On Dylan, new shoes, Gatsby and what matters

  • By Mike Dewey
  • May 28, 2014
  • 415
                        
SUMMARY: When the issue is wanting versus needing, Mike Dewey considers himself something of an expert and, in this piece, you'll get the chance to agree with or oppose his perspective. Do you want to read it ... or need to? How does that song go? Oh, yeah. “You can’t always get what you want But if you try sometime You just might find You get what you need.” To me, that’s as immortal a line as exists in the canon of rock, not only because it’s pure, but because it’s trying so hard to be true. Wanting and needing are two very separate human desires and, as such, deserve a clear and concise differentiation. What Jagger and the Stones suggested, way back in the late Sixties, was simply this: “OK, Dylan already broke the ground. We’re just planting another seed.” Because, when “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again” was released, a lot of folks tuned in to this particular quatrain: “An’ I say, ‘Aw c’cmon now, You must know about my debutante.’ An’ she says, ‘Your debutante just knows what you need But I know what you want.’” Say what you want about Robert Zimmerman or Michael Phillip Jagger – they’re too old to be relevant, they haven’t recorded a hit song in decades, the Sixties are so boring – but you have to respect the fact that they rocked the world. I listen to almost no new music and the few records – oops, CDs – that find their way to my Stereo Room are sent by faithful readers who want (not need) me to be back in the game. And even as I express my gratitude and my appreciation, it doesn’t change the fact that, with only a few exceptions, my jukebox heaven is pretty much closed and St. Peter has usually got the day off. I neither want nor need most of it. Perhaps that’s because I’m a close-minded old guy who’s got no energy left to deal with the effort it takes to love a new song. Perhaps it’s because the radio stations down here pretty much reek. Perhaps it’s because it seems like so much has been lost with the death of downtown record stores and the advent of online everything. YOU’LL ENJOY THIS. My wife took it upon herself to order me a couple of pairs of Reeboks, because my sneakers are so ratty and holey (if not holy) that only a homeless guy would rescue them from a dumpster. They are foul and, when it rains, they become foul and soggy. And when the snow comes, they’re as useless as a screen door in a submarine, to quote Elvis. But they walk the beach just fine. “Don’t do it,” I said to my wife as she surfed the sites and homed in on what she believed I wanted. “I don’t need new shoes.” You ladies are probably familiar with that particular guy thing, the way we’d rather not complicate our lives with unnecessary crap, which is something to be assiduously avoided, like wearing plaid pants with striped shirts. The truth is that I just don’t want to buy a pair of shoes that I haven’t tried on and walked around in for a few minutes; I mean, I’ll gladly fork over some plastic money for an autographed Babys album – “Isn’t it time?” were the words, written by John Waite – but that’s a knowable commodity and even if it’s something I don’t need, I know that I want it. Shoes – even ones I need – I don’t want to order without, as I’ve said, worn them. Imagine my less-than-lyrical surprise, then, when the box showed up on our doorstep and the two pairs – one black, one white – fit fine. “Wow,” I said to my wife. “We got lucky, right? They could have screwed up the order and then where would we be?” I was remembering a time – late in the last century – when I was tempted to hire Johnny Cochran to represent me in a case against an online seller who’d completely ripped me off, but then I understood something so elemental, so simple, that I just ate the loss. Caveat emptor. Let the buyer beware. In other words, who needs the aggravation? I need that like a swimmer needs a Great White shark gnawing on his lower extremities. Speaking of the beach, they need money in Eastern North Carolina, so the state government has taken steps to charge anyone who wants to park in an erstwhile Public Beach Access lot a sum of 10 bucks for the privilege. Years ago, Public Beach Access lots were free, Now, they’re just like toll booths that mushroom out of the ground and gouge you every time you must use those roads-for-hire. Who wants that? BUT THE WORLD we live in can be a greedy, often godless, savage place, one that not only favors the wealthy and their One Percent status, but one that clearly delineates between what is needed and what is merely wanted; as in, “I need a job … but all I want is for someone to tell me I’m not worthless.” As a high school student, I studied F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby.” I’d reexamine it again in college and have read it several times since then, simply because sometimes I need to read this line again: “You’re worth the damn bunch put together.” Those few words – spoken by Nick Carraway as Gatsby finds no solace in his shallow, showy wealth – provide a sense of self-worth that’s all too rare these days. When was the last time someone in a position of power threw a crumb of selfless approval your way? Bet it’s been a while. But who needs it, anyway? Bosses are mostly blind to what anyone – other than themselves – want, so don’t waste your time waiting for kind words from their end. Just keep your head down and try to stay out of the crossfire. Which brings us back to the Rolling Stones, doesn’t it? But you already know all about “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” and how it’s all about a gardener and how the boys in the band didn’t exactly know what they had on their hands. At this juncture, as we head for Happy Hour and the close of another chapter in this ongoing and semi-fascinating fable that has become my life, I’d like to throw out these lines from a semi-important band – we’re not talking Rush marginal, but almost – called Cheap Trick. I don’t know how they did it, but somehow, this line – and the way it connects to the ones I introduced at the outset – is another example of what we’ve been examining; specifically, the blurring of the line between essential human desires. “I want you to want me … “I need you to need me.” This is what I’m talking about. That record sold like a bazillion copies and no one faults a band from suburban Chicago for having made a killing on its dumbed-down sensibility. After all, who’s to say what someone else needs … or wants? Certainly not me: I’m still trying to figure out the difference between wishin’ and hopin’. Jay Gatsby never understood it, even though Dusty Springfield did. Mike Dewey can be reached at CarolinmikeD@aol.com or 6211 Cardinal Drive, New Bern, NC 28560. You can find him and more of his work on Facebook.


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