Depeche Mode plays from my computer as I write. I’m listening, peering back into my youth, and at the same time, realizing my present. Depeche Mode is a band of musical continuum. The simple, almost childish lyrics featuring rhythmic melody in the beginning has grown into a full-fledged ensemble of emotion and purpose, keeping and strengthening its melodic enticement. Everything has its start, and persistence has its place as we and our favorite bands grow. Such is the story of Depeche Mode.
I’ve listened to Depeche Mode for over 20 years now. I love the music of that time, the machine of alternative thought. Some saw them as an open expression of an alternative world of choice and revelation. They have been crowned the grandfathers of Techno, and I can appreciate this, but I think of them as Alternative. You might not like Disco, but it had its place in the 70s much to the chagrin of Tom Petty, Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith. You might not like Techno or Alternative but historians will mark the 80s as the coming of ages for these bands that reached the masses with pulsating beats and dark and troubled themes.
Depeche Mode started out for me as a glimpse into a world I wanted so desperately to mix with. I looked for causes, trying to find meaning in my existence. The new wave, alternative/Techno revolution had grown from the early obscure machinations of bands like Joy Division, The Cure, Yaz, and the punk sound of a little band called U2. I looked for meaning in this wave of melody and found it. However, I always felt like someone else had turned me on to it. It wasn’t quite my own. I could identify with it but I was an outsider looking in, trying to fit. I didn’t know the depths of the music, the meaning of this wave, but I was hooked. The melodic temperament filled me with a tune that beat in my mind. It was the start of something new for me. Depeche Mode stood out because while they found me, I found them and I turned others on to them.
What I realized later was that the music, the melody, was the form I most identified with irrespective of the thoughts and ideas contained within. When I started to read and hear the words, I realized that I had found a voice that I could identify with, not to just merely fit it. Most of the music, transparent at a time in its synthesized sound captured a moment or thought. The thoughts were shallow and deep, lost in synthesized beats but identifiable in all of our lives that listened. “Black Celebration” was a dark, thought-provoking album that, to me, ushered in the new Depeche Mode. It dealt with death, “Fly on The Windscreen”, soul-searching, “Stripped”, all the while mesmerizing with beats and feeling. It was my first Depeche Mode album. It reminded me of The Smith’s “Meat is Murder”, a form of expression with a message, an evolution of consciousness.
Depeche Mode was all-English to me. The wave of justification and purpose, reaching out to others that felt the same way was intriguing to me. We all wore black, changed or continued with our alternative lifestyles and felt as if someone was saying what we all agreed with. As our voices became louder these bands took on a new dimension in music. The depression of the world going to shit was replaced by masses uniting across the pond and drifting into the U.S., a swelling change would take place. U.S. Grunge would be the anthem of the 90s, as we all grew older, still forming ideas all the while.
“Violator” and “Songs of Faith and Devotion” would continue the theme that I would later understand as the creator of Depeche Mode’s songs and my identification with it- the learning process of life. As I read in an article once, the makers of this fine music feel that the marathon is far more important than the sprint. Well put I might ad. Depeche Mode offers a discography that grows and evolves and needs to do that, just like life. As a life-long learner who knows he has not stopped growing and learning, Depeche Mode will always offer solace in knowing that what you heard has its importance but its effect on change is infinitely more important. A growing music, an evolving sense of it all – that’s what I love about Depeche Mode and identify most with it.
Now, I’m entering another phase of existence and the transforming melodies and lyrics ring old truths home as they did at a time when I was looking for my voice. That love I mentioned earlier has solidified into my memory and now is transforming into a love for this time in my life. Depeche Mode plays in the background securing its place in my life. Music and life evolve hand in hand in my life. Depeche Mode still conjures thoughts of what I wanted to be, what I became and what is yet in front of me. Many people laugh at the notion of Depeche Mode; The music too simple, the beats too melodic. But, a few of us know the truth - Depeche Mode is music for life, evolution, life-long learning and discovery. I pace myself in the marathon that is my life as Depeche Mode marks intervals along the raceway. I cannot see the complete work of art but Depeche Mode assures me one is there.
Writer's note: This blog was written as a HE said She said exercise. My dear friend Alex Suhkoy shared in this experience and in the intimate pleasures of the past concerning Depeche Mode. I would invite all of you to enjoy her tremendous article at:
http://www.alexsukhoytake1.blogspot.com/
Thank you Alex for all your inspiration.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Thursday, August 9, 2007
My Losing Season
Mr. Conroy,
I’ve just finished your book, "My Losing Season." In the inescapable clutch that my life has become I cannot help but grip your words and memories as if they were my own. I too, was a basketball player, having only reached the high school level and quite humbly, finding myself on the bench with the "Green Weenies." My athletic prowess loomed in my head, never showing itself to my coach and only occasionally to my teammates in a pick up game. We lost the championship my senior year, beaten by three man screens and a sharp-shooter named Simpkins. Our team was better than his was, but in no way did we have anyone who could match him.
