I Plan to Stay a Believer

Turning once again to Curtis Mayfield in troubling times

Greetings, Jagged Time Lapsers!

So, uh… how was everybody’s week?

True to my words on Monday (which feel now like I wrote them a year or more ago), I completely avoided all news on Tuesday night, preferring instead to enjoy some grilled cheese sandwiches and watch some episodes of Flight of the Conchords with my girlfriend, then pour my excess nervous energy into giving my apartment a much-needed straightening up.

The next morning’s reveal of Trump’s victory was most unwelcome, to say the least, but I was nonetheless all the more thankful that I hadn’t submitted myself to the protracted torture of watching Tuesday night’s returns. What was that memorable closing line from a popular childhood rhyme? Ah, yes — “If you get hit by a bucket of shit/Be sure to close your eyes.” When it comes to words to live by, sometimes you just can’t beat the wisdom of the playground.

Even without having drunk myself into a stupor Tuesday night, as many of my friends quite understandably did, Wednesday was more than a bit discombobulating; the queasy optimism I’d felt in the days leading up to the election had become into straight-up nausea. I had a lot of work I was supposed to be doing, but pretty much the only thing I was able to write that day was a social media post, which went a little something like this (though I’ve tweaked and expanded upon it here):

The temptation to spend the day in bed nursing my heartsickness was strong, but in retrospect the hours and days of my life that I’d spent marinating in darkness all added up to absolutely nothing of worth; whenever the end inevitably comes, I’ll wish I’d spent them doing something other than curling up in a fetal position. And as the fates blessed me with a gorgeous November morning, I chose instead to hike up to my favorite rock at the nearby state park, where I knew I could bask in the sunlight, listen to the wind and the woodpeckers, and reflect for awhile.

Patterson's Pellet, Minnewaska State Park

The presidential election results were an awful gut-punch, to be sure. But as I walked, I remembered watching my mom cry as Nixon wiped the floor with McGovern in November 1972, and I remembered coming in to work for my law clerk gig on the day after the 1984 presidential election — the first one I ever voted in — and seeing all the company’s lawyers having a good old chuckle together over how Reagan had blown out Mondale. Those elections were genuine landslides, decided by a difference of over 500 electoral votes and 18-22 percent of the popular vote; this year’s three percent victory margin in the popular vote does not represent anything like a landslide or mandate, however much Trump and the GOP will spin it that way.

I felt completely alone in the wake of the 1984 election; all my high school friends were off at college at the time (where most of them were denied a chance to vote due to residential requirements), and all the adults I worked with/for were firmly in the Reagan camp, just as most of America seemed to be. I didn’t know anything about political organizing, and wouldn’t have known where to find like-minded individuals or impactful local organizations if I’d tried. I felt alienated and pissed off, but had no real idea of what to do with that energy.

Forty years on, I am at least heartened by the realization that I was one of over 68 million people who voted to not return to the chaos, cruelty and corruption of 2016-20 — now with additional score settling, an authoritarian playbook, and the almost total absence of legal guard rails. Obviously, things have the potential to get much scarier this time around than they ever did with the Nixon or Reagan administrations, but at least this time I don’t feel so alone.

Of course, so many of those 68 million will now be tempted to give up completely in the face of defeat — hell, millions of registered Democrats apparently gave up before the voting even started — but that’s never the way; as my father is fond of saying, the only way out is through. There are countless groups, causes, charities and community organizations out there, many of them in our own backyards, that are still pushing to make this country a better, kinder, safer and more equitable place for all, and they need your support and participation now more than ever. You can easily seek them out and join them today, if you like; but if you need some time out to decompress and recharge your batteries, that’s cool — they’ll still be there whenever you’re ready to lend a hand. Community, in general, will be of the utmost importance in the coming years; authoritarian states function best when citizens who don’t buy into their bullshit feel alone and isolated and ostracized.

And of course, the GOP will now loudly demand that we all climb aboard the MAGA clown car and fall enthusiastically in line with whatever concepts and policies Trump and his coterie of profiteering ghouls propose to inflict on portions — or all of — this country. But I have no time for fascists, bigots, bullies, bootlickers and the “fuck your feelings” crowd; I never, ever did.

However, going forward (and I AM going forward), I will also have no time for bothsides-ers, nihilists, whataboutists, conspiracy theorists, ideological purists who let the perfect be the enemy of the good, and defeatist cranks who would rather crow “I told you so” than actually get involved or offer any real solutions — as sweet as the air apparently smells up on Self-Righteousness Mountain, I cannot join you there.

But all my beautiful brothers and sisters who are still actively working for positive change — and all of you who woke up here in the US the day after the election with even larger targets on your backs than usual because of your sex, skin color, sexual identity/orientation, political affiliation, line of work (Hey, fellow journalists!) or any number of other reasons to be “othered” and demonized — YOU, I am always here for. Let me know how I can help.

