The Animation Pimp

One of my favourite pieces. Written for the Ottawa Citizen in September 2007 just before Jarv and I went to see The Who.

1982. I was 15 and angry, real angry. I’d just been told that my father wasn’t really my father. In one sense, I was relieved. I never liked the guy much anyway. At least now I knew I wasn’t his blood. But now my birth was now clouded with mystery. If I wasn’t his son, whose was I? Fuelling the fire was a tormented mother who refused to discuss the truth of my origins. All of this unfolded during an already fragile time. I was a teenager in high school. Every day was a major battle to uncover your self and purpose. Now this struggle was vanquished into a litany of meaningless anger, sex, rebellion, and alcohol.

Then there was light in the form of an English rock band called The Who. I’d never heard of them before, but there was a buzz about the band throughout Brookfield High School. Apparently they were embarking on a farewell tour and playing their final date in Toronto. Everyone was talking about it, envious of those who had the money and ability to journey far south to Toronto. For those who didn’t have the means, there was an option. The farewell concert was being aired on national television. With my school chum alongside, I sat in the basement of our Hunt Club garden home on December 16th, 1982 and embarked on a journey that would follow me to this day.

There was no magical moment or song that triggered it. In truth, I probably just wanted to fit in, to embrace something that would define me, that would provide me with some form of accompaniment along the way to wherever. Whatever it was, from that night on I became obsessed with all things WHO.

Fortunately, my classmate Deannie was a massive Who resource and she filled me in on the band’s history. First she told me that their original drummer, Keith Moon (“Moon the Loon” as he was nicknamed), had died in 1978 after overdosing on pills he was taking to curb his alcoholism. Then she led me to Richard Barnes’ book, “The Who Maximum R&B”. Filled with a ton of photos and anecdotes that traced the band’s roots, the book became my bible.

Then, using all my measly part time job earnings, I went on a manic Who shopping spree. I bought records, posters, t-shirts, buttons (which I still have today). I was SO addicted that I even bought an unused Who ticket from my colleague at the Airport Drive-In (where I worked during the summers). Soon, my room was entirely covered with Who posters and flags. In a sense it was all quite superficial, but that soon changed as I began to dig deeper into the music and band members.

Initially, I was drawn to all the members of the original Who. They were all so different from quite different from one another and had a distinct personality. Singer Roger Daltrey was the macho pretty boy. Bass player John Entwistle was the quiet anchor who let his play do the talking. “Moon the loon”, naturally, was the clown/wildman. Then there was Pete Townshend, the band’s guitarist and main songwriter. This gangly big nosed geek was the sensitive, moody one. The Who’s uniqueness stemmed from their wildly diverse personalities. Together they brewed a storm of emotions that seemed to articulate all my own confusion and rage towards myself, my parents, and the world.

I soon became enthralled with Townshend. What made him so unique was not only that he was the driving force behind The Who’s music, but that he seemed so familiar. In a sense, Townshend lived through the other members of The Who. Each of them possessed attributes that Townshend wished he possessed. As such, he was a chameleon of sorts, a drunken clown like Moon one minute, a macho man like Daltrey the next. Through his interviews and lyrics, I discovered a multifaceted and fragile character prone to moodiness, contradiction and an obvious identity crisis. Like the rest of us, Townshend is equally brilliant, stupid, funny, crass, caring and cold. He’s prone to pretensions, is a hypocrite, contradicts himself, and says and does things that make you cringe (e.g. He once said he knew what it was like to be a woman; then there was the whole child pornography fiasco). That’s the beauty of Townshend and the Who. More than the Stones and The Beatles, they were all there for the world to see: zits, warts and all. What made him so special was that he was aware of his complexities and contradictions. They were all their in the songs.

In the 1970 song, “The Seeker”:

I’m looking for me
You’re looking for you
We’re looking in at other
And we don’t know what to do

Then in “The Real Me” from Quadrophenia:

I went back to my mother
I said, “I’m crazy ma, help me.”
She said, “I know how it feels son,
‘Cause it runs in the family.”

Can you see the real me, mother?

