Reading the daily paper is not only dispiriting, but also seems to be an exercise in futility. Watching the news on television is arrantly dismal, and made worse due to the overwhelmingly insipid magazine-style reporting and filler commentary by a surfeit of the so-called experts. The news is depressing enough without a slew of vapid analysts trying to make sense of the rampant senselessness and lunacy of man’s inhumanity to man as well as logically trying to explain the inexplicable enigmas that plague us on a daily basis. The mysteries I refer to are oddities such as the story of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370, the economy and, of course, our foreign policy, to name a few.
On a daily basis, the papers, the Internet and the news channels are imbuing us with a sense of gloom and doom made even worse by the admitted helplessness of our elected officials and brilliant scientific minds. The economy is in tatters…still. Ebola is unstoppable and spreading quickly. The Middle East is in chaos due to both our entrance and exit policies. Terror has become even more terrifying. ISIS is running amok and releasing videos to the world of American journalists being beheaded. More American citizens are joining terrorist groups and are predicted to be on our shores wrecking havoc and mayhem shortly. There is no foreseeable end in sight to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Vladimir Putin’s Russia is aggressively on the move and has invaded and annexed the Ukraine. Economic sanctions have been imposed, but a seemingly unconcerned Putin has not been swayed.
We have no strategy to combat the ills affecting us. Police are killing unarmed civilians. Racial tensions have increased. The weather is totally unpredictable and huge storms, tornados and tsunamis are devastatingly more destructive than ever before. Children are being abducted and abused. Our borders have sprung leaks that cannot be patched. Mothers and children seeking refuge in the U.S. are being sent back to the horrors they were trying to escape. Brad and Angelina have finally tied the knot, causing great distress to those who might have thought they had a chance with either of the two. Mark David Chapman, while expressing remorse for killing John Lennon, brags about his incredible job of planning and preparedness for the assassination…parole denied! Lauren Bacall dies of old age, Joan River dies as an outpatient and Robin Williams commits suicide due to depression. Lauren Bacall’s death opens up nostalgia for the glamour days of Hollywood; Joan River’s demise spurs investigations into outpatient care and ironically — with the passing of Robin Williams — depression itself becomes a news topic.
The Final Step
Despite the sensational value of depression as a media topic, I am convinced that one’s depression does not necessarily lead to suicide. I am also aware that there are quite a few bi-polar manic-depressives in all walks of life and in every profession who are managing to cope with their mental and emotional challenges. In my estimation, suicide — while often attributed to depression — is an anomaly and not necessarily the norm for a depressed person. Globally, there are 800,000 suicides recorded per year — or one suicide every 40 seconds. When the media throws this number around, it sounds like an enormous amount of the earth’s population is offing themselves each year , but if we consider that there are about 7 billion occupants on this planet, then the percentage of people taking leave of this corporal plane by their own hand is a mere 0.0142857%. I am not presenting this statistic to negate the horror of suicide — even one is too many — but if even if half of the planet’s 7 billion occupants are depressed, the percentage of suicides in regard to the depression rate would still be considered an exception to the rule and not the rule itself.
Suicide is not limited to a specific social class or any one particular reason, although it seems to me that one underlying factor is a lack of hope. Soldiers fall on their own swords rather than be taken by the enemy. After seeing the many horrors of war, soldiers also opt out while trying to assimilate back into the mainstream. Cleopatra, Marc Antony, Eva Braun, Hermann Goring, Heinrich Himmler and of course, Adolf Hitler are a few of the well-known political and military personnel who took their own lives. There are those hated murderers who have walked into schools, movie theaters and army bases with assault rifles, snuffing out as many innocent lives as possible before turning the gun on themselves and — of course — there’s the misguided “loyalty” of suicide bombers. Well-known political leaders, captains of industry, sport stars, inventors and scientists have taken the road less traveled, but what strikes me as I’m looking at the list of celebrity suicides is just how many of the names come from the entertainment industry. Successful musicians, actors, writers, painters, fashion designers and directors who, one would think, after having reached the heights of fame and fortune would be able to find some glimmer of hope behind the dark foreboding of their inner voices.
I am assuming that in the case of a great creative mind that the decision to end it all comes from the same place as the creations themselves, a place beyond reason and rationality. Maybe they lose the ability to transform their inner darkness into the light they share with others, or possibly they just lose the capacity to keep the darkness at bay. Whatever the reasons may be, we, as the recipients of the artist’s light, will remain baffled in regard to their final decision. Interestingly, while making my way through the celebrity suicide list the only audio engineer I came across was Joe Meek — a man best known for his pioneering productions and also as the writer of the tune “Telstar” as well as being the inventor of his eponymous preamp.
View from the Live Side
There are no touring engineers on the list. While I’m not certain why this lack exists, I can only assume that we are either not really creative enough or we are just too freakin’ happy. Maybe, we just don’t make the list because we are only celebrities in our own communities. After all, we work behind the scenes to make the stars shine, and not getting recognition for our art of live audio is part of the job description. How depressing! We can do great work, but we will still go unrecognized. Apparently we are on the “suck” end of the console. We are the ones to arrive at 8 a.m. to load in and set up after a night of traveling on the bus. We work all day, we finally do the show and then we pack up and load out.
On the bus, we socialize a bit and possibly self-medicate before hitting the bunk for another drive through the night. We drown out the humming of the engine with our iPods as we think about our families — or lack thereof — back home. We dwell on the bills we need to pay, and we wonder if there will be any more work once the current tour is over. We worry that our lives might be falling apart as we go from gig to gig, and we wonder what our wives or lovers might be doing while we’re gone. We start to doubt our decision to live the life of a road dog, and we realize that we’ve been doing this for quite a while and that we’re not getting any younger. This life is no picnic and damn — we get depressed too.
I can only assume that “hope” is what keeps us afloat. Depression seems to be commonplace in our great country, and considering that we are always collectively and individually concerned about striving to achieve happiness, depression might even be the default key of human emotions. On a daily basis, we are inundated with “hope” and hopeful commercials about receiving more money, the perfect mate, the perfect home, a great car or the best vacation. We are “hopeful” that we will land a great gig. We “hope” that when that great gig arrives, it never ends. We play the lottery with the “hope” of never having to worry again about mundane matters. The major pharmaceutical companies sell us anti-depressant drugs and painkillers so that we can chemically regain a little “hope” in a depressing world that continually threatens to shut us down. We turn to alcohol, sex, drugs and vicarious stunts to stave off depression. We work incessantly to keep the negative thoughts at bay, and it is usually in those times that we are least busy that “hope” begins to sink.
Therefore, let’s count our lucky stars if we are employed in a vocation that we enjoy, and while we may be missing loved ones as we are on the bus zipping through the night to another long day of work, at least we have “hope”. We have “hope” that the driver doesn’t fall asleep. We have “hope” that the rigging company for the next gig uses OSHA guidelines while building the stage. We have “hope” that we will have all the proper gear for the upcoming gig. We can “hope” for the proper amount of labor required to make the next show a success, and we “hope” for a proper ground connection! We can even “hope” for decent hospitality and we can “hope” for a single room with a shower. Things might be depressing all around us, but if we can make it to the next show and have a chance to transform the cacophony of chaos into a palatable audio mix, then I would say we are having too much fun to lose “hope” and — despite any of the hardships involved in the life we lead — it’s still better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. I “hope!”
