THE MOMENT THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING: AN EXERCISE IN SELF-DECONSTRUCTION

ROCK ‘N ROLL GROUND ZERO

Have you ever wondered what it really is that makes you, you? Each of us is consciously or unconsciously aware that there are moments we experience that possess a disproportionately high degree of influence on our lives and that transform who we become as individuals, but do we ever invest the time and mental horsepower to even attempt such an exercise in self-deconstruction? Until very recently, I never had.

The idea initially surfaced earlier this year when I was reading Robert Brockaway’s magnificent book, “The Unnoticables.” I won’t belabor things with a plot summary, but one of the central conceits surrounds the notion of individual personalities emanating from a few, or even one, critical moment. As he states, “Take your personality, who you are and begin to feed it back through moments, experiences, years and whole lifetimes and eventually you’ll find the source. Maybe it’s like trains, there’s always a Grand Central, you just have to find it. It all comes from that one moment. Paths upon paths – an infinitude of images tracing ghost routes across your lifetime.”

I was attracted to this idea and filed it away in one of my many overstuffed, disorganized mental folders and went on with things. However, I found that the idea began to creep out on its own volition and occupy my thoughts to an increasing degree, so when I began my long drive to Washington I finally had plenty of time to devote to plucking on the threads of my personality in search of that one moment. The moment, as Brockaway says, “upon which my life hinges – so many experiences, so many connecting points, the ensuing sequence of life could not go in any other direction.”

After nearly two months of mental diligence plumbing the depths and deconstructing experiences and moments, I was finally able to locate my Grand Central.

YOU ARE IN MY VISION

When I was a little kid every Saturday night, me and my best pal John had a mission – to stay awake and watch “Saturday Night Live.” I’m not entirely certain where this desire came from – likely from John’s much older brother who we idolized and always talked about how hilarious the show was. I am certain now that being as young as we were, we could not have understood, let alone appreciate the sophistication of the humor, but damn it, every Saturday night there we were, giving it our all. Yet, try as we would, we rarely achieved our mission. We would fall fast asleep well before 11:30PM and then awake bleary-eyed somewhere in the early morning hours to ask one another if we were able to catch any of the show.

However, on Saturday February 11, 1980 all of that changed and, as it happens, so did the rest of my life.

It was identical to every other Saturday night preceding it with me and John hunkered down on the sofa with Cokes and other sugary treats to keep us awake. Nevertheless, it had been a long day playing at the lake and I felt myself fading out somewhere around 10:30.

My recollection of this moment is as sharp now decades later as it was when I awoke nearly 2 hours later to see John crashed out and then cast my gaze to the TV to see some guy from another planet playing strange, but enchanting music I had never heard or even thought could exist. I didn’t know it, but it was Gary Numan playing “Cars” and I was completely mesmerized – so enthralled that it didn’t even occur to me to wake John. So much so that, I was wide awake when he came back to perform, “Praying to the Aliens” and completely, unequivocally and indelibly blow my little mind. I was paralyzed with such sheer exhilaration that I was completely unable to feel the entire trajectory of my life shift. But it did.

PRAYING TO THE ALIENS

I could barely think about anything else the next day as my mind was exclusively set on doing two things – First, to find out who this mysterious alien was and, equally important, tell everyone I knew about how amazing this music was. My best shot, I knew, would come at school on Monday.

This was, of course, a pre-Internet age, so there was no Googling things. To make matters worse, I was working with very little identifying information and further stymied by only possessing an elementary school level of verbal communication. In fact, I was simply reduced to single words and phrases like “Cars,” ‘Praying to the Aliens,” and “Saturday Night Live.” I asked Terry Stewart first since he was the cool, popular kid. He was baffled, but to his credit he did offer up “Do you mean, The Cars? My brother has their record, “Candy O.” And so it went – getting blank looks while being a general annoyance.

My enthusiasm completely blinded me to the extremely severe social faux pas I was unwittingly making. You see, I was born with a rare bone disease where my legs were effectively backward. While corrected, I still had one leg much longer than the other and wore prosthetic shoes. It was only for a time, but long enough to have been given the label of “crippled retard” a year or so earlier. While it had blown over once I returned to wearing regular shoes, by lunch period on that Monday, I was now “the crippled retard who worships aliens.” Assuredly, being a big Star Wars fanatic likely didn’t help matters. If that wasn’t bad enough, I still had no idea who this guy on SNL was.

