Gary A. Nilsen's Blog

For the sake of transparency, I’m a 70 year old accountant who is also a writer. My extended family includes a television and film star, a Hollywood camera man, and a nephew who is developing a company using AI technology. The discussion in our family is, therefore, ongoing.

AI, once a novelty is now ubiquitous. I see it at work, in Facebook and Instagram Reels, in memes, in short…everywhere. For someone my age, it’s not hard to remember a past without it. My first job as an accountant entailed a desk with a hardline phone and an adding machine with rows and columns of numbers and a hand crank to total the input. Back then, in the late 1970s, AI was science fiction. To be honest, so were cellphones (Star Trek), Apple watches (Dick Tracy), fax machines, and personal computers.

The promise of AI, as with all new technology, is to enhance our ability to do things more cheaply and efficiently. Computers revolutionized the handling of vast amounts of data effectively reducing the number of accountants and typists needed to run a business. Cellphones made it possible to connect with anyone at any time – gone are the days of being unreachable. Fax machines and later email short-circuited snail mail. There was a general movement toward instant gratification. Recently, in a meeting at my office, someone’s laptop used AI to record the meeting and then produced a written transcript of the meeting where voice recognition technology ascribed what was being said to who said it.

I’ve heard brilliant scientists suggest that the singularity event whereby artificial intelligence surpasses human intelligence and potentially eclipses human control is not as far off as one might think, possibly between 2026 and 2045.

As a creator, an artist, I try to limit my concern with AI as to how it affects people like me and those in my family. This morning, in the news, was the segment showing how Matthew McConaughey and Michael Caine are lending their voices to the developing technology being promoted by a company called 11ElevenLabs. AI will be used to transform and copy their voice for use in media – and not just theirs. This is tempting for someone like me who’d love to have one of my novels produced in audio format with a famous voice. Can you imagine how much it would cost to hire someone like them directly – even if you could get to them? Michael Caine said he’s not looking to replace voice actors but to amplify the voices of others – writers included.

Then of course there was the recent controversy over the AI actor, Tilly Norwood. I’m sure executives in the film industry are secretly drooling over the potential cost savings by not hiring flesh and blood actors.

In either scenario – AI voices or AI actors are sure to replace the real people who rely on those sources of income while others who preform AI magic will be making money. It might be the age-old transition requiring a society to adapt to more efficient methodologies and the shifts in income that result. My concern is that media producers using AI actors and writers who use it to help them write will not have earned the product of their profession. Stephen King once said you couldn’t be a great writer until you’d written at least a million words. Writers need to hone their craft by writing, actors need to hone their craft on stage or TV or movies. Film directors need to hone their craft working on ways to create a moment without relying on AI to do it for them. In short, AI is in many ways, a cheat. How many students have already been caught using the technology in completing assignments? AI is poised to dumb us all down. Maybe being more dumb will pair with the reduction in quality for something produced with far less effort. I’m not sure this will happen, but I can’t say it won’t.

My dilemma is whether to do my best in avoiding all forms of AI for the remainder of my time on Earth, or to selectively choose any part of it. I’ll admit to being torn, and I waffle between decisions. For example, I love the idea of book trailers – they’re like the previews at the movies – it’s a great way to develop interest in having someone buy a book. Most trailers I’ve seen are awful, there is no production quality. So, do I hook up with an AI tech to create of good trailer and forego the cost of hiring acting talent, finding filming locations, editing, and postproduction to create one? For the cover of my first Novel, Alfheim, I hired two actors and a professional photographer, bought props, and engaged a graphic artist to pull it all together. Today, with a tiny amount of effort, AI could produce that cover at a fraction of the cost.

So far, I’m leaning toward the avoidance of AI. But, as I’ve learned through many life lessons, principles are expensive. In the end, will anyone care?

