by Ron Powers
He took the first solo. The band snapped quiet and Kevin’s notes went skipping and dancing all alone, through the amps and up the aisles and into the audience and then out again. They somehow got through the curved beige acoustic tiling and escaped the auditorium, and headed straight up and toward the early evening stars, and then on into deep space, joining all the other music ever played, coursing to eternity. The solo ended and Kevin ducked his head in a bow, and the eruption of applause startled him and made him peek upward a little before it burst clear and followed his music into the cosmos.
Kevin’s remaining years at Interlochen floated along on the ballast of that ovation, in an illusory haze of time suspended. He extended his mastery of technique and instinct until his teachers had little left to teach him. He directed a guitar ensemble in a memorable performance. He composed wondrous guitar pieces that seemed to blend rock and jazz and flamenco and other assorted artifacts of his musical memory. He and his bandmates performed at Stanford University and in Chicago. He tore his concentration from music to the classroom enough to earn reasonable grades in his studies—although he never tore away completely.
In late October I wrote to tell Kevin of an encounter Honoree and I had that reconnected us with his “creation story” as a guitarist:
Subject: Amazing incident!
Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2000 23:47:47 -0400
From: Ron Powers
To: Kevin Powers
… It happened while Mom and I were in the Volvo showroom on Wednesday. We were talking to one of the salesman, a nice guy who has helped Mom in the past, when I noticed another salesman was looking at us. When there was a pause in our conversation, he called over to me: “Is your name Powers?” I nodded and he asked, “Do you have a son who plays guitar?” I said yes; two sons who play, actually. He said: “I met you 10 or 12 years ago at the Boathouse. You had your little boy with you. You guys sat right next to me. I remember that he got up onstage and played with the group. He had a little toy guitar. I remember how excited he was. And I knew he was going places, right then. I’ve followed news items about him in the paper. Where is he now?”
Is that not unbelievable? This guy was sitting next to us at THE pivotal day in your whole life’s direction, Kevin, and he remembered it—almost as clearly as we have. Crazy world, huh?
Take care of yourself. Write when you can.
Love,
Dad
When I picked him up at the Burlington airport near the end of winter break 2000, Kevin was in a frenzy to get to the parking garage. He was back home from a visit to his new Interlochen roommate, Peter, who lived in Jacksonville, Florida. Kevin had a surprise for me.
He dumped his guitar and backpack into the rear seat of the van, foraged in the backpack, then barreled into the front seat brandishing a CD in its jewel box, which he ripped open. I had hardly got the motor started when Kev shoved the disk into the car player and shouted, “I want you to hear this!”
I left the car in parking gear and we listened as the music started to play. Kevin turned up the volume and then peered at me.
The songs were punk. But what punk! Six driving pieces of blazing force and disciplined musicianship—guitar, bass, drums, and vocals. I had never been a fan of punk, but this was something else, something beyond. The songs surged forth, alternately seditious, playful, and charged with young-male defiance, typically toward a girl who’d thrown a young male over. “I won’t change myself for anyone,” the lyrics ran, and “Why do we pretend that we were made for each other?” and “Why did you lie to get your way?” (When Pedant Father suggested a few days later that she had lied to get her way to get her way, Kevin shot Pedant Father a sidelong you-are-so-out-of-it look, and Pedant Father kept himself out of advice-giving after that.) The lyrics contained the requisite quotient of alienated-youth trashmouth, yet the songs were not dark at all. The words seemed to be present mainly to provide a superstructure on which to mold the magnificent music.
The longest and best of the six pieces was an aural fireworks display titled “Epistemological Commentary.” Kevin took his longest solo in that one, and it was out of this world: an intricate display of fast scale-running, up and down and up and down again, but shaped into an exhilarating musical idea. Kevin shifted chords upward near the end, and his guitar turned into a calliope, tootling away in some celestial circus of joy everlasting.
I didn’t say anything when it was over and the disk slid out of its slot. I didn’t want to trivialize what I’d just heard with some inane boilerplate comment. I think that I ended up just shaking my head, and putting my hand on my son’s shoulder. The only sound was of the van’s engine humming in the chilly parking lot.
Kevin had his lopsided grin working. He nodded. He understood.
