Fanzine:My Rapt Attention
I can't remember when or how it started. Sometime in late 1980, probably at a friend's house listening to her older brother's records, I heard Zenyatta Mondatta for the first time. Although I was always one of those non-musical kids it seeped into my brain (when they did the placement tests in 4th grade, I got the "dear, you should think about playing soccer" treatment … so I did.) Even I could tell that the music was great, and it appealed to my whimsy, my intellect, and my tendency toward high-energy air drumming. I loved the layers in the rhythm, and it didn't hurt that the drummer was kind of cute …
But what really kicked it into high gear was the combination of three things in 1981: I turned 16 and could drive to the "cool" record stores near the university campus where we lived, MTV started, and Ghost In The Machine was released. I bought the entire back catalog, including the green Klark Kent vinyl (which, sadly, disappeared somewhere along the way with a miscreant boyfriend, grrr). Like many other 16-year old girls, once I saw the video for "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" I was hooked for good. I was a confirmed, passionate Police fan and, as far as I could tell, the only "Stewart girl" on the planet. My friends who liked The Police were all guys, and to the extent that my girlfriends paid any attention, they thought that Sting was kind of cute … but I had it bad for the skinny, somewhat spastic, mouthy drummer. How could any sentient being fail to respond to that combination of skill, intellect, wit, physical attraction, and insistently infectious enthusiasm for life? I festooned my walls with banners and posters, and my jean jacket with a metal-detector-defying number of Stewart buttons (oh, and one Ghost button, and a Union Jack, and a Who button, and an anarchist A. But mostly Stewart.).
My best friend and his brother and I did as much of a groupie road trip as we could manage on the Synchronicity tour in 1983; with only two dates (Indianapolis and Cleveland) it wasn't much of a tour, but it was great. In Indianapolis we had (nosebleed) seats behind Stewart's left shoulder, which my friend called "Stewart girl heaven". And it was.
And then life moved on, for them and for me. The fluorescence of British music through the early 1990s meant that my regret for The Police’s passing was painful but short-lived. Graduate school guaranteed that I paid less attention to Animal Logic than I wanted to, the shift to CD technology meant that my old vinyl sat without an audience for longer than it should have, and the pressures of being a young assistant professor meant that I paid little attention to music through the mid-1990s. I occasionally watched and listened to movies with Stewart scores, but beyond that my love of Stewart and The Police remained a warm, tender memory.
With the approach of my 40th birthday in 2005, my husband asked what I wanted as a present. Something made me say "I'd like Message In A Box so I can listen to The Police again". Something then made me go to that newfangled search engine called Google, and I thought that a "Stewart Copeland" search would be a good way to put it through its paces. That's how I found SC.net, where I proceeded to lurk, and lurk, and lurk …
Until I heard the gong again at Wrigley Field on July 5, 2007. I can't even articulate the visceral rush of emotion and memory, and how different it was from just listening to the albums at home. I had forgotten how good this music made me feel, and I don't want to give up this feeling ever again! The fascination was back, with a vengeance. I could forget my idea of going to one show just for nostalgia's sake, thanks to Stewart and the regulars at SC.net.
SC.net, the warmness of its habitués, and the discovery that I was not the only Stewart girl on the planet induced me to do something I rarely do: I came out and said Hi to folks on the Internet who share my interest. It takes a special place and special people to do that, and I thank them all for the joy and insistently infectious enthusiasm for life that I've shared since then. The Leroy Coolbreeze Fund philanthropy project reinforces that joy by coupling it with generosity.
The real kicker for me was the Flag, and Stewart's embrace of it. I love a project, especially one that requires coordination and encourages revelry (and tequila)! Hoisting the Krypton Menace to show the love would have been a joy and an honor in any case, but Stewart's turning it into a game increased the fun and the love exponentially. My 28-year-long passion had survived the dim years of the mid-1990s, and what better way to express it than to do everything in my power to get that manky piece of green cloth to as many shows as possible, so we can show the love together? The social scientist in me is fascinated with how the involvement of different folks in this project reflects their personalities; in my case, I'm very goal-oriented, and my goal was to get the Flag to shows where it wouldn't otherwise be able to go. That desire drove me to do a Toronto-Toronto-Boston odyssey in late 2007, and a marathon drive from Chicago to Pittsburgh on very little sleep to get the Flag from Milwaukee to Pittsburgh in July 2008. In both cases, I also got to meet and spend time with amazing, fun, witty, interesting people, and I will treasure those experiences forever. I am grateful to everyone involved, particularly Dirty Martini and her biting wit, her brilliant writing style, and her Napoleonic logistical skills.
The most unexpected effect on me of this whole experience is learning to play the drums. I came back from the Toronto-Toronto-Boston odyssey and bought a metronome and instruction book, and in January 2008 I started taking lessons. I learned quickly and showed some aptitude for it, after a lifetime of believing that I'm not musical, so I bought a kit (Tama, naturally) in March, and have been playing ever since. Stewart has given me the gift of reaching for something within myself that I didn't know I had, and didn't think I could do. Through this inspiration he has enriched my life in ways that I never imagined, and I am a bigger and better person because of it.
Others in this volume will wax much more eloquent than I about the uniqueness and meaning of the whole Madison Square Garden show experience, so I will spare you my mundane observations. Except for one thing: in the busy, rich lives of the many people involved in this whole experience, it's a strong indicator of how special a person Stewart Copeland is that so many of us choose to devote so much time and attention to him and his work. And it goes the other way too—Stewart's attention, his generosity of spirit, the time he takes to keep in touch with us when his time is so scarce and valuable, all demonstrate how truly special he is. No one less special could have held my rapt attention for this long. Thank you, Stewart.