I have spoken against Trump beginning the day after his decision to run for President. January 6, 2021 was the defining moment that crystalized my words of caution and derision since that time. If nothing else, the storming of the Capitol was a clear indication that while there has been no formal secession of states or two armies facing one another across a battlefield, we are none the less in the midst of a Civil War. While it may be ideological yet, make no mistake that is where we are. Is it a stretch to consider the danger of armed conflict being far behind? Consider the FBI alert warning that all fifty state capitols are possibly the target of invasion starting next week. Weapons, pipe bombs, and Molotov Cocktails were present during the Siege in Washington D.C. and multiple fatalities resulted.

If one accepts the notion that to attain the rank of a Congressional Representative or Senator requires even a modicum of intelligence, it becomes all the more difficult to understand how a significant number of Republicans in the House and several in the Senate can justifiably yield to the rhetoric of a madman. Yet, that has happened consistently for years.

In the early morning hours after Election Day in 2016, as an evil man became the next leader-to-be of the free world, the weight of the longer-term problem pressed home; it was the knowledge that seventy million Americans made that possible. Trump would go away one day, but they would not. They became an army populated by people with an agenda, anxious to operate outside the boundaries of decency and law, fueled by racist upbringing, ineffective education, and a willful disregard for truth and reason. While some simply voted along party lines, many more, spellbound by the lies that fueled their immoral beliefs rushed at the chance to do what no other candidate ever offered – a license to be an outspoken and active supremacist.

Where do we go from here? The definition in the Federal Code for treason is this:

“Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.”

To apply this definition to the insurrectionists, to Giuliani, Donald Trump, Jr., Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, and Trump himself would be a good place to start. Unfortunately, I am having trouble believing there is sufficient intestinal fortitude to carry the day on that front, especially from the standpoint of fear. Legislators are seeing evidence of becoming targets. Crowds threatened Lindsay Graham at the airport and rioters called to have Pence hung. It sheds light on the commitment to overrun the government. January 6th was a Fort Sumter event. Today, the military is installed at the Capitol for the first time since the actual Civil War. There is no reason to suspect that once Trump is out of office, things will go back to normal. Pandora’s Box has been opened; the true nature of nearly half the country is fully revealed.

On the international front, our enemies: Russia, China, North Korea, Iraq, and Iran are hunkering down in ecstasy that the foundation of the United States is crumbling. If nothing else, it will embolden them to strike while the window of opportunity exists. Our allies are assuredly holding hands to their foreheads that the dependability of our support is seriously compromised. Even with Biden’s return to normalcy, effective repair to the damage done will take a decade or more.

Thomas Paine once said, “These are the times that try men’s souls.” It was to suggest that real Patriots – the ones who put faith in an America that stood for all, free of tyranny and not the pseudo-patriots Trump calls his own – would have the fortitude to remain true to their beliefs. It is the only hope we have, that over time, the extremists will crawl back under their rotting tree stumps like the maggots they are. We need to hold firm to the convictions that made America stand out and become the land of opportunity for a world full of people desperate to escape untenable lives. We need to stand up and continue to speak out against the bullies who lack the understanding of that which they hasten to destroy.

This is the time for the real MAGA to come forth. With Biden and Harris leading the way, we need to Make America Great Again.

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As many who share a love of all things Harry Potter, I have been following the backlash toward JK Rowling over her recent twitter posts. Last night, I caught an article in Marie Claire written by Kathleen Walsh. To be honest, it hit hard especially in relation to a blog post I just published dealing with my take on current affairs. Unfortunately, whatever I write will disappear into the void of a blog-post black hole; I don’t have anything resembling the bandwidth Walsh will enjoy by publishing in Marie Claire.

The last statement of her first paragraph ends with: “We must end our Harry Potter fantasy now.” I didn’t care for the tone as I’m not one to be told what I must do, but because I’m invested in the discussion, I waded through the wordy article and then the referenced JK Rowling essay. I’m sensitive to transgender issues, I wrote a post five years ago after research and interviews on the subject. It’s a complicated matter. The shades of existence between traditional male and female standards aren’t the straightforward colors of a Pride flag, but more like a Jackson Pollack painting – the permutations seem infinite.

