"The Best Intentions" Part Four - Times Like These: Clearest Indications & Loch Ness

I'm going to try my best not to overburden this entry with words. These pictures speak well enough for themselves - they speak well enough to me, at least - especially the first two.

I don't always recall taking a particular photo; the pace of Great Big Sea's shows tends more toward breathless forgetfulness. But this one I remember clearly. It was near the end of Clearest Indication - a song I hadn't expected they would do during their short set in front of this huge crowd at Runrig's Beat The Drum Festival - and there was a quiet hush as the crowd listened attentively, a few here and there singing along. I looked up and saw this expression on Alan's face as he gazed out at the thousands of faces turned up toward the stage, up toward him.  The moment held, as did the expression, long enough to make its initial impact, long enough for me to forget about the camera, long enough for me to remember the camera, long enough for me to take the picture. When I pulled the camera away from my face, there he still was, the same expression on his face. Even when the moment finally passed and the show moved on to Consequence Free, this face remained in my memory, expression intact, impact continued.

The response to that impact was swift and powerful; it has been lasting as well. That's a dangerous face is what I thought at the time. It's what I thought again when I first saw the photo, and it's what I'm thinking as I look at that picture now. A face that gives a glimpse into the intensity of the desires felt by its bearer, as well as an inkling of the high cost to himself of the relentless demands that come from without, more so from within. A Never Look Back face for the bearer, an Impossible To Turn Away From face to the beholder who sees, accepts, and who then cares beyond regret. A very dangerous face, dangerous and beautiful and irrefuseable, a face that might very well be the perfect embodiment of the song he is singing.

In some ways, this second photo is of perhaps of an even more dangerous face, this danger being the overwhelming abundance of sweetness and delight that provokes within the beholder both the wish and the will for circumstances to always be whatever they must be to keep that smile blazing, those deepest desires met and those relentless demands satisfied, at least for this one night.

This is the quintessential Ordinary Day(This Show Went Great!) face, during which song this photo was taken.

A This Is Why face, eliciting a Yes, I Know response. My Mom, who had a penchant for Bible quotations, would have called this a Bears All, Believes All, Hopes All, Endures All face. And if I had asked her whether this description was of the bearer or the beholder, she would have smiled inscrutably, a twinkle in her eyes, and held her tongue. I can't write my own smile or twinkle; imagination will have to suffice. 

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Off and on for the past week or so - while I've been slowly uploading a few photos a day via the glacial speed of my dialup - I've been thinking about how to write about Clearest Indication, at Loch Ness and before. I wanted to find a way to write about how the effect of this song has changed and altered over the past five years, going from the New Discovery delight of the first brand new GBS CD released after I'd found out about them, to the excitement of seeing the song performed live throughout the Sea Of No Cares Tour, to that bittersweet time when the Clearest video was first released, right around the time Darrell left GBS.

That was when a a group of fans who wanted to do something, anything, to show their support for the remaining GBS band members decided that the best support attempt they could make would be to keep voting (and voting and voting and voting) for the Clearest Indication video on the daily Much More Music Top 10 Videos program, hoping that maybe this small thing might be some encouragement to GBS as they now were. I wanted to write about how that continuing effort caused some of those stubbornly voting fans to wind up watching the MMM show, as well as the Clearest video, so many times that to this day, when they hear the Clearest's intro music, some can still clearly see the trees of the video's opening scene in their minds' eyes. 

There were trees this day too - it was, after all, the shores of Loch Ness - and as soon as the first notes of Clearest were played, I looked up at those trees and thought about that video and the days of hoping.

Then, inevitably, I thought about the days that followed after, of the times Clearest was played at shows with dogged weariness, even at times with a perfunctory carelessness. Then it disappeared off the set lists for quite some time, only to re-emerge during the latter parts of 2004's Something Beautiful Tour in its "trio-encore" incarnation. What had once sounded wistfully poignant now sounded unbearably painful, like frayed hope hovering on the cliff-edge of despair.  After hearing this version of Clearest a few times, I didn't think about the video anymore when I saw the three of them walk out onto the stage at encore time. I didn't see trees anymore when Alan played Clearest's opening guitar part. All I could see was their faces. When I tried to listen to the song on the SoNC CD, all I could see was their faces.

I stopped listening to the SoNC CD in the latter part of 2004.

A long time went by without hearing Clearest anywhere at all. Then, during The Hard & The Easy Tour, at their 13th-anniversary show in Cleveland in 2006, GBS played it again as their encore. It still felt like a wound unhealed by time.

It wasn't until they did Clearest again the next year, in Portsmouth, introduced with a very quiet "Here's to 14 more years together" from Alan, that the potential hope inherent in the song had once again taken the ascendancy over the potential despair equally inherent in the song.

