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I have a dream.
In this dream, I'm back in France. The city of Strasbourg, to be precise, where I spent six weeks studying one summer nearly 20 years ago.
That summer was a magical time. I was 20 years old, barely with one foot out of my parents' house, and here all of a sudden, I found myself with both feet traipsing around France. Ever since I returned to the States a few short weeks before my 21st birthday, I've wanted to go back to France someday.
But I've yet to have the opportunity. So, my brain plays tricks on me in my sleep. It's a long-running gag at this point in my life, seeing as how it's played out every few months for going on 20 years now.
And here's how it goes. I fall gently into slumberland in the cozy comfort of my bed, and awaken in France. And in my dream, I'm elated. I mean to say, I'm downright giddy with excitement and anticipation. Because at long, long last, here I am back in France, after all these years of wanting to go back and after all the years of literally dreaming of going back.
And finally, finally, finally... I've made it! After all the cruel tricks of my dreaming mind over the years, that falsely led me to believe I had returned to France, only to awaken the next morning and find out it was all a dream – finally, it's actually really real this time! It's not a dream after all, but my long-awaited reward and salvation and the factory sealed prize in the Crackerjack Box.
So then, of course, I wake up the next morning to find out it was all a dream.
* * *
What does this have to do with writing comic books? I'm not quite sure at the moment. Let me get back to you on that...
* * *
That summer in France, 1987, as soon as I arrived in Strasbourg, I saw posters plastered all over town announcing U2's upcoming concert in Paris – July 4, 1987 in the Paris Hippodrome.
Naturally, I went, along with several of my co-study-abroad students, some of whom were even my friends. And it was one of those nights – you've had a couple, I'm sure, I think everyone does at some point in their life (I hope so, anyway) – where it's just perfect. The twilight, the hot sweaty air, the anticipation as we sat (or stood, rather) through the Pixies and UB40.
(And if you ever get a chance to stand for several hours in the Paris Hippodrome, unless U2 is playing a concert there, I'd strongly encourage you to skip it. I had no idea at the time that Hippodrome means “place for horses to do horse show things,” so for some reason I still don't fathom, they have these round concrete cylinders embedded into the ground every few inches, and they're raised just a little bit above the normal ground level. Meaning, standing on them is uncomfortable, and sitting on them is downright painful. Word to the wise!)
The show was phenomenal. This was U2 at what was then their peak – the Joshua Tree tour. They were young and hip and earnest and sincere and Bono and the Edge both had the long, flowing locks of Jesus and some long-haired friend of Jesus. And cowboy hats. They wore a lot of cowboy hats back then.
And you know what song they had the balls to cover in that 4th of July concert in Paris, France, that starry summer night? “Help.” Yeah, that's right. You don't even need me to say, “The Beatle's 'Help'”, because everyone knows that song and it's one of those classic feel-good ditties that we know and love and hold dear to our hearts.
So here these brash young upstarts from Ireland hit the stage as the sun fades into the horizon, and a few songs into their set, they whip out the acoustic guitars and launch into a slow, soothing, delicate rendition of “Help.” And I'll tell you right here, just between you and me – they owned that song right then. They made it their own. If I could somehow track down a copy of that performance, I'd never want to listen to the original again. That's how good it was.
* * *
What does this have to do with writing comic books? I'm not quite sure at the moment. Let me get back to you on that...
* * *
In the late 1980s, U2 was on top of the music world, following on the heels of the massively massive commercial and critical success of The Joshua Tree, which won something like 23 Grammies, 4 Academy Awards, and Time Magazine's Person of the Year, if memory serves me.
And they were young and hip and earnest and sincere and Bono and the Edge both had the long, flowing locks of Jesus and some long-haired friend of Jesus. And cowboy hats.
And people around the world looked up to them and respected them and darn near deified them. So what did they go and do? They took a sledgehammer to the larger-than-life statues of themselves and smashed that oh-so-successful image to pieces.
They reinvented themselves. The Joshua Tree was set ablaze, its limbs and branches used as kindling for the epic multisensoryoverloadexperience known as Zoo TV.
(I got the DVD of their Zoo TV tour for Christmas, and mere words cannot describe how happy I am to have it. Although “very, very, very” comes close!)
* * *
As Paul Simon sings in “Train in the Distance” off the vastly under-rated Hearts and Bones LP (1983), “What is the point of this story? What information pertains?”
