I never quite understood why musicians and actors would overdose on drugs so often. I thought it might be part of the lifestyle. Part of the partying lifestyle where you simply do all the terrible things that you’re told not to because you are a rebel. I mean, when you have all the riches and fame, why would you need to abuse drugs? If your life was so wonderful, why would you want to escape it?
I had never heard the reason so clearly until I picked up a Johnny Cash compilation CD a while back and started rocking out to the standards. I kept skipping this one track because it was old and the audio was grainy like an old movie with scratches on the celluloid. Over and over and over, I would play “Folsom Prison Blues” and the cover of Trent Reznor’s ‘Hurt.’ Even the Hghwayman was a great find with guest musicians like Kris Kristofferson and Willie Nelson.
One day, I was driving and simply let the CD play. It came to a song called Sunday Morning Sidewalk. It had an old country bounce to it with a dry guitar and clean mic.
“I woke up Sunday morning, with no way to hold my head that didn’t hurt”
The line took me back to one of my favorite bands, Stabbing Westward, with their lyric,“Six o’clock in the morning, my head is ready to explode.” It enticed me, so I listened on and each line became a clearer picture of a man who was utterly and hopelessly alone. Not that he didn’t have any friends or family, but that once you stand on stage and feel the roar of the crowd, it is hard to come down on Sunday morning.
I never quite got it until I played four shows on the three consecutive nights and then hit Sunday morning like a brick wall. I was fiending for a hit. A laugh. An ounce of attention where someone would look at me with a hundred eyes so I could feel that special again.
That’s where drugs come in. They play a second fiddle to the greatest high I have ever known. Joyous attention. When people look at you and laugh and applaud and stand to their feet, you become a titan among humans. You become a god.
Then the quiet sets in and it cuts through you like a shaky surgeon with a dull blade. The crowds have left. The attention fades into distraction. The god becomes a mortal once again.
“On a Sunday morning sidewalk
Wishing Lord that I was stoned”
Johnny knew it. He had crawled his way out of a regular life to be placed upon a pedestal of admiration and praise and every time the crowds waned, the column would crack. Each time the house lights came on and he went to his tour bus, it stung him deep.
“Cause there’s something in a Sunday
That makes a body feel alone”
It amazes me that for all of our shyness and avoidance, once we catch the fever of performance, it becomes a beast unto itself. We treat celebrities like they’re a different species of beings. Like they’re some sort of angels mingling among the people. Yet, when a person becomes an angel, it is simply perception. If you are not worthwhile without attention, you will never be worthwhile with attention.
My mentor, Joseph, would always say, “buy a pillow, cause it’s lonely at the top.” He was right. No matter how many people surround you, once you’ve been exposed to the storm of attention, you become ostracized from most people and they treat you like you are made of something else entirely. It’s not real though.
It is the phenomenon of attention. It’s the rush of a throng of people investing their greatest asset into you: their time. Few things are as precious and when you are standing in front of a crowd paying you so much time, you become giddy and elated and high on life. Few things compare to it. That’s why it hurts so bad when it goes away.
It is the valley on the other side of the mountain. It is the down to the up. It is the tear to the smile and though it is harsh, it truly becomes the reason that the other feels so good. Which is strange to realize, but if performers would simply own their dark days, then their light days would seem brighter. If we all would own our dark days, we would find sunlight all the brighter. As the adage goes, ‘the night is darkest just before dawn.’
I understand why so many actors and musicians abuse so many drugs. I have used them myself, but every so often, you have to muddle through the grey days and stop chasing sunlight. You even have to stop pretending you have sunlight. We simply have to trust that the sunlight is on the other side of that cloud and when it pokes through again, it will be even more brilliant than before.
Own the dark days. Own them like Cash did.
“And there’s nothing short of dying
That comes closer to the sound
Of a Sunday morning sidewalk
With Sunday morning coming down.”
I had never heard the reason so clearly until I picked up a Johnny Cash compilation CD a while back and started rocking out to the standards. I kept skipping this one track because it was old and the audio was grainy like an old movie with scratches on the celluloid. Over and over and over, I would play “Folsom Prison Blues” and the cover of Trent Reznor’s ‘Hurt.’ Even the Hghwayman was a great find with guest musicians like Kris Kristofferson and Willie Nelson.
One day, I was driving and simply let the CD play. It came to a song called Sunday Morning Sidewalk. It had an old country bounce to it with a dry guitar and clean mic.
“I woke up Sunday morning, with no way to hold my head that didn’t hurt”
The line took me back to one of my favorite bands, Stabbing Westward, with their lyric,“Six o’clock in the morning, my head is ready to explode.” It enticed me, so I listened on and each line became a clearer picture of a man who was utterly and hopelessly alone. Not that he didn’t have any friends or family, but that once you stand on stage and feel the roar of the crowd, it is hard to come down on Sunday morning.
I never quite got it until I played four shows on the three consecutive nights and then hit Sunday morning like a brick wall. I was fiending for a hit. A laugh. An ounce of attention where someone would look at me with a hundred eyes so I could feel that special again.
That’s where drugs come in. They play a second fiddle to the greatest high I have ever known. Joyous attention. When people look at you and laugh and applaud and stand to their feet, you become a titan among humans. You become a god.
Then the quiet sets in and it cuts through you like a shaky surgeon with a dull blade. The crowds have left. The attention fades into distraction. The god becomes a mortal once again.
“On a Sunday morning sidewalk
Wishing Lord that I was stoned”
Johnny knew it. He had crawled his way out of a regular life to be placed upon a pedestal of admiration and praise and every time the crowds waned, the column would crack. Each time the house lights came on and he went to his tour bus, it stung him deep.
“Cause there’s something in a Sunday
That makes a body feel alone”
It amazes me that for all of our shyness and avoidance, once we catch the fever of performance, it becomes a beast unto itself. We treat celebrities like they’re a different species of beings. Like they’re some sort of angels mingling among the people. Yet, when a person becomes an angel, it is simply perception. If you are not worthwhile without attention, you will never be worthwhile with attention.
My mentor, Joseph, would always say, “buy a pillow, cause it’s lonely at the top.” He was right. No matter how many people surround you, once you’ve been exposed to the storm of attention, you become ostracized from most people and they treat you like you are made of something else entirely. It’s not real though.
It is the phenomenon of attention. It’s the rush of a throng of people investing their greatest asset into you: their time. Few things are as precious and when you are standing in front of a crowd paying you so much time, you become giddy and elated and high on life. Few things compare to it. That’s why it hurts so bad when it goes away.
It is the valley on the other side of the mountain. It is the down to the up. It is the tear to the smile and though it is harsh, it truly becomes the reason that the other feels so good. Which is strange to realize, but if performers would simply own their dark days, then their light days would seem brighter. If we all would own our dark days, we would find sunlight all the brighter. As the adage goes, ‘the night is darkest just before dawn.’
I understand why so many actors and musicians abuse so many drugs. I have used them myself, but every so often, you have to muddle through the grey days and stop chasing sunlight. You even have to stop pretending you have sunlight. We simply have to trust that the sunlight is on the other side of that cloud and when it pokes through again, it will be even more brilliant than before.
Own the dark days. Own them like Cash did.
“And there’s nothing short of dying
That comes closer to the sound
Of a Sunday morning sidewalk
With Sunday morning coming down.”
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