As I was composing the above words in my head while I hiked, my ears slowly tuned in to the sweet sounds of birds and mammals completely untroubled by the morning’s news. Going back to my Sony Walkman days, I used to hate the idea of walking anywhere without having music to listen to, but the last few years have taught me the value of letting nature provide the musical accompaniment whenever possible. Nevertheless, I soon found myself absent-mindedly singing along to the loping rhythm of my hiking boots as I trudged up the path, eventually realizing that I was singing the words of the late, great Curtis Mayfield like a mantra:

I Plan to Stay a Believer

I Plan to Stay a Believer

I Plan to Stay a Believer

I first discovered the music of Curtis Mayfield shortly after the 1984 presidential election. I’ve ranted before about how Chicago has unduly ignored the legacy of one of the greatest songwriters to ever call the Windy City home; even back in the eighties, I would hear such “Chicago Gold” as the Cryan Shames, the New Colony Six and the Buckinghams on local oldies stations, but they’d never play any hits from the Impressions or Curtis’ solo career. The mere fact that I lived in Chicago for four years before ever even hearing of Curtis Mayfield is pretty damning in itself.

It was actually Greil Marcus’ book Mystery Train — one of several great music books I devoured during my year between high school and college — that first brought Curtis to my attention, and sent me looking for his albums at Rolling Stone Records, the place where I spent most of my lunch hours in late ‘84 and early ‘85. The 1972 soundtrack for Superfly was the only thing of his that they carried, which of course was the perfect place for me (or anyone else) to start.

Having read lyrics like “Another junkie plan/Pushin’ dope for The Man” in Mystery Train before ever hearing them, I expected Curtis’s vocal delivery to be harsh and disdainful, which would have perfectly matched my mood at the time. I was not at all prepared for his gentle, high-pitched voice, or a vocal delivery that alternated between thoughtful conversation and soaring street-corner falsetto. Nor was I prepared for the fact that his songs were brimming with empathy, wisdom and a spiritual commitment to seeing the bigger picture — both politically and personally — even when he was singing about drug dealers “tryin’ to get over”. Those songs, and that attitude, were exactly what I needed to guide me out of the alienated, misanthropic fog I was enveloped by during the height of the Reagan Years.

Several years later, in the early nineties, I discovered Curtis/Live, the 1971 album Mayfield recorded in concert at New York City’s Bitter End Cafe with a crack band featuring guitarist Craig McMullen, bassist Joseph “Lucky” Scott, drummer Tyrone McCullen and master percussionist Henry Gibson. This has become one of my favorite live albums ever recorded by anyone — it’s loose, funky, funny, delicate, dynamic, intimate and filled with powerful songs.

On the recording, Curtis raps (in the pre-hip hop sense) to an attentive audience about various things that are on his mind, in between giving older Impressions songs like “We’re a Winner,” “Gypsy Woman” and “People Get Ready” a solid retrofitting for the new decade (the latter song is fused with a gorgeous cover of “We’ve Only Just Begun,” which recasts the Carpenters hit as an anthem for the Black Power movement) and stretching out on with his band newer songs like the mournful “We The People Who Are Darker Than Blue” and the mordant “(Don’t Worry) If There’s a Hell Below We’re All Going to Go”. There are also a few amazing songs on the album that don’t appear anywhere else, like “Stare and Stare,” “Stone Junkie” and “I Plan to Stay a Believer,” the latter of which kept going through my head during my Wednesday hike.

Musically, there isn’t a whole lot to “Believer” — it’s just a laidback groove with a handful of chords, and the band sounds like they’ve rehearsed it only a handful of times before taking it to the stage; even Curtis occasionally sounds unsure about where to come in. He isn’t winging it on what he’s singing, however; the song’s first two verses talk about Black and Native American friends disillusioned to the point of paralysis by prophecies that didn’t come true and bitter memories of historic injustices.

He says he’s filled with hate
Because his tribe they waited too late
To protest the past
Instead they just sat there on their ass
Signing on the dotted line
When they didn't have Indian lawyers at that time

But by the third verse, Curtis is thoughtfully sizing up the possibilities of the new day:

We’re over 20 million strong
And it wouldn’t take long
To save the ghetto, child
If we’d get off our ass
10 dollars a man, yearly
Think awhile
20 million times 10
Would surely then put our brothers free
What congregation with better relations
Would demand more respect from society?

Rather than just giving up like his friends, he’s looking at the situation from a perspective of, “Hey, what about if we try this approach? And what if we truly banded together as a community to make it happen?” Like Curtis sang back in his Impressions days, you’ve got to keep on pushing.

Curtis went to his untimely grave believing that, for all of humanity’s myriad faults and fuckups and self-inflicted tragedies, we still have the potential to get our collective shit together. He also knew that no one was coming to save us, and that we’d have to do it ourselves and within our own communities before we could bring about any lasting and meaningful changes at the national or global level. But he damn well believed that it was still possible.

I do too, Curtis. Even after this past week.

(Click HERE if the video won’t work for you.)

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