Fifty-Four-X Monster Stack

        We’ve all seen at least one of them. Some are cute and make us smile. Others evoke tears. Many do both. They’re commonplace at weddings as well as funerals. Sometimes you pay somebody else for it. Other times you do it yourself or ask a friend to help. Fifteen years ago, they were strictly the province of professionals. Now, thanks to the digital revolution, almost anybody can do one.
         I’m referring to The Photo Montage. Or as I like to think of them: The Personal Music Video.
         In case I’ve lost you, what I’m talking about is simply a short film that consists of photographs, and sometimes footage, put to music and edited together, usually with simple transitions from one photo to the next. They can run from a few minutes to almost an hour. At a wedding, the bride and groom will show one that displays pictures of the two of them throughout the course of their relationship, put to some of “their songs”. At milestone birthday parties, the guest of honor gets to watch all sorts of embarrassing shots of themselves when they were fat with braces, put to the rock ‘n’ roll music that they loved in high school.
         I like photo montages. When done correctly, they can be very moving, beautiful, artistic, creations that pay homage to the film’s subject. When done badly, they can be a train wreck. For everybody. Luckily, I haven’t seen many of those.
         I’ve done quite a few photo montages, both professionally and for the fun of it. I’ve even taught an adult education class on how to do them. Mine are usually different from what most people are used to. Some of that is because of my own “brand” of creativity. Some of that is because I’m a musician, and within the film I use music very differently than a non-musician would. And some of that is because of how I feel about this form of media and how I approach the process of creating it.
         Most people that do these types of films gather a bunch of photos, often times string them together chronologically, and lay some music underneath. I’m not knocking that. It works. But if you want to create something special, you have to take it to another level. I do. And so can you.
         I treat a photo montage like an MTV caliber Personal Music Video.
         A music video for a rock band is made to sell that band. Well I believe a photo montage should “sell” the person, or the couple, or whoever the film is made about. That means making creative choices that are designed to illicit very strong emotional responses from the audience without over-sentimentalizing. Specifically, I want to bring out the essence of that person and put it on the screen for all to see. My goal is to create something that helps the person feel great about themselves. I want them to absolutely love who they see on the screen. And to do that, I have to first love them. And I do. Whether I’ve met them or not.
         I spend many hours with photographs of the person the film is about. I spend hours looking at pictures of their friends and family, of listening to their favorite music, of hearing the stories behind the pictures from people they know. All of this allows me to get to know the person. And through that, I gradually grow, in a way, to love them. I’ve gone through this phenomenon with every photo montage I’ve ever done, and it’s a beautiful experience. It’s a connecting experience. It’s what I love most about doing them. If I already know the person, by the time I’m done, I feel even more connected to them. I love them ever more.
         Like painting a picture of somebody with images and sounds, I want to bring out what’s special about the person. I want to convey their unique self. I want to make them look good, and bring out their beauty, their sex appeal, their passion, their vulnerability, their....whatever. Whatever help makes them who they are. When I watch a good music video of a band, I come away loving that band. They’re sexy. They’re cool. They rock. They’re wild. They’re funny. They’re sensitive souls. Whatever and whoever they are, it gets communicated in a good music video. What I relate to is the essence of that band. Even if it’s a fabricated, marketing driven essence, in this context, it doesn’t really matter. It works. I’m connected to them. I identify with them, or with whatever they stand for.
         When I do this for a photo montage, it’s a little different in that I’m always going for what’s real. I’m trying to extract something I see in the person and present it, embellish it, and weave it in with the rest of them to create something that people can connect to. We all have everything in us. Some of it is just easier to see, easier to identify. If I wanted to create a film that painted an “unflattering” portrait of somebody, I would first connect to that in them that is “unflattering”. Say their selfishness. Or their greed. Or their temper. It’s all there. If I look hard enough, I’ll find it. It’s in all of us.
         But if I want to create a true MTV caliber Personal Music Video of the person, an homage to them that tells some kind of story, I focus on that which makes them who they are. All that beautiful stuff that’s uniquely theirs. That’s there too. So I look for it. And I find it.
         I encourage you to create a Personal Music Video for someone you love. Not the garden variety, simple photo montage kind, as nice as that may be. Give them something special. Give them a bona fide tribute to who they are.
         In the second part of this post, I’ll help you do that by sharing what I’ve learned and getting into some specifics.
         By the way, the title has absolutely nothing to do with what I wrote. It’s a play in football that sounds cool, and I wanted to use it as a title. Seemed as good a time as any.

