Author: Chris Cocca

Old Tom Petty Songs I’ve Only Come to Know as a Full-Grown Man

~ Chris Cocca ~ Leave a comment

But not me, pretty baby
I still love Tom Petty songs
And driving old men crazy…

Gaslight Anthem, “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues”

I love Tom Petty and always have. Full Moon Fever (near perfect) came out when I was nine, and I remember stopping on the video for “Running Down a Dream” because it was a cartoon. I got to know “Don’t Come Around Here No More” because it was still in constant rotation on VH1 even four or five years after Southern Accents. Into the Great Wide Open came out when I was in fifth grade and I remember Tom looking like a glorious paisley pirate on SNL. In between those things was the Roy Orbison renaissance, so the Wilburys were always there, too. The greatest hits record came out when I was in junior high, and by then I probably knew all of the big radio hits except “Refugee.” Wildflowers was huge, of course, and then there was “Walls (Circus)” which is maybe one of the best songs ever written.

So, from about 9 to 17, I grew up on the radio, video, and soundtrack hits. Then I started listening more closely to the greatest hits disc (and classic rock radio) and realized the amazing piece of work “Refugee” is. But for whatever reason (probably lack of cash) I didn’t run out and buy the old records. Then came The Last DJ, which I also loved.

So it wasn’t until I was in my late 30s and sprung for satellite that I hard songs like “Shadow of a Doubt (A Complex Kid)” and “Louisiana Rain” and “A Woman in Love (It’s Not Me).” They are amazing. Here they are.

Good Advice is the Hardest to Take

~ Chris Cocca ~ Leave a comment

In Ann Hood’s workshop, she tells students to “blow it up.” Same idea. Oh, how we resist!

The Gospel According to John and Eugene

~ Chris Cocca ~ Leave a comment

“And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.” – from East of Eden by John Steinbeck

“While there is a lower class, I am in it, while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.” – Eugene Victor Debs

These strike me as very Christ-like statements. Statements Christ Himself would have made (and basically did).

The so-called Christian Nationalism we see paraded around by cynical politicians (and others) isn’t Christ-like. It’s Christian-ism, and is anathema to the ethos, mission, vision, calling, and expectations the Crucified had for Himself and His followers. I’m just saying.

25 Years Ago, The Biggest Rock Band Dropped A Perfect Album That Nobody Was Ready For

~ Chris Cocca ~ Leave a comment

I have been saying this for years. “Be Here Now” saved my life, and I’m not the only one.

Finally, a mainstream outlet gets it right. Via Fatherly.

“But Oasis was playing a different game. Noel Gallagher never cared if his songs were taken seriously or even considered to be artistic. The goal of Oasis was always to have great big anthems, to be epic, to be larger than life, and to basically feel like the soundtrack to the imagined interior lives of the fans. Oasis famously had a working-class background, and so, the achievement of world-class fame meant that nearly every aspect of the songwriting process was like an inspirational speech. In the refrain of “All Around the World,” as Liam sings “it’s gonna be okay!” Noel echoes saying “please don’t cry and never say die!”

Mommy and the Dada Wilderness

~ Chris Cocca ~ Leave a comment

Somehow, I’m only now reading Hotchner’s memoir/Hemingway biography. Take a look at this:

“But you know, Papa, despite poor Jake and his tragic fate, I never really felt anything ‘lost’ about that group. Maybe it’s just a reflection of my debauched state, but by the end of the book I felt a certain survival strength in those people, not at all the utter hopelessness of a ‘lost generation.’”

