Going Back to the Primary Experience

9/23/06

by Diane Sprague

Niagara Falls is a fascinating place. It feels like the center of the world. People from various countries converge to see the spectacular view of the rushing water. The mist from the Falls surrounds the onlookers and fills us with the sense of being part of everything, the end and the beginning. It can be a big moment when times stops and we remember. This can happen when view the Falls as a primary experience, when we view the Falls for the sake of viewing the Falls. What often happens, though, is it can quickly become a secondary experience. We want to record our experience and have to get a picture of Uncle Henry, Aunt Sarah, and of course ourselves standing in various poses in front of the Falls. We need to gather our souvenirs and we imagine showing the evidence of our adventure to various people. Now the tourists doing that actually seem to be having a lot of fun, but when one compares the two experiences to each other, the primary and the secondary, we quickly can say the primary experience was the superior one.

The two levels of experiencing something are there with Clay too. I think as the year passed, I became used to the secondary experience. Over the winter, when I could download some of his Christmas tour clips, it was still a primary experience. There were some incredible performances by Clay, and I would view them over and over. When that disappeared, it was just secondary experiences for way too long. It was just news, speculations, and ugly stuff. It was interesting enough in its own way, but I could slowly feel myself forgetting the real reason I was paying attention.

Even during the long awaited week when the album came out, things were hectic, and I could only find time for a little bit of paying attention. I shocked myself when I realized I was choosing the secondary stuff. In the limited time I had, instead of the downloaded bonus track from Kmart, I chose to download the interviews.

Lord, those interviews. There is another part of Niagara Falls, this street on a hill, called Clifton Hill. It is the most amazing display of tackiness on the planet. It is so wonderfully tacky, I love it. It is part of the Falls too. It is us. We wander a bit from the grandeur of the Falls and set up our colorful diversions. We fill our skyline with oversized heads of Frankenstein eating a whopper from Burger King, fill our museums with wax versions of our celebrities, and open our Haunted Houses where our deepest fears become a morbid entertainments for our families. It's cool in its own way, but one may not want too much time there. The Falls still beckon us to come back to something bigger, something more.

All this secondary entertainment associated with Clay is worse that Clifton Hill. It's not wonderfully tacky, it's tedious. The is he or isn't he question is the most boring question on earth. We have this wonderfully talented person in our midst and this is what we focus on?. Are we really that empty and shallow? And who does the editing on the shows like the Insider? I don't know what editing tools they use, but I suspect it has to do blunt razor blade, a very big rock, and an assumption that our attention span is two seconds tops. Clay looked incredibly handsome, but why was I paying attention to this crap was kind of scary.

The only time I had to play Clay's album was at night right before going to sleep. I would light a candle, start the music, and try to recapture the primary experience of listening to Clay. I must admit I don't like pukey loves songs, but I assure you, Clay unpukified them brilliantly. I sensed some deeper meanings swirling through the words and loved the nuances, emotions, and power that I heard in his voice.

I finally came to a long weekend where some precious time opened up, and methodically approached the various projects that were waiting for me. One of the priorities was getting the download for the Kmart bonus track. Even after getting it, I made sure I organized, backed up, and labeled the files before opening it up. When I finally played If You Don't Know Me by Now, what happened was not like the primary experience of seeing the Falls. It went well beyond that; I went over the Falls head first and there wasn't even a barrel surrounding me. Just the torrential rush of water, the collapsing of time, and the incredible submergence into the cold, deep water at the bottom. It was that good. It was what I was waiting to hear.

This is Clay at his best. I was brought back to the primary experience, the reason I am paying attention, the reason we are paying attention. Clay has a once in a lifetime voice. A voice as big, as grand, and primal as the Falls. It's easy to wander away, to get caught up in the secondary stuff. It's good to get called back, to remember, and to leave the secondary diversions aside.