What a drag it is getting old...

I had an interesting conversation with a friend last week...yes, occasionally I do have conversations...which spurred some deep thinking afterwards.

Many people have "heroes" - individuals, normally someone of notoriety, who they feel have greatly influenced their lives. Sometimes, it's a family member who they greatly admire. Other times, an athlete, artist or other public figure who they feel inspired by.

If I have a hero, it would be Roger Waters.  I'll explain.

I discovered Pink Floyd during my first semester of college. Everyone's likely heard Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall by the time they get to high school.  Maybe not these days.  Most of your children are listening to garbage top 40 music and would find something like The Wall too much to handle, because it would make them have to, like, think and stuff.

[That's your fault by the way, parents.  When your kid asked you for the new Bieber album, you should've grounded them for a week, locked them in their room and forced them to listen to The Jam's entire discography on loop for the entire week.  I've gone off track, haven't I?]

The moment I really discovered Floyd, though...it was December, 1992.  I was sitting up in my room studying for a calculus final. My normal thing was to study in silence. For whatever reason, I couldn't absorb anything that night. Math was, and still is, my worst subject, and I was teetering on a C/C- in this class unless I did well on the final.

I step away from my desk for a moment. Upon turning around, I see a small stack of CDs on my dresser. Someone in my Pascal programming class (ha) lent me a few Floyd albums. On top of the stack: Meddle. I figure I'll decompress for a few and see what these cats are really all about.

It's difficult to describe what happened next. Suddenly, parts of my brain that were inaccessible suddenly opened. The clouds broke and my mind was an open field. By the time "Echoes" - the album's centerpiece - started to fade out, everything just began to make sense.  I hit the books again right after that, and I started absorbing material like I never had before.  Long story short, I got an A- on the final and pulled my grade up to a B-.

Thus began my maniacally obsessive infatuation with Pink Floyd that will likely continue until I die or go deaf.

The Floyd have gone through many phases over their careers.  In the earlier days from 1966 - 1968, they were the backbone of the burgeoning underground psychedelic scene in London.  At the center of the band was vocalist/guitarist/songwriter Syd Barrett - one of the greatest songwriters of his era, and one of the most tragic stories in the history of music.  Following his separation from the band in '68, the band entered what I consider their greatest period.  From 1968 to 1972, they created music the likes of which will never be made again.

1973 brought Dark Side of the Moon, and with it, a shift in the band's songwriting approach.  With Dark Side, Roger Waters had taken over the lyrical content of their songs.  From here, until his departure from the band in 1985, the stark shift in Floyd's music can be felt album by album.  The themes of greed, paranoia and death on Dark Side.  The laments of Syd Barrett and his mental state on Wish You Were Here.  The anger and disgust over the world's socio-political landscape on Animals.

Animals is the Pink Floyd album that resonates with me more than any other (Atom Heart Mother is my favorite, for different reasons).  When I first heard it, I was an angry young man all of 19 years old.  When I finished my first spin of Animals, I felt even angrier.  I had heard the words of a man who was completely revolted by what society had become.  I completely understood and related.  "Dogs" reminded me so much of my father, and how the company he worked at and co-managed for over 30+ years one day rewarded him for his years of service with a demotion and 40% paycut.  To make extra money, he'd go in weekends to clean the office.  It wasn't nearly enough and we ended up having to sell our house because we couldn't afford the mortgage anymore.  Scumbags.  Sadly, situations like that have been commonplace everywhere for about 2 decades now.  That's progress!  The final lines of the song sum it all up for us:

Who was born in a house full of pain?
Who was trained not to spit in the fan?
Who was told what to do by the man?
Who was broken by trained personnel?
Who was fitted with collar and chain?
Who was given a pat on the back?
Who was breaking away from the pack?
Who was only a stranger at home?
Who was ground down in the end?
Who was found dead on the phone?
Who was dragged down by the stone?

(Before any know-it-alls ask what a 19-year old college kid would understand about all that - I worked retail 40 hours a week on top of a full load of credits to help pay for my tuition and the bills at home, so piss off.)

I knew all too well what Waters was trying to convey on The Wall - the feeling of wanting to isolate yourself from everyone because you just can't deal with it anymore.  I've done that on more than one occasion.  Sometimes it's necessary.  However, you do run the risk of losing people who were there for you after you tear down the wall.  I think Rog has seen that in his own experiences.  So have I.

