Powered By Blogger

Thursday, January 6, 2011

I'm uncool, and definitely not Almost Famous

The kids went to bed early tonight...it's been a busy week. I needed a night just to chill. I poured myself a big, icy Diet Coke and decided to watch a DVD....headed down to the basement to scrounge around for our old box of movies and found one that I haven't seen in years but really dig....Almost Famous. If you haven't seen it...I'm not going to bother explaining the plot lines and characters...so the rest of this might not be worth reading....heck, even if you've seen it, this may not be worth reading...I guess I'll leave that up to you.
Anyway, about 20 minutes into it, Chrissy comes in and sits down...and after about 45minutes or so I start asking her stuff that leads to an exchange that goes through stuff like this...
Here's a movie that I like very much (for many personal reason, which I'll get into in a minute) but it's a movie that pretty much glorifies broken, sinful lifestyles of people in various levels of rock and roll life devoid of any conviction to God. The characters in the movie are doing things that I'd never want my kids to grow up doing in a million years. Will I ever introduce this movie to my kids? Or at least the music in it? I mean, how can I not teach my son about The Who. I mean, half of them are dead and probably burning in hell, but they freaking rock. They meant so much to me at some point in my life and influenced much of who I became musically. So did scenes like the ones portrayed in the movie. I'm not looking for answers, really...just enjoying the ponder of the questions.

I guess at some level the attachment to that movie comes from life experiences that, in many ways, mirror the conviction, emotion, and actions in the film. At one point in my life, I too spent a great deal of time following a band around. I too shoveled booze and drugs into my body while I invested a great deal of emotional energy, time, money, life into the music of a band. I quit jobs to follow them around. I went from Maine to Georgia to Las Vegas to San Francisco to be near them. I had friends in cities all over the country...great friends, but friends within that scene....many with nicknames who I never learned much more about other than who they were within the context of the music scene we were in...but yet others who I still regard as very dear friends. My home was an East Coast hub and a magnet for others in the scene to gravitate to...to live...to party...to spend one more precious weekend chasing The Buzz.
When Penny Lane and William talk about life on the road juxtaposed with "the real world"..and the lines continually blurring between them...I get it. When they talk about The Buzz...I get it.

It's weird, though...I'm so glad that I'm removed from that scene....but I'm still drawn to this movie that glorifies it...or at least parts of it. The fun and the Buzz and the party and the laughter and the friends....these are the topics played out....what isn't shown ( or IS, but to a much lesser degree) is the stupidity, the irresponsibility, the guilt, the selfishness, the emptiness, and the inevitable collapse that staying too long in that scene brings. William's mom, in the movie, represents all those outside the scene who are hurt and let down by someone who's too deep in the scene. I learned alot while living in between those 2 worlds...both good and bad.
I know there's lots of people who would disagree with me on this stuff...and i'm not looking to debate...i'm just looking to dribble on about this for a hundred more words or more...then i'll be done.

In the end, though....Virtue, Integrity, and Truth prevail. Once the protagonist leaves the false security of the scene behind him and wraps himself around these positive things...the ship rights itself (right on cue, about 7 minutes before the closing credits). I guess I COULD show this movie to my kids someday...as something of a poetic biography.
In simple terms:
Sin is fun.
sometimes it's FUN.
but it eventually takes over and starts to hurt.
and bring disappointment.
and selfishness.
and guilt.
and eventually, death.
But,
The Truth saves us.
THE Truth.
Our wonderful Father God.
Clothed in Majesty and Light.
His Truth rights our ship.
and points us toward truer ports.

I wish I had some brilliant epilogue to close with but...i've got nothing so i'll leave you with my favorite quote of the movie:

"The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what we share with someone else when we're uncool." - Philip Seymour Hoffman as Lester Bangs

and i'm definitely uncool. thanks for letting me share.

1 comment:

  1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.