Scar tissue # 6

            So for all of these posts I have looked at the book through Tony’s perspective, but I mean really who could blame me? The book IS an autobiography, so of course I would pick up on how TONY feels and what TONY is going through. I realized this week that the other people in his life, especially his friends, their lives were rearranged by his decisions too. I mean I knew this all along that we all affect each other, but not to the point that I just came to. 

            One person who I recognized while reading was Flea. For the first time ever reading this book I saw how much pain Tony’s addiction puts Flea through. It’s crazy to think about if I ever had a friend battling with serious drugs, and what I would do. I don’t really think I would just sit on the bench and allow my friend’s life to plummet sort of like what Flea is doing, but on the other hand Flea has no control over Anthony’s decisions or life style he has no power or really any justification for his actions besides that he wants to see his friend live. Isn’t that justification enough though? But, who am I to judge Flea or Tony, or their friendship, like I said I have never been in their situation.

            When is it Okay to judge someone? When is it EVER okay to allow yourself to intercept with someone else’s life or the decisions they make unless they ask you to part take, in which case I believe you have the right to speak your mind. Judgment means the ability to make considered decisions or come to sensible conclusions, and an opinion. Even though it’s not always right or fair we all judge each other every day. It’s almost impossible to be impartial with people, when you are a person because we ALL have emotions, we all have thoughts and independent voices, which can’t help but affect how we perceive someone or their actions.

            Flea and Anthony are constantly being ridiculed and viewed as rejects and lowlifes because of their appearance and drug use. These accusations are not uncalled for, but that’s not the whole picture because NOBODY is who you see them as being in one moment or meeting or outfit or choice. There is a greater meaning in our day to day behavior because all of the things we do stack up to who we become, and when someone judges Tony because his hair is a mess or his arms have needle marks, they only see one part. Flea sees a lot of the sides of Tony, yet he still judges his friend.

            Are we allowed to judge someone if we disagree with them? Is it more accepted if our judgments are positive. Such as if when I first meet someone and I think they are brilliant; that is a judgment, but it’s not hurtful, is this more commonly thought by society to be okay? When can we judge people?

Scar Tissue # 5

     I was really happy earlier this week while reading because I finally found that shift I was looking for, he finally hit so low in his life and addiction that he realized something needed to change, so he went back to his mom to sober up and get his life back together. I was then later disappointed to find out that as soon as he started the band again he was back to doing hardcore drugs, even worse this time. What is it about hitting rock bottom that makes people in general realize that they need to change? Aren’t they in a bit too deep to dig themselves out at this point? Yet people still manage to get through it. On that way down to the worst possible situation it seems that it is almost like one of those slides at amusement parks. The walls are smooth and you can’t turn back.  It’s scary and exciting and dangerous all at the same time, but after a while you feel like you’re not in control, and there is no way to stop until you reach the end.  

Anthony’s music and life with his friends revolve around drugs because their songs and lives are about drugs. One cannot be without the other, yet they are doing wonderfully so there seems no reason to stop. Throughout this all, there three voices in Tony’s writing, one from the past, one from the present and one from the future, all shooting out different opinions about the same event. The future perspective recognizes the mistakes, while the past admires the raw power Kiedis gives off; the present takes things for their face value, trying to make the best out of the situation and not be ashamed. Maybe Tony feels like he needs to represent all sides of himself because he’s embarassed of what he did, but he wants to be made an example of by showing how strong he has become, how many addictions he has defeated.

            It’s hard to pin point how someone exactly ends up on that slide, but I think once you get there nowhere else seems as good. I think our life is made up of different addictions, some shorter than others and some that last a lifetime. Now most people wouldn’t classify an interest or passion as and addiction, but I believe that an addiction is when you feel like you HAVE TO do something and you can’t live without it. In that sense I think that life is full of addictions and some of them lead you to a better place, while others just get you lost until you feel like you’ll never be found.

            I think its hard to write about your own life because you force yourself to bring up memories your not proud of, moments you don’t want to remember; all in the sake of being seen, being read, being understood.