I WAS IN A CAR CRASH OR WAS IT THE WAR?

Shortly after this, I was run over and nearly killed by a driverless car. It’s a story for another day, but I ended up in the hospital for about 6 months in a body cast. My leg was shattered and my arm about cleaved off, but I could not stop fixating on what I’d seen. Finally, John was, via his older brother, able to provide me the intel – His name is Gary Numan and the record was called “Replicas” and he is putting another one out with the song “Cars.” Sweet! I knew I had to get out of this hospital soon and get those records. And I did.

Strangely, as I was healing something else was occurring at school, something I was completely oblivious to. There was talk now about the crippled kid who worshiped aliens who was hit by a car. “Wasn’t he just going on about cars?” There was a little mystique, albeit very little, being generated. By virtue of my condition, I had been perceived as a bit of an outsider, now I had become a bit of an interesting outsider.

When I was released from the hospital, I was in a partial body cast, on crutches and still not in school. One day, Marci Webber, a girl from school came to visit me. I found this very strange as I had never really spoken to her, but I thought she was cute and here she was at my house. She brought me the Rocky II Fotonovel (which I still have) and we sat together on my front lawn reading and looking at the pictures. It was the first time a girl had ever shown any interest in me. I was, however, wise enough not to mention anything about Numan or Star Wars and just enjoy this wonderful moment. Shortly thereafter Kelly Barnes asked me to couples skate with her at the roller rink and held my hand while doing so. It was then, I began to understand how this “mysterious, strange music-liking outsider” thing may be an advantage with the fairer sex.

LET’S TEAR THIS DAMN PLACE UP

Soon enough I healed up and was able to begin, what would turn out to be, a lifelong passion for music. I got my hands on Numan’s records and started to seek out other strange sounds as well as others who were equally captivated by them. By early adolescence I had transitioned, by way of music, from the awkwardness of elementary school to something of a unique individual, and hopefully still somewhat interesting. A couple of years later, me and my friends got ourselves a rental copy of Urgh! A Music War which served as the fuel to propel the rocket of my life further into the abyss. There were all manner of unimpeachable performances, but when I saw The Cramps doing “Tear It Up,” my life was galvanized. I signed the contract and sold my soul to rock n’ roll without bothering to read any of the fine print. The rest is?

Well, the rest is the rest of my life.

ME! I DISCONNECT FROM YOU

It’s interesting to think just how much impact seeing Numan on SNL so long ago has had on my life. I actually attempted to chart it with an Ishikawa diagram, but couldn’t manage it because it just got too unwieldy and convoluted. Nevertheless, that moment was the genesis of my love of music – the strongest string of “all of the strings hanging on other strings, wrapped around hubs, providing the entire network” of my personality and who I am. It’s the reason I began to play music and become a musician, one of the most important aspects of my life.

It opened my eyes to alternative thinking on art and, more importantly, life – the fact that one can create one’s own path that is different, perhaps transcendent. It made me realize that I did not want a life that would predictably unfold and that I wanted to write my own script.

It helped me realize that there is an “outsider” aspect to who I am and not only is that okay, but that I should embrace it – and I have.

The dystopian theme in “Replicas” ultimately attracted me to the authors that influenced it such as William Burroughs, Philip K. Dick and J.G. Ballard and, from there to, other unique, innovative and transgressive authors, artists and ideas that have profoundly influenced how I think.

Most importantly, it has formed the link to and basis of all of my most treasured friendships and relationships, including the one with my wife.

I could, of course, go on, but those are the rather large highlights – the end result of my exercise of self-deconstruction; my Grand Central.

Do there exist other moments like that? Of course, but not nearly as influential. When I ask the questions of” Who am I?” “What have I done in my life?” “Why have I done it?” and “What are the experiences that make me, me?” most of the answers, in some fashion, head back to that one moment in 1980 and its inestimable impact.

EPILOGUE

While it has been over 40 years since that fateful Saturday night, I still remain in awe of a couple of things. First, that I continue to be a huge Numan fan and second, that Gary is still actively making amazing music. In fact, he’s working on a new one right now, so check it out!

Most of all, it is an object lesson that music & art can, and does, literally change lives.

HOW ABOUT YOU?

Have you ever spent any time trying to find the moments that have impacted and influenced you the most? Have you located your Grand Central? If so, I’d like to hear from you.