Hey Drummer, Drummer can you give me that beat…
A couple of articles in the New York Times opinion section caught my attention this morning and are worth sharing. The first has to do with J.J. Cale who passed away this year after a career that from most points of view ended in obscurity. Which shows, I think, that most points of view are myopic or worse – but Cale wasn’t all that interested in most points of view.
JJ Cale was one of the Delaney and Bonnie and Friends generation of musicians from Oklahoma who wandered out to California, said why do I want to be here when I can be at home, and returned to Oklahoma to produce, direct, and record. He did wander back to California, but stayed out of the spotlight, letting his music speak for him in a quiet, controlled and mesmerizing kind of way, influencing people as diverse as Lynard Skynard, Eric Clapton, John Meyer and Grace Potter. There’s a Cale groove in some of Dylan’s work these days and earlier. He’s not going anywhere, except deeper into the American psyche through other players.
The Times article addressed the problem of Cale as to “why he never became a star.” It’s fairly simple, I think – he didn’t care to do the things needed in the way of promotion and self-aggrandizement that seem necessary. Cale was not a flash of fiery brilliance like Clapton with John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers that resulted in instant cachet. He was a steady burn, influencing and exciting musicians and discerning audiences in a way that will outlast people who sold more records and made a lot more money.
The article tells a story of Cale’s invitation to be on American Bandstand. He said ok, got his band, climbed in the trucks and cars and drove from Oklahoma to LA. They got there and started to set-up, when the director came over and stopped them, telling them not to plug in their instruments because they were just going to play the record. Cale said something laconic like “Well we know how to play it, it will sound just like the record.” The director said something like, “No, you just need to lip synch it…” Cale said “I’m not going to do that,” and they started packing up the amps and the chords and the pedals and the instruments. Well, being a big corporation by this time, Dick Clark Productions panicked because he was supposed to be on the show and he wasn’t going to be on the show, and they called out the big gun, Mr. Clark. Clark raced downstairs from his offices and said, “J.J., your record will be number 1 after you play American Bandstand.” Cale politely said, “I don’t care about that,” and they drove off.
This illustrates in some ways that other examples might not the second article. The Times publishes articles weekly in a series called “The Stone” where contemporary philosophers reflect on issues of interest to them. This week’s piece by Texas Tech philosopher Costicas Bradatan, In Praise of Failure fits well with the story of JJ Cale. Bradatan indicates that failure is intrinsic to the human experience and that without failure, we would not be fully human and be limited in not only what we become but actually cut off from a lot of what we are.
Bradatan begins by reflecting on the role of failure in philosophy and points out that the philosopher and by extension, the practice of philosophy knows failure “intimately. The history of Western philosophy at least is nothing but a long succession of failures, if productive and fascinating ones. Any major philosopher typically asserts herself by addressing the “failures,” “errors,” “fallacies” or “naiveties” of other philosophers, only to be, in turn, dismissed by others as yet another failure…Failure, it seems is what philosophy thrives on, what keeps it alive. As it were, philosophy succeeds only in so far as it fails.” He then discusses three reasons why failure is significant in our thought, work and lives.
First of all , he says that Failure allows us to see our existence in its naked condition. When we fail, either dramatically or incrementally, we see the possibility of our own contingence. We really don’t have to be here, and without out our presence this debacle wouldn’t have happened. Contradicting Goethe who indicated that thinking being can’t reflect on the possibility of non-existence,” the experience of failure tells us that we really contingent on a lot of things –
Self-deceived as we are, we forget how close to not being we always are. The failure of, say, a plane engine could be more than enough to put an end to everything; even a falling rock or a car’s faulty brakes can do the job. And while it may not be always fatal, failure always carries with it a certain degree of existential threat.
Now, Sartre would respond that this is what makes existence nauseating, but Bradatan has a totally different perspective – while failure is the “eruption of nothingness into the midst of existence” we should see it as an indication that we are simply by existing a miracle. There is nothing pre-ordained about our presence. We are free to do that which we want in all areas because we really don’t have to be here at all.
In fact, Bradatan reflects that failure can be therapeutic – if we are honest with ourselves, we can see that we’re not the center of the universe, and that we’re just all bozos on this bus of existence. While he brackets the “most self-aware or enlightened” we are all if not poorly, sub-optimally adjusted to the reality we encounter every day. Failure might be a window into a different, more properly grounded future.
I find that somewhat optimistic. We are so overwhelmed with choice that the realization that what we’ve just done was a really bad idea doesn’t necessarily lead to us not doing that again. Education, awareness and technology allow us to keep making the same mistake again, blissfully assuming that the outcome will be different this time because, well, we’re different. We aren’t the problem – reality is. Our ability to ignore reality, to misunderstand it, to deny it gets us back into the mess we were originally crawling out of.
The next reason that he sees failure as philosophically significant is that “Our capacity to fail is essential to what we are.” Our ability to create rests on there being holes in what could be that we fill with our efforts. Some succeed, some fail but that’s due to our nature as evolving, imperfect and incomplete creatures. We are necessary as a species in so far as there is a need for continued motion; if perfection is achieved, then we’re not really necessary anymore. It’s in the gap between where we are – as individuals, as societies, as a species – and where we want to be and where we need to be that the possibility of the better exists. Steve Earle says it exceptionally well in his song, “I Ain’t Ever Satisfied” when he sings
Last night I dreamed I made it to the promised land
I was standing’ at the gate and I had the key in my hand
St Peter said, “Come on in Boy, you’re finally home”
I said “No thanks Pete, I’ll just be moving along.
Citing More’s Utopia as a reaction to what’s wrong as opposed to a blueprint for an ideal society, he goes on to say that the dreams of perfection are what keep us going. If we fail to seek something better, we will become victims of our own success. Should we achieve perfection and have nothing greater to strive for, well, as he says, “we may be something interesting but I am not sure we will have what to live for…virtually perfect and essentially dead.” Bradatan indicates that our ability to fail lies at the possibility of any achievement because if we couldn’t fail, we wouldn’t be here in the first place. Failure doesn’t just imply lack; it points to potential.
Finally, Bradatan says that “We are designed to fail.” This insight is really fundamental to the Western Philosophical and Religious tradition, although most of us might not initially see it that way. Our bodies, minds, energy and organs will all wear out someday. The essential question is not whether or not we’re going to die, but rather how to live with that in mind. He uses the model of The Seventh Seal where Bergman’s Knight is faced with Death in the guise of a man and challenges Death to a chess match. Death has nothing to lose because he will inevitably win, but the Knight knows that too. He’s not concerned about victory, he’s concerned about how he is going to lose. He is politely and resolutely refusing to go quietly into the good night. As Bradatan says, “He not only turns failure into an art, but manages to make the art of failing an intimate part of the art of living.”
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
From The Poems of Dylan Thomas
Which leads me back to J.J.Cale’s work and impact. I know there are things that he would have wished to have done better, or differently or not at all. But I think in his approach to music and to success, his failure to be a star was his existential success. Given a choice between being George Michael or himself, he chose himself...who needs a star on the Hollywood Boulevard?
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