©2009 Clint Piatelli. All Rights (and an MTV amount of Wrongs) Reserved.

Band Aid

        Moments before my band kicked into our opening number at another epic Halloween party, my bass player had a potentially tragic accident. Half heartedly paying attention to the fan he was adjusting, he sliced his finger open on it’s spinning metal blades. Within seconds, red liquid, that looked curiously like real blood, was spurting out of his pinkie. I quickly took him upstairs to find something to stem the invading red tide.
        While in my bathroom, his finger bleeding and throbbing, my friend and band mate started turning to the dark side. “I’ve ruined the gig!” he proclaimed, his voice full of panic and doom. “I can’t play like this. I’ve let the band down. We’re screwed. I’m so sorry!”.
        Well you don’t know someone for over twenty years, play almost a hundred shows together, consider him one of your best friends, and not know a thing or two about the dude. I recognized his acute sense of hyper-responsibility shifting into over-drive. His occasional propensity for worry was taking center stage, instead of his cool, rock god persona. I had to get him back.
        Luckily, I wasn’t in that space with him. In this case, I was completely unperturbed and the voice of reason. But I remember understanding how he felt, and being very aware that for him, this panic and sense of dread was very real. So I didn’t fluff it off, but responded in a way that served my friend in need, and served the situation at hand. I wrapped his finger up and gave him a healthy belt of booze. That helped. As he leaned over my sink, lamenting that he had ruined the show, I patted him on the back and told him repeatedly that everything was going to be fine. He hadn’t ruined anything. He just delayed the performance, that’s all.
        Well the band did go on, totally kicked ass, and had a fantastic time. What I’ll never forget about that night, though, is that I was there for a friend. My most endearing memory of the entire night is not how good the band sounded, or how much fun I had at the party, but that I helped someone I cared about. I helped my buddy through something that he was having a hard time with. I can’t tell you how honored I feel to be given that chance. That most precious gift.
        I’m forever grateful for that opportunity. It was in fact he who helped me, as much or more, than I helped him, because he gave me the chance to be there for him. He gave me the chance to be his friend. And really, there is no greater gift he could have given me.
        I look back and ask myself how many times we don’t give people the opportunity to be there for us. How often I say “I can do this myself. I don’t need any help.” We are actually withholding love for another when we don’t give them the chance to be there for us. On the surface, it may appear that we’re doing them a favor by not “bothering” them with our struggles. But actually, we’re being selfish, albeit unintentionally and often with good intention, by not allowing somebody we love to help us.
        I want the people in my life to ask me for help. I want them to come to me when they need something. Not because it’s a power trip and I want them to develop a perverse dependence on me, but because I experience love in the most profound of ways when I’m there for someone. I don’t want that love withheld from me, and I don’t want to withhold it from another.
        So the next time anybody inadvertently sticks their finger in a fan, call me. I’ll be there.


©2009 Clint Piatelli. All Rights (and a bloody spinning fan of Wrongs) Reserved.