I want to write Mr. Conroy. I’ve much to share, having realized this only now in the past months. If I may, I want to share a moment with you; a moment in my senior year, a bizarre series of events that lead to this moment I chose to represent the many years I spent as a young boy idolizing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, John Lucas, Dan Issell and Earvin Johnson.
As tradition would have it, our Senior Ditch Day was coming up and we made plans to escape to Mt. Charleston, north of Las Vegas. Both of my parents were educators and strong disciplinarians in their own right. As the day approached, I began to feel uneasy about my compliance to tradition and decided not to go. At least 4 members of my team did tempt fate, speeding down the slopes of the only snow within 100 miles of Vegas.
The school administration didn’t understand the need for Senior Ditch Day and like administrations past they calmly suspended the 4 members from our next home game. They were allowed to practice but they couldn’t suit up. It was a league game against a lesser-skilled opponent, but one that might be in jeopardy now that all of our leading scorers and our tandem of six-four big men other teams came to fear would be absent.
The coach put me into that game at the start of the second period: a reward of necessity and a nod of desperation, even though we were ahead by at least 8 points. The play that would define, in my own eyes, the abilities I possessed began with a rebound I grabbed near the opponent’s free-throw line. I spun around the opposing player to my back that I had deftly blocked out. I then proceeded up the court dribbling with my left hand. I was right handed but knew early in my junior year that I needed a left to be competitive at all. I used this left-handed dribble as a trick to catch opposing players off guard as I switched to my much more confident right. The young boy in front of me assumed the crouch position in his defensive defiance of me getting by him. I dribbled a couple of times with my left, faked left, crossed him up and started to shoot by him with my favored hand. He staggered and did what most would do and widened his stance as he began to fall backwards and gave me his bladelike leg firmly into my thigh. I grimaced and was by him.
I don’t remember if it was the speed with which everything had happened once I rebounded the ball but there was only one man to beat. I had two players, organizing themselves on each side of the lane. Perfect, just perfect. One of the players was a first teamer, a junior who would repeat the mistake of his brother the next year. The other was a senior, a"Green Weenie" whose saving grace on this basketball team was that he was tall. I picked my spot and you know it well – right down the middle. I baited the opposing player to come out on me or I was going straight down his throat. Instinctually, as I had done from the time I rebounded, I dribbled with my right hand and looked straight at the "Green Weenie" loping down the left side of the lane. I saw his eyes grow to saucers and he knew this fellow bench rider was going to get him the ball. The player bit on my eyes and leaned in his direction. Without hesitation, I flicked the ball from my right hand to the junior first teamer. I had decided going up the court he was my man, my best chance at an assist or a shot, as they would be focusing on him. They weren’t because of my move (I like to think) and my no-look pass fell softly to him and then even more softly off the backboard and in for an easy two. I swooped to my right already hearing the clamor on the bench. I ran up next to my teammates, dressed out and not dressed out to the cheers of “Magic, Magic.” My coach, unlike Mel Thompson, didn’t appreciate the play, maybe even feeling slightly embarrassed that his bench warmer showed up the other team.
I tell this story to you now because I have a sense of that basketball season so long ago. I never had the gift or the talent to get out of my own neighborhood but for one play I was Magic. The seniors, sitting and resting almost too comfortably whooped and hollered and made me feel qualified to be a part of this team. I knew I wasn’t and cheering as hard and willing my team as hard as I did only forged the reality that this would be my only function that much more secure.
My teammates cried and wailed in agony that night we lost the championship. I tried to console my team but this was greeted with a “You don’t know how it feels, you’re a bench warmer.” I didn’t know how it felt for them, this was true. I realized I wasn’t good enough to lose that game. However, I knew how I felt in my own "Green Weenie" way. I recoiled back to my locker, beaten by the comment of the team I had wanted to become a part of ever since we were in grade school. I was ashamed to want to show them how important they were to me, how they helped me, in ways unknown to them, have a basketball history in a sport I would never again play competitively.
I sum up this recounting by understanding that my time will come as long as I’m prepared. I had prepared my whole life for that moment that would define my short and anemic career. Life is preparation and being able to perform when the time comes. That’s my lesson learned. I know it will serve me as I attempt to grapple with the thoughts that seem to be pouring out of me lately, to tame the expression onto paper. I have written my whole life in preparation for what lies ahead. If I never make it I can say that I wrote the man who strengthened my conviction to be prepared. The man who helped me, in ways unknown to him, to endure My Losing Season.