The problem is not everyone “gets” it. Just like Black Lives Matter, how many people respond with a dismissive All Lives Matter retort? People older than millennials generally grew up without a clear understanding of LGBTQ issues. How often do you still hear gayness is a choice? If they aren’t even capable of accepting how someone can be gay or lesbian, how are they going to absorb transgenderism with all the new acronyms, pronoun assignments, and the multitude of sexual preferences?

As with racial concerns, transgender issues require education. We need more people to believe, like the sign in the George Floyd/Black Lives Matter protests said: I understand I don’t understand, but I stand with you. Instead of encouraging this, we witness name-calling and character assassination. As I said in my post, argumentation is now performed from the platform of absolutes. If you say one thing counter to the paradigm someone subscribes to, you’re branded a person to be shunned, ignored, and trashed, destined to be a societal pariah. We have many who deserve that moniker: Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, Harvey Weinstein, David Duke – people who clearly exhibit fundamental evil. I cannot, and will not, label essentially good people with similar epitaphs.

JK Rowling was wrong in her assessment, but to consider wholesale verbal flogging and boycotting is the opposite extreme. People are now scrutinizing every sentence of all seven books picking any piece of evidence to support the notion Rowling is transphobic and racist. I will say this: there is not one author or one book ever published capable of withstanding the application of everyone’s personal agenda. Instead of accepting the good Rowling has done and continues to do while giving her the opportunity to enrich her education on the subject of transgenderism, we see vultures circling, anxious to devour the flesh of one of the much-loved authors of our time.

My own path to acceptance and to the degree I understand homosexuality, transgenderism, and race was a difficult one. In some cases, it resulted in a 180-degree reversal of thinking and feeling, but I got here, and I’m still learning. I am not a religious person, but for one rare occasion, I will quote the Bible: let s/he who is without sin cast the first stone.

As for Harry Potter – the books and the movies – will I end the fantasy? No, not now, not ever.

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Therefore I tell my sorrows to the stones;

Who, though they cannot answer my distress,

Yet in some sort they are better than the tribunes,

Titus Andronicus, Act III, Scene I

Sorrows to the Stones is a work in progress, novel title, but the quote from which it derives best defines the place for where my understanding of humankind has landed.

The late Dr. Karen Erickson, former Dean of the school of Arts and Sciences at Southern New Hampshire University and advocate of the Master of Fine Arts program once said the job of a writer is to observe and become the spokesperson of what those observations reveal. Writers hold the mirror of humanity, of society, and permit the reader to focus on what it means to be a participant of life.

I’ve had ample opportunity to observe over six and a half decades. I watched John Glenn launch in 1962, felt the tension of the Cuban Missile Crisis, experienced the emotional shock of the JFK, RFK, and MLK assassinations. Observed the unfolding civil rights movement as integration and school busing blurred the strict segregation of African-Americans, the landing on the moon, daily reports from the battlefields of Viet Nam on the evening news. The freedom marches of 1963 and yet we succumb to riots like that in Los Angeles three decades later and now again with the murder of George Floyd.

I’ve seen the widening divergence of our two-party political system. Where a Venn diagram once showed the majority of red and blue dots in the center, now has solid white space between red and blue balloons. Gay rights and LGBTQ issues finally made it to the table of discussion, yet it seems even more dangerous to be anything other than a male or female heterosexual. Society had forged inroads to acceptance, but like a failed launch, the rocket has come crashing back to earth.

I observed the Islamic world through five years in the Middle East, seen unrelenting poverty of third-world nations where Philippinos, Yemenis, Pakistanis, and Asians made the equivalent of pocket change in comparison to their western counterparts. I’ve seen children in Africa with only a single outfit of clothing, herding flocks of goat and camel down barely paved roads. Soccer balls were the currency of youth on the streets of Asmara.

