Linebackers Drummers And Love

       Football. I love the game. The strategy. The physicality. The break downs and the analysis. Out thinking your adversary. The emotional power of the game. Mano a Mano. The nature of the sport reeks of masculinity. Which is one big reason guys love it. And also why a large number of women dig it too.
       At some point, I became more drawn to defense than to offense (special teams never did jack for me). As is my nature, I want to better understand that switch in preference. Because it could say something about me and about my development. Maybe not a lot, but you never know until you start digging. And I love to dig. When you dig, you usually discover. When you discover, you potentially become aware. And that awareness opens up the possibility for growth and transformation and a whole host of other goodies. All of that often starts from a little digging.
       Digging by myself is great, but I love to dig with other people too. I should have a bumper sticker that reads “Digs Well With Others”; meaning I will go on a deep dive with anybody who thirsts for self discovery and hence self creation. I believe the two are intertwined. But that is another topic altogether, and one I will tackle some other time. Back to football.
       At the Boston College Graduate School of Management, my Strategic Management professor, Hassell McClellan (one of my favorite teachers of all time) told me something that I’ll never forget. He knew I was a drummer, and one day he imposed this particular wisdom on me. He said, “There are two types of football players. There are football players…..and there are linebackers. There are two types of musicians. There are musicians….and there are drummers.” I got it. Immediately.
       Linebackers are animals. And I mean that in the best sense of the word. The best ones are aggressive, fierce, predatory. They play with a passion and an intensity that borders on the maniacal. They bring a barely controlled reckless abandonment to their play. Traditionally, more than any other position, on either side of the ball, linebackers set the emotional tone of the game.  
       Have you ever seen a great drummer? Tell me that the aforementioned description of linebackers doesn’t also apply to the best drummers. At least the best rock drummers, who are the ones I am most familiar with, and with whom I most identify.
       Twenty five years ago, Professor McClellan’s insight gave me a little window into myself. I remember processing that statement and examining my own relationship to football. And to drumming. And to myself.
       The thought of running with a football over, through, or around defenders excites me. But I have to say, sticking a ball carrier so hard that they lose their helmet….well that excites me even more. Why? Because, with regards to emotional tone in football, a thunderous hit means more to me than a touchdown. Let me explain.
       Setting the emotional tone, and playing with a fury and a passion that boils the blood, is more central to the game of football than scoring. Scoring is the objective. Scoring is the goal. But I’ve always been more of a process kind of guy. For me, the process is often where the juice is. A goal without a juicy process, or at least a part of the process, that I can sink my teeth into, is much harder for me to buy into. I am more likely to undergo a juicy process with a sketchy goal than I am to buy into a juicy goal with a sketchy process. Some people are just the opposite. Both preferences have their pros and cons. It’s best when one can manage that balance and be able to undergo both worthwhile goals and worthwhile processes regardless. I’ve become better at that. But I digress.
       Like linebackers in football, drummers in rock music set the emotional tone. The drummer must, repeat, must, play with an intensity and a ferocity and a passion, or the band will never, repeat, never, kick ass. If your drummer don’t bring it, the rest of the band can be firing on all cylinders, but you won’t be moving any tails. Looking at it from the other side, your bass player, your guitar player, even your lead singer, can mail it in. But if your drummer is still bringing it, your band still has a chance to move some booty (it's obviously way better when everyone is bringing it). The drummer has to set an energetic tone, an emotional tone, like linebackers, that the rest of the band (or team) connects to and builds on.
       I’ll get more into this in part two, where I’ll connect all this to life in general and to intimate relationships. Please join me for that.

    
©2014 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart LLC, and Red F Publishing. All rights reserved.