Clearest is at its heart a song about uncertainty; the song's speaker(s) sits upon a knife edge, precariously balanced between a hope for clarity that keeps the speaker seeking the answer he still believes might be out there, with the threat of despair to be heard in his beginning to question the point of wondering anymore, his beginning to doubt the existence of any bearable answer to his question. The song ends with an aching expression of need. Whether it plays with hope or with despair depends on what, if any, answer the listeners are persuaded to believe the speaker might receive.

In Portsmouth, for the first time in years, Clearest played like its speaker might possibly get his answer, and that it might be the answer his heart most desired. It played with hope. It happened again when they did it in Asheville.

And at Loch Ness, there were trees.

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These are photos of the closing songs of the Loch Ness GBS main set, from Clearest Indication through Ordinary Day. I'll put up the encore shots as soon as they too laboriously upload via dialup. For the sake of variety, I've put the closeups immediately after the photos from which they come. I'm very sorry there's no Murray and not much Kris to be seen here, but I do have a couple of adorable closeups of the two of them for next time, taken during Excursion.

The rain and wind got worse as the set came to its close - that wind did make for some gorgeous blowing-hair shots - and that affected the photos a bit, especially that glow to be seen on Alan's white sleeves in a few photos. The rain wound up affecting the camera even more, but I would not realise this till the next afternoon at the Beautiful Days Festival.

Clearest Indication, full-band version.

Consequence Free.

Mari Mac.

Not that I don't feel the same about all of the other photos, and all of the other moments, but even more so with this photo and this moment: I think Alan looks spectacular here.

Closing out the main set with Ordinary Day, beginning with a blistering opening guitar part. Looking damn spectacular here too.

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One last thing to say before I wander off to bed. Someone I care about got hurt recently, for no reason other than that this person cares about me. That sucks mightily, and it is totally unfair. I do know that this is not a fair world, and I know even better that getting hurt is part and parcel of caring. But it still sucks. Saying something - here or anywhere else - does not a bit of good when it comes to diminishing that hurt. I know that too. But remaining silent about it feels too much like implying that the hurt is something that is forgettable, dismissable, unimportant, not pertinent. It is none of those things. As ineffectual a response as this is, I am saying how sorry I am that this hurt happened. For all the good that does.

Comments

[Stephen]

I spend a lot of time thinkig the internet is one of mankind's greatest tools for misunderstanding. I'm sorry about whoever it was who got hurt. I wish so many people didn't get hurt. It's even worse when it comes to texting. Maybe using the cameras is an answer. If we see each other's faces we get the visual cues and we remember we're talking to real people.

It's human nature to read what's written as being about yourself. (I'm too lazy for two comments, bear with me) If you write about a thief, the teacher who took school supplies home for personal use five years ago is convinced you know her secret and you're singling her out. This is what I meant about not expecting reasonable reactions.

I don't know how writers get around it. Fiction?

This is good writing but you sound muted. That's an observation not a critique. If you want to talk, you know where to find me.

[lynda]

Cameras might be a good choice. There would be those who have lots of motivation not to use them, but it could be an option for those who don't have those kind of motives.

This misunderstanding is more mine that the internet's. I respond to shit that gets sent to me or something I see at a particular show, but I don't specify, because I don't want to be "too negative" or "single someone out" to the point where they're individually identifiable because that seems like an invasion of privacy, no matter how someone has acted.

So I respond to something almost no one who reads here has a clue about. I leave it wide open for them to fill in the blanks, and that's a perfect recipe for misunderstanding. It's unreasonable of me to expect anything to be otherwise.

I'm not doing it anymore. No more comments of any kind about fans, about what gets sent or said or is seen. There's just no point to it: It never accomplishes anything constructive, it certainly never changes anything, and on top of that, sometimes blameless people get hurt.

Maybe I'll shut down the comments function here if it winds up that I have to censor or not post comments that talk about the same things. Maybe I'll just shut the blog down altogether. I don't know yet.

"Muted" is a good word, even if it reminds me a bit of a trumpet. Or a TV remote control. But it is a good description.

I can always deal with getting hurt myself, especially when I walk in with my eyes wide open. If you care, you're going to get hurt. But it's different when it's other people getting hurt. It's bad enough when I do something stupid or careless and that winds up hurting someone who did not deserve it. At least with that, there's a chance I can stop doing the stupid, careless thing and end the hurting. But when someone winds up getting hurt for no other reason than having made the dubious choice of giving a shit about me...that's when I start thinking about reconsidering my options. So, yeah, "muted" works pretty well.

Thanks for the offer - it is always appreciated. I'll be alright in time. I hope the same is true for others.

[Christina]

"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing."

Most beautiful chapter of the whole book, I think. And those are beautiful pictures of a beautiful man.