Thank you sir,
David Sherman
I’ve just finished your book, "My Losing Season." In the inescapable clutch that my life has become I cannot help but grip your words and memories as if they were my own. I too, was a basketball player, having only reached the high school level and quite humbly, finding myself on the bench with the "Green Weenies." My athletic prowess loomed in my head, never showing itself to my coach and only occasionally to my teammates in a pick up game. We lost the championship my senior year, beaten by three man screens and a sharp-shooter named Simpkins. Our team was better than his was, but in no way did we have anyone who could match him.
I want to write Mr. Conroy. I’ve much to share, having realized this only now in the past months. If I may, I want to share a moment with you; a moment in my senior year, a bizarre series of events that lead to this moment I chose to represent the many years I spent as a young boy idolizing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, John Lucas, Dan Issell and Earvin Johnson.
As tradition would have it, our Senior Ditch Day was coming up and we made plans to escape to Mt. Charleston, north of Las Vegas. Both of my parents were educators and strong disciplinarians in their own right. As the day approached, I began to feel uneasy about my compliance to tradition and decided not to go. At least 4 members of my team did tempt fate, speeding down the slopes of the only snow within 100 miles of Vegas.
The school administration didn’t understand the need for Senior Ditch Day and like administrations past they calmly suspended the 4 members from our next home game. They were allowed to practice but they couldn’t suit up. It was a league game against a lesser-skilled opponent, but one that might be in jeopardy now that all of our leading scorers and our tandem of six-four big men other teams came to fear would be absent.
The coach put me into that game at the start of the second period: a reward of necessity and a nod of desperation, even though we were ahead by at least 8 points. The play that would define, in my own eyes, the abilities I possessed began with a rebound I grabbed near the opponent’s free-throw line. I spun around the opposing player to my back that I had deftly blocked out. I then proceeded up the court dribbling with my left hand. I was right handed but knew early in my junior year that I needed a left to be competitive at all. I used this left-handed dribble as a trick to catch opposing players off guard as I switched to my much more confident right. The young boy in front of me assumed the crouch position in his defensive defiance of me getting by him. I dribbled a couple of times with my left, faked left, crossed him up and started to shoot by him with my favored hand. He staggered and did what most would do and widened his stance as he began to fall backwards and gave me his bladelike leg firmly into my thigh. I grimaced and was by him.
I don’t remember if it was the speed with which everything had happened once I rebounded the ball but there was only one man to beat. I had two players, organizing themselves on each side of the lane. Perfect, just perfect. One of the players was a first teamer, a junior who would repeat the mistake of his brother the next year. The other was a senior, a"Green Weenie" whose saving grace on this basketball team was that he was tall. I picked my spot and you know it well – right down the middle. I baited the opposing player to come out on me or I was going straight down his throat. Instinctually, as I had done from the time I rebounded, I dribbled with my right hand and looked straight at the "Green Weenie" loping down the left side of the lane. I saw his eyes grow to saucers and he knew this fellow bench rider was going to get him the ball. The player bit on my eyes and leaned in his direction. Without hesitation, I flicked the ball from my right hand to the junior first teamer. I had decided going up the court he was my man, my best chance at an assist or a shot, as they would be focusing on him. They weren’t because of my move (I like to think) and my no-look pass fell softly to him and then even more softly off the backboard and in for an easy two. I swooped to my right already hearing the clamor on the bench. I ran up next to my teammates, dressed out and not dressed out to the cheers of “Magic, Magic.” My coach, unlike Mel Thompson, didn’t appreciate the play, maybe even feeling slightly embarrassed that his bench warmer showed up the other team.
I tell this story to you now because I have a sense of that basketball season so long ago. I never had the gift or the talent to get out of my own neighborhood but for one play I was Magic. The seniors, sitting and resting almost too comfortably whooped and hollered and made me feel qualified to be a part of this team. I knew I wasn’t and cheering as hard and willing my team as hard as I did only forged the reality that this would be my only function that much more secure.
My teammates cried and wailed in agony that night we lost the championship. I tried to console my team but this was greeted with a “You don’t know how it feels, you’re a bench warmer.” I didn’t know how it felt for them, this was true. I realized I wasn’t good enough to lose that game. However, I knew how I felt in my own "Green Weenie" way. I recoiled back to my locker, beaten by the comment of the team I had wanted to become a part of ever since we were in grade school. I was ashamed to want to show them how important they were to me, how they helped me, in ways unknown to them, have a basketball history in a sport I would never again play competitively.
I sum up this recounting by understanding that my time will come as long as I’m prepared. I had prepared my whole life for that moment that would define my short and anemic career. Life is preparation and being able to perform when the time comes. That’s my lesson learned. I know it will serve me as I attempt to grapple with the thoughts that seem to be pouring out of me lately, to tame the expression onto paper. I have written my whole life in preparation for what lies ahead. If I never make it I can say that I wrote the man who strengthened my conviction to be prepared. The man who helped me, in ways unknown to him, to endure My Losing Season.
