Nostalgic Myalgia

Good morning Monday;

I saw the McCartney Concert Saturday. Wow!

I am not a fan. I like his music and, like everyone of a certain age who grew up around a radio, I can sing along to a fair amount of it. But I have not collected his music beyond a Greatest Hits album. (I still like the sound of “album” as opposed to CD package, which sounds more like a financial instrument for my retirement.) I like the man from what I know. I like his loyalty to Linda. I know all I want to about his troubles with that other wife. I discovered he has recently remarried to a friend of his first wife this time.

Having never gone to a Beatles' concert, I did the next best thing on Saturday. From my standpoint of concert going it was not to be missed. The music sound was not as clear as it is when played on my computer. My seat was not as comfortable as any in my living room. The commissary was outrageously priced compared to the stock in my refrigerator. And, of course, I had the usual total-strangers-interrupting-my-enjoyment-of-what-I-can-hear-of-the-music experience. Yet I had wanted to see Paul McCartney and my preferred choice to observe someone is in a group situation. Besides, I am not in the right circles to invite him over for a quiet get-acquainted chat. So I went to the show.

I observed a man on stage who thoroughly enjoyed what he was doing. He was relaxed when he sang off key or when his voice cracked. He had a lot of emotion in his tributes to his late wife, and late band mates, John and George. When the crowd sang Happy Birthday to him, I noticed a humbled man. But, most of all, I noticed a man who knew how to live in a state of appreciation – a virtue that, from my observation of Polish culture during the last 12+ years, is entirely lost to a prevailing local culture of worry. Somehow, the mob of concertgoers were unconcerned that he did not fit with them and were enjoying themselves despite the obvious recurring worry of the passage of time. My observations gave me something to think about.

One of my thoughts took me back to my first play on a jukebox – fittingly a Paul McCartney song in the summer of 1973. I was an avid writer back then. I was a terrible speller but enthusiastic writer. I kept a diary, not unlike what I have started to do now. It was easy to write about parts of my life 40 years ago especially about the summers spent at the lake. In those days, I could find many things to appreciate. And, as this 71-year-old musician played to a packed stadium Saturday, I actually saw him grow younger.

McCartney’s music was inescapable in the 70s. It created a soundtrack either because it was audible somewhere or because people around me were discussing it/him. Being precocious as I am, I associated myself with the older kids and adopted many of their attitudes without my own foundation for their beliefs – kind of like how we accept the religion into which we were baptized; only cooler. So there I was, surrounded by people on all sides with whom I could not communicate, assessing myself while Paul McCartney reminisced.



Have you ever noticed how many people at a concert are more interested in recording the occasion on a poor quality cell phone (“mobile” we say in Europe) rather than in living the moment? This is nothing more than a thirst for future nostalgia. It is a statement that this moment is so precious that I am going to do nothing but record it. The irony is these persons are pre-planning a reminiscence about recording a precious moment when they did nothing – learnt nothing – listening to a musician reminisce about his actual experiences meeting people like Jimi Hendrix and playing his guitar. It is a jarring epiphany to realize, standing there surrounded by underwater electronic sounds, that you are a fish in a fishbowl too.

It was most Escheresque.