We're The Band

        Being in a band is like being married. Except you’re married to more than one person. If you’re in a four piece band, for example, it gets complicated. Because you’re each married to each other. So in a band with four members, you’ve got a total of six marriages, because each one of you is married to three other people. Even polygamists would shun from such an arrangement. But it comes with the territory.
        I’ve never been married, so you’d have a point if you questioned my authority on this. But I have been in lots of bands, had many relationships with significant others, and I know plenty of people who are married. Some of these married people are in bands, and one of them actually proposed the band/marriage analogy to me. So if a married guy that I’ve played in a band with can make the comparison, I’m think I’m qualified to take the ball and run with it.
         Around 1989, my twin brother and I hooked up with our cousin and a buddy of his from high school. We started a band that lasted about three years. It was fun, but internal tensions got in the way of the music. Internal personal mechanics are what usually break up a band. It’s ironic that issues around the music, the most important reason that the band exists, rarely have anything to do with why the band doesn’t last. It’s personalities and people’s ability (or inability) to resolve conflict that tear things apart. The music often suffers if the members aren’t getting along, but not always (look at The Who - they couldn’t stand each other, but they kicked ass). Ultimately, like in a marriage, it’s the people who either make it work or not.
         A few years after we broke up, we got back together again. We were all a few years older, had matured a little, and had learned a thing or two about life. So it was better this time around. Like a married couple that separates, misses each other, experiences some personal growth, and gets back together. And this time, it’s different. You don’t let things get in the way like you used to. You’ve learned that there’s something special about the relationship that has drawn you back together, and you have a greater appreciation for what you’ve got. You’re willing to work harder to keep it going. And you’ve developed some personal skills, like owning you’re own shit, that you didn’t have before.
         In particular, the bass player and I were older, wiser, and had grown as people. In the band’s first incarnation, we butted heads often. And we had pretty hard heads. We were young, had fairly big egos, and possessed strong personalities that didn’t like to back down. Especially from each other. The other two members of the band, my twin brother and our cousin, were more easy going. They would often roll their eyes and attempt to mediate when the bass player and I would go at it.
         But this, the second coming, was a different ball game. The band rocked harder, had more fun, and enjoyed the whole process a lot more. A few years later, though, we had to split again. But this time, it wasn’t because we weren’t getting along. It was for personal and logistic reasons that had nothing to do with our personalities. Where last time the break up was no big deal, and even welcomed, this time, it hurt. All of us. It was hard saying good by. Like in a marriage, we had grown to love and respect each other. There was a special bond this time that was completely lacking the first go around. I remember our last gig. On the ride home, my drum set jammed into my convertible with the top down, I cried my eyes out. I was gonna miss this thing we had. I was gonna miss these dudes who had become very special to me. It’s no coincidence that I took a girl home that night. I was on the rebound and I needed a fill-in lover. Because my true love had left.
         In the years that followed, we all kept in touch, got together socially, and stayed in each other’s lives. After the first break-up, there was much less collective contact. But through the last incarnation and over the years, the relationships we forged had deepened and grown. Which planted the seeds for yet another crack at it.
         This was round three, and it was the best round of all. Third time really is a charm. Our rehearsals were always fun, but now it was like an exclusive boys club whenever we got together. We developed our own short hand language, and our practice sessions found us laughing, goofing around, and doing “guy shit” almost as much as we played. And the music was better, not only because we were all better musicians, but because now there was even more love and respect between us. Imagine that music is the sex of the relationship. And after you and your honey have been apart for years, you get back together. Now, you’re both better lovers. Not only because you’ve boned up on your techniques, tricks, skills, and have become more sensitive and attuned to each other, but because you love each other even more than you did a few years ago. And the sex was great then. Now it’s cataclysmic.
         Well the years go by and we break up again. This time it’s a combination of personal and logistic reasons. But the remarkable thing is, the bass player and I, the two dudes who twenty years ago didn’t want to spend another minute with each other, are closer than ever. We have discussions that go deep, are quite intimate, and cover lots of intellectual, philosophical, emotional, and spiritual ground. They’re the kind of discussions that we have with very few other men in our lives. He therefore occupies a place in my life that few people do.
         If I look back, it’s hard to imagine my life without this band as a part of it. It’s hard to imagine my life without the relationships that this band created. Fostered. Developed. Nurtured. Through music, we all married each other. Countless ups and downs later, there’s still something there. There will always be something there.
         I’ve been in lots of other bands besides this one. I’ve been in bands that have made a lot more money, gigged a lot more often, and played in front of much bigger crowds. And those bands were all like marriages too. But they weren’t like this marriage. They weren’t like this band.
         This band is the love I’ll never forget.


