Paul Simon

Paul Simon
(1972)

Paul Simon, the eponymous solo debut by Simon & Garfunkel mastermind Paul Simon (I say all this like you don't know who he is... *shakes head*), is the only album I can credit with having saved my life. In December and January of this past winter, Paul Simon preserved my sanity. I'll spare you the details and simply note that I was in a bad place. I was in a very, very bad relationship, and I was alone in Chicago for five weeks. There were three-or-four day stretches when I would not see even the hall outside my apartment door. These were not high times. I wrote an unprecedented amount of material in those five weeks; between the solitude and the ever-shifting emotional space I occupied, it was a prolific period, certainly. I threw myself as fully into my work as I ever have, and that was very rewarding, but the writing I did in that period was intensely personal, and required me to stare straight in the face of the very things which were tearing me apart inside. The only thing that brought me back at the end of each day, and every day ended with me frustrated, exhausted, and unable to stop thinking, was listening to Paul Simon as I fell asleep, night after night.

I often listened to it during the day, as well. I listened to it three or four times a day, on occasion, though I usually did my best to restrict the habit to once a night, when it was a balm, a salve to my sanity. During the day, it simply kept me from falling apart entirely. Any time I felt myself losing what composure I had, I put it on, and it would stop the bleeding, if only for a few hours. But, at night, laying in bed, with nothing to focus on but breathing and the music, it took on a healing power I've never found in any other music. Everything was alright, everything would work out, and I was going to survive this.

To be fair, I'd never been in as intense a situation as I was at that time, and, if Paul Simon hadn't been there, I'm sure I would have found something else. But it was there, and it was all I needed. I didn't have much else in the way of input during that time; television, movies, and all other music allowed my mind to wander, and I found it hard to focus. Books weren't even close to an option. I couldn't focus for a sentence. When I wasn't writing, I was probably listening to Paul Simon.

Not surprisingly, once that period was over, I didn't listen to it much. It wasn't a conscious choice, but there's no sense in arguing that I wouldn't have found the emotions attached to it overwhelming and unpleasant. It became a sort of talisman, a box in which I poured everything negative from that time, and I left it on the shelf, afraid to touch it, to disturb what was inside. I remembered the important role it played, but the music was lost in the shuffle. So to speak.

A little over a week ago, due to circumstances in my life which have brought the tail end of that chapter to a close, I listened to Paul Simon for the first time in eight months. Every note of it was still familiar to me, I could sing every word; it was almost as if the album had never left, but, this time, it wasn't serving a function. It was there to be enjoyed, not to be relied on. And I discovered, rediscovered, how truly amazing a piece of work it really is.

On a technical level, I'm only now really appreciating all there is to appreciate about it. It was a blanket before. Now it's a tapestry. There is a remarkable, subtle variety to the songs here; it was meant to be appreciated as a whole, and that shows, as the songs are all dissimilar yet still familiar with one another. Paul Simon's voice is calming, weary, withdrawn even; he wrote the album in the aftermath of a divorce, and the sadness, hurt, resolve, and real, true pain are all found throughout these songs, without ever being reduced to a cliche. He manages to dissect the pains of dissolved love with a combination of empathy and intelligence which many strive for, but almost none achieve.

I bought the LP today, as I've only ever heard it as mp3s. The fullness of the sound, and the details I could hear, as this thing which was so familiar and important to me took on a whole new beauty and quality, a whole new existence, almost brought me to tears. I can't recommend it enough.

Glenn Beck: Why Can't I Hate You?

To the left, you see Glenn Beck. Take a moment. Take it in. Those who may wish to may praise him, or, you know, vomit.

For those of you who do not know of Glenn Beck, he is a conservative pundit on television. Glenn Beck is the most recent to hit the popular stride, following in the hallowed path of Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh. Beck isn't quite as hard-lined right in his beliefs as his forefathers, but that's part of what I don't like about him; Much like Anne Coulter, you don't get the impression that Beck actually believes in what he's saying so much as he knows he isn't, and knows he'll get attention by loudly not being, a liberal. Like America during the Cold War, he's not defined by what he is, but by the fact that he's no commie.

