Hero Worship

“After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music” – Aldous Huxley


Regular readers know that music (and all that it entails) is a favorite subject of mine. It touches us in so many ways. It doesn’t matter what type of music you enjoy; that you enjoy it is what’s important. It is one of only a very few things that has a truly universal appeal, and (cue ascending grandiose symphonic fanfare) I daresay it is, in the big picture, humankind’s crowning achievement. As I said, it doesn’t matter what kind you like. We probably won’t agree on artists, but hopefully we will on the art part and how it works for us. Besides, it’s my essay and it’s gonna go my way. So there.

When I was in the third grade, I got a birthday present that changed my life. It was wrapped in light blue paper, but I knew what it was before I opened it. I knew it was a record, an album, an LP. We weren’t even allowed to touch my parents’ LP records (I think they had less than 10), and here in my hands was ONE OF MY VERY OWN. I was, in a word, ecstatic. I didn’t even know who the artist was. It didn’t matter. It was mine.

The record turned out to be Alice Cooper’s “School’s Out”. I had never heard anything like it, ever. It was about as alien a thing as I could imagine, and I loved it. I played it continuously on a green plastic record player that had STEREO speakers on the sides when it wasn’t disguised as a suitcase (or something). It provided hours and hours of entertainment and, believe it or not, it expanded my vocabulary farther and faster than any book I’d read to date. I remember asking my mother what a “lifer” in a state penitentiary was. Good times.

My early discovery of Alice Cooper’s music might seem trivial and just plain dumb, but that’s OK, because I know it to be far more significant. Alice Cooper (the group, the image) touched my life in so many ways. As a young and impressionable pre-teen I found not just the music, but the entire spectacle really helped me to make sense of the world. How? For starters, in the third grade, where everything is either hilarious or devastatingly embarrassing, I was able to show my grandmothers pictures of Alice and the band, bathed in green light and serenading snakes. I’ll never forget watching them either squeal with revulsion or start away in disgust. I knew they’d hate it, and that’s what made doing it so (as Alice would say) delicious! I was closer to the people I loved, and Alice Cooper was the catalyst.

We eventually moved far enough away from grandparents that we didn’t see them nearly as often. My father worked for a grocery store chain as a buyer, and as you might guess, suppliers wanted to make my dad the buyer happy, so they offered a lot of different perks, not the least of which was the coolest thing EVER: free concert tickets. Yeah. If you were in high school in the 70’s, long before videos, concerts were the epitome of good times. With prices as high as seven dollars, free tickets were a godsend.

I was hanging around with a new friend (acquaintance, really) and some of HIS friends in the new city, and feeling rather out of place. I didn’t really know anyone, and I remember being stoned and part of a conversation that was as vapid as could be. I was just going to get up and leave when someone across the room mentioned Alice Cooper. Nobody there knew my dad could get free concert tickets, and it just so happened that I had tickets to go see Alice Cooper. I started talking to the guy, and in one of those awe-inspiring moments, I could see that like me, Alice Cooper had really touched his life. After just a few minutes, I told him about tickets, and he was just all cool with that, to put it mildly. It’s been thirty-plus years since that conversation started, and it has never ended.

I tell this story because I happen to be in Phoenix and I visited “Cooper’sTown” (I don’t think I have to say who owns it) sports bar and grill last weekend. I felt like a kid in a candy store, and I wished my buddy, the best friend I ever had was there so we could soak in the exquisite joy of being in the (sort of) presence of a shared idol. I could go on, but I’ll just say that I think I got what I went for. I got the chance to have a couple drinks, bought some trinkets, and I got to reflect for a bit on the idea of Alice Cooper having had a lifelong effect on me. I could probably write this essay for the rest of my life and still not scratch the surface of what I want to say.

Since I started this blog, my title and opening blurb have always acknowledged my admiration of the Alice Cooper thing. I have no greater tribute. Thanks to Vincent, Dennis, Glenn, Michael and Neal. You helped me scare my grandmothers and you helped me to know who my best friend would be. You guys rock.

We Rock

I had a couple different blurbs I was thinking about to go along with my Alice Cooper piece, but decided I would write a few words about Ronnie James Dio who died this week. My favorite description of him was “the little man with the big voice”. He was indeed small in stature, but he was immeasurably large in appeal. There are many who might not know who he was, but there are literally millions who do. Very few can claim such acclaim.

“…the less that you give, you’re a taker…”