An excruciating injustice happened to me this past weekend. No,
a friend didn’t drag me to go see “Taxi.” Nor was
I sued by our good friends at the Recording Industry Association of
America. Something far, far worse happened: The University of Texas
football team lost to arch rival Oklahoma for the fifth year in a
row. I almost threw up just now writing that.
Having grown up in the beautiful city of Austin, Texas, in a
state where football is practically a religion (look no further
than the fine new “Friday Night Lights,” the true
story-turned-book-turned-film, for a closer inspection), I once
again felt my heart ripped out of my chest and stomped on as the
feared and hated neighbors to the north claimed bragging rights in
the biggest game of the year.
But instead of lapsing into my now annual tradition of breaking
things and then drunkenly sobbing for days in the fetal position, I
resolved to speed through the grieving process and get back on my
feet as soon as possible. Fortunately, I had the right music to
help me through.
So with plenty of time for students before midterms (and those
first quarter, high school relationship breakups for you freshmen),
I present to you my own account of and musical blueprint for
getting through those tough times. These follow the so-called Five
Stages of Grief, originally presented by Swiss psychiatrist
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, as the Five Stages of Receiving Catastrophic
News.
Denial: I spiraled so far down that I rapidly began to shut
anything and everything negative out of my consciousness, entering
the kind of alternate reality that only Charlie Kaufman characters,
parents and world leaders can achieve. (Big and Pac just dropped a
double album together. I never had to dance on stage during the
school production of “Ducktails and Bobbysox.” I
didn’t live in Hedrick last year.) In this condition, I
immediately reached for copies of the respective swan songs of
Michael Jackson and Liz Phair, “Bad” and “Exile
in Guyville,” and assumed their careers ended on such high
notes.
Anger: Though some Rage or early Ice Cube would have done the
trick neatly, it was the new Eminem single, the inane and
appropriately titled “Just Lose It,” that snapped me
out of my eternal sunshine and into an unmitigated resentment
toward the world. Mankind is to be hated.
Bargaining: Powers that be, if you’re listening, that is
James Brown’s “Please, Please, Please” I’m
buttering you up with. I promise to dedicate my life to good will
and charity if I can be Superman for a day and do the whole
reverse-the-rotation-of-the-Earth’s-axis-to-turn-back-time
thing and then play strong-side linebacker for Texas last Saturday.
Also, I’d like a different roommate and some new shoes.
Depression: I watched MTV for an hour. There is no hope for
humanity.
Acceptance: Convention might point to “Let It Be” or
“Que Sera, Sera,” but nothing says acceptance like
Parliament’s “Mothership Connection.” Regardless
of one’s mood or, apparently, interstellar race, it’s
near impossible to resist George Clinton and company’s P-Funk
vision of one universe under a groove. In their own reassuring
words, “Time to move on / Light years in time / Ahead of our
time / Free your mind, and come fly / With me / It’s hip / On
the mothership.”
Nothing like the big picture to put life’s tragedies into
perspective.
So that’s the emergency procedure ““ Michael Jackson
/ Liz Phair, the new Eminem single, “Please, Please,
Please,” an episode or two of TRL and “Mothership
Connection.” I hope no one has to resort to that, but to
those in need of a quick emotional balancing act, here’s
living, breathing proof of the fabled healing power of music.
E-mail Lee at alee2@media.ucla.edu.