It’s really uncanny how much constipation has loomed large over my life. Both literally and metaphorically. I’ve had struggles with my rectum ever since I was born, and yet constipation has become more than just a health woe for me. Constipation (not of the literal kind) has now become a word in my dictionary of emotions. It means to have a pent-up of feelings, a sense of quiet despair and discomfort, when too much crap has been building up inside of you and you can’t seem to let it out. I “feel” constipated whenever I feel lousy, bloated with feelings but I can’t help but keep it all inside simply cos I’m too lazy busy to release them.
Thus I’ve called this the “Post-Constipation” post, cos it’s like this huge release for me, as I’ve not blogged in a while. So bear with me as I dislodge all the hardened contents of my mental bowels, in this long, crappy post.
Every once in a while, even the most brilliant of writers become lazy unbothered so busy that they fail to come up with anything. I am no exception. For the past few weeks I was lazy unbothered quite caught up with my new money-making hobby: work. Since it had been some time since both my muscle and brain cells had been decently utilised, my first work week was, simply put, hell. For once in my life, I felt completely stupid as I fumbled about awkwardly, struggling to remember recipes (I worked in a cafe) and cooking up a disaster in the kitchen. I spent my nights after work studiously revising things like How many minutes I should deep-fry onion rings and How many scoops of vanilla powder went into making different smoothies. Hell, I even my usual dreams were replaced with work-related nightmares (such as when I burned the roast chicken).
Many interesting things happened at work, and I was itching to get it all down in my typical cynical fashion, but sheer lethargy bogged me down. when I was not working, all I wanted to do was to switch off my brain and rot with Ellen DeGeneres. I was utterly numbed. As a result I truly became lazy and unbothered to blog.
And then divine intervention came. In the form of a book.
I was floundering through the library one day after a particularly nasty day at work (TWO elderly customers complained that they couldn’t chew my Roasted Chicken. Get some dentures, ya hags!) when I picked up a random autobiography in the Music section. It had a nice picture of U2 in the front together with a not-so-nice picture of some man, presumably the author Neil McCormick. It was called I Was Bono’s Doppelganger. The blurb promised lots of racy scandal (“Bad sex, weird drugs, bizarre haircuts” it read) and since it promised some relation to everybody’s favourite rock-superhero Bono, I borrowed it. Eagerly, I attacked the novel, hoping to unwind with page after page of brainless, rock-star misadventures.
Instead what I read caught me by surprise. The book was essentially about McCormick’s quest for rock stardom, together with his schoolmate at Mount Temple Comprehensive, Paul Hewson (that’s Bono to you and me). Both Hewson and McCormick were in bands and harboured dreams of making it big, but only Hewson’s band succeeded eventually. While McCormick tried and tried relentlessly for more than twenty years to be heard, his former schoolmate soared higher and higher into the stratosphere of rock stardom. Thus unravels this sorry saga of a truly talented musician who lives in Bono’s shadow.
Sure, there are plenty of “sex, drugs and not-so-rocking rock&roll” bites for tabloid junkies like me to chew on, but underneath it all, I saw myself in McCormick. A strangely distorted reflection, at least. Previously, I too wanted a slice of such a lifestyle. I started out somewhat like McCormick, playing in amateur bands when I was 14, even when I could barely grasp the neck of the bass guitar. You may not believe this, but actually I was bitten by the Bug. The Bug to be famous. As a child of the TV generation (I had been watching MTV together with Sesame Street), it seemed to me the pinnacle of success, the achievement of my life if only I could appear inside that metal box. Being on TV seemed like the ultimate goal.
In the early days of my confused adolescence I was convinced that it was my destiny playing in stadium in front of a screaming audience. I worked hard at learning the guitar. I threw myself in the whole punk culture (listening to nothing else other that the screaming squalls of Sid Vicious and other punk gods) and was so sure that life was about rock&roll.
Unlike McCormick, who took twenty years of wrong turnings to finally get himself together, I was fortunate enough to be slapped on the face and shaken hard, pulling myself out of that silly dream. I realised that making music was about passion and expression, not making money and rolling around in Cadillacs. Today, I’m a very different person. I’m no longer a punk, or a whatever; I don’t subscribe to any particular music genre. I’m ready to embrace anything that moves me within.
I Was Bono’s Doppelganger is an airy, extremely funny and strangely poignant tale. As Bono remarked, McCormick has an ability to make “extremely heavy things feel weightless”. As if a reminder from above, a book I had picked to enjoy a temporary diversion into racy trash, instead had eye-opening passages on God. Bono has great faith in his maker, while McCormick is a committed, cynical atheist. The conversations between the two on God’s existence are extremely entertaining, but strike a chord with readers as well. The final, bittersweet twist emerges at the end when McCormick, ever the devout atheist, writes a very beautiful song about God. the song came to him in a dream, and proved to be elusive piece that finally clinches him a record deal, at the not-so-rock&roll age of 40.
So here we are, people. For those who have managed to stay with me till this far, you’ve officially ploughed through 1072 words!
Just to let you know, McCormick’s defining song, entitled I Found God, is neither preachy nor proselytsing. It’s extremely simple and yet carries alot of depth. some think of it as an atheist anthem. some view it as an affirmation. I tend to think it’s the latter. Here, read the lyrics and decide for yourself.
I found God
In the first place that I looked
I found God
In the crannies and the nooks
I found God
Underneath a stone
I found God
Didnt even have to leave my home
I found God
I found God
I found the Buddha
Sitting cross legged by the door
I found Jesus
Nailed and bleeding on the floor
I found the Prophet
Up to his neck in sand
I found God
Wherever I found man
I found God
In a hundred different places
With a thousand different voices
And a million different faces
I found God
I found God
I found God
Down the smoking barrel of a gun
I found God
In bones bleached white beneath the sun
I found God
Amongst the killers and the rapists
I found God
Between the proddies and the papists
I found God
In temples turned to rubble
I found God
On the pulpit stirring up more trouble
I found God
On both sides of the war
With the bigots and the fascists
Kicking down my door
I found God
I found God
And I said My God, my God
What have You done?
Why is this life so hard
For everyone?
And God said
I found you
Before it all began
I found you
When the universe went bang
I found you
In the cooling of the stars
I watched worlds collide
I wondered how we got this far?
I found you
Crawling from the sea
I found you
Hanging with the monkeys in the trees
I found you
Before you found me
I found you
And I set you free
Free to stand on your own feet
Free to watch the sunrise
Free to be what you can be
Free to be what you despise
Free to glory in the truth
Free to swallow your own lies
Cause I’m coursing through your bloodstream
I’m staring through your eyes
I found you
I found you.