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

       Many spectacular mornings have graced my life. Today’s however, brought me to tears. Even before I woke up.
       So I’m hanging out with Jackson Brown, and I tell him that his songs “Doctor My Eyes” and “Running On Empty” touch me profoundly. Some of the best melodies and lyrics on the planet, I tell him. He thanks me, then starts singing……..“Doctor my eyes have seen the years, and the slow parade of fears without crying, now I want to understand……” And of course, as he’s singing, because this song is some powerful medicine, I start crying. All of this is happening in my dream. Did I forget to mention that? Excuse me. Tearing up when I’m moved by music happens to me when I’m awake, too. Except that I’m not usually hanging out with Jackson Brown. Not yet, anyway.
       In the middle of my special moment with Mr. Brown, my alarm goes off. The alarm song is “In God’s Country” by U2. More music who’s magic is so beautiful that it will often move me to emote, just as it did this morning. Have you ever really listened to the opening of that song? The electric harmonic rhythmic chugging over the simple acoustic strumming; followed by a highly echoed, hauntingly beautiful and soaring two note electric guitar pattern that rings over a backbone of bass and drums. And then, a melody that stirs mystical realms. My god. If ever I create just one thing in my life as beautiful as the opening of that song, whenever I leave this earth, I will leave with a full heart.
       So here I am, haven’t even gotten out of bed yet, and I’ve already connected to my heart so powerfully that I’ve wept twice (I count the dream cry. Yes. Yes I do.) It’s five-fifteen in the morning. I’m about to go kayaking, aiming to watch the sunrise from the water.
       After loading my kayak in the car and driving to the beach, I enter the ocean. Paddling across the bay about a half mile out, I experience a stupefying solitude. Houses and boats and all sorts of human trappings ring the shoreline, but there's not a human being in sight, and I haven't seen one all morning. I feel like I’m the only person on earth. The ocean laps against my vessel, gently splashing me as I paddle. Ospreys fly over head, snatching up breakfast from the bounty of the bay. It’s Magic Hour, the time just before and after sunrise (and sunset) when the light does things on the horizon that it doesn’t do any other time of day; that it can’t do any other time of day. It’s as though, just for those precious minutes, light is given a different set of brushes, a different palate of colors, and the sky becomes a different canvas, upon which to create. The scenes are so breathtaking, so stirring, and produce such a unique atmosphere in which to exist, that I wish all of the day looked like this. Maybe that’s what heaven is. Magic Hour. Twenty-Four-Seven.
       And, today, August 27th, is my friend Ron’s birthday. He was killed in a motorcycle accident in 2001. Today, he would have been fifty-one years old. I hadn’t remembered that this morning. I only realized that much later in the day when a friend reminded me.
       Ron somehow manages to speak to me, every year, on this day. But none louder, none more powerfully, none more evocatively, than the way he did today. With all of my heart, I know that it was Ron who gave me the gift of this magical morning. It was Ron who gave me this whole unforgettable experience.
       By the way, Ron loved Jackson Brown. And, until today, I had never dreamed of Jackson Brown. Not once. Ever.
       This morning, my meditation was my kayak across the bay at Magic Hour. Which itself was preceded by a very moving heart and soul connection to “In God’s Country”, which was itself preceded by intimate moments with Jackson Brown and his music in the dream state. All of this, nestled in the open arms of my friend’s loving reach from the other side.
       This morning, I experienced my insides so powerfully stirred that they literally boiled over, directly into this writing. Directly into my sharing this deeply personal, deeply intimate experience with the entire world.
       This is what I want my life to look like. Every. Day.
       I am filled by a burning passion to make that so.
       I am overwhelmed with the gratitude that it has happened but once.
          

©2014 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart LLC, and Red F Publishing. All rights reserved.

Born This Way

“There is in each of us a fire that we are afraid to let burn”
                                - Clint Piatelli

       Hearing a song for the first time can be like doing your very first ever line of cocaine. Your insides experience this glorious explosion that you’ve never felt before, and you ride this wave of invincibility. Unlike coke, however, there’s no hangover with music. And, unlike any drug, you get the opportunity to experience this magic again, every time you hear another new song that blows your heart, mind, and soul. It’s reincarnated virginity, and it can happen many times during your life.
       This happened to me the other day, and thanks to our instant society, I had the song in my collection within twenty-four hours. When discerning the lyrics, one word in particular proved pivotal, and set in motion the wheels of this writing.
       At first, I thought the word in question was “Lucky”. Then after a dozen more listens, I was convinced that wasn’t it. The word didn’t fit the rest of the song. So then I listened more, and I thought the word could be a phrase: “Love Me”. Well that fit better, but I wasn’t convinced. So I broke down and looked up the lyrics. The word was actually “Lightning”. Okay. Given the whole of the song, that fit like a fuckin’ glove. And for me it turned the whole experience of the song into something else.   
       I’ll now share the chorus, which amps the tune into overdrive right away. I love when bands start songs with an ass-kicking chorus. To wit, the song “Born This Way” by Thousand Foot Krutch:

