Almost famousing
On my most recent trip from New York to L.A. I re-watched Almost Famous. My suit jacket looked sharp, my water bottle felt sharp poking my right hip on my tiny airplane seat. I had read all the articles and books of this world and somehow it was still three hours to go. Decisions had to be made and I decided that I did not have the headspace for something new. I wasn’t ready for complete unknown material (some of you will get this one). I needed something old and comforting. And so I picked Almost Famous.
As it so happens with great pieces of art they change and transform as you change and transform. The words in Anna Karenina remain the same, their meaning changes with the seasons.
For those who haven’t watched Almost Famous (yet), this is the plot:
William, a young kid from the suburbs with a controlling mum and a run-away sister, wants to become a rock journalist. He ends up touring with a mid-level band named Stillwater (great band name) and their groupies who call themselves band aids while trying to hide the fact that he’s only 15 years old from his editor at the Rolling Stone. He has a mentor (heart-breakingly great: Philip Seymour Hoffman) who is the old-fashioned, seen-it-all, grumpy rock journalist Lester Bangs who begs him not to become friends with his subjects. The world might shatter, mountains might shake but under no circumstances are you to befriend the band.
I was bathing in the music and Kate Hudson’s smile (one of the band aids), feeling all warm and fuzzy when I suddenly came to and realised: I was William. I was the rookie journalist traveling the tennis world, trying to make sense of it. I was the one trying to keep my distance, trying not to become friends with the very people I will have to possibly criticise a few hours later. This part was easy as I rarely ever leave my house and I’ll tell you one thing: It’s sure easy to not make friends when you don’t leave your house.
William wants to know things, he wants to understand them. He wants to logically grasp rather than feel. Feelings are too insubstantial. He needs more. He asks: Where does the art come from? What is your favourite thing about music? When does inspiration hit you?
The answers are as insubstantial as those above-mentioned feelings:
“I don’t know.”
“The chicks are great.”
When words run out, William is left with cheeky smirks and people leaving the room. The thing he wants to know, the essence he tries to get to – how do you do it – remains elusive.
For the 20 plus years I have spent in the tennis world, I have been asking myself the same question. How do the greats do it? What do they think, how do they work, what is their secret? Somebody, please, tell me, how in the world do they do it? I’m still looking for a definitive answer.
From the outside, you can see it happening. You can see Roger entering the zone, Serena staging a comeback or Novak finding the right amount of anger to play his best. But what does it feel like on the inside?
The problem for people like William, for people like me, for people who become obsessed by music, film or sports but who have never experienced the insides of greatness - of true, raw greatness - is that we think these greats have it figured out. They know a secret that we don’t. They have the magic key and they are too greedy to share it with the rest of us. When in reality the brain region that is responsible for their extraordinariness is probably the exact same brain region that blocks out the logical part that would help explain it all. In order to do, you need to be able to feel. In order to feel, you need to be able to stop the words.
David Foster Wallace tried to get to the bottom of this dilemma in his essay on Tracy Austin’s memoir. If you haven’t read it yet, you can find here: How Tracy Austin Broke My Heart.
In it he talks about reading sports memoir after sports memoir looking for some sort of insight into minds of people who win. As Tracy Austin is his childhood hero he is especially interested in reading about her accomplishments but when the failure of satisfying his murky needs once again arises it finally dawns on him. If they were able to explain it, they wouldn’t be able to do it. All this time, he was looking in the wrong places.
There is also a bunch of literary critique in it but you can skip over that if you’re not interested.
Is it possible to integrate both? The cerebral and the corporeal?
For a long time, critics in Germany would separate E music from U music. E stood for “ernst” which translates into serious and U stands for “Unterhaltung” which translates into entertainment. Implicit in it was the notion that anything that was entertaining couldn’t possibly be good or - as the dreaded E alludes to - taken seriously. This separation in music eventually seeped into all other arts too. Still today, a funny book will have difficulty winning prices in Germany. It is slowly changing, as is culture on a whole. The White Lotus is brilliant and it is widely popular. Kendrick Lamar is a lyrical genius and everyone listens to his music. Also: Beyoncé.
And one day, I promise, we will have a tennis player that will give us the magic key to their fortress of greatness and we will bathe in it like I bathed in Kate Hudson’s smile in my exit row seat (not the good kind). I’m looking at you, Roger. We need you to take one for the team. Do it for us. Do it for me. Do it for the world.
Things that make me happy:
In the vicinity of this week’s newsletter is yet another podcast I listened to this week (what can I say, you drive a lot in L.A.). It’s an interview conducted by music producer Rick Rubin with one of his former clients Daron Malakian, the band leader of the metal band System of a Down. Rick Rubin recorded a couple of albums with the band and listening to the two of them talking about the process of making these was the closest I felt I could get to an insight. And yet here, too, Daron often just said: “I don’t know, man, it just came to me.” I know, Daron, and I bet the chicks are great too.
Things that make me unhappy:
I’m happy to report that I have nothing to report. Just happy as a cucumber, eating my breakfast burrito and enjoying the sunlight on my face. May it last forever (the burrito).
See you all next week when one of the bigger events of the tennis calendar will be underway: Indian Wells. Tennis in Paradise as they coin it and yet I managed to play horrifically there every single time. Add another thing to what makes me happy: not having to play in Indian Wells anymore.
So long, friends, stay smart and sentimental.
Yours truly, Andrea
Andrea, I have not unfortunately read all
of your work, but let me start by pointing out that David Foster Wallace was a very good tennis player, and you were an undisputedly world class player, and Tracy Austin was just a shade better than you (better yes, but just enough). Isn’t it hard for anyone to explain to someone else why they are “good” or “talented” at something? Perhaps more than hard, say impossible? I think, having reached a certain age myself, that you only understand your own natural abilities, whatever that are, long after they first appear.
Love this week’s Finite Jest. Look forward to your reporting from Indian Wells