How rehearsing your history can kill the lying rat inside your brain
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i watched the
beatles on the ed sullivan show with my
father
on february 9 1964.
my father loved the beatles and a boy
loves what his father loves
i write about a hundred songs a year i
finish one
every three days yes that’s too many no
i can’t stop
but not too long ago i was typing a
lyric and i typed the phrase
the united states of america and by
mistake i
typed the united states of amnesia
that’s cool i thought i had discovered
something
only to discover that gore vidal had
coined that phrase back in the 70s
and i quote we are the united states of
amnesia
we learn nothing because we remember
nothing the more things change the more
they stay the same
and then they can tell us who we are and
they can tell us
where we’re from and they can tell us to
whom
we belong
and then they can sell us stuff that we
don’t really want or need and deliver it
to it
to us within the hour and then they can
tell us what to
think and who to vote for
rehearsing your history can help combat
that
assault what are the causes well
there are many i suppose we’re a very
mobile society we move from place to
place and if you don’t quickly
reestablish yourself
you’ll quickly disappear then there’s
technology we’re
staring at these screens all day every
day and they call it stuck in the
eternal present
where there’s no future and there’s no
past and
we’re bombarded by two and a half
million ads
every year and then there’s the ticker
at the bottom of the tv screen that
alerts us to the latest crisis
and quite frankly it’s just
easier sometimes to forget than it is to
remember but we forget at our own
peril
yes now that’s the view from
30 000 feet let’s get down to the street
level where you and i live
if i were to tell you about my songs i
would tell you about the 2300 songs that
have not been recorded
not the 200 some odd that have been
recorded i would tell you about the what
was i thinking songs the how could i
have been so crazy songs i wouldn’t tell
you about the hits
why well i guess it’s because i have a
very
negative critical view of myself maybe
it’s
um maybe it’s i have a sad sac
disposition maybe my mother told me it’s
impolite to brag on oneself
maybe i’ve mastered the art of
self-deprecation
maybe my protestant guilt and shame
overwhelms me with self-loathing
whatever it is i have a wildly
inaccurate view
of myself now that’s me
then there’s the other guy the guy that
tends to whitewash his
past the the politician that exaggerates
his record to such a degree that
he would know a fact from a lie if it
hit him square in the face with a shovel
it’s the
braggart at the cocktail party that you
forgot to avoid
you have to decide which camp that
you’re in
but the result of both these
catastrophes
is that we end up believing lies and not
the truth
and lies tend to lead us to isolation
and loneliness and amnesia
yes remembering your history can help
combat that assault
if you don’t know where you’ve been my
friend you’re not going to know where
you’re going i draw a distinction
between
history and memory and that memory can
be a work of fiction history is actually
a fact it may have to be corroborated by
others but it still is a fact
let me tell you why rehearsing my
history was so healing and helpful to me
i want to tell you about my father my
father was a steel salesman he was a
ukulele strumming piano playing steel
salesman he was a wonderful father he
was a
wonderful husband he was challenged at
times with depression and
could be troubled at times but aren’t we
all
i had a fairly idyllic life i thought at
age
10 my father and i went roller skating
early one saturday morning and
he fell and broke his arm my mother took
him to the doctor’s office to get a cast
and 50 opioids and
he was hooked right then and right there
he needed more and more and he gained
the system and
my mother had to take him to the
sanitarium which was really like a rehab
and then she covered for him with his
bosses
while he was gone and took him around on
the sales calls when he got back and
it took a while and he recovered
until he didn’t
uh it was a again a fairly normal life i
thought
for the next 12 years now it’s 1975 and
my father is retiring from u.s steel
with a gold watch and a 45-year pin
and my sister was getting married and i
was graduating from college it really
should have been the best of times it
was in fact the worst of times
it started an 18-year slow-motion
suicide ride of
depression and addiction in hospitals
and doctors and shock treatments and
terrible
terrible nursing homes
miraculously and i mean miraculously my
father recovered the last three years of
his life it was
it was it was a miracle and
um our fellowship was restored and his
faculties returned and
it was it was a joyous time he
ultimately died of cancer
in 1996
i thought that i had made peace with
that quite honestly
but over the next few years when i would
see a picture of my mother and father
holding hands
i’d pass the mcdonald’s he loved big
macs i’d see somebody chewing gum
he he loved free dent he had dentures
i’d
i’d hear me and bobby mcgee he loved
christopherson
there he was just drifting in this soft
georgia wind and he was saying something
and i couldn’t quite make it out
he kind of had a half smile but there
would be this
overwhelming sorrow that would take over
and i thought well
maybe that’s just the way it is with
fathers and sons one of you is a son of
a and the other’s a son of a gun
at the same time my life had moved on i
married the love of my life and
i had three children i experienced some
success with music
had a few accolades made a little money
i had some good friends and
and then i developed this unrelenting
overwhelming sense of a burning ambition
it was it was it was unhealthy it was
driving me
crazy with great anxiety do more
accomplish more
be more successful like a rat on a wheel
just dancing faster and faster and
ultimately there was a convergence
between the grief for my father and this
unrelenting unhealthy ambition and i
guess i finally surrendered and i did
what a writer does i just sat down and i
wrote about it
i opened up my black and white
composition book
and i was shocked
like poison spilled out on the page onto
the table
onto the hardwood floor let somebody
else clean it up
i was furious at my father