©2009 Clint Piatelli. All Rights (and a dowery full of Wrongs) Reserved.

Mistress Music Part 2 - The Glory of Table Drumming

         A simple but revealing insight came to me not long after I began coming out of My Dark Ages. It occurred to me one day, like a flash of sunlight reflecting off a passing boat, that for almost two years I had not been humorously chastised for table drumming. This is because, for almost two years, I had not done any table drumming.
         Often enough (some would say obsessively enough), my fingers and hands are in rhythmic motion, tapping out beats and fills across counters, desks, tables, walls, doors, and people’s bodies. Whether music is playing or not. But I could not remember the last time somebody made a joke about it at my expense. Because for the longest time, I didn’t do it. It’s a silly little observation, but quite revealing.
         The music wasn’t alive in me during those difficult times. Not only was I not quasi-obsessively table drumming, but I was not responding emotionally to music at all. Usually, several times a week at least, a song will move me either to tears, to head banging, to singing, to air guitaring or air drumming, or to dancing. During My Dark Ages, which lasted over a year and a half, I hardly did any if that at all. Maybe only once or twice, and that’s it. When I realized that, I was astounded. It made me realize just how out of sorts I was during that time. A basic staple of my personality had not shown up for almost one hundred weeks. It was as though I hadn’t eaten in almost two years.
         I wasn’t letting music, or anything else for that matter, in. When I’m so walled off that not even music can reach me, well that’s only happened for one period in my entire life since I discovered, in my early teens, the magic of music and how it affected me.
         I wasn’t even in a band during My Dark Ages, and that’s the first time since I started playing at thirteen that I had gone more than six months without being in a group or having a live performance. That may be the most telling emotional statistic of all.
         Every girlfriend I’ve ever had has made light hearted, amorous comments about my table drumming. Every girlfriend that is, except my last one, principessa. She rarely saw me at anything remotely close to my best. She never got to experience more than a fraction of all of me, because I was incapable of giving anything more than that. If I had the opportunity to ask her if she ever remembers me going nuts over a piece of music, be it table drumming, singing aloud, wailing on my air guitar, or spontaneously shaking my groove thang, she’d say “Yes, once”. And I’d know exactly what time she was talking about. It was right before the moment I fell in love with her.
         She had come down to my house on the cape with a mutual friend. We had met about a month before, and I hadn’t seen her since. When she came into the kitchen, I was busy air drumming to a live version of “I Shot The Sheriff” by Eric Clapton. I was way into it. Musically Possessed, you might even say. Eyes closed, my hands and feet moved all over my imaginary drum set in syncopated motions, with a focused reckless abandon. I was oblivious to the rest of the world. Because in those moments, this was the world. I didn’t even know she had walked into the room. For about a minute, she and two others watched me in this trance like state before our mutual friend screamed “Hello Clint!”. I looked up, and saw my future girlfriend there. I had forgotten how pretty she was. I walked over to her, grabbed her gently by the shoulders, and kissed her softly on the lips, saying it was nice to see her.
         Looking back, I know now that it was precisely then that I fell for her. It was a moment of clarity during a time of great confusion and turmoil. It’s also when I got scared stiff. My mind started running away as fast as my heart had tumbled towards. I was coming from my head back then, so I wasn’t in touch with what I felt, even though my higher self knew what was happening.
         These days, things are different. I come from my heart, and music moves me all the time. I’m letting it reach me once more. Actually, because my heart is so much more open now, it’s reaching me deeper and more often than ever. It’s really beautiful, but sometimes kind of disruptive. This extreme openness is still relatively new to me, and I try not to squelch it. Which means that it’s not unusual for me to start crying in the car when I hear a piece of music that moves me. Or air drumming in between sets at the gym. Or singing the song on the radio quietly, but audibly, in public. Or dancing in my bedroom. By myself. It feels good, hurts no one, and makes me happy. It may look (and sound) a little strange to those in my line of sight or in earshot, but it’s harmless. I’m even grateful for the tears, because it means I’m feeling something, when for so long I was unable to.
         Besides everything else it’s given me, music also serves as a barometer for how much I’m letting in, how much I’m letting out, how much I’m feeling. I table drum like mad now because the music is back in me. Even in my darkest moments, I can turn to music to help me. I’ve let her back in. She feels good. And if she feels that good to me, I feel that good to her. It’s a marvelous relationship.
         I’m forty-six, and I’ve never proposed to a woman. But I’ve been married for over thirty years. Married to music.