And perhaps most famously, “Who Are You”

Well, who are you?
I really wanna know
Tell me, who are you?
‘Cause I really wanna know

But for me the song that said it all was a relatively obscure little solo track that Townshend recorded in 1977 called “Misunderstood”:

Just wanna be misunderstood
Wanna be feared in my neighborhood
Just wanna be a moody man
Say things that nobody can understand

I wanna leave open mouths when I speak
Want people to cry when I put them down
Don’t wanna be either old and young
Don’t like where I ended up or where I begun

As my parent’s marriage came crashing down in the late 1980s, Townshend became the Greek chorus of my youth, guiding me through divorce, depression, anger, and alcoholism. Like Tommy, I became the deaf, dumb, and blind boy. I shut myself off, locked away in my room with The Who. I learned to play guitar and spent most days and nights trying to play every Who song I could while sneaking beers and drinking myself to sleep. Like the protagonist in the band’s first hit, “I Can’t Explain,” The Who expressed the words and feelings that I couldn’t yet find.

The one major disappointment of my Who obsession was the lack of, well, Who. With the exception of a sloppy Live Aid performance, the band had remained ‘retired.’ I had to make do with old Who bootlegs or the occasional Townshend solo album. Then, in 1989, a small miracle happened. The Who were reuniting for their 25th anniversary. Once again they were ignoring Ottawa for Toronto. It didn’t matter. This time I was going. In the moment, it was a great thrill to hear them live, but in hindsight, it was a big disappointment. Entwistle, Daltrey and Townshend were accompanied by about a fifteen-piece band. The result was a tempered, watered down performance. This wasn’t The Who. This was like seeing a good Who cover band backed by the Benny Goodman orchestra.

The Who’s influence on my life lessened as I got older. There would be a Who period every year where I’d blast a few albums, strum a few power chords. Maybe a disappointing new Townshend recording, a box set, a memory, or booze triggered it. Whatever it was, the Who never quite left my side.

I had another opportunity to see them again in 2000. A friend bought me a ticket to see them in New York (cause once again they weren’t coming to Ottawa). This time it was worth it. We had great seats on the floor and the atmosphere was electric. Gone was the Benny Goodman orchestra. All that remained were Townshend, Entwistle and Daltrey. Accompanying them were longtime keyboardist Rabbit Bundrick and Ringo Starr’s son, Zac Starkey on drums. Starkey was an amazing find. He had idolized Keith Moon as a boy and was the perfect replacement. Starkey brought stability and energy. His playing seemed to transform the others. They played with a fire that had been lacking for a long, long time. That night in New York was my Who heaven.

The band’s revitalized performances encouraged Townshend. On his blog, he began hinting that a new Who album was not out of the question. Every Who fan took these words with a grain of salt. Throughout the band’s history, Townshend had a love hate relationship with this thing called The Who. Every few years, he’d say that the band was his albatross and that he would never play with them again. Then he’d just as quickly turn around strap on his guitar and hit the road with them. Even this I understood. It was similar to my relationship with my parents and brother. Every year, we’d tell each other to get out of our lives. Time would pass and suddenly we found ourselves back in each other’s lives. Then there’d be another fight and we’d be on the outs again. Our dysfunction was simply because none of us could be truthful with one another. No one could say anything but hate. Was it the same with Townshend?

Things might have gone on like this if not for the death of John Entwistle on the eve of their 2002 North American tour. Always the man between Daltrey and Townshend, the bridge so to speak, Entwistle’s death forced Daltrey and Townshend to deal with each other once and for all. Then and there, The Who was reborn. They released their first two original songs (including a tribute to Entwistle called “Old Red Wine”) since 1982 on a greatest hit’s compilation. The songs weren’t classics, but they showed that there was still a spark left.

Finally, this year, some twenty-four years since it began for me and (apparently) ended for them, it’s started again. The Who’s first album since 1982’s “It’s Hard” is due in October and they’re embarking on a world tour that includes, for the first time since a 1969 performance at Capital Cinema, a stop in Ottawa.

I’m almost 40 now. I’ve overcome booze, found my real father, got married and have two kids. I’m living in a very different world than I did in 1982. I have no idea if Townshend’s new songs will speak to me. It doesn’t matter. It’s a bit like family and friends. You don’t necessarily agree with everything they do, but at the end of the day there’s an unshakable core that connects you, a spark that keeps the flame going. All that matters is that after 24 years of chasing ghosts and demons, The Who and me are here, now.

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