Then there was the election process of 2016, a turning point – my observations now hyper-focused with a clearer imperative. The simple act of writing stories faltered in the context of relevance. The stay-at-home version of existence thanks to Covid-19 allowed more time to scan posts on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram where the conduct of argumentation performs from the platform of absolutes. There is a tendency toward a lack of attention to perspective and the breeding of over-simplification. Smart phones provide the means by which bad behavior proves the point but also becomes a weapon to brand anyone and everyone with a scarlet letter. Someone is offended in one way or another at every moment. We live with daily character assassination, some warranted; many questionable. Civil wars of all issues, no matter the magnitude, rage and divide. Leadership tears at the fabric of our country and feeds the virus of disease that diminishes all progress. Worse, the creation of a permissive environment where racist and supremacist attitudes projecting hatred and narrow-mindedness are tolerated with tacit encouragement at the highest level.

I was fortunate not to be born in a time or place that would have subjected me to the likes of Hitler, Stalin, or Mussolini. I have not been starved or suffered the threat of horrific death by bombings, political purges, or prejudice. I have faced many issues and difficulties, but for all that live a decent life. It doesn’t mean, however, my observations are any less accurate, nor is my perception of where we are heading, and it’s scary.

The brief respite the planet has enjoyed from human interaction has demonstrated some remarkable changes. Fish can be seen in the canals of Venice, carbon emissions are down, air quality is up, water is cleaner, animals stray farther from their limited habitats. It paints a clear picture of the damage we do and what we’ll continue to do once the pandemic passes. The DNA of human nature is rife with destructive tendencies. The media does a good job in demonstrating this with every article, news report, breaking headline, and interviews with every talking head imaginable. One cannot experience a half hour news program without feeling doom, even with the occasional uplifting story designed to restore a sense faith and hope eroded by our steady diet of reality.

I don’t know where we go from here, but from my observations and conclusions, it doesn’t look like a very good place. So, I share my woes with the stones…for their concern seems more genuine than that of my fellow man.

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In February, I was hospitalized for several days due to a Transient Ischemic Attack (mini-stroke). Discharged with an implanted heart monitor, follow-up testing and consultation with a Neurologist and a Cardiologist were to follow. Of course, in the wake of the pandemic, these were all cancelled, postponed to some date in the future as all hands are on deck dealing with the clear and present danger of Covid-19; this is a truly understandable situation. I am certainly not angry about this; in fact, my heart goes out to the medical professionals dealing with this deadly enemy.

In one sense, I was fortunate to have had this attack prior to the full force of the outbreak given the current and hampered state of medical care in this country, and really throughout the world. It meant having to take it easy and being cautious to do everything possible to prevent a recurrence, kind of like steering a car with your knees on a busy highway knowing that if I have an accident, there won’t be any help coming.

However, here is what DOES make me angry: the plethora of politicians and people rallying to have a cessation to the stay-at-home precautions because they’re tired of being cooped up. Yes, I understand and fully appreciate the difficulty of insufficient resources to pay for food and other necessities, but that should be a concurrent focal point for the government, to create a safety net for those without the means to see this through. The stimulus bill, which basically offers $1,200, is merely a drop in the bucket and doesn’t work equally across all demographics. While it covers nearly two months’ rent for my son in Texas, it’s less than one months’ rent for my other son in Queens, New York.

Reopening the country to appease those who claim that shelter-in-place provisions violate their rights to freedom is the epitome of self-entitlement. Opening too early, a situation that may either extend or exacerbate the pandemic, puts more people at risk that just those who contract the virus. It affects everyone with a significant underlying health issue not related to Covid-19 because the health care system can’t deal with virus victims and other issues at the same time. Full and adequate response is simply beyond its capabilities. I just read yesterday that EMT responders are being given do-not-resuscitate instructions. The death toll results of Covid-19 doesn’t account for the ancillary deaths attributed to non-related crises.

Someone recently posted what I think is a smart response to the protestors. If you’re so willing to reopen everything, then post the names of your family and friends who you’re willing to let die just so you can go walking about in exercise of your freedom.

Stupid is as stupid does.

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Apache Tears

Rock in the dirt

‘mid cigarettes and weeds,

recalls Apache Tears of childhood

and forgotten dreams.