Because I was born this way
I got lightning running through my veins
Ain’t nobody gonna stop this train
So hop on board or get out of the way

       When a song moves me as powerfully as this one does, I take a look at what the song is emotionally saying to me. I examine how its energy applies to my life.
       I believe I was indeed “born this way”, meaning that some of the essential elements of my personality where there from the get go. I’m not going to debate nature versus nurture here, because in this context, I don’t care. My story, however, is that although I was born this way, it took a long time for “this way” to develop. Because a lot of who I was deep down on the inside was completely repressed until I hit my late teens. Then it just exploded, and quite frankly, the explosion continues today. More and more of myself becomes revealed to me, to my life, all the time, and I connect more deeply and more securely to those elementals of who I am.
       Like the oak tree’s way is to be an oak tree, my way is to be my way. That means more fully living my purpose. That means more harmoniously being my nature. I do indeed have lightning running through my veins, and when I’m fully connected to that, I shine. I radiate, organically, naturally, and that light has the potential to impact others. That light, both in energetic form and in manifested action, moves people. It touches them. It dents their universe.
       That’s my way. I was born with it. And, although it is innate in me, there’s a life long process of development, of growth. A perpetual process of uncovering, of recovering. A journey down the path of self expansion.  
       We all have some kind of lightning in our veins. But how connected to it are we? How aware of it are we? What does it look like? What does it feel like? How do we manifest it? Do we access that energy, and use it to fuel our lives? To fuel our loves?
       The more I work with my own lighting, the more I discover how to help others to use theirs. Because that’s part of my way too. I want to guide you in riding your own lightning. I want to do that with my writing. With my drumming. With all my art. With my way. Indeed, with my whole life.
       Because I was born this way
       I got lighting running through my veins
       So do you.  

©2014 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart LLC, and Red F Publishing. All rights reserved.

To hear fifteen seconds of the chorus, go to The Music Behind The Stories, and click on "Born This Way".

 

Blood

       The sight, and taste, of my own blood......
       Can really do it for me.
       Drawing some of the red stuff during intense physical activity wears like a badge of honor. Proof that I gave it my all. Testament that I turned myself over to whatever I was doing. That I, literally and figuratively, left it all on the field.
       Put another way, blood is a big turn on.
       When a musician is up on stage, giving it everything they’ve got, laying out their heart and soul for all to experience, we say that they’re bleeding for their audience. Bleeding for their music. As a drummer, I get to bleed for you, not only emotionally, but physically. I’ve drawn blood plenty of times drumming, the sticks rubbing and splintering against the skin on my hands. I dig it. I really do.
       At about eleven or twelve, when I first considered playing an instrument, I was drawn to the drums, unconsciously at the time I’m sure, in part because of the physicality of the instrument. We drummers may not be able to move around the stage, but we move our bodies in powerful, beautiful, and unique ways. We’re always the sweatiest ones up there, if we’re doing rock music right, and it’s a true physical workout. A drummer can get their whole body involved in their music in ways that other musicians, because of the nature of their instrument, simply can not. And, sometimes.......we even get to bleed. For real. Very cool.
       Whenever I played sports, I wanted to bleed. In fact, I would play with a barely controlled reckless abandonment that assured it. For example, I would play softball, in shorts, and slide into a base whenever I had the chance, even if it wasn’t completely necessary. The fields we played on were not of professional grade, so the dirt was rough and corse. I didn’t just get raspberries on my legs and butt; I got whole patches of them. And those wounds would get reopened, week after bloody week. I would usually be bleeding by the middle of the game, which would fuel my passion, and I would go at it even harder, and get into the game even more. More blood meant more energy, more focus, and in fact more fun.
       When I boxed in college, it was the same thing. My best moment, in my two year collegiate boxing foray, was, in fact, when I knocked a dude on his ass, with a perfectly thrown jab, after he had broken my nose and made me taste my own blood. My opponent’s ability to make me bleed profusely actually did more for me than it did for him.
       This is not a masochistic pursuit. Well, maybe it is. Because it does hurt. Sometimes a lot. And I do derive great pleasure from it. But it’s a different kind of pain/pleasure relationship. It’s pain with a purpose. Maybe that’s the key. The purpose is to drive up the intensity, the commitment, the passion, the focus, the drive, the performance.
       Whether it’s drumming or softball or boxing, I’m not bleeding just for the sake of it. If, for example, I took something during a game and cut myself on purpose, in an act unrelated to my participation, just to make myself bleed, it wouldn’t have the same effect. Believe me, I know, because I’ve tried it a few times, in an attempt to psyche myself up for a game. It doesn’t work.
       The drawing of blood has to be part of the action, a piece of the actual life play. It’s not method acting. It’s not acting at all. It’s real. As real as it fuckin’ gets, in fact. Bleeding forms a connection to external physical reality, to what’s actually happening in the world. Being a man of great introspection, a man constantly aware of his inner world, a man of very deep feeling and very deep thinking, a man sometimes far too involved with what’s happening on my inside and not paying enough attention to what’s happening on my outside, blood instantly bonds me to that external reality. And I need that. My being intuitively knows that. So sometimes it goes out and gets what I need; the spilling of my own blood.
       The energy behind that is the same energy that makes me love to sweat, love to engage in physical activity, love to feel the exquisite interaction of my body with the physical world. It’s the energy that makes me a very sensuous man, a very sensual man, a man who loves to touch and be touched. A man who has a healthy dose of physical hedonism in him and doesn’t ever want to lose that.
       A man who loves to bleed.


