C I P R I A N I

Four years ago after hearing Maroon 5 perform at the Super Bowl halftime show, I couldn’t get a Phil Collins song out of my mind, so I cut together an audio mashup and then decided to make a video and throw it up on YouTube.

I hadn’t made YouTube videos for awhile and when I did, it was just a few.

Many years go – My God, I believe we are approaching the two decade mark (not quite), anyway, the West Virginia University Mountaineer Football Team was a contender for National Title.

I’m going to repeat that, for this was a time before WVU was in the Big 12. And also pre-COVID, pre-Trump, pre-Obama, post 9/11 and, perhaps most important, pre-High Definition YouTube.

Under the moniker of WVUTUBE, once upon a time I posted a few videos expressing my love of that particular team led by one Pat White, the current offensive coach of the Los Angeles Chargers and the single greatest winner to ever dawn a West Virginia uniform.

Some foolishly like to argue that point, but you’ll have better luck convincing me that the sky isn’t blue and the grass isn’t green before anyone ever changes my mind about Pat White.

Most of the videos stayed up, but some copyright violations pulled down the one after that finally one the Fiesta Bowl, against all odds.

I’m older now. Some might say “old”. My kids have once or twice. I’m younger than some, older than many and maybe someday, God Willing, older than most a little further on down the road. But though my thought process may signal otherwise, one day at a time, right?

Nevertheless, many questions haunt me at this age. Correction: I like to think that with the wisdom I’ve acquired throughout my life (some of it snagged at WVU) I’m really just dealing with some of the same questions that used to haunt me and with that aforementioned wisdom, now they’re they’re just f***ing with me.

One question is “Will WVU ever field a National contender again?”

To be fair, that’s a relatively new question. “Again” was never part of the equation early in life, and when it did finally arise, the wait didn’t seem as long…

And yet, “seem” is the operative word.

Like the 1000 pound bag that my daughter has to haul her homework back and forth from to school. I corrected her this morning and told her it’s not 1000 pounds, to which she swiftly corrected me:

“It FEELS like 1000 pounds”. And to be clear, this was not accepting that it was NOT 1000 pounds and she just felt that way, she was forcibly insisting that because it FELT like it, it was absolutely true.

She’s 10 years old. But it terrifies me that there are adults that think like this. And it scares me that I might be one of those adults. Though I would hope it’s not that often and certainly – or rather hopefully – only in my weakest moments.

This is a newer question that f**ks with me.

But when I heard that groove in the Maroon 5 song nearly a half decade ago, it sounded like a Phil Collins song that David Copperfield used in a pretty cool magic trick.

An aside: If I had lost or gained any street cred by praising Phil Collins, whatever’s left of it is gone by simultaneously praising David Copperfield. Not because I’m aware of said trick, but rather because I did not refer to it by its proper nomenclature: illusion.

Another aside: If you’re paying attention, this isn’t nearly as disjointed as it appears.

Or maybe I just feel that way to me.

The same way I felt when I heard Phil’s song in the Maroon 5 song. Was it really there? Was I imagining it? I haven’t made many YouTube videos other than arguably irrational tributes to a college football team, but this similarity gnawed at me like a question at night, so at the end of the day, cobbling an audio track wasn’t enough – I had to make a video too. One idea led to another and another…and now that video is an original thing.

Or is it?

It’s not “original” and it’s not “new” – It is its own thing, with many parts from others – but multiple parts. Is it different because I did it? Is this the same kind of stuff AI is doing? Will be doing?

Can it? The way I did?

I like to think not. But maybe I just feel that way.

But at the end of the day, sampling, borrowing, homage – hasn’t that always been part and parcel to pop music – and pop art?

That was that spirit of the video I put together so many years ago. Hearing a piece of a nearly fifteen year old Phil Collins song (“Find a Way to My Heart) in the 2018 Maroon 5 song (“Girl like You”) plus never being able to think of Phil Collins without also being reminded of Christian Bale in American Psycho.

And now, all these years later, I find out these two humans forever merged in a tiny way in my psyche (and I doubt I’m alone) Christian Bale and Phil Collins – share a birthday. Coincidence? It doesn’t feel like it.

I might be searching for narratives to make sense of my life from time to time, but I have to say the questions are much more entertaining when I see the themes peeking through the tapestry.

And to Mr. Collins and Mr. Bale, a very Happy Birthday. And thank you.

And thank you to Mary Harron, Guinevere Turner and Bret Easton Ellis.

And Maroon 5.

See that?

Good night, sleep tight, and don’t let the questions bite.