Endangered Integrity

This summer, I went and saw Eddie Vedder perform three solo shows in Portland and Seattle. I wrote an article about the talents of Glen Hansard earlier.

Yesterday (I started this draft months ago and forgot about it), while wearing my Pearl Jam 20th Anniversary shoes, my copy of Pearl Jam: Twenty (the book, not the DVD) arrived and I started to think about what I was doing twenty years ago when Eddie and the boys were getting started.

Turns out, I was probably writing a poetry memorization quiz in Mr. Allen’s grade three class. Shel Silverstein, you are a crazy man. After school, I was probably trying out my friend Keegan’s Super Nintendo Super Scope: what kid doesn’t want his very own bazooka? Later, I was chugging Orange Crush juice boxes at Robert’s place on the way home and then crying when his dad backs his car over my Supercycle (which I loved despite the uncleanable and very inconvenient maple sap on the handlebars). It was a pretty sweet routine. Nice work, eight-year-old Scott.

A year or so later, the Toronto Maple Leafs would be good. Scary.

Ok, not all of these things happened exactly twenty years ago, but I was living in Trenton, Ontario and eight-year-old Scott thought that the before-mentioned Super Scope was the pinnacle of human technological achievement. Present Scott just switched a song on ITunes using his cell phone, while saving this to a Dropbox folder that syncs documents between home and work computer. Super Scope? How could I have been so foolish?

Ultimately, and it’s cliche, I know, but that was a lifetime ago.

Some things are the same. I still know that Santa Claus doesn’t really exist. I still play video games. I’m still proud that the dog from The Littlest Hobo runs by the air force base in Trenton in the opening credits of that show. I still hold a slight, yet I’m sure unhealthy, grudge against Robert’s dad for running over my bike. It’s a rearview mirror, jerk…

Time to get a little bit more back on track.

When I watched the PJ 20 documentary on PBS I wash shocked at how young Eddie Vedder and the band looked. This isn’t a comment that they haven’t aged well, but I remember listening to Ten (their first album) when I was in grade six and due to Vedder’s voice or because I hadn’t yet hit puberty and kids in grade nine looked forty-seven, I thought I was listening to the words of a wise man and not a twenty-something-year-old kid. Now, those lyrics are wise and few bands that I listened to in grade six are still in my regular rotation (Soundgarden and Nine Inch Nails being the others; sorry, Ace of Base, Presidents of The United States of America, and The Offspring) but watch the documentary and see how overwhelming dealing with such success and fame can be when you’re in your early twenties.

Now, on the recent Eddie Vedder tour, I saw a Vedder much more comfortable with himself. He was engaging with the audience, told great stories and had the audience laughing between songs and dancing and screaming during them. He talked about being a father, which was strangely comforting; it is nice to know that twenty years can pass, much of life can change, and we can still do what we love.

For Vedder, there’s less scaling lighting towers and diving into the crowd from thirty feet above the stage, there’s (slightly) less red wine being consumed, but he managed to make the ukulele a rock-and-roll-worthy instrument. Most importantly, on that solo tour (and with Pearl Jam), he inspired fans ranging from four to eighty four; his talent convinced a man with two broken legs to see three shows in four nights like my brother, his friend and I who (at least early on in the evening) were able bodied. He brought a man from Australia to Seattle who tattooed a PJ logo on his body; lastly, he thanked his family and explained how, even after twenty years of performing, home is best.

Eight-year-old Scott just rolled his eyes and gave me a disapproving look, but he doesn’t know anything except how to recite “Where the Sidewalk Ends” in its entirety.

Vedder was looking forward to doing laundry.

I am so old that I understood, even appreciated the sentiment.

Perhaps it’s time to take up the ukulele.