Tragedy & Comedy & The Holidays
Never Saying Goodbye
The Christmas season can bring about a lot of emotions. Sweet memories of holidays past, the hope for holidays future and the ever-present gripping dread of loss that enters all our lives during this bright and shiny time. The paradox of joy and sorrow can be debilitating.
So for that reason, this Whole Note will be a two-part harmony…much like the masks representing Tragedy and Comedy, sadness and happiness on the cover of the lackluster 1985 Motley Crue album, Theater of Pain which gave us two songs of memory, “Smokin’ In The Boys Room” that my buddies and I lip synched as Motley in our middle school “talent” show and the epic “Home Sweet Home” which will be played at my funeral.
That leads us to the first part of this two-part harmony, Tragedy - sadness, death, loss, grief and never saying goodbye. For this Whole Note, I want to share pieces, quotes and paraphrases from a beautiful interview on Loss and Grief that Anderson Cooper recently did with Alex Van Halen on the loss of his brother Eddie, or Ed as Alex calls him.
Wyatt Cooper wrote about his son Anderson and his brother - “I must see that they do not lose their gift of laughter. There is more music in the laughter of one child than in all the poems of all the poets who ever lived, more sunshine than in a century of summers.”
As Anderson described, we find ourselves burying that laughter, sometimes along with fear and anger with someone when they pass. We bury the light and then bury ourselves in work or other vices to fill the space…drugs, alcohol, sex, etc.
In another podcast, Francis Weller says “we don’t have much knowledge in grief…so consequently we push back against it and we don't know how to engage it. To write, to dance, to talk, to share, to bring it to ritual. We are so passive around grief so that when it comes we are basically caught off guard and unaware of how to respond. So instead we respond with how do I get out of this as fast as possible. And we have so many ways to do that, all the distractions…the busyness, the alcohol, the drugs, anything you need is available to get us away from the depths of those places. We begin to develop a companionship with it (with grief). The apprenticeship with sorrow. We begin to stop fighting it. And begin to see that it’s actually the way in which my deepest self comes fully present.”
Alex Van Halen on Eddie…(paraphrased) “I’m grieving all the time and at times it can be overwhelming and the more I dwell on it the more complicated it becomes. Music is the way he spoke to the world…his soul is in the music.”
When Eddie was at his sickest with his battle with cancer, when it came to medicine just the same as it was with his abuse of drugs, “if 2’s good, 20 must be better was Ed’s mentality…he took handfuls of steroids that made him Superman temporarily. He had a massive stroke. When he stopped breathing…there were no bells, there were no angels, it was just, it stopped. And then the room was empty. That was it. Because of Covid they immediately carted the body off and that was it. We didn’t see him anymore. A very uneventful ending to an eventful life.”
In loss, in death we find that the most important things are the people sitting around your bed, sharing the last moments. “All the stuff you did or made in the world, you can’t take it with you.”
Alex wrote in his book BROTHERS, “We travelled thru time, thru existence…but it would be nice to have you hanging around…Maybe you could have been here a little longer.”
Billy Bob Thornton sent a message to Alex after Ed’s death regarding suddenly losing his own brother Jimmy back in 1988…
“I’ve never been the same, there is a melancholy in me that never goes away, I’m 50% happy and 50% sad at any given moment. The only advice I can give, you won’t ever get over it. The more you know that and embrace it, the better off you are. You live with it the rest of your life to pay respect to the one you’ve lost. They deserve it.”
Back to AVH:
Losing his dad to heart attack in 1986 he was ”beyond devastated”. They all related to him, his sense of music and his sense of humor. His guidance, knowing they were always safe with him. He didn’t struggle with alcohol…”He loved it!!” But through this relationship his father had with alcohol in his life, Alex’s grandfather died from it, his dad’s brothers died from it, he died from it, Alex came very close to dying and Ed battled it his whole life. “He was always trying to slay that dragon, that ugly, ugly monster. Rehab is a painful process” that Alex entered a couple months after his dad died, but “I had to do it to save my life. I owed it to my dad.”
What I feel was the greatest quote from the interview: “Love stays, that’s the truth. We still communicate. You’re still with me Ed. Because we live in a Western society, people want to dismiss that as projection, but ask any physicist, energy can be neither created nor destroyed. When a cloud dissipates, what happens to the water? It isn’t gone, its just changed form. The same thing goes for you Ed or any other human being on this planet. So I’ll never say goodbye.”