I didn't truly appreciate The Final Cut until after 9/11.  When I was younger, I was naive enough to believe that the result of us going to war would always be victory and lasting peace - "The Post-War Dream".  There is no such dream.  It's a nightmare we live daily without an end in sight.  The title track still brings tears when I hear it to this day.

He continued to explore many of these themes over his solo albums through the 80s and 90s.  After 1992's Amused To Death, he disappeared for a bit.  In 1999, he suddenly emerged with a large-scale world tour, and I finally had the opportunity to see my "hero" in person.  I will never forget it.  I sat in the 15th row at PNC Bank Arts Center as he and his band cranked out 2-1/2 hours of classic Pink Floyd and Waters solo material, and remembering how they blended together so well.  When they finished performing "Dogs", I was numb.  He was still, even in his mid-50s, bitter, angry ol' Rog - maybe not quite the same guy who spat on a fan in Montreal in 1977, but the rage was still there.

Let's fast-forward to the present day.  Roger is now in his early 70's.  The feud between he and the surviving members of Pink Floyd has long since ended, culminating in their final reunion performance at Live 8.  His singing voice has greatly deteriorated, though he has managed to mount two more tours in this millennium, bringing Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall on the road.  The Wall tour was an absolute triumph, as instead of regurgitating a copy of the 1980 performances, he updated the visual content for a modern audience, and the results were phenomenal.

I recently watched a clip of him performing at the Russell Tribunal.  The song he performed was basically a rambling editorial of his feelings on the crisis in Gaza, set to what sounded like a re-arrangement of "Mother" from The Wall.  Regardless of how I feel about his opinion on this issue, the whole thing comes off dull and lifeless to me.  A bit more soft-spoken and more calculated in the delivery of his thoughts, the rage that was once there seems to have died out. I'm sure most will chalk that up to "old age".  I fear that may be the case as well.  So now, finally, I've arrived at the point I wanted to get at in the first place (if you've managed to stay with me this long, I thank you).

It's tough to watch the people you feel closest to get old.  It seems to happen in a flash, too.  One day, they're full of life, still willing to take on the world - and then one day, you see that fire start to go out a little.  Before you know it, they cease "living" and begin "existing" - just biding their time until the end comes.  Maybe they go on the occasional cruise to Alaska, but that's about as lively as it gets.  I know this doesn't apply to everyone, but it does to so many that I know.  I watched it happen to my parents and couldn't help but feel a great sadness for them when it did.  I've watched it happen to close friends of the family.  Where does that passion to live life to the fullest go?  Does it really just vanish, like the common cold or Keyser Soze?

At the ripe age of 40, I feel I haven't lost any of the rage and fire I had when I was younger.  I don't want to ever lose that.  I'd like to believe that as I get older, whenever I feel something I see or experience is wrong, that I'll feel the same passion to fight for what I believe in, instead of becoming accepting of it.  And when the opportunity to experience life in new ways presents itself, that I can still throw caution to the wind and dive in.  I like to think that I will still be doing all that.  The thought that I might not be in control of that makes me uneasy.  Funny enough, it angers me, too.  As I sit here and type these words, I feel the anger that comes with thinking that any of what I said may come to pass.

And then I realize...maybe ol' Rog still is as angry as ever.  His anger isn't derived from total lunacy.  I think people want to believe that, but the truth his he's no crazier than any one of us.  He's angry because he cares about those around him, and it angers him when he sees the ills of the world affecting them.  I agree with some of his causes and less so with others, but I won't deny his motivations.  He wants to be a good human being.  Maybe we should all take a cue from him...leaving the megalomaniacal (is that a word?) rock star stuff aside, of course.

That's why I grew up an angry young man, and why today I'm an angry middle-aged man.  I care.  I will always care.  When I'm an old man, I'll be sitting in my wheelchair shaking my cane at the world and continue to be angry.  Why?  Because I will never reach the point that I stop caring.  No one close to me in my life ever said it was OK to be angry.  "Turn the other cheek, let things go...."

Roger showed me otherwise.  The older I get, the more I understand.  That's why I will forever look up to him.

Stay angry.  It makes life worth living..