Your guess is as good as mine at this point. But I think it has to do with the creative force inside us, that kicks and tosses and turns and begs to be released. Or not.
* * *
My wife got me the single coolest gift in the history of gifts this Christmas, which is Aimee Mann's concert DVD, Live from St. Ann's Warehouse – autographed by Aimee herself!
Now, if you know me, or even if you don't but you read this column on occasion, it's no secret that I am a huge Aimee Mann fan. Not like Jabba the Hut huge, but you know, I dig her music a lot. If you're not into her or don't know if you are or not, the thing you should know is, she's basically an alternate universe female version of Paul Simon. Introspective, sensitive, insightful lyrics coupled with charmingly tuneful, unabashedly pop melodies.
Unbeknownst to me, there are only four – count 'em, 4! -- degrees of separation between me and Aimee Mann. Here's how it goes:
1. My incredibly hot wife
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2. My wife's step-sister, Kim
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3. Aimee Mann's brother
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4. Aimee!
So voila! Just like that, my wife buys the DVD on Amazon and ships it to step-sister Kim in Washington, DC; Kim gets invited backstage at Aimee's concert in DC on December 20th thanks to her friend, Aimee's brother; and then Kim overnights the signed DVD back to Little Rock the next day so it'll be here for Christmas.
Now, it's cool as heck (a brisk 54 degrees, let's say) to have a signed item from Aimee Mann, just because I appreciate and respect her so much as an artist. But almost equally cool is the fact of how I got it, which was her playing a special Christmas show. And it wasn't just a concert; it was an actual Christmas variety show, like you used to see on TV.
The mini-Christmas tour she went out on this holiday season was in support of her recently released Christmas album, One More Drifter in the Snow. And while it's possible I'm making this all up, I don't really think I am. I think that what Ms. Mann (I can't bring myself to call her Aimee, as if I actually know her in real life or something) is doing with the Christmas album and the touring Christmas variety show is the same thing that Bono and U2 did on the heels of The Joshua Tree – she's reinventing herself.
And I'm excited about that and eager to see where she goes from here. Her last album before the Christmas one was The Forgotten Arm, which was a masterpiece. In many ways, I think she may have reached an artistic peak with that album. But at the same time, she may very well feel as if she also reached an artistic cul-de-sac. She may have out-Aimee-Mann'd even herself with that record, to the point where she feels not just the desire, but the guttural, burning, aching need to go off in a different direction with her music and her songwriting.
* * *
What would Simon and Garfunkel have done for a follow-up to Bridge Over Troubled Water? We'll never know, because they couldn't do it any more as a duo. How could they top that moment in their career?
What could U2 do in the wake of The Joshua Tree? Throw the baby out with the bathwater and wake us up to the throbbing rhythyms and unrepentant sexuality of Achtung Baby!
What will Aimee Mann do on the heels of arguably her finest work to date, The Forgotten Arm? Time will tell, but the fact that the very first thing is a 180-degree departure from anything I would've expected, in the form of the Christmas album and tour, fills me with great hope.
* * *
And what does any of this have to do with comic book writing?
For me, it's a reminder of one of Elton's Immutable Laws of The Kind of Writer I Want to Be: namely, a writer who doesn't get stuck in a rut or pigeonholed, a writer who doesn't keep doing the same thing over and over and over because it worked once and people liked it.
I want to be a writer who reinvents himself and his approach to storytelling, who always tries to push his personal envelope by trying new techniques and styles and voices.
Of course, before I can re-invent myself, I need to first invent myself. And that's what I'm in the process of doing these last two years, and this coming year should be the big year of invention in which I finally break through to the other side of having some actual comic book work in print.
* * *
And the other thing this has to do with comic book writing? I really, really, really want to collaborate with Aimee Mann one day on a comic book project. And now that I know there are only four degrees of separation between us, who knows?
Maybe I'll get to. Maybe that dream will become real, and unlike my dream of being back in France, will actually stay real when I wake up in the morning.
* * *
Till next time, I hope you had a Merry Christmas, and I hope your New Year is bright, sunny, and warm.
Elton Pruitt writes comic books in the bustling metropolis of Little Rock. His first published story will appear in Sequential Suicide, due in early 2007. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, he's convinced that “the Ecto” is a cool nickname/nom de plume. He hasn't smoked a cigarette in an amazing 725 days! And if you visit him in EltonSpace, he'll be delighted – particularly if you subscribe to his blog!
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