I still think of those trees every time I hear the opening of Clearest Indication. Green leaves, clear blue sky, and in the top right hand corner, a little black circle with a gold 1. I remember celebrating as each video came up, because it wasn't Clearest yet, but worrying too, in case it wasn't going to be there at all. Not sure which was more dizzying, the angle on those trees or the little gold 1.

[lynda]

Yes, it is. Yes, they are. Yes, he is.

We agree. Agreement is good.

I'll never be mistaken for the most religious person anyone has ever come across, but there is no denying the wisdom of the words, nor denying the beauty of the writing. And it's an excellent goal to start with, maybe an even better one to end with.

I was always fascinated by this thought too, from that same chapter: "For now we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." I was maybe 10 when I first heard that; it fired my imagination and provoked a profound sense of wonder. Still does.

I don't think I'll ever forget those days/weeks/months of voting for that video. For sure I'll never forget the video, not after seeing it so many times; I opened up the file of it on my hard drive a few months back, and when the video began to play, I had to repress that same old urge to cheer because it had "made it" there.

And no matter what else he does in the rest of his career, whatever great accomplishments he achieves, I think I am forever going to see Allan Hawco first and foremost as the Clearest Indication fellow.

[Jen]

Thanks, Lynda. For the pictures and all the rest.

[lynda]

You're welcome, Jen. At the risk of sounding repetitive, thank you for the thanks.

[A.M.]

If you write, no matter what you write the people you know always think it's about them. Maybe it is sometimes but not always about the one who thinks it is! You tell them who it's about then they get pissed it wasn't about them. Oy vey.

[Kathy]

I understand you not wanting anybody to get hurt, I really do. It's just that I've appreciated your honesty about what are your own opinions. I'd like to believe there's room for individual opinions about Great Big Sea. It would be nice to think there's still room for truth.

It's your blog and your choice if you keep it going and how.

[lynda]

Hi, A.M. & Kathy.

I have to agree with you, A.M. I've been on both sides of that matter. I lived with a musician/songwriter for awhile, and he had a penchant for putting our most private personal moments- good and bad - into his songs, not always very well-disguised. Sometimes it got pretty embarrassing (the stuff about the good even more than the bad, I soon discovered), but I figured it went with the territory. And that good stuff really was good. So I lived with it...and him.

Kathy (and a few others who've made comments along this line...I'm going to try to answer you here, too), thank you for saying what you've appreciated. Again, being repetitive, but I'll go ahead and say that I appreciate what you said.

Everyone has their own way of seeing and dealing, but for me, opinion - as well as truth - should be serving some kind of constructive purpose when being expressed. Opinion for the sake of opinion (or even truth for the sake of truth) just doesn't seem to me to be enough, especially not good enough when it runs the risk of hurting the innocent, or even the not-so-innocent about whom I happen to care very much.

A few other people (not you, Kathy, this is in general), have suggested that I am just caving in to the pressure of PositiveSpeak that's being enforced on the GBS website. My answer to that is that I see a difference between the goal of being "constructive" and the insistence on being "positive".

I don't think much of being positive solely for the sake of positivity, either. If you are being "positive" in the face of cruelty or abuse, that in and of itself is cruel and abusive. There are times that being "positive" is a lie too dangerous for the telling, and those are the times that the kindest, most constructive thing to do might very well be to express a "negative" opinion. There are times when the cost of "peace at any price" is prohibitive, times when that cost causes irreparable damage.

But none of it makes any sense - none of it is constructive - if nobody wants to hear that opinion. If people already know about whatever it is you were going to say, and they don't want to hear it said anyway, then what constructive purpose is accomplished by going ahead and saying it, particularly in light of any risk that might cause to others, not to mention the wrath brought down on your own head?

Without a constructive purpose, it becomes being negative for its own sake, and I've got just as little patience with that as I do with all of those other things that are done only for their own sakes.

No, I don't intend to shut down the blog, at least not today I don't intend to do that. If you'd asked me the same question yesterday, I might have given a different answer. But I still wouldn't have done it.

I know that some people I care a lot about get a bit of pleasure here, and I hope that's true for some others I don't even know. I really love it when I see that someone from Sri Lanka has done an Alan Doyle Google search and looked at photos of him from here or read about a CD he produced. I think it's cool when someone has read about Russell and Alan and TOFOG here, or when they say thanks for a video from a child's first GBS show. When someone searchs Newfoundland outports or musicians and winds up reading here, that means a lot to me.

I've written here about what I care about, both in terms of what I love and think is wonderful and in terms of what I detest and find troubling. All I am saying now is that I want to move on and away from writing much about what I detest and find troubling, specifically in regard to the shit that goes on with some fans, more specifically some GBS fans. It's been said. There's no point - no constructive reason - in saying it any more. No one wants to hear it, for various reasons.