©2009 Clint Piatelli. All Rights (and a loud screaming amplifier of Wrongs) Reserved.

Managing The Rock Bands in My Mind

        Meditating is a big challenge for me. Like many of us, there’s a lot of noise inside my head. Some people refer to it as static, chatter, or babble, but those quaint terms are completely inadequate. I would describe a typical moment inside my mind like this: Imagine being surrounded by a dozen stages. On each stage is a rock band. A loud rock band, like Deep Purple or Van Halen. Each band is packing it’s full P.A. and amplification system, they’ve cranked it up to eleven, and they’re all playing, balls to the wall. At once. THAT’S the cacophony of mayhem that’s going on inside of me all too often. And my twelve rock band analogy is probably an apt description for a lot of us.
         I meditate every day. On some days, there are actually moments of peace and quiet. On others, the bands in my head add an extra guitar or two and jam my brains out. Today, however, I had a wonderful new experience.
         A few minutes into my meditation, I was aware of the peace and quiet within me. The lack of noise brought my attention to my body. I felt something happening. My body was rocking itself. Involuntarily. I was not consciously sending signals from my brain to my body to move the muscles necessary to rock me back and forth. My body was doing it all by itself. I opened my eyes, just to make sure that I wasn’t hallucinating, and looked at my hands on top of my legs. They were moving, ever so slightly, back and forth. Rocking. Along with the rest of me.
         I don’t know if this has happened before and I just never noticed it. I don’t know if the force of my heart beat and the expansion and contraction of my lungs was causing the motion. All I knew was that my body was rocking itself. And it felt great.
         It’s well documented that the motion of rocking is a soothing and tranquil experience for most people. It’s one of those primal human motions that mothers instinctively do to calm babies. We have a memory of that motion in our DNA, so we come out of the womb loving to be rocked.
         When I would snuggle with my ex-girlfriend, with one arm under her head and the other wrapped around her beautiful, warm body, I would softly grab her shoulder and rock her gently back and forth. She would let out a quiet moan that always warmed my heart. If you haven’t done this in bed with the person you love, try it. It’s an intimate, loving experience for both of you. And it’s so simple.
         However it happened, my body was taking care of me by providing a soothing motion. To help me relax. To give me peace. My body was, on it’s own, without guidance form my rock band infested mind, doing what it could to bring me calmness and serenity, which I need more of in my life. Meditation and prayer are but two ways that I’m using to bring me more of that. Actually, it’s not so much bring me more of it as it is stripping away all the madness and remembering how to give something to myself that I’ve always known how to do. My body certainly does, if I just let it.
         I haven’t been meditating long, and I’m curious if any of you veterans have ever experienced this involuntary body rocking, or something similar. If you have, I would love to hear about it. Please tell me in the “Comments” section of this post.
         The irony that the term “Rocking” describes the madness in my mind, the soothing calm of a peaceful motion, and my behavior when I’m listening to a song I love, is not lost on me. Music, particularly rock ‘n’ roll, has given me more than I could have ever imagined. Maybe the twelve rock bands in my mind, all playing at once and at maximum volume, can learn to play one at a time. One rock band, playing with all it’s intensity and volume and focus and passion, is just what I need sometimes. Other times, when I need some peace but not quiet, I could switch acts and listen to James Taylor, instead of Motley Crue. And other times, I could just turn them all off and have complete silence.
         Managing the rock bands of my mind. That’s a job I could get into.


©2009 Clint Piatelli. All Rights (and a sold out arena full of Wrongs) reserved.