Ostracized

Sometimes I like to listen to Cat Stevens on my way to work. His music is simple and soothing to my racing and perturbed mind and has been known to help me be less critical of my fellow man. Some hippie girl I knew in high school said one should listen to Cat Stevens while watching the sunrise and drinking a cup of coffee. I chuckled because I figured someone with with a name like that had to be a black blues guitarist and that just isn't good waking up music. That girl never had much to do with me after that.

So, yeah, I've listened to Cat Stevens for a long time. I like 10,000 Maniacs, too, and as you might know they removed their version of Stevens' "Peace Train" from an album after he (then and now known as Yusof Islam) didn't denounce the fatwa against Salman Rushdie for The Satanic Verses. I didn't think much of it then and I don't think much of it now other than occasionally wondering if they, 10,000 Maniacs, have gotten over their indignation. It just seems silly to me. The artist known as Cat Stevens has a whole body of work that actually transcends the artist himself, even to the point where what that artist subsequently says, does, sings, or writes can't blemish what he's already created. To me, his work is that good, and I would've hoped the members of 10,000 Maniacs (OK, just Natalie Merchant) would have realized that it is the music and the words that count, not the man who penned them. "Peace Train" is a good song, regardless of the fatwa. I think it was the royalties that moved them more than the principle.

I feel the same way about Michael Richards, aka, Kramer, from "Seinfeld." The man gave life to one of pop culture's all-time great characters, and yet because of something he did years after the show was over, many people refuse to watch "Seinfeld" reruns. That's so juvenile. I don't condone his onstage rant, but I'm not going to stop watching and laughing at the character he inhabited for so long and made so great. "Kramer" transcends the fallible human who gave him life.

And, yes, the same is true for Mel Gibson. If you let it, art can transcend the anti-Semitic. I don't think bigotry should be a career-ending offense. I mean, if you've ever laughed at a joke that starts "A rabbi, priest, and ..." then you, too, are a bigot; should you lose your career because of that? I think the drinking and driving was worse than any filth that came from his mouth (and, yes, it was filth). But should we never hear from Mel again, I'll always have Mad Max and "Signs." Sure he's done better work, but I like those two a lot.

But going back Cat, I really like "The Wind." It goes like this:

I listen to the Wind
To the wind of my soul
Where I'll end up well, I think
Only God really Knows

I've sat upon the setting sun
But never never never
I never wanted water once
No never never never

I listen to my words
But they fall far below
I let my music take me
Where my heart wants to go

I've swam upon the devil's lake
But never never never
I'll never make the same mistake
No never never never.