Soft stones at ten

blackness yet to feel

but life’s full range of motion

tires spun in mud it seems.

You can’t reclaim the promise,

only feel its strength within;

the drive to seek a fortune

too hard to start again.

But close your eyes and wander

to time and place long gone,

the sweetest taste of memory

is the bridge to walk upon.

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For the past couple of years I’ve spent so much time feeling nothing that when I finally did, it meant something. I recently saw Rocketman, the biopic about Elton John. The film reconnected me to his music in ways I’d never experienced. My attraction to music has always been more about the sound, its harmonies and melodies, a to-die-for guitar riff, or a head-banging beat more than the content of its lyrics. That changed with Rocketman.

Essentially, the film is a Broadway musical captured on film. The scenes of his life are tethered to the poetry – words and music welded together – that infuse a non-reader of poetry with an appreciation of its power. I will never take lyrics for granted again. Of course, this paring of music and narrative have been done for a hundred years, but it took this movie to bring it home for me.

Rocketman, written by Lee Hall and directed by Dexter Fletcher, offered a road map as to how life’s experiences – in this case, those of Elton John and Bernie Taupin, were and are translated into lyrics and melodies. For example, my personal favorite, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, became so much clearer once you understand the point of view is mostly Bernie’s and displayed against the arc of Elton’s life. The emotional impact of Someone Saved My Life Tonight becomes an anthem to those moments that, in retrospect, are life altering.

I know I’m late to the game in terms of appreciating all this which is why I’m grateful for having seen the film. As writers, we are thankful for opportunities that offer inspiration and teach us new ways and means of expressing our own thoughts and ideas. I’ve never been adept at reading and understanding poetry, and certainly talent-less at writing it, but I found if I set my thoughts down as if destined for transformation into a piece of music, they flowed readily.

I just might have to torture my friends and family with my nascent attempts to try out this new (to me) art form.

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Spoiler Alerts

It was only this past March that I started binge-watching Game of Thrones in preparation for the launch of Season 8. My hat goes off to the legion of fans who tenaciously worked their way through the show over the better part of a decade. I don’t think I would have weathered all the waiting in-between. The good thing is that all the story and character arcs were still fresh in my mind as the series wound down.

That being said, I was able to buy into many of the developments that most fans seemed to hate. Yes, Daenerys went bad all of a sudden in reaction to the brutal loss of people closest to her, but the seeds of her destructive nature took root little by little over many years. She was the daughter of an insane king and as they say, the apple falls close to the base of its tree, just as Jon reflected the benevolent nature of who his father truly was.

I think Cersei’s death was metaphorically satisfying with the weight of her transgressions raining down on her. It also saved any other character from being labeled a baby killer. I can even buy Jaime holding true to his warped sense of love and going against all the years’ worth of hard earned redemption. People do that sort of thing, it’s human nature.

A couple of the things I had hoped to see in the end were the knowledge of Jon’s true identity becoming common knowledge. Who was Varys sending those letters to? Had all the other kingdoms’ representatives understood Jon had the clearest claim to the throne (Gendry Baratheon notwithstanding), it might have ended differently? And then there is “Chekov’s Gun” principle. Why did they concentrate on Varys removing his rings and placing them in a cup, what was that all about?

I have to concur with so many fans in my disappointment that Bran became king of the now six kingdoms. Brava to Sansa for withholding her consent to remain part of the larger realm. The thing is, I don’t see how Bran as a character earned the right to be elected. To my mind, Tyrion would have been the correct choice. The roles should have been reversed. Bran would have made an excellent hand given his vast knowledge of the past and his ability to warg his way into seeing what everyone else was up to. Also, I think the collective voices voted in the affirmative for Bran way too easily – most of the time, these people can’t agree what day of the week it is.