Thank you sir,
David Sherman
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Is Patience a Virtue?
I wondered aloud the other day about Patience. I felt that as an educator I would have personal knowledge of the necessity of this fine virtue passed down through time. They've been saying it forever, it must be true. And maybe it is. One thing I realized, as an educator am I the most senior representative of the Patience club? Of course not. Patience is practiced by us every single day. Out of all the virtues, known and forgotten, it has to be virtue most woven into our daily lives.
Patience is spread all around us. As equally successful as Patience is, sister Impatience has become a rival to be reckoned with. We practice impatience on a daily basis too. Do we seek a balanced diet of Impatience and Patience? Or, control of the virtue? We would always side with Patience because it's the only virtue here really. As important as Impatience is in our everyday life, it's not a virtue. If I'm going to practice something, it should be virtues.
Which begs the next question. Well, who says virtues are to be practiced and who decides if they're practiced well enough or to some success indicator? Isn't mastering them not thinking about it everyday? I mean, we are who we are. Is Patience the most important virtue? Is it a virtue at all? Is it woven, itself, into other virtues? Questions, questions, lets get some answers.
Some would argue that Patience isn't a virtue and should be spelled with a lowercase p. The four virtues known commonly among man are: Justice, Courage, Wisdom and Moderation. This, in and of itself, is up for debate as well. Others believe: Fortitude and Justice, Temperance, Prudence. Nowhere is Patience mentioned? I thought though, "patience is a virtue." I've heard that all my life. Really believed it. Well, maybe I can make patience one of my virtues. I mean, I've been practicing it a long time and would hate to give up on it! I want credit for practicing it somehow, I don't know how. Possibly give me credit towards another virtue. Transfer of virtue credit would be the answer.
Before I lead you down the road of making a mockery of virtues, which ones are important, what gets to be a virtue, think about your virtues. What virtues do I practice? I thought I was practicing one but I just found out it wasn't a virtue. Can I get credit towards another virtue? I wonder if I'm practicing virtues and didn't know it? Is trying not to cry everyday I go to work a virtue? Would that be temperance? Can I get credit towards temperance?
In the end, what do we do? I want to create a poll that shows some definitive answers. Then my poll data will be interpreted as the Definitive Virtue Data or dvd. Not to be confused with the other dvd which, well, we all know what a dvd is. Do we have our own virtues? Or, "Our virtues are defined by our faith." Once the results pour in I will tabulate the winner. There are only winners when it comes to virtues. So, keep practicing Patience and who knows, maybe you'll get credit for it one day.
Patience is spread all around us. As equally successful as Patience is, sister Impatience has become a rival to be reckoned with. We practice impatience on a daily basis too. Do we seek a balanced diet of Impatience and Patience? Or, control of the virtue? We would always side with Patience because it's the only virtue here really. As important as Impatience is in our everyday life, it's not a virtue. If I'm going to practice something, it should be virtues.
Which begs the next question. Well, who says virtues are to be practiced and who decides if they're practiced well enough or to some success indicator? Isn't mastering them not thinking about it everyday? I mean, we are who we are. Is Patience the most important virtue? Is it a virtue at all? Is it woven, itself, into other virtues? Questions, questions, lets get some answers.
Some would argue that Patience isn't a virtue and should be spelled with a lowercase p. The four virtues known commonly among man are: Justice, Courage, Wisdom and Moderation. This, in and of itself, is up for debate as well. Others believe: Fortitude and Justice, Temperance, Prudence. Nowhere is Patience mentioned? I thought though, "patience is a virtue." I've heard that all my life. Really believed it. Well, maybe I can make patience one of my virtues. I mean, I've been practicing it a long time and would hate to give up on it! I want credit for practicing it somehow, I don't know how. Possibly give me credit towards another virtue. Transfer of virtue credit would be the answer.
Before I lead you down the road of making a mockery of virtues, which ones are important, what gets to be a virtue, think about your virtues. What virtues do I practice? I thought I was practicing one but I just found out it wasn't a virtue. Can I get credit towards another virtue? I wonder if I'm practicing virtues and didn't know it? Is trying not to cry everyday I go to work a virtue? Would that be temperance? Can I get credit towards temperance?
In the end, what do we do? I want to create a poll that shows some definitive answers. Then my poll data will be interpreted as the Definitive Virtue Data or dvd. Not to be confused with the other dvd which, well, we all know what a dvd is. Do we have our own virtues? Or, "Our virtues are defined by our faith." Once the results pour in I will tabulate the winner. There are only winners when it comes to virtues. So, keep practicing Patience and who knows, maybe you'll get credit for it one day.
What's Goin On?!
I 've made my first executive decision. I decided this would be the forum to vent, question, surmise just about anything I wanted to (and you as well). A forum of expression, regard and human dignity. Let's keep it real.
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