            Perhaps on a bigger level this book was written as a step to forgiving himself, releasing his anger with his own behavior, and seeing the light at the end of his struggle.

Scar tissue #4

Scar Tissue has just become one of those books that I am completely absorbed in. The song “Scar Tissue” is now permanently stuck in my head because every time I take out the book the title immediately makes me think of the band’s song. Speaking of the band I find it fascinating to watch their musical style develop and change throughout the course of Anthony’s life and battle with drugs. His addiction directly impacts the amount the group practices and their overall functionality.  I started youtubing some of their earlier shows to get a feel of what their energy was on stage, and the image they were projecting as constantly described in the book.

It’s actually really interesting to see the parallels and HUGE differences between their current and more dated songs. They almost had a fast paced hip-hop feel with all of their crazy clothes and insane behavior mostly due to Cocaine. The audience seemed buzzed and excited in the videos and the whole band was soaking up the vibe. They were constantly doing Coke on the road, always to get a buzz to perform, always relaxed and living life with a “Hakuna Matata” attitude. Everything is just a stage for Tony to perform on, and he’s loving the spotlight. As I reader I began to pick up on his swift decline downhill into the deep pockets of addiction and dependency as depicted in this section of the book. It is sad watching him struggle to stay above water, knowing that he can’t live without his fix, but he also feels that he must put other things before drugs.

This got me wondering why it’s so hard to break addictions, why it’s so hard to change your style completely; with anything in life, drugs, music, eating habits. Somewhere in the book I feel like there is going to be a click, a slide into a new aura of music and a new approach on life because it’s a book. I know that in life things don’t change by themselves. There has to be a force behind what people do, and sometimes what they don’t do. Kiedis’ constant need makes him look vulnerable and conniving in the book. A part of me hates him for almost quitting on his dreams due to Heroin and Cocaine , and another part of me feels bad for him because I recognize his weakness, his want to fill the empty void inside of him.

There is a saying that ‘People never change’ and I think that this is true because no matter what group or situation you are put in you are always you. I think we, as a civilization, are constantly trying to find who we are, but our core values and qualities are never shaken, we always maintain a steady knowledge of how we feel about things and people, nobody can change our sensitivity to the world. We are always going to have the same characteristics, I just think that we sometimes chose to mask and conceal parts of our identities to force ourselves into a certain category or state of being.

Perhaps the change in music and dependency I am waiting on in the book relate to Tony’s  self constraint and acceptance to change. When it comes to the band or how much coke he does, he is never willing to change. I think that in both the book and life people end up running into problems because they are not willing to admit that they were wrong, and their stubborn ways lead to only dead ends.

                  Then again, drugs are drugs, and they mess with your mind and body so you aren’t always you when your high so part of his addiction could be linked to his brain, and you can’t control your bodies wants.

Rash #1 revisited and revised

This is the link to my first post: http://einhornunicorn.blogspot.com/2011/02/rash-by-pete-hautman-1.html

  I just started reading ‘Rash’ and so far it’s really interesting. I’m not usually into sci-fi books so I don’t really know what any other author imagined the future to be like, but I think Pete Hautman’s is freaking awesome, even though its sorta scary too. Basically, the main character Bo has five of his relatives in jail because almost everything is illegal. He get’s his third strike due to some “droog” who pisses him off and he’s sent to a working prison. His mom is really disappointed that yet another one of her son’s is going to the slammer, but I think she is already so used to it with all of these legal constraints now in tact in the “perfect” government that is at large. 24% of adults have spent time in jail in the book, as Bo points out in one of his many asides. Although there was a lot going on, one of the subtle details that I couldn’t stop thinking about was how in this books perception of the future no one could do ANYTHING remotely dangerous. Nothing whatsoever could be harmful to another person, thus about ten bazillion precautions were put in place to stop any damage of a person or thing.