It was difficult to swallow Jon’s banishment to Castle Black. What purpose does the Night’s Watch even have at this point? Surely they could have found a better way to deal with him. Regardless of his true parentage, Ned Stark’s sense of honor shines through Jon and you would hope he might pass that along to his own children. Jon did the world a favor and is being punished for it, why, because a newly insane leader of the unsullied needs justice? Grey Worm’s uncompromising devotion to follow madness, up to and including slitting the throats of prisoners, should deny him the right to call for anyone else to pay a price.

And Drogon, how do you not love that beast? I had hoped in some way the one remaining dragon and Jon would develop a relationship in the end. They’re first cousins after all. I know Jon killed his mother, but I think Drogon understood. It’s why he melted the Iron Throne and left Jon uncrispy.

Regardless of the pitfalls faced by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss in concluding this body of work, I must applaud them for creating the stunning visual representation of George R.R. Martin’s incredible stories. As a writer of fantasy, I am inspired and further educated in the art of good storytelling. Yes, there are areas that might have been better written. I think HBO should have allowed for a couple more episodes to flesh out the events taking place in the final season. Looking back, however, we have 73 episodes of jaw-dropping production quality and sublime acting from one of the largest casts of any show in the history of television. I’m pretty sure I’ll never see anything quite like this again.

[image error]Photo by Andrik Langfield on Unsplash

When I first established a writing blog, the intention was to offer commentary on the journey of being a writer. After a lifetime of doing everything but writing, I felt my path was clear, especially after the wonderful experience of securing an MFA in fiction. It wasn’t that I needed a degree in order to write, but the entrance to that creative community meant everything.

Emboldened by the confidence in my understanding of craft, and two completed manuscripts waiting to be revealed, I continued writing blog entries and working on four other novels. I blamed my lack of writing from birth to age sixty on the notion that life gets in the way. It can and it does, but I thought I’d garnered the tools to succeed going forward.

I was wrong. I underestimated what I was up against.

Just when I thought I’d secured a lock on life and had set my feet on the path; LIFE reappeared, wagging its bony finger and whispering: “Au contraire.”

May is mental health month, so it seems fitting to pen something about the subject from within the community of writers – as a representative of the larger community of artists. Yes, it’s cathartic, but it might also serve as a warning label that by proceeding, it’s fair to expect some level of anguish in your future or possibly as a reminder you’re not alone in the quagmire. It should never mean the path is to be avoided, but each of us must find a way to use our mental state to an advantage – as J.K. Rowling created Dementors as a metaphor for the depression she suffered. It’s easier said than done, but that’s why she’s J.K. Rowling.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that, as a percentage, creative people are more prone to mental health issues than the general population. I personally believe it stems from an enhanced sense of empathy and a greater sensitivity to worldly conditions. Everyone has major problems in life. For me, it was a succession that consisted of the collapse of my career and financial world following the sub-prime mortgage crisis, mounting debt, a personal bankruptcy, losing my home, being hauled in front of the NYC District Attorney’s office to give information about a former employer, the draconian measures of the New York State Income Tax Department, the IRS, having to rely on supplemental food programs, and working to rebuild a world decimated by faulty choices and horrific karma. When prone to depression in the first place, that kind of life mimics the torture endured by Theon Greyjoy at the hands of Ramsay Bolton. Through it all, I’ve tried to write.

But, perseverance comes at a price.

A writer strives to overcome life’s obstacles while they write, query, read, edit, and write some more. Precious few are fortunate to garner a book deal, land an agent, or find some modicum of success through self-publishing. Perseverance though is risky, because weighed against all other complications, creativity is the one thing that stems from passion, the essence of the creative mind, which makes all else, can I say tolerable? The inherent risk of such doggedness is the possibility that self-perceived failure in your creativity spreads like poison, and at the very worst – as has happened to me – results in the death of passion. It’s as if passion is the muscle, the source of strength, used to keep pace, but endurance is not limitless. When the moment you recognize that loss arrives, it destroys all vestiges of one’s sense of purpose; depression metastasizes like an unchecked cancer. I say this because every artist who ever lived has faced that moment when they consider their creations worthless. You’re left feeling directionless and without the will to bother getting out of bed.

