Would Plato like Al Green?
It's a curious and confusing thing to attend a concert-or art show or movie or birthday party, for that matter–in the shadow of tragedy. To do something fun or frivolous or ostensibly relatively mindless when some severe violence has occurred summons up a swirling concoction of emotions-guilt, happiness, anger-as fierce and convoluted as, well, as a hurricane's winds. It's one reason, I think, we as a nation remained so transfixed on CNN just after 9.11. Sure, we were desperate for information, thinking it could fend off fear, but also, nothing else seemed appropriate. What else were we gonna do, load up a bong and watch
Spinal Tap
?
So, on the way out to the Santa Fe Opera last Saturday, there it was, that by now sadly familiar thought process: What business do I have going to an Al Green concert right now? Hours before I had been scanning the dry summation of devastation scrolling at the bottom of the news screen. But it was such a beautiful night, almost to the point of cliché: Slightly cool and clear, a full freaking moon and-get this-some sort of minor meteor shower was occurring, lending an air of mythical heavenly blessing that would have been trite had it not been so damn gorgeous.
And yet…and yet. There's the whole, you know, Hurricane Katrina thing. And 200 people died this weekend in Iraq. It feels like the Apocalypse has begun, embodied in everything from the grandest of man-made scales-un-needed wars, racism resulting directly in death-to nature's own rebellion-there's a giant fire nearby, and nobody in this town can breathe because the chamisa's feeling feisty.
That said, if there's a need for healing or momentary respite or just plain feeling good, the great Rev. Al was pretty much the only man to fit the bill. What a show. Flanked by a pair of young, high-energy dancers, Green kicked it off with rousing soul, a blatant statement that this would be no sit-down show. And sure enough, the crowd rose to its feet and stayed there, dancing their mainly white asses off, for the 1-1/2-hour duration.
Green's band was as tight as a tourniquet, double-strength with pairs of guitars, keys, drum kit, another percussion stand, trombone, trumpet and sax. (As former Friday Funk DJ Rocque Ranaldi, who sat nearby me, exclaimed, "There were two of everything! Except horns-there were three of those!") Green worked his shimmy-shakes and dance moves, wisely modified for a man of his age, with efficient ease and to their fullest effect. He played the crowd, he giggled, he handed out roses. His voice sounded great-he can still hit those insane falsetto notes-though I wasn't sure what to make of his tendency to let the crowd sing gigantic chunks of choruses while he sang a random word or two.
That was the "Al Green" part. Then there was the "Reverend" part. Green played his famous born-again self down for the most part, and the crowd seemed comfortable with it when he didn't. I assumed that when he mentioned God, most Santa Fe folks in the audience surreptitiously replaced it with "or Goddess, or Nature Power of Your Choice" in their heads. In fact, as Green sporadically spread the Good News, much of the audience seemed rabidly into it, as if…as if desperate for some solid spiritual succor. I found myself doing it too: "God, yes, please, fine-in the spirit of this amazing music and this amazing man on stage, fine, I'll believe in you. Could you just give us all a break from the global heartache for a while?"
The thing is, we seem to have forgotten Rev. Al's well-known seedy underbelly. There have always been rumors about his treatment of women. There is the episode where his girlfriend dumped a plate of hot grits on him, causing severe burns, and then killed herself with his gun. Green has some serious darkness in his past-it comes out to this day in his voice, part dirty soul, part gospel choir. Has the Rev. Al repented? Is he redeemed? Is it compatible with Santa Fe's rabidly holistic philosophy to look for and receive some spiritual sustenance from a man who might be a little rotten? Whose stage persona might be a lie?
Watching Green onstage, watching thousands of people dancing rapturously as he worked his way into the crowd and gave of himself, dancing and singing down the aisle as if it were separating church pews instead of comfy opera seats, watching how for a couple hours everyone forgot a good deal of collective awfulness, hearing hundreds of people exhale in relief at Green's mere mention of the word "God," or "love," I wondered if it really mattered. It reminded me, of all things, of Plato's
Republic
. A good deal of the
Republic
deals with the idea of the Noble Lie, the concept that political and social entities remain cohesive based on contradictory falsehoods, on straight-up myths, that keep things from flying apart. Nowadays, these types of myths revolve around personalities. Anyone who's ever seen Bill Clinton speak, for instance, has experienced it: You know the guy's a slimebag, but all you want to do is see him smile and everything will be OK. For all we know, if he were still president, Clinton may have fucked up post-Katrina reaction as badly as George Bush, but there's no doubt things would have seemed better, because Clinton's a better liar. He, you know, feels our pain. Or appears to-it's all about perception. And it's no coincidence that Plato, in a book supposedly about politics and the creation of the ultimate republic, a book that admits deep lies might be the best way to give birth to great republics, gives a lot of emphasis to music. "Music," he says, "is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue." And music, moreover, and its attendant perceptions (Al Green is every bit as charming as Bill Clinton) are essential tools in perpetuating the Noble Lie.
It's tough to say what Plato might think of Green, but the tremendous response of the crowd, the clear hunger of the audience for something good-not as a distraction to the suffering in the world but as something more substantive, a counter-balance to it-is of interest in a Platonic context. Does a man with a checkered past providing that counter-balance constitute a lie? Can we trust the momentary respite and redemption we felt? It is, in a sense, virtuous to crave togetherness during a time of communal pain-but the question Plato asks, and we should too, is whether it is ultimately virtuous to seek it in falsehoods.
Then again, there are different types of truths. After the show, as an exodus of people bathed in moonlight coming over the mountains made its way to the parking lot, I noticed more than one person say to a significant other, "Let's go dancing." They were inspired, grinning, worked up. I felt it too, pondered stepping out myself, but ultimately decided on a quick drink a plate of late-night french fries with a friend and and called it an evening. But I could understand, as the last of the improbable shooting stars streaked across the skyline, the impulse to keep the mythology open and carry it into the night, for as long as possible.