And I'll nip the "What about brand new people?" argument in the bud from the outset: There's not much that I consider necessary to know that's not apparent enough to a reasonably discerning individual. I knew at my first GBS show that there was something odd going on ("disjunctive" was the word that came to mind after about 5 minutes up at the edge of the stage); it was my own choice to go ahead anyway and get involved beyond the level of casual fandom. With the exception of children, those who do not see enough to make them have the sense to be a bit wary before proceeding have pretty much chosen not to see anything they do not want to see.

The only answer I have about children is the admittedly lame one of there being worse places they could wind up in. And I suspect that overall many of them are far tougher and much more perceptive, as well as resilient, than are many of us foolishly trusting adults. To the smart ass who asked me if I'd let my own child be around GBS/GBS fans, my answer is that one of the reasons I've chosen not to have my own child is because of thinking about all of the places that child might potentially be hurt; when I made that choice, I forfeited the right to answer questions such as this one.

None of this means I won't be honest about my opinions - positive and negative - of GBS, both the people and the music/writing. Same goes in regard to Newfoundland, and Russell too, for that matter. The day I feel the need to stop being honest about who and what I care about in that way is the day to stop writing altogether.

For those who've asked me to be more specific about what is alright for comments here (again, not you Kathy, blanket response still), for now the best I can do is say go ahead and write what you want, but don't be surprised if your comment winds up edited or not posted here at all if that comment mostly a negative one about fan behaviour, either at shows or online.

If what you want most is a response from me, include your email address and I'll try my best to keep up with comments I don't feel right about posting, with warnings that I have always sucked at keeping up with replying to email. If what you want most is to get your comment posted, and if that comment is centred on fan behaviour, then you might want to find another forum for that public expression, and I hope you can understand that decision, or at least accept it.

From here on out, I'd like to try my best to keep this blog about what its title says. I'd really rather focus on what I love and what I believe is terribly wonderful.

Thanks.

[Michael]

Do I have to beat some one else up again? pass hugs on to whomever has been hurt...Chris performances went well... He'll have a Christmas album coming out next month... Take care, and my love to all... no I haven't won the lottery... yet...

Michael

[C.J.]

I thought you already censored posts about fans? Was I the only one? I didn't think I was that special! j/k

It's your own blog, Lynda. You should feel free to say what you think. If there's shit you don't want to say you should feel free to do that too. Not if its because you're being threatened or bullied though!

I like reading what you write her even when I disagree with you. I love the pictures. Hang in there and don't let yourself be pushed around. You have the option to go friends only too.

Carole

[lynda]

Hi Mike - Nobody to chastise or pummel, but thanks for the sympathetic wishes. I edited out a few personal bits of your comment I thought you might not want public here, and thanks for the news about Chris. One of these days I'm going to see that fellow again, and, by the way, my guess is that hugs are because of both reasons: Genuine appreciation, and also a genuine desire to impress the ladies.

Good luck on the lottery, but even if you don't win, hope to see you some place warm and sunny come January.

Carole, point taken. But you know most of what we've gone round and round about is stuff that makes individuals recognisable in the description, that and pounding on the deceased pony. I won't pretend I'm blameless when it comes to the same things, but I still think it's wrong, even when I screw up and do it too. I have the least excuse of all, because I know how it feels all too well.

You know, you might be surprised how many comments I've gotten that assume, even presume, threats or bullying or pressure. Or you might not - suffice to say that I am a bit surprised. I think maybe it's part of what happens when much of the discourse within a given group is driven underground - take it to PM, rehash it in IM, keep it on the level of whispers and secrets and God forbid anything "negative" be said out loud in public. Which means the negative all gets said in private, where no one has to be accountable for any ugly insults they tell or outrageous stories they spread, perfect conditions for the unscrupulous and the deranged. Not so surprising that it starts to get like what's going on beneath the unturned rock...gossip, rumour, lies, even bouts of outright paranoia. Gyges' Ring put to the test yet again, with all-too-expected results.

Of course, the alternative of horrible things being spewed out willy-nilly, anger up the wazoo, and people trying to rip each other apart in public is less than appealing too. I can't say what a more viable course might be. All I can say is that it's my own choice to make some changes based on what I believe is sensible and constructive.

I'm glad you like to read here and enjoy the photos, Carole. I'm not very interested in the friends-only option - I'm not sure Typepad even has that option - because I've never been much for cliques and exclusivity. And it would make this blog just one more thing being done out of the view of other people, one more little dark and secret whisper-filled corner, one more underside of an unturned rock. I'm not interested in being any part of that. It wouldn't be very cool to those who might just wander in either.

As for being pushed around...those words remind me of a song lyric. I might stumble and fall all the time, but I'm not planning to lie down anytime soon.

Assuming I can figure out how to do so, I think I'm going to do a first-for-me on this blog and close comments to this entry now. I believe it's time to move along.