wishless as my own.

Rock Of Ages

Back in June, I saw my first ever Bruce Springsteen concert. He was touring with the Seeger Sessions Band in support of We Shall Overcome - an album that did not leave my CD player for at least two weeks after I bought it. I'd been wanting to see a Springsteen show pretty much since I'd known that bands played live, and the build-up of that anticipation probably would have led to disappointment if the show had been anything less than unbelieveable. The show was unbelieveable. I went into work the next day and in response to the numerous "How was it?" questions, I said, "That man is inhuman. Because no normal person could possibly be that talented."

It was an incredible experience. Never have I been to a show that was more just plain fun. It certainly had its serious and emotional moments with songs like Mrs. McGrath and Bring 'Em Home ("They had to write 'em then, we have to write 'em now"), which was great, but you could tell that for most of the night every member of the band was up there just having a great time, loving every minute of being on stage. There was something about watching a couple horn players literally sprint from the back of the stage to the front to take a solo that made me happy in a way nothing else ever has. I was expecting an amazing show, and I was not disappointed; it was as much fun as I've had in a long time.

To be perfectly honest, though, I was a bit disappointed in the crowd. There we were, at a Bruce Springsteen concert, and everyone around me spent the entire night sitting down with their hands politely folded in their laps like they were watching a ballet. They were all so calm that I almost wondered if The Boss was an hallucination and I was the only one in the venue head-banging to Tchaikovski. (Even Bruce himself admonished them at one point - during "Jacob's Ladder" when most of the crowd (except for the people around me) were on their feet and dancing, he was in midsentence when he happened to glance up at my section of the balcony: "Everybody dancin', having a gre- Wait a minute! We still got people sittin' down! C'mon, get up!" I was one of the few that were already standing - no way was I sitting through this song, even if I was alone in standing up.)

I guess it was a product of it being an older crowd - I was quite possibly the youngest one there except for the kids that had been brought along by their parents, and the bulk of the crowd was 40 - 50, with more than I expected pushing 60. But while I wasn't really expecting the crowd to look like they had all taken a wrong turn on the way to the ballet, I wasn't surprised that most of them were older than me; most kids my age don't go for that type of music. To quote Mark Knopfler, "They don't give a damn about any trumpet-playing band; it ain't what they call rock and roll." And while it’s my opinion that Springsteen with the Seeger Sessions Band was far more rock’n’roll than anything Tool has ever done, I don’t know too many 23-year-olds that would agree with me. Their reaction to it is "Eh. Some old guy singing some other old guy’s songs with a bunch of old guys in the backing band." Whereas my reaction to it is, "They don't write songs like that anymore... and that's a damn shame."

I had a similar thought a few months ago when I was assisting my first session at the studio. The band we were recording was an old blues band that had been together for almost 30 years. One day during the session a local guy, whom we'll call Levon, came in to play drums on a couple of tracks. While Levon was there, the band decided they also wanted him to sing lead on a song, and started tossing around ideas for songs that might be suitable. During this discussion, the band's pianist picked up a guitar and played and sang an old country tune called I've Just Seen The Rock Of Ages. I had never heard it before, and I was completely blown away by it. Simple, haunting, beautiful. It was at that moment, listening to Glenn play that song, that I realized two things that made me a little sad. One, that there are probably thousands of incredible songs out there that I haven’t heard and may never hear simply because I don’t know they exist. And two, that they don’t write songs like they used to.

That’s not to say there isn’t still good music being made and good songs being written. Lately I’ve been finding a lot of new music that I really love. But I can't imagine too much of the music being made today still being around a century or two from now.* I guess I should just be grateful (and I am) that I can get so much enjoyment out of songs two hundred years old like Mrs. McGrath, and songs not even one year old like I Dug Up A Diamond (Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris), and songs from everywhere in between.

So Bruce, even when most of the crowd's sitting down, just remember that some of us are standing up. And those of us that are standing are more grateful than you can probably ever understand that you’ve brought your music – and Pete’s – into our lives.

*I'm reminded of a conversation between Bono and Bob Dylan where Bono said of Dylan's catalog, "These songs will last forever!" Dylan replied, "Man, I think your songs will last forever too, it's just that nobody will be able to play them."