“He communicates in different ways with me…There are other dimensions of existence. My dad explained that its all about frequencies. If you had a receiver and an amplifier, and you modulated between the different frequencies, you can go from whatever radio stations there are, its all there, its all there in the airwaves but you have to be in tune with it. Then you’ll understand what it is.”
We can all see signs from lost loved ones…it can give us great comfort. I have a couple personal examples that I carry with me every day of my life. One was back in September 1999. My friend, everyone’s friend, Miller Harris had passed away from a devastating asthma attack. A group of us young up-and-comer music biz friends would always meet on Thursday night for happy hour and the cheap, well-whiskey was Old Crow, my go-to at the time. When Miller saw me walking into the bar, he would start cawing like a crow - “Caw. Caw. Caw.” At his funeral, at the cemetery as we were walking from the car to the gravesite, a huge crow was in a tree cawing away, over and over. I looked up and saw him there. When I turned to point it out to a friend, it was gone. But the “caw” resonates with me still to this day.
I miss you Miller. We all do.
A second and more recent visit from a friend was before our first Whole Notes show here in Franklin and I was getting very anxious and sweating the details. We pull up to a red light and in front of us is a car with a personalized plate, “BWAYN” - the name everyone called our friend Bryan Wayne who passed away a few years ago after a long battle with ALS. He was right there to tell me to “chill out. It’s all gonna be ok.” I miss you Bryan. We all do.
To hear the complete interview with Alex Van Halen, check out the CNN podcast series, That’s All There Is - go to cnn.com/allthereisonline to listen, join the online grief community.
To buy the book BROTHERS written by Alex, click the cover photo below.
Now, let’s move on a happy and inspiring note…the other side of the album cover, joy and celebration.
The Christmas season is a time we can share the joy through our celebration and since this is a Whole Note, through the gift of music!! Often people talk about how society skips from Halloween to Christmas so quickly and overlooks possibly the most honest holiday of all, Thanksgiving. Not because of the origins of Thanksgiving but because Thanksgiving is one holiday where we simply give THANKS. No greedy gifting or receiving. No excessive purchasing and spending. But giving THANKS for what we have.
Why do we skip it so easily?
One word - MUSIC. Thanksgiving has no music!
Okay, there is the turkey song from Adam Sandler but nothing to the level of the fun halloween playlists and endless movies to scare us followed immediately by endless playlists of classic to modern versions of all the Christmas songs to get us in the spirit. Couple that with another endless list of Hallmark movies to touch our souls, Christmas wins the heartstring lottery.
Want to win the holiday season as a songwriter? Write a hit Thanksgiving song…write that Thanksgiving album. Work to fill the airwaves with the giving of THANKS. Celebrate what we have. You have a year to do it so get to work today!
In the meantime, celebrate each other. Celebrate the love in your life. Celebrate others. If you find yourself alone, volunteer at a shelter. Help sell Christmas trees at a tree lot. Visit nursing homes to spend time with those who may have no one to visit them. If you need a place, contact us, we’ll make room at our table.
And please don’t forget to check on your friends who may be struggling this season. Check on those who have lost someone or a pet this year, through death, divorce, whatever the loss, check on your people. Don’t worry about getting it right…they will not remember the exact words you’ll say but they will remember you were there for them. So be there.
The New year is coming…let’s jump in together.
First up…January 16-20th - Winter Writer’s Retreat in stunning Sedona, AZ - Your Message Matters, sign up TODAY.
Next up…January 28th - Whole Notes Concert Series at The Mockingbird Theater in Franklin, TN with David’s Den Nashville
And then…February 7-9th - The Weekend Journal Retreat on Monteagle Mountain, TN
A few pics from the November Whole Notes show with Tree House Recovery TN
(visit @wholenoteshealing for more, plus videos)
Bottom Right Pic - Front Row: Rocco Cipriano, Brandon Fender (Tree House Recovery TN Director), me
Back Row: Jackson Nance, Mitzi Dawn, Lydia Sutherland and Aaron Pollack
Look for our articles in the upcoming Brentwood Lifestyle Magazine, available January 1st everywhere in Brentwood. Misti gave a fantastic interview all about IAOMAI Global, the origins and the future of personal growth and the retreats and experiences to help you get there along with details on our non-profit, Spiritual Sustainability. Also, The Whole Notes Concert Series interview with me.
If you can’t find a copy, let me know and I’ll hook you up.
Until next time…keep dreaming, keep creating and keep in touch.
Jason Krupek / jason@iaomaiglobal.org