©2013 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart, and Red F Publishing. All rights reserved.

Destroyer

       I remember the first time I saw the album cover of Destroyer by Kiss. It was at Camp Becket, during a dance with Chimney Corners, our sister camp just up the road. Music was provided by a band, made up of camp staff members, and a DJ. Milk crates full of records sat right next to the stage, and I took to flipping through them when I wasn’t dancing. Which was often, because back then, I didn’t dance much.
       So I’m flipping through the albums, and I come to Destroyer, which I had never seen before. Holy Fuck. Instant “Deer In The Headlights”. It’s one of those moments where not only the image, but the entire totality of the experience, becomes permanently etched inside of you; I call it Experiential Permafrost. My mind, my body, my heart, my very spirit, were suddenly assaulted with something that was so overwhelming that I literally, absolutely, froze solid. I could do nothing but stare.  
       Suddenly, everything that I was, indeed everything that I had ever been, became completely absorbed in that album cover. In those moments, I ceased to exist; I was beautifully lost in that all consuming image. The rest of existence became nothing more than white noise. My entire universe was that painting. It was the first time in my life that I was acutely aware that I was experiencing something much bigger than myself. It was a spiritual experience. No fuckin’ question about it.
       The spiritual essence came from my identification of something inside of me that was in perfect harmony with, completely connected to, something outside of me that felt bigger than life itself. Some people get that experience in church. I get it in lots of places. This was my first memory of it. Looking at an album cover. At camp. Who would have thunk.  
       That cover invaded my very being, and took me out. Out of space, out of time, out of myself, and then back into myself, all at the same time; like a loop that repeats itself faster than you can think. I could not get enough. Unconsciously, it was the birth of an awareness in me that I could not yet identify. The awareness was that, unlike most teen agers, I didn’t want to escape: I wanted to Metamorphosize. I wanted to Transform. I wanted to Transcend.
       Even in the emotionally turbulent and totally mayhemic world of early teen agers, I was different. Much like the band Kiss, who, even in the positively insane world of rock music, were different. I was, like them, a misfit amongst misfits. Not in the way I dressed though. My unique fashion senseless would develop a little later. Somehow, I knew that, in the words of my writing coach, Anika Nailah, I “shopped in a different isle”.
       Transcending, Transforming, and Metamorphosizing the conventional, or what’s considered “normal”, is something I do naturally, constantly, simply as a function of who I am. I do it on the inside, in the way I think and feel and experience. I do it on the outside, in what I say and in what I do. I’m engaged in the process of assisting others who are interested to do the same. To expand their concepts, and beliefs, and ways of thinking, and attitudes, and feelings, and behaviors. To open them up to the idea that maybe, at least on some scale, in some contexts, there’s a different way to do things, a different way to live. To embrace whatever it is that makes them different, whatever it is that makes them unique, whatever it is that makes them who they truly are, and bring more of that into the world.
       Destroyer remains a talisman for me, even to this day. Whenever I want to remind myself that it’s okay to be different, I stare at that painting for a while. And I just feel better.


©2013 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart, and Red F Publishing. All rights reserved.