The Sick Boy Theory in Motion

Sick Boy: It's certainly a phenomenon in all walks of life.
Renton: What do you mean?
Sick Boy: Well, at one time, you've got it, and then you lose it, and it's gone forever. All walks of life: George Best, for example. Had it, lost it. Or David Bowie, or Lou Reed...
Renton: Some of his solo stuff's not bad.
Sick Boy: No, it's not bad, but it's not great either. And in your heart you kind of know that although it sounds all right, it's actually just shite.
Renton: So who else?
Sick Boy: Charlie Nicholas, David Niven, Malcolm McLaren, Elvis Presley...
Renton: OK, OK, so what's the point you're trying to make?
Sick Boy: All I'm trying to do is help you understand that The Name of The Rose is merely a blip on an otherwise uninterrupted downward trajectory.
Renton: What about The Untouchables?
Sick Boy: I don't rate that at all.
Renton: Despite the Academy Award?
Sick Boy: That means fuck all. The sympathy vote.
Renton: Right. So we all get old and then we can't hack it anymore. Is that it?
Sick Boy: Yeah.
Renton: That's your theory?
Sick Boy: Yeah. Beautifully fucking illustrated.


The preceding bit is from Trainspotting, and is a conversation between Sick Boy and Renton ostensibly about the declining worth of Sick Boy's idol, Sean Connery. But of course they're also talking about how growing up/growing old is just another form of decay.

Sick Boy's theory has been on my mind a lot. Everywhere I turn, I'm confronted by another person, or group, or artist who is a mere shell of what he/she/they/it once were. The first Beacon of Light that slowly faded away (that I was conscious of) was The Simpsons. Alas, poor Simpsons; I knew them, Reader. A show of such infinite jest, that hath bore me on its yellowed back a countless number of times, allowing me to use quotes from the show as icebreakers and giant flags allerting fellow nerds that i'm one of their tribe. Presently, the show has been laid to waste as lame, contrived, cliched, redundant; it's become a lumbering dinosaur that is simply not funny.

Whenever I tried to explain to people my feelings on the current state of affairs in Springfield, I would use this analogy: The Simpsons is a friend, a person you grew up with and loved and laughed with, and is partly responsible for your current world view, and for who you are today. But in recent years, your friend has taken a turn for the worse, and has been diagnosed with a deblitating and, ultimately, fatal disease. Now, here is where the quandary is introduced: On the one hand, you wish to remain with your friend, be loyal to him, stay by the bedside and always watch over him, even when things are at their worst. On the other hand, this is not how you want to remember your friend: some feeble, weak, barely conscious husk, a shadow of its former self. You want to remember the good times, the funny times, and not have those memories sullied and forever replaced with these new, more depressing visions before you. So what do you do? What do you do?

Take out the hostage.

But the ironic joke inherent in the Sick Boy/Renton diatribe is that while this may be Sick Boy's overarching theory, it is an obvious fact of life to everybody else. Everyone knows that as you get older, you start to lose that indefinable IT. It just happens. Sure, maybe you become a better person, or a wiser person, or a better lover, or a more proficient guitar player, or a kickass Pictionary plaer, but whatever mystical aura that once defined you, that certain French "I-Don't-Know-What"ness about yourself is slowly dying. Another example of this type of problem is the burn out vs. fade away exit (as most eloquently put by Jack Black in High Fidelity).

What truly has irked me of late is whether or not people know they are losing it/have lost it. For example, to continue the animated tv show theme, South Park: while still a funny show, South Park has definitely plateaued at just being "good". Now considering that 98% of what's on TV is crap, "Good" is relatively Great. But still...one wishes that it could somehow recapture whatever hilarity, gruesomeness, and satirical absurdity that the show once produced. But do the creators, Trey Parker & tailcoat rider extraordinaire Matt Stone, know that the show, and themselves in turn, are losing "it"? Are they cognizant of how the show has entered a downward spiral?

Personally, I liked Beck's latest album, Guero. However, many reviewers (and my friends/fellow music snobs) have said that Beck is no longer producing anything new/good. He's stalled out and repeating himself, they object abjectly! They are, after a fashion, accusing the musical wunderkind of losing "it". Does Beck see this happening? Does he recognize that his audio trailblazing days are drawing to a close?

Obviously, the question that is implicit in all of this is thus: Would YOU (of course by "you" I mean "me") recognize if your work/art started to suffer? Would you stop one day and simply say to yourself, "My god. What happened to me? What have I become?"

I honestly believe that no one really does anything thinking it's horrible. For example, I despise the Bush Administration. I believe many of their policies and tenets are archaic, dangerous, and horribly biased towards a very specific group of people in this country. HOWEVER, I don't think, in my heart of hearts, that Bush believes his plans and his actions are evil. He honestly believes he's doing the right thing, and the only place the President and myself differ is that his definition of "the right thing" is the Bizarro version of my own. This goes for artists, as well -- as long as they aren't simply out to collect a check or feed a drug habit, most artists truly believe that whatever they are producing will be great. Which means that even when sitting at the console in the production studio, REO Speedwagon believed in their albums. The same with Pink Floyd. Radiohead. Duran Duran. Journey. Whitesnake. The Band. All of them. Sometimes they're right. Sometimes they're wrong, and then we all have to pay the price (Exhibit A: Garth Brooks's "Chris Gaines" fiasco; Exhibit B: Wilson-Phillips entire body of work*).

So, there's no real good summary here. I don't know what to tell people. Um, stop losing "IT"? Or...don't grow up? Or if you know you suck, simply walk away? I don't know what the solution is, all I know is that I'm getting tired of having to ignore so many of my "sickly friends", and I'm sick of praying to the Creative Gods above to somehow fix them for good.

If you would permit me to use a nerdy avenue in order to come to some sort of conclusion. No? Well fuck you, I'm goin to anyway:

When I was a kid I read and reread and read again Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain. They are these great nerdy fantasy books for preteens based on Welsh mythology. They also had these little bits of wisdom that have stuck with me, for nerdy good or pathetic ill. In the second book, entitled The Black Cauldron (glayven), the book ends with two characters essentially betraying who they once were. A formerly great man, Morgant, turns traitor and tries to destroy his friends and allies, while the selfish and egoistic Prince Ellidyrr commits the ultimate sacrifice for people he used to disdain. At the conclusion, Prince Gwydion states that he's going to erect statues in honor of both men, which confuses the protagonist. Gwydion explains:
"I shall honor Morgant...for what he used to be, and Ellidyr...for what he became."

Maybe that's all of us popcult nerds have. I mean, if there's one thing Nerds value and trade in, it's Nostalgia. We can romanticize anything, and yet we are also the quickest to cut down our once great heroes (I implicate myself in that statement. Fuck you, Lucas!) Perhaps all we can do, for our "sickly friends" and heroes abroad in the popcult stratosphere, is to focus on those great moments when they seemed like they were communicating on a higher plane and speaking pure unadulterated truth, in some form or another. We should be thankful that we're permitted to ever have "IT", even for a second. And if we accept that IT is a transitory property, like a lightning bug's glow while it flutters in a mason jar, then we can truly enjoy the bright brilliant flashes, with no mind being paid for the uncertain and ultimately dark path the future winds before us.


*Notice I didn't make any "Carnie Wilson is fat" jokes. Even though there are so many! But I'll refrain. Seriously...pure fat joke heaven in my head right now.