            What really fascinated me was the running track Bo had to run on. He described it as “running on a sponge”.  It was funny at first because I imagined what it would feel like to run on such squishy stuff, and then when I did, it seemed to suck all of the fun out of running. In this futuristic environment everyone has to wear padding and helmets all the time, they are all drugged up so they all act civilized, making for no diversity or differing of opinions. When I really started to think about this I realized how messed up it really is. I mean if this new America doesn’t feel it is safe to run on the ground, or express anger, or ever mess up; how does anyone better themselves? Truly I am curious where there is room for improvement if you avoid any situation at which you can fail or hurt yourself.

            Nobody has any illnesses ailing them, no physical differences, everyone is stable and constantly watched. There are cameras tracking everyone at all times and its almost like a communist government has over-taken Bo’s world, which leads me to believe that within all sci-fi novels there are conspiracy theories having to do with the functionality of our government systems.  In the schools it displays clear dictatorship and underlying bullying problems as well as the faculty turning a blind eye to the students wants or opinions.

Bo doesn’t trust any of his teachers and feels that everyone is out to get him, especially those in power, which is very few people. All students, no matter how smart must follow all of the same guidelines, and all families must follow a strict regimen about how to live their lives, when to be in and out of the house, and public property seems to be created and owned by the people.

Really when you think about it on a bigger level, the way a country is run directly relates to the growth of their pupils. Perhaps this book is picking up upon the idea that with the more knowledge we are exposed to throughout the years about our own safety and health, the less need we have to rely on ourselves to survive; rather we take pills and wear special equipment and allow others to think for us. Well, in Bo’s world at least that’s how it is.  Everyone seems to be a robot in this big corporation, one by one going through life on a conveyer belt, not allowed to be different, and expected to help the community before helping themselves. So, who comes first, you or the people who could possibly mold you into the person you will become?

 

Scar Tissue # 3

            As a preface to my response I just want to say that this book is quite lengthy, and might take me a bit longer to read. To jump right into the book I’m gonna put it out there that Tony is really into getting high, becoming his father, and being cool. His life is about getting the biggest bang for your buck, in any area of pleasure, and he won’t stop until he has found the best way to be happy, for the time being. He briefly talks about his passions in writing and singing, but that’s not what his childhood was about. He grew up thinking that the only way to cope, the only way to feel happy, or to just not feel miserable, is to get so high that you don’t know what’s going on. He had no support system, no coping mechanisms, no one to hold him when he felt scared, rather he had to protect his father and keep HIM safe.

           Yet with all of this chaos in his life Keidis still found time to try and be the person his father would want him to be, a replica of all of his dad's hardcore qualities. He portrays himself as a suave kid who was pretty chill and knew how to get around, but I see through his little gimmick. He was taking Quaaludes at eleven, and had sex when he was twelve. I think he did this to prove to not only his father, but also himself that he could be a man, that he could live and be happy, he could do whatever he wanted to do if he put his mind to it. It became less and less about what Anthony wanted, and more about what seemed cool, what seemed like something his dad would do.  I think the pain he felt from his father not recognizing his efforts, from nobody recognizing his efforts drove him back to drugs and rebelling because he just wanted to be seen. He just wanted to fit in, even it was fitting in with the outcasts.

            Everyone wants to be seen, but when you are put in the limelight, in the eye of the public, you are also scrutinized and judged. I don’t mean to judge Keidis, but its hard not too. Its hard to have impartial judgement about someone who is flinging their life story at you. I"m not the only one though, those kids at his school, his mom, his step-dad, maybe even the guys at Rainbow judged him. They saw him as someone who didn’t belong, even when he thought he fit in.

            Being isolated and an outcast even when you believe yourself to be squared in, your identity to be found, you never really know who you are. Some people might say that Tony was just going with the fads, just like all the other hippies. Just like people might look at hipsters or jocks or whatever name you want to give someone, and say that they are just doing it to fit in. Maybe they think that’s where they belong, and that is who they really are. Perhaps everyone is trying to “please their fathers” and on the way they find their own path, they find who they really wish to become, and how to get there from who they are now.  

