Linebackers Drummers And Love (part 2)

 To get more from this writing, please read part 1, Linebackers Drummer and Love     

       Try this at home, kids. Put on a great guitar solo. Eddie Van Halen is my favorite. He’s amazing to listen to. Admire the virtuosity, the skill, the speed, the melodic forays, the originality, the feeling in his soloing. But try dancing to it. Try banging your head to it. Try moving to it. Good luck.
       Now, put on a great drum solo. And when I say great, I don’t mean one where a dude just wows you with his speed and technical ability. I’m talking about a solo where the drummer lays something down; like a killer groove that your body feels compelled to move to. Where you can’t help but shake and shiver and bounce. Now tell me, which solo evokes something more primal? Which solo packs more of an emotional wallop? It could be that I’m totally biased, because I’m a drummer. But I don’t think so. I’ve seen this for myself a million and one times. At gigs. At concerts. And in my own home.      
       The whole point is emotional content. Now again, I’m talking in the context of rock music and football (which actually have a lot in common). I’m not talking about a solo performer playing an acoustic guitar and singing. There can be shitloads of emotional content in that. But that type of performance has got very little in common with football. If I’m looking for high energy, body moving, balls to the wall feeling, I look to rock music. And football.    
        In football, a linebacker who nails somebody so hard they see stars is equivalent to a rock song that makes you want to bang your head, shake your booty, or fuck your girlfriend. And the root of that energy in song form is the drummer.
        A linebacker who attacks a ball carrier is like a man grabbing his woman, throwing her on the bed, and positively ravishing her. At least metaphorically (I’m not referring to imposing your will against a person who wants something you don’t. I’m referring to consensual adults). Again, it’s about setting the emotional tone. It’s about bringing a certain energy to something that creates real fire. This particular fire is aggressive. Passionate. Powerful. And beautiful. It really is. All true fire is.
       One of my goals moving forward is to assist people, both men and women, in BRINGING IT more to their lives. To their loves. There is a beautiful, primal, animalistic, passionate, fiery fury that is missing from a lot of lives out there. From a lot of lovemaking out there. From a lot of relationships out there. Both men and women are responsible. I get that many of us are afraid to let ourselves go. But we can all learn a lot from drummers and from linebackers. Because both breeds know how to bring a passion and a fury and a primal force and a love to what they do. Both breeds know how to bring it.
       Don’t you want to see that in a drummer? Don’t you want to see that in a band? Don’t you want to see that in your lover?
    Yeah. I thought so.

©2104 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart LLC, and Red F Publishing. All rights reserved.

Just Say No To The No of Yes

       My buddies and I at Villanova had this saying. The rock band Yes had released an album, 90125, during my junior year. It was actually a really kick ass, somewhat intricate but relatively straight forward rock record. But all the other progressive mumbo jumbo stuff they had done for most of their career before that didn’t interest any of us. About this same time, the saying “Just Say No To Drugs” was getting very popular. Well somehow, we married our distaste for most of the music of Yes with that silly slogan. Whenever the band’s name came up, one of us would say, “Just Say No To Yes”. It’s a running joke between all of us that still has milage today when we get together.
       For some inexplicable reason, our little saying came to me during meditation this morning. That’s one of the great things about meditating first thing. Not only is the brain less cluttered that time of day, but the mind is closer to the subconscious, having just awoken from sleep. Now, I admit,  some pretty wacky things float through my mind all day, but a lot of the wackiest shit hits me early in the morning and later at night. Which is probably why I do most of my writing at those times. It’s kind of my own personal “Magic Hour” for writing.
       This morning, “Just Say No To Yes” made me laugh aloud, and took me out of my meditation for a moment. But when I was through, my mind started riffing on the phrase, and something else hit me: how often in life do we say no to yes? Meaning, how big a role does resistance play in our lives? For most of us, a pretty significant one.
       This theme of resistance came up for me at Omega this summer during yoga, and I wrote about it my piece I Hate Yoga. I know that the more I’m saying "yes" in my life, the richer my life becomes. That doesn’t mean an indiscriminate “yes” to everything, meaning I can’t say "no" because I’m a people pleaser or don’t take care of myself. But it does mean that I pay attention to my own resistance. It means that I’m aware of the nature of my resistance. Is my resistance born from fear, and if it is, what is that fear? Most importantly, I examine where I am coming from. Am I coming from fear? Or am I coming from faith? Which really means coming from love.
       If there is a piece of me saying yes to something, and a piece saying no, which is not uncommon in many life situations, I want to know what’s running me. If my fear is running me, I’m in resistance mode. It’s important that I be able to discern my resistance. What am I afraid of, and is that fear blocking me from something I may want?
       Fear is a motherfucker. Most of us are fear based in at least one major area of our lives. Career, self image, money, physical security, sex, appearance, and the big one, intimate relationships.
       I can have fear in all of these areas. That’s normal. But how big a role does my fear play? Again, am I running it, or is it running me? Fear will not usually stop me from say, wearing something I want to wear because I fear what people will think. Fear will rarely stop me from writing about something I want to write about because I fear people will judge me. But I’m practiced at both of those. I take risks in both areas all the time.
       With intimate relationships, though, there can be an awful lot more at stake. Our hearts. Our beautiful, tender, precious hearts. I get that. But the principles are the same here as they are with what I wear or what I write. If I want something real, I have to take risks. I can’t let fear run me, or I will not be able to assess what’s my own voice, or voices, and what’s the voice of fear. And fear is an easy default, because it keeps me safe. There’s a saying that goes “A ship in a harbor is safe. But ships were not made for harbors.” The same is true of our hearts. Our hearts were not made to be closed, or fear based, but that’s how they get through the years because of all the hurt.
       How do we break this cycle of fear? We keep taking risks. We keep coming from faith, from love, instead of coming from fear. We practice. We never get it perfect, but we gradually pry open the grip of fear.
       It’s a lifelong process, this unraveling of our hearts. But it’s the only way to get to what we all want more of. Love. In all its forms, incarnations, and manifestations. A closed heart will never be able to give or receive love in a way that serves our soul.
       Today, I practice coming from faith, coming from love, instead of fear, in any and all my endeavors. I don’t do it perfectly, but I’m always at it. Relentlessly. Fastidiously. Open heartedly. I really want to radiate love to the world, as much and as often as I can.
       It’s risky, it’s not always easy, but it is the way I want to live my life.


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

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.