A while ago I worked in the Locations department of VH1’s Hip Hop Honors. Our job was basically to coordinate the coming and going of various trucks and tour buses so that traffic continued to flow on the street and all our vehicles had places to park and/or unload. This meant that I was outside, sitting on 35th street in New York City for 10 days straight.
As I sat stagnantly and waited for trucks to come or go, the world around me was constantly buzzing. I began to really feel like a part of the city. I began to see the same people coming and going every day, walking to and from work in their own little world. Occasionally, someone would stop and ask what was going on and why we had half the street coned off. Local vendors would stop to chat, some in a vain attempt to befriend us in hopes that we would allow them to park in our section of the street.
Over time, I began to love the constant hum of the passing traffic and almost started longing for that unique brand of New York street stench.
… almost
I felt like a part of the neighorhood, like I was sitting on the stoop with my friends, chatting with my neighbors. For me, New York became a living, breathing being. It had soul, it had character, it was alive. I could see it, I could feel it, I became a part of it.
I was 35th street.
Few cities actually achieve this. I have lived all over the US and have only experienced this in small instances in certain cities before this show. It happens most often while I’m listening to music. I felt it once while listening to Dropkick Murphys in Boston. I felt it again while listening to Tupac in Los Angeles. As cliché as it is, I feel it every time I drive down the Las Vegas strip listening to Frank Sinatra.
Certain cities have it, while others don’t, but I’m not sure what “it” is. I want to call it character, but there’s more to it than just that. What is it about these cities that spawns so many great artists and artistic movements. What about Seattle spawned the grunge movement? Why did gangster rap explode in Los Angeles? Why is East Bay punk different from East Coast punk?
I see it often in local restaurants and shops. They have a certain flare. You can taste it in the food; you can see it in the people. I can’t explain it, but the second I enter these cities I can tell whether they’ve got it or not. Some cities just don’t have it. I’ve decided I will never settle down in one of those cities. I’ve lived in a few of those places before. They seemed to suck the life out of me like some soulless monster trying to fill a deep void.
I’m not sure what the point of this little post is; I have no theories, just thoughts. Maybe it comes with age. Maybe some cities are just too young. I’ve never lived there, only visited, but Austin seems like a city that will have it in force some day. They’ve definitely got at least a part of it. Maybe it comes with art. Maybe a city needs a solid community of artists to truly attain it.
I think that might be it. I think it has to come through the art in the community. If the art is substantial or of any merit, the community it came from will most likely gain the same merit. The only common thing I see in those cities I lived in that just didn’t have it, was a lack of a good art scene. They had very little good music, few galleries, and no cinema worth anything. They did not support their local artists and I’m sure the artists just left, before the city sapped them of any character they may have had. I know artists in some of these cities, and they complain about that very thing almost daily.
This may be some sort of microcosm for any society. This may be the very thing that every society must have in order to survive. Maybe society needs art. Maybe art is what gives a society its life; its soul. I’m sorry to go religious on you, but I’ve heard it said that art is man’s attempt at recreating the divine. Maybe without this connection with the divine, society as a whole will fail.
Maybe I stayed up too late.
Tags: art, Articles, artists, big-cities, film, food, hip-hop-honors, music, new-york-city, people, society, stoop, trucks
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The other day, I was doing one of those “getting to know you” things and one of the questions was “If you had a time machine, when and where would you go?” Without any hesitation, I chose the old West. I’ve been watching a lot of Westerns lately, specifically Clint Eastwood Westerns, and today I’ve been thinking about why I like them so much.
The old West was a much simpler time. Most people lived off the land, stayed close to their family, got up at sunrise, and went to bed not too long after sunset. There was no TV, no radio, and entertainment was simple: people just danced, told stories, whittled, and generally just relaxed.
I’m a simple man. I’ve often thought of packing everything into a storage unit and living out of a VW Westfalia Camper with nothing but the essentials: no computer, no internet, no TV. I think I could do it. That’s what I love about camping. It’s just you and nature, no distractions. I think my love for Westerns goes beyond this internal minimalism though.
The Clint Eastwood Western generally follows the same format. The story is centered on one lone wanderer with no apparent past. He’s smart, crafty, reads people well, and most importantly, he’s the fastest draw anyone’s ever met. He speaks only when necessary, and says more with his eyes than most people do with their mouth. He’s noble, honest, and stoic, a man of the people. He always stands up for what he believes in. He is a defender of truth and justice and a protector of all women everywhere. In short, he lives by a higher law.
I think this higher law is what draws me to these westerns. The hero in these stories lives by a certain code that is generally agreed upon by the public, only the hero never strays from it. The villains are those who violate this code, lying, cheating, stealing, killing, and generally mistreating women. The public wants to see an end to the villainy, but is powerless to do anything until the hero comes along and reminds them of the code and the power that comes through its strict adherence in large numbers. He unites them under a common goal.
We live in much different times today. There are very few signs of any sort of code generally accepted by modern American society. People lie, cheat, steal, and mistreat women without any hesitation. It’s okay as long as you don’t get caught. Our celebrities go from partner to partner, as if they’re climbing some invisible ladder that takes them to greater fame and fortune. These are our heroes. The only thing that unites us as a culture is our love of money and thirst for fame.
Joseph Campbell speaks of this,
[…] Another reason for the high level of violence here is that America has no ethos. […] In a culture that has been homogeneous for some time, there are a number of understood, unwritten rules by which people live. There is an ethos there, there is a mode, an understanding that, “we don’t do it that way.” […] But in America we have people from all kinds of backgrounds, all in a cluster, together, and consequently law has become very important in this country. Lawyers and law are what hold us together. There is no ethos. […] What we have today is a demythologized world. (The Power of Myth, 10)
That is what I love about Westerns and the old West. It was a time when America was united under a common ethos, a common code. There were living heroes back then, like Wyatt Earp, who lived by this code as best as humanly possible and defended it to their death. We live in a society with very few heroes. Children have no one to look up to but those faces they see on TV or at the ball game. The family as a unit is failing constantly and children are left to come up with their own ethos, their own code of values.
I was raised by two parents who gave me an ethos very early on. They taught me how to recognize true heroism in a society without heroes. They taught me what was truly important in a society, and more importantly, in my own life. As I watch these Westerns, I am reminded of this ethos, and as I continue on that inward journey of self-discovery, I find more and more that the qualities I value most in a person and in myself are those same values possessed by the Western Hero. He has become a part of my subconscious and the more I try to grow, the more he surfaces.
A society needs heroes. A society needs myth. A society needs an ethos. Without them, it will fail. Every member of a society is on his or her own journey of self-discovery. Without heroes to anchor us to a common ethos, I fear what will come out of the subconscious. More than this, I fear the fruits of such a society.
Tags: Articles, clint-eastwood, code, ethics, heroes, joseph-campbell, society, western
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