Scar Tissue # 2

The more I read this book the more I realize that Anthony Kiedis’ life was far from normal, so far in fact that he probably could never reach normal. He had an EXTRAORDINARY childhood, and what I mean by this is that it seems glamorous from the outside, but its inner workings were discombobulated.   He knew Sonny from Sonny and Cher, he saw Neil Young perform constantly and went on crazy drug deals with his dad; the average childhood for any 70’s child-haha NO. His life was so full of distrust and misguided exploits that he was never taught any ground rules pertaining to how to treat himself or others. However, his life was full of music and drugs, two things he grew to love.

No doubt his life was unstable, but this became a part of him; distrusting, drug abusing, addict, go-with-the-flow part of him that he carried into his music. I really like the Red Hot Chili Peppers and reading the inner workings of their lead singer gives a bit more insight to their songs. For instance, the song ‘Scar Tissue’ was one of the songs written by Anthony pertaining to his feelings towards drugs and his relations with other band members. Heroin ruined his life, yet it strengthened his music.

It seems almost as if the most depressed and misguided artists make it the biggest. Why is that? Raw and pure happiness and joy are just as complex emotions, but they don’t translate into powerful pieces of art. This makes me think that you need to feel true pain before you feel true happiness, that you can’t be truly content unless you have traveled hell and back.  Although i would like to refute this argument by saying that without one, meaning happiness or sadness, the other can still exist but not to its extremes.
In some cases I don’t really think we need extremes in our lives, I don’t think we need to be the happiest person on earth or the most depressed person on the earth because to live their has to be a balance, there has to be an in between. But nobody wants to see the boring parts of life, or listen to a song about an average day. Why is it that all anyone wants to be is “normal” yet when it comes to shows and performances we want the most exceptional or upsetting performance? Why do we push the most unreachable display of emotion, each end of the spectrum onto our rich and famous but settle when it comes to our own personal lives? Why do we care more about how they live and express themselves?  

Scar Tissue by Anthony Kiedis #1

            So I just cracked open this autobiography and it’s really cool. I was flung into the world of sex drugs and impulse.  To give a bit of background Anthony Kiedis is the lead vocalist of the ‘Red Hot Chili Peppers’, and like any other rock group member he’s down to live life hardcore, I’m talking about shooting up, crazy drug deals and near death stunts. The book also has a softer side, talking about his beginnings, even as early on as his conception. Tony not only talks about his experiences, but he almost adds annotations to his own story through this reflection.  It is a pretty thick book but I haven’t been able to put it down, there is just this perfect mix of voices, one that is very knowledgeable due to age, and the other that exemplifies his expression of total indifference to the world’s judgment and expectations. What really caught my eye though was just on the first couple of pages, it was just this one line: “But it seems clear to me that on some level spirits choose their parents.”

            At first this made complete and total sense to me because of course in some ways we choose our parents, they have qualities that we wish to possess. Then,  I realized that we only want to have these characteristics because they are those that come from people who raised us and love us, so really we don’t choose our parents, they choose us. I mean if our parents weren’t the ones who raised us, who taught us what we know, would we be the same? I think, to answer my own question that no, no we wouldn’t be the same. Would I be me if my mom and dad not raise me? I would have the same genetics and the same brain. But, would the same aspects of life be preached to me or hidden from me, my boundaries and opportunities would be altered. Although I feel that my parents do affect my identity I feel conflicted to say that I would be a completely different person since I don’t know any other way of my existence besides the one I am currently living.

            Tony talks about how much he was moved around as a kid, how much he was exposed to the free world of hippies as well as the regulations of a frustrated mother who gave up her dreams to support her child. The divergent worlds did in some ways splice together his personality as well as his addiction to an unstable lifestyle; yet even after escaping his parents and being influence by other figures Kiedis was still himself.

Aren’t we hardwired to have personalities and flaws?   Maybe parents just highlight some features and dim down others. Is our personality really based off of how we were raised, or are we just who we are?