volume 1
YEAH...WHY NOT...
by Maureen Herman
Back to Volume 1
A few weeks ago I was supposed to be on a plane to Portugal to play at a festival
with my band. Instead I was making plans to drive to Minneapolis, get my equipment
and quit rock and roll. I had been in the band for four and a half years. Now,
like a punch line after a long and involved joke, the time had finally come.
We were supposed to make a lot of money at the show: that was part of the problem.
That was the only reason we were going and the only reason we did anything
anymore. I couldn't remember the last time I had enjoyed music either as a
player or a listener. It had been far too long. Warner Bros. and the rest of
their dysfunctional family had chewed up all the good parts, leaving only the
greedy, ugly parts exposed. I was quitting this supposedly cushy creative outlet
to immerse myself in a lifestyle of uncertainty and poverty; I wanted to be
a writer and I couldn't wait any longer.
Still, I wondered if I was crazy, giving up this lifestyle which so many people always told me I was so lucky to have. Then I would think about all the nights on the road and the endless routine. How many hours had I spent alone in my hotel room watching Gil1igan's Island reruns wondering if I'd ever accomplish anything that was important to me. Backstage beer addicts and fourteen-year-old hangers-on had been the company I'd kept, not to mention the constant presence of my two bandmates whose sight and smell I'd long since begun to detest. The most intelligent conversation I'd had at our previous show consisted of a girl asking me what I would do if my bra strap fell down mid-song.
I'd always wanted to be a writer. I had recently had some things published, but I felt it was mostly because I was in the band. Could I actually do this? Could I make a living doing something I loved? I knew I needed and wanted to go back to school to work on writing. I called Columbia College, my old stomping grounds and discovered time was on my side. It was the last day of registration and the class I wanted was open. A month shy of thirty, I was still a freshman, though I felt like a haggard old woman who'd seen the bottom of too many glasses and the inside of too many airports. Was I too old to go back to school and accomplish this?
I jumped in, though coming back was stranger still. Having been both a former employee and student at Columbia College, I'd left both to join the band. I was scared that I was retreating back to the past. It seemed like I was starting at zero. The day of first class I was on the EL train hurtling towards Chicago. It seemed like I was going to Columbia like I had so many years ago. Had nothing changed? Suddenly, it struck me how final my choice was.
Then I thought of the person I was before. What about all I had seen, the people I'd met, the places I'd been? All that was inside me now. There were some shining moments like meeting my relatives in Germany for the first time. I had seen the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam. I had met famous people from all walks of life as well as extraordinary nobodies in small rural towns.
One special person I'd met came to mind as he had just died the week previous: the one and only Timothy Leary. I met him on our Lollapalooza tour, a traveling rock festival in the summer of '92. I forget who introduced us, but I do remember seeing his leathery outstretched hand, the vivid green, blue & yellow swirl pattern on his vest, and his amazing, shining blue eyes. They were the kind of eyes I hope I have when I'm 72 years old. They were bright & young, wise & wild all at once, almost as if they didn't belong in the head of a person his age; like he'd gotten a transplant or something.
Right away he talked excitedly, bursting with enthusiasm. He struck me as a wild child prodigy trapped in a geriatric body. He spoke enthusiastically about music, telling me that bass guitar (which I played) was his favorite instrument because it infused melody and rhythm. Then he screwed up his face and started playing air bass guitar, with his voice low and dirgey. His witty and inviting sense of humor cut through all the nervousness I felt and we laughed. Weeks later, as the tour wore on, I went down to the hotel bar to find Tim sitting alone with a glass of wine. Not knowing whether or not he wanted to stay that way, I sat down a little away from him. Suddenly, I heard him yell, "What are you doing? Get over here!"
We talked about many things: being on the road, crappy hotels, death, the sad sound of cellos, life, and how long it would take the grass to grow back at the Lollapalooza sites. Towards the end of the tour he came up to me and thanked me for never asking him about LSD or the sixties. He said I was one of the few people on the tour he'd had a real conversation with and that I was a good listener. I felt like I'd won the emotional equivalent of the Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes: Timothy Leary, the intellectual giant, had paid me a compliment.
With my life twisted around I thought of him and where he ended up after leaving the comfort and prestige of Harvard. He left school for a wild and full life; I was going back to school for the same. He had showed me that happiness could be achieved if you let go of the safe and familiar to follow your true path. Though many would object that being in a rock band was safe or familiar, for me to stay would have been just that--I would have stayed out of fear of not making it as a writer. Now I could see Chicago stretching out before me like a book I hadn't had time to read for four and a half years. It all seemed possible and new again I smiled and thought of Tim Leary's last words from his death bed, "Yeah...why not...." Through all the layers of time, space, and feeling, I sense he is telling me something. I want him to know I'm still a good listener.