for giving into the addiction and the
chaos that he had sown in our lives i
was angry at my mother for giving up on
my father
the greatest anger and fury was directed
towards myself
because i hadn’t advocated for my father
like i should have
the medical system failed him
but i still couldn’t put my finger on
this unrelenting
burning ambition that i had it just made
no sense but
as i gave myself to the process and
wrote more and more
trying to connect the dots there it was
hiding in plain sight
my ambition was tied directly to trying
to redeem my dead father’s reputation
20 years after my father died i’m still
trying to make you
think better of my father
i thought if i was successful enough i
could convince you of that
it’s insane i know but
there it was it was in black and white
and on the paper and honestly
i felt a great sense of relief once i
had it there and i could call it by
its name whatever it was and
i could start kind of working my way
through it and i’m still working my way
through it i guess
but the shackles on my ankles started to
become loose and i could regain my
equilibrium and
and then then i literally had this
epiphany
the epiphany was i i saw my father
dancing on the streets of heaven
and he was saying my son tell your son
i’m a new creation let it go
and i’m trying to let it go but my
friends
it’s almost as if we live in a culture
that tries to dismantle us
and a recollection of ourselves it’s
about as clear as a muddy
river
rehearsing my history now back to you
i’m going to give you a mission possible
it’s fraught with difficulty but
most worthy endeavors in life are as you
know
i’m going to give you four steps to
rehearsing your
history step number one
you have to take an inventory of your
life
you have to find that broken place that
never got fixed the wound that never
healed it’s
it’s there in the closet in the back of
your mind on the
back in the left and it’s hanging next
to the skeletons
it’s covered with shame and guilt and
disappointment and despair
it’s it’s really pretty obvious
if i think if you’re looking for it it’s
that thing you’ve been trying to avoid
your entire life but it’s right there
waiting for you you have to take an
inventory of your life
step number two you have to dust it off
you got to walk in the closet of your
mind
you have to go back to where the
skeletons are you have to pick this
thing up and you have to drag it
into the light of day and throw it on
the sidewalk
and call it by its name for you and all
the world to see
this is honestly the hardest step but
i’m telling you it gets easier from here
and you can
do this and then you have to go to a
drugstore and you have to get a black
and white composition book and a yellow
number two pencil
you have to sharpen the pencil really
really sharp
because the pencil and the paper are
amnesia killing machines there’s
a there’s no screen involved don’t get
freaked out it’s a tactile experience
you just have to write
step number three you have to open up a
vein
metaphorically so open up your black and
white composition book
and at the top of each page sight sound
smell
taste touch motion pat pattison calls
that sense bound writing
you want to describe this thing whatever
it is
in the most brilliant gory uh
intense micro details that you can
don’t worry about telling a story just
describe it the narrative will actually
reveal itself to you
as you as you describe it it’s magic the
way it comes to life
don’t worry about getting it right just
get it written
then step number four you have to gather
some friends and i know what you’re
thinking i don’t have friends
like that well
you’re gonna need friends to go forward
what is a friend a friend is someone
that always lets you in never let you
down that’s what tim keller says
why not your family because you don’t
get to choose your family you get to
choose your friends and they choose you
they love you for who you are
and for who you’re not
and then you need to drop the needle on
the vinyl and play a couple of songs
that are
the soundtrack of your life it will help
your story come to life
and they say we should all cry once a
week so
cry your story pantomime it whisper it
throw a tantrum
whatever you have to do get the story
out don’t even worry about telling it
correctly you’ll tell it incorrectly but
your friends
your community will help you correct the
false narrative
and then here’s the best part out of the
fog and the mist and the amnesia
stones of history will emerge
as the lies drift away on like ashes on
the wind the stones of your history from
where you’ve been to where you’re going
from your past to your future leaving
this thing
behind that you have finally started to
deal with
and you can get kind of get on with your
life
rehearsing your history was valuable and
helpful to me and maybe it will be to
you
i have a silver mint julep cup
it says june 1st 1994
tom douglas little rock bmi
when your song goes number one they give
you lots of cool stuff
i presented this silver mint julep cup
to my father
as a symbol of our achievement it was as
much his as it was
mine and he showed it to every nurse
doctor and orderly that came in his
nursing home room
until the day he died rehearsing my
history led me
to this song
i’m about the age that he was
second time he got sick
[Music]
and retired with a gold watch
tick tock tick he had faith in the
doubts
working out his salvation me i’m trying
to live up
to my father’s reputation
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i’m the son of a salesman i got
two-thirds of his name
the first one is able
the second one came he got lost between
hank williams
and the book of revelation me i’m trying
to live
down my father’s reputation
and love is complicated between a father
and a son
wanna use the son of a and the
other
is a son of a gun but every song i
ride in every fight i fight i resist
the cruel temptation to redeem
my father’s reputation
but i carry it on
and i carry the name
and i hear his voice
in the drops of the rain
won’t you come home
bill bailey and he left me some songs
and an old ukulele
and every song i write in every fight i
fight i have a greater appreciation
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for my father’s
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reputation
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so
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you