Here's my thing about Glenn Beck: I want to hate him. In fact, I think a bit of me does. Most of me, even. What the hell? All of me. I hate Glenn Beck. I also hate Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh. I despise, on an even deeper level, Anne Coulter. But this is all irrelevant, because I can never tell them that. I can never say to Glenn Beck, "Glenn Beck, sir, I hate you." Even if, when you say it, it is a completely rational, thought out, well-contemplated notion, it does not matter. Because you cannot use words like "Hate" around Glenn Beck.

I should point out now, this is not meant to be a one-sided attack. I just don't know the names of any extremist liberal pundits. But, rest assured, I hate them too. But I still can't tell them.

Because using words of intense passion around men and women like Glenn Beck gives them an excuse. It gives them an excuse to say things like, "I told you so." If you react to their extremism with extremism, if you try to fight fire with fire, they throw their hands up, and they say, "Well, sir, if you're going to be irrational about this, and you're not going to be considerate and civilized, and give me the common courtesy of real conversation, I'm not going to take part in this." You have to remain right in the middle of the road, and uninteresting. If Beck riles you up, you are simply playing right into his hands.

If I say "Glenn, I really hate you," in many ways I am paying him the greatest compliment, and providing him with the greatest service, possible. And so I have to keep it all inside, where it can stew, and boil, and grow, until finally the day comes where I can't hold it in anymore, and I look Glenn Beck square in those beady little eyes of his, and I say, "Glenn Beck, I hate you." And on that day, he'll look at me and say, "See, I knew it, people like you just can't handle being disagreed with, can they?," and he'll have won.

That's why I can't hate Glenn Beck; because I really, really do.

It's Not T.V., It's HBO

I've recently found out about a television program, In Treatment, about a therapist, Dr. Paul Weston, and four of his patients. The concept of the show- therapist treating people may in fact need more help than any of his patients- is not a new one. And, while it has gotten tremendous reviews, those didn't serve to draw me towards it so much as they didn't push me away once I got closer. The reason I was drawn to the show, and I believe this is a first, is its format.

Episodes of In Treatment are thirty minutes long, and each episode spends the bulk of its time in a single session, with the patient corresponding to the day of the week. The show works in cycles of Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday episodes, with Paul playing the patient on Fridays to his own therapist. Well that's all fine and dandy, what makes this show so fascinating to me is that each episode, for the first season at least, was aired on its according day; In Treatment was aired once a night, every weeknight, for the nine weeks it took to get through all 43 episodes of its first season. You don't get that on network television.

And this is precisely why I think subscription channels like HBO are such a great thing. There is no doubting the freedoms provided as far as content goes, but that shouldn't be the sole focus anymore. In time, people will be saying "fuck" on NBC. They will. But, mark my words, a show that airs five times a week, once a night, that isn't a news program, would never see the light of day on any of the major networks, or on any channel that's a part of the basic cable package. Any network would, probably rightfully, look upon the decision to back such a program as commercial suicide. New shows that air once a week rarely pull the audience needed to recoup their expenses, let alone a show that airs every weeknight. With the subscriber system, HBO doesn't worry about ratings to bring in its money; this show was already paid for by non-viewers like you.

Not only is it a right of HBO to do shows like this, I think it is a necessity. Television is a relative young medium, but it has already seemingly run its course, as far as new ideas. There are occasional programs that seem to come out of nowhere, like the peerless Arrested Development, but, as its sad fate showed the world, fresh writing alone does not a hit make. Yes, shows like Lost, with its extreme story and requirement of total devotion to even have the slightest idea of what's going on, can be a bit refreshing, but even that is just a more extreme version of shows that have come before. Twin Peaks, anyone? Admittedly, In Treatment is not the first of its kind either; it is, in fact, an adaptation of an Israeli show called Betipul. That program is aired in exactly the same broadcast schedule, five nights a week. And I know some soap operas are aired daily, but In Treatment doesn't have a ridiculous narrative; it's quiet, it's real, it could happen.

For the second season, HBO has taken to airing "Monday" and "Tuesday" episodes back-to-back on Sundays, and then the "Rest of the week" airs on Monday nights, but I don't mind that. They gave the first season a chance to do something unprecedented on American television and I applaud it. The fact that they did it shows it can be done, and that there are still new presentational routes television can take, and this is necessary for its survival. The format of the first season of In Treatment serves as proof that HBO's motto is not only clever, but deserved.