Pearl Jam

They are all so hopeful, so mindful, these city kids, city girls, these young, Masters-style city profs, waiting days, months, years practically, to hear back from editors of prestige, to learn if their feelings have been approved. Do writers actually give a shit about literary magazines anymore? Book deals? The New Yorker? Guess so. Love and opportunities abound and yet we’re all too busy using ‘em to update time, to inform anonymous hacks what song just came on the radio. Unless it’s Pearl Jam and it reminded you of how it feels to tingle in your throat and how music and words can get inside your muscles and make you grind your teeth, I’m not interested.

Pearl Jam, Pearl Jam, Pearl Jam, Pearl Jam, Pearl Jam. That’s right, I said it. Pearl Fucking Jam. You got the chutzpah to put that name in your mouth? Here’s the thing, folks. Christian Lander’s got this blog you’ve probably heard of. It’s called Stuff White People Like, see? It’s funny and all, well-written and can be an amusing distraction at the office, I guess. Can even make you feel a little better if you think you deserve to be castigated for your privileges. But I think it’s a shitload more than that. I think it’s an indictment. I think it’s a portion of the panacea. I think it’s an instantaneous treatise calling out the modern-day Anglophile liberal and his postures, his fear of a belly, his bloodless, under-the-radar sins that are costumed as good taste. Fuck coffee, fuck hummus, fuck Vespa scooters, fuck not having a TV. Fuck yoga and film festivals and Netflix and the Sunday Times and grammar and Barack Obama (in the abstract of course). The humble Mr. Lander will surely disagree, but to me, he’s nothing less than a hero.

And you know what’s got me all riled up and delighted at the same time? Pearl Jam will never end up on that list. Matt Cameron ain't much of a jazzman. Jeff Ament likes basketball. Stone Gossard wears khaki shorts to gigs. Eddie Vedder is always naked. Good for them. But we need more Pearl Jam. More Neil Young and Stephen Wright (the author, not the comedian). Less lethargy and Jack White. More feeling, less stealing. More hungry, more dingy. Less lecherous and stingy. More vodka and abundance, fewer gadgets and redundance. More Eminem and abandon. Less Radiohead and handsome. More Carlin. Less bargainin’. Fewer stoics. More hocus-pocus. More love, more hate. Less sit and wait. More Pearl Jam.

I still operate almost exclusively on inspiration. I think you should too. I am not a tireless worker. I am tirelessly ready to get back at it. I feel remorse because I didn’t start watching the Knicks until they won three in a row. I think that’s good guilt. And you know what folks? I may be a fat fool. And I might try to drag you down, just when you think you’re over the top. And I might wish I were dead from time to time. But I still got all night for you. And I almost always got enough left in the tank to shake you loose, you pretty, sexy, sophisticated city girl. I wish I could publish your story. I wish I could tell you how much you deserve. I wish you didn’t love your coffee and your Sunday Times and your comfortable goddamn inhibitions so goddamn much.

Fight to get it back again.