 “That was Gertrude Stein’s pronouncement, not mine!” he snapped. “Gertrude repeating what some garage keeper in the Midi had told her about his apprentice mechanics: une génération perdue. Well, Gertrude … a pronouncement was a pronouncement was a pronouncement. I only used it in the front of Sun Also Rises so I could counter it with what I thought. That passage from Ecclesiastes, that sound lost? ‘One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh; but the earth abideth forever …’ Solid endorsement for Mother Earth, right? ‘The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to the place where he arose …’ Solid endorsement for sun. Also endorses wind. Then the rivers—playing it safe across the board: ‘All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.’ Never could say thither. Look, Gertrude was a complainer. So she labeled that generation with her complaint. But it was bullshit. There was no movement, no tight band of pot-smoking nihilists wandering around looking for Mommy to lead them out of the dada wilderness. What there was, was a lot of people around the same age who had been through the war and now were writing or composing or whatever, and other people who had not been through the war and either wished they had been or wished they were writing or boasted about not being in the war. Nobody I knew at that time thought of himself as wearing the silks of the Lost Generation, or had even heard the label. We were a pretty solid mob. The characters in Sun Also Rises were tragic, but the real hero was the earth and you get the sense of its triumph in abiding forever.”

“There was no movement, no tight band of pot-smoking nihilists wandering around looking for Mommy to lead them out of the dada wilderness.” Damn, bro.

How to Read More (by Leveraging Compulsions)

~ Chris Cocca ~ 3 Comments

There are two ways to become a better writer.

  1. You have to write.
  2. You have to read.

Those are the rules, and you have to do both.

If you’re a writer, I’m going to assume you have a set of hangups and compulsions. Some are idiosyncratic, some are things you have in common with a million other people.

I have OCD. People who don’t have OCD think it’s some kind of Marie Kondo superpower. If only.

I treat my OCD and I would say I’m healthy. But I still have compulsions. They’re no longer all-consuming, thankfully, but they’re there in many ways, just below the surface.

Last year, I decided I was going to read the most books ever. I started strong with James Baldwin, Willa Cather, and Bessel van der Kolk. I read a good bit of Marianne Moore and Wallace Stevens and other poets. But somewhere, let’s call it March, I lost my zeal. Something happened somewhere; something else took precedence, I got distracted, and I forgot about my big plans for reading thirty million books.

Writers and other creatives talk a lot about flow. It’s real and it’s ecstatic. It turns out my flow state is best primed by really good reading. I suspect as much is true for almost any writer. Sometimes I feel out of words, completely tapped. Reading fills the cistern with new images, new idioms, new ways of seeing things.

I’m reading a lot this year. I know it’s only the end of January, but there’s something different about my appetite. I am more energized and more committed than I was at this point twelve months ago. I think there are three reasons:

  1. I’m reading more widely. Great literature, stellar nonfiction, books on craft, even the kind of motivational books I’ve tended to avoid.
  2. I don’t force myself to finish one book before starting another. I keep a relatively even pace across a few different titles and genres, and I’m incrementally getting closer to finishing them all.
  3. To keep track of my progress, I use an e-reader. Knowing exactly how close I am, percentage-wise, to my goal of finishing a book allows me to redirect idle, time-sucking compulsions toward a goal I actually want to achieve and actually helps me. Seeing my progress helps my subconscious mind create and recreate the compulsive itch into something worth scratching.

I’m not saying this will work for everyone, and it’s not some cure-all suggestion for managing your mental health. I’m not making light of compulsions worse than mine. I do, however, think that learning to rewire our neural pathways through positive habits is a good thing, and I know how it’s helped me. A word about those self-help books. They basically teach the same thing. The reason the habits of highly effective people work is because neuroplasticity is real.

If you struggle with compulsions, depression, anxiety or other things, please seek proper care. The right help will make a world of difference, and you’ll be freer than you’ve ever been to train your mind to work in tandem with your heart and spirit.

That’s been my experience.

Thanks so much for reading.

Ray Bradbury Could Work Anywhere

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I love this image:

“I can work anywhere. I wrote in bedrooms and living rooms when I was growing up with my parents and my brother in a small house in Los Angeles. I worked on my typewriter in the living room, with the radio and my mother and dad and brother all talking at the same time. Later on, when I wanted to write Fahrenheit 451, I went up to UCLA and found a basement typing room where, if you inserted ten cents into the typewriter, you could buy thirty minutes of typing time.“

Pay typewriters. Who knew? Reminds me of the computer stations in the Sbarro in Port Authority. If I missed the early bus, I’d log on for a while. I don’t remember if I wrote anything decent, but the thing was just to write. Still is. Off we go, then.