Trying to write a review of a really good documentary
Or: another example on why I should start writing with intention, a plan
We romanticize the artist, do we not ? But wait. I mean we do, but they have to earn. They have to have had success, even if only posthumously. They can live in squalor like a Van Gogh, as long as we worship them after. Or they can be a John Murry, a musician most of us haven’t heard. But even in that relative obscurity, he has a discography, can get a gig with his guitar, have a documentary made. Just like Sugarman. And they found The Confederacy of Dunces after John Kennedy Toole killed himself. But these are all known. Artist as troubled. Artist as addict. But indubitably artists. But what of the person unpublished, the singer-songwriter whose songs are still in spiral bound notebooks, songs only ever hummed in showers. The poet that threw their words around, in drunken conversations, scrawled notes, digital postings. Do they qualify?
As an O’Brien, even five generations removed, I feel branded as Irish. So I fall down rabbit holes and google Irish films. And a list comes up. I try to pirate but most aren’t even available there. So I write an email with a list of titles to remind myself. But one nags at me. The graceless age: the ballad of John Murry. The compelling of the title compelling. Yes, there is a siren song that calls me back again and again to google. And there it is, available on Hoopla. But my local library isn’t a member. And did I do this all before, this seems all too familiar, this disappointment at a library. I have a thought. Perhaps long ago while in the city, did I sign up there? I look through the wallet, and I do not find a city library card but there is one that we had to acquire in rehab to use the library’s computers. And that valley town, they subscribe.
My narcissistic view of reality, everything whispering in my dialect, makes the film somehow about me. Starting in Ireland, returning to Tupelo, (my son and I stood outside Elvis’s home shack, just as John and his daughter do) ending, somehow in Canada. Are there not enough gossimar connections?
Oh wait. I meant to write about the film. The graceless age: the ballad of John Murry, is a dialogue with the past by the artist opening himself up to the future. I guess it is about his music. Or Faulkner. Or Mississippi. Or record producers. Or family. Or addiction. Or trauma. Perhaps, no not perhaps, it is, the film is, a melange of all of that. And it follows the arc of redemption and growth. Beautifully dropping in the details in a switchback timeline of recollection.
Allison wrote me an email. Titled: Request. Somehow she thought it ominous, and maybe she knows my anxiety too well, or maybe it was a comment thrown out to be the pause between title and question. The rehab town is celebrating a Recovery Day and she thought I might speak, like, ten minutes. It wasn’t a valedictorian speech. No was the answer. No, not me.
I have been mulling over it. Even thought of sending her a note saying “ if you REALLY need someone”. I will be there, anyways. And in my thoughts on the subject of the email I wondered what I would say? I am not one for war stories. It is hard to have war stories when you spent the war determinedly in a foxhole by yourself, conscientiously objecting to the notion of leaving the vagaries of your agnosticism.
Agnosticism can be, I think, more than just awaiting the proof of God. If it seeps too deep into the marrow does it infect the blood? Does it become anxiety and depression as you await proof of everything? Of belonging? Of worth? Of being wanted ?
Last night, at a zoom support group meeting, I mentioned the feeling of being free to act out when your parents are away. In this case, not my parents, half of them are dead, but my ex-wife having gone on a vacation with her boyfriend. That feeling, I am free, and your first thoughts are too excessively to excess? You understand this, right? Given the responsibility to take care of yourself your first thoughts are to extremes and dangerous doings, sneaking the car out without a license, or younger, rushing to buy junk food and binge, or, that thought, that this would be a perfectly good time to quietly get drunk and see if you miss it.
The facilitator’s advice was get a hobby. Get out. Do something. Only you are in control of your recovery. And I have heard that, heard it all before. I didn’t even have to argue as a younger one jumped in with all my buts and yets and excuses.
I’ve been feeling out of sorts. The pillars of my aftercare showing signs of cracking. Disengaging from some commitments. Some would say I am honouring my energy and some more positive spin. But we know from a litany of failure, past behaviour, that this is more a character defect.
I am still stuck. Stuck on the three words I said I lacked at the beginning of rehab, at the beginning of recovery out of rehab. Imagination, joy, hope. All lacking.
And I have heard it all before, said it to myself under my breath, in repetition in my head, just fake it, just do it, confront the fears, and if it is just ennui, just apathy, just that sense of anhedonia, just get over it. Nothing will change if you don’t change it yourself.
Do it.
Why are you not doing it ?
What is wrong with you ?
You ARE lazy. Useless. You just never try. We have told you over and over and over again. Why do you not just do it? Be something. Anything. The world is your oyster. Surely in this universe something must compel you, call … maybe you just aren’t listening.
ADHD. Good God. Stop looking for magic pills. It is you. Just you.
Allison wrote me an email. Titled: Request. Somehow she thought it ominous, and maybe she knows my anxiety too well, or maybe it was a comment thrown out to be the pause between title and question. But I keep thinking on it. What would I say?
I think I would talk of the importance of why in recovery. How is easy. One day at a time. Where; is dependent on availability. Who; are the resources that would be at Recovery Day, the community organizations ready to help. When is dependent on why.
Why is the why important? Because if you are a young person being sent away more damage can come than anything else. Check out The graceless age: the ballad of John Murry for a terrible example. Because if you are giving it up, whatever it might be, for someone else, or at the request of love, that might not be enough. Probably will not be. Could be. Everyone is different after all.
Why give whatever up? What is it you imagine that new potential to be ? And remember, the why can change, morph, as the recovery takes hold. The compass can flicker and your true north might have moved longitude, even latitude, damn, could be attitude. We need to always hold the why, like a pebble in our hand, rotating in anxiety, a worry-bead, or an ice cube grounding us in the mindfulness of this moment.
And not knowing is better than knowing but knowing it is for the wrong reason. Not knowing still provides you the space to find out. And maybe it will be a positive, and maybe you will decide, of your own volition, of your accord, for reasons others will never know or comprehend, maybe you will decide that there is no valid why. Obviously that is a shame for all the others around and about. So yes, not knowing has an inherent danger. But it is a visible danger that I suspect has less shame.
None of this is what I meant to say. I was reviewing The graceless age: the ballad of John Murry.
Did I say I say I have found a new musician I like, that his voice is better in the recordings than in the film, in my opinion. His lyrics are the same, they do not change. And I am on his youtube page and he has too few subscribers. 662. But it could be more. Someone could have read this paragraph and gone and hit that bell, as they are wont to say. This paragraph might cause a rolling snowball of a stampede to JohnMurryOfficial to sign up and subscribe. Stranger things surely have happened.
So, John in The graceless age: the ballad of John Murry keeps quoting Faulkner and I almost, nearly, decided to stop the film and copy them down, as they resonated too well with me. Maybe I need to put aside Walker Percy as my favourite Southern writer and give Faulkner a try. I would have to take up reading again.
I did stop the film. And rewind. And pause and start and pause again, and dutifully type out a quote. But it was something John himself said.
“I used to feel I owed some sort of debt. I guess I do, in some sort of spiritual way. I sincerely believe that in order for the world to be a better place, there have to be some people in it who give more than they take away. There have to be people who bleed a bit more than they draw blood. There aren’t that many.” (John Murry)
Want to hear him? Some (in the film) say this is the best of his best:
I loved your sharing about an artist that many people don't know about. It is so awesome when people promote other artists!