In the past three years, I’ve read only two books – even though I worked quite a while in a book store to make ends meet. I struggled to complete a third novel as the sequel to one I had published, but it was by rote. I felt like a car rolling slowly to a stop after running out of gas. I mourn the loss of those moments when my brain would visualize, with startling clarity, the nuances of a story idea, the exchange of good character dialogue, the satisfying connection of one plot point to the next. I still yearn to tell stories; much like a body tries to breathe. My greatest hope is that my sense of passion returns someday, a well-rested muscle ready and able to create new work. At the moment, it seems hopeless – a major side-effect of depression. The cycle is perpetual and ultimately diminishing.

I’ve read many articles that appeal to writers about never giving up, about finding the method that works best to succeed, to write even a little every day. There’s NaNoWriMo to encourage everyone who aspires to communicate by the written word to sit down and do it. These are all valuable and inspiring, but every once in a while, a reminder is necessary of what the dark side has in store. Mental health issues, especially depression, are a common disease amongst us, and you need to understand it will lurk in the recesses of your genes, ready to blossom at an unsuspecting moment. Forewarned is forearmed, and being forearmed is to put a support system in place.

I cannot stress in strong enough terms the requirement to seek out people who can appreciate the subtle differences between those with creativity at their core with those who aren’t. People with no exposure to the ways of the artistic mind are likely to brand one who is as introverted, weird, stand-offish, even snobbish. We’re difficult to put up with; we’re nearly impossible to endure on a daily basis. I’m fortunate to have a significant other who gets it, and I experience unrelenting guilt over the fact she does endure it. The argument could be made that I might have stopped drawing breath but for her. Help is mandatory, as expressed in all warnings about depression and suicide awareness campaigns. It doesn’t have to come in the form of a wife, or husband, or partner – it can come from connecting with others in our community, but the support system must exist in some way.

Protect your passion, for us it’s our life-blood. If you’re new to this, be prepared. If you suffer like I do, remember you’re not alone.

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As one who wore out multiple cassette tapes (yes, remember those?) listening to the original 1970 concept album for Jesus Christ Superstar, I planted in front of the TV on Easter to watch John Legend tackle the revival. It was a little confusing, given the Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber play never deals with Christ as a divine figure, for it to appear as a feature on Easter. The particular notoriety of the day is to celebrate the resurrection of Christ. The end piece of music titled John Nineteen Forty-One references the biblical chapter and verse:

“At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had even been laid.”

The play never goes beyond his death. At the time of the album release, I was a PK. That means, I was a priest’s kid, living in the rectory of my father’s parish church. He and my mother held a dim view over the play’s treatment of the Apostles and the fact the true aspect of Christ’s “superstar” status came as a result of rising from the dead. They didn’t enjoy the concept that Christ should have picked a more suitable time, one with the power of modern media coverage to debut his message, that he was merely a societal sensation two thousand years ago.

As for me, I loved the music and the vocal performances of Ian Gillan, Yvonne Elliman, and Murray Head. I wanted to hear those songs performed again. I never saw the original play, I only had the album, so I couldn’t compare acting performances, but I could compare how the old vocals would stack up against the new ones by John Legend, Sara Bareilles, and Brandon Victor Dixon.

As the play unfolded, disappointment grew. First, the acting wasn’t good. I’ll leave it there. I wanted to experience voices that recreated the range the music demanded, those visceral screams only a rock-and-roller can muster. Ian Gillan sang with Black Sabbath and Deep Purple. When he sang The Temple, his vocals touched every nerve in your spinal column. Similarly, Murray Head dropped the mic with Damned For All Time on the original album. Both Legend and Dixon have beautiful voices, but this kind of production did not fit their vocal style. If called upon to cast the role of Jesus for this rock opera, American Idol alum, Adam Lambert would have been a first choice. His vocals are ridiculous, and the restoration of Superstar would have been complete.

Most of the reviews for this production have been positive. Taking nothing away from John Legend as a singer, younger people should grab the music service of their choice and check out the 1970 original. For this revival, I have to cast a dissenting vote.