At sixteen, he had just lived out a kid musician’s fantasy: an all-night recording session in a professional studio. They invited a third musician, a young, dynamic drummer named Scott Shad. Scott was a member of Inspection Twelve, a Jacksonville band on the cusp of its national debut with a CD titled In Recovery.
On New Year’s Eve, as Kevin told the story, the trio entered the soundproofed room, set the volume and tonal controls, and began playing. They recorded and rerecorded and edited throughout the night—a detail that richly flavored Kevin’s fantasy-come-true. By morning they had nailed it. They ran off several copies of the master, with the intention of sending them out to record companies. And they awarded themselves a suitably macho punk band name: Booby.
They sent their CD off to several places including an emerging musicians’ go-to website, garageband.com. It took the site about four months to begin posting the songs.
Subject: The rave reviews
Date: Sun, 06 May 2001 07:52:35 -0400
From: Ron Powers
To: Kevin Powers
Kev,
I assume you’ve been checking out the reviews of “Epistemological Commentary” on garageband. They’re mostly over the top! I love the one that says, “I’ve listened to a heap of songs on GB and this is the best Punk song I have heard on the site thus far! This song rocks! That guitar line is so damn cool I can barely stand it…” and on and on. It must give you a tremendous rush to read this kind of praise. I also notice that you’ve made the Qualifying Round and that your Punk ranking is 100. I think you’re still on the way up, and next Wednesday should give you a real boost from reviewers. Pass the word to Peter—you guys are stupendous!
Love,
Dad
Kevin’s voice was leaden when he called home from Interlochen in March. Scott Shad, the gifted young drummer who’d sat in on that magical recording session in Jacksonville, was dead. Scott was a diabetes sufferer. On March 6, he’d been caught without a needed dosage of insulin at the worst possible time. While driving his car, he apparently had a seizure and succumbed to a fatal crash.
Honoree and I flew to Interlochen in late March to bring Kevin home for spring break. We made an evaluation appointment with one of his teachers, who told us, “Kevin is probably the most talented musician I’ve come across in my time at Interlochen.”
But then, in April, another death: my wife’s mother, Honora, at age ninety-eight, whom both the boys had adored. Both sons were stunned with grief. Kevin was tongue-tied during our telephone conversation, and soon afterward sent this post:
Subject:
Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2001 20:19:34
From: “Kevin Powers”
To: [email protected]
Hey dad
I’m sorry for my initial inability to say a lot, I probably sounded bitter but I’m still getting used to this and I’m so thankful for you and mom allways being there for me. I almost feel hardened though, it hasen’t sunk into me what happens when someone dies. I feel like I took advantage of people like grammy and scott allways being there and I never fully had the chance to spend the time or say the things I would want to before they were g
one. I don’t know what it means that I can’t fully become emotional when something like this happens, I guess I realize though that for grammy this is what she wanted. I heard her say it and I don’t blame her she lived a full life more than 90 years. Anyway, thank you, take care of mom as I know you are and I’ll see you in a few days.
Love Kevin
Subject: Re:
Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2001 16:35:53 -0400
From: Ron Powers
To: Kevin Powers
Kev,
Your reactions, believe me, are absolutely normal. Tears are not the only measure of grief. You’re in a kind of shock. I know you well enough to know how intensely you feel things. Your silence on the phone spoke worlds—you were deeply connected to the moment and your sense of loss.
As for “taking advantage”—no. You didn’t take, you gave. With Grammy you were always the picture of sweetness and tenderness and understanding. You always approached her in a searching way; you looked and listened for what was going on inside her head, and responded to that with amazing gentleness and good humor. The humor you shared with her was so wonderful. Whenever I think of the two of you together, I have this wonderful image of Honora’s face opening up, losing its guardedness, and then that deep belly-laugh she could release on occasion, when her whole body and shoulders would shake. You knew how to kid her, be a little outrageous, jolly her along. It was one of the things she lived for.
I agree with you that Grammy gave you something too. You and Dean. She gave you an understanding of the need to be tender. Living with her, adjusting to her needs and moods, helping her out when she needed it, like escorting her into the dining room or fetching her a blanket or a cup of tea—these are the little things that enrich human life and offer the deepest satisfactions. I think that the kindness she nurtured in both you and Dean is stronger than all the hatefulness and ugliness of this scary world. And I think that nothing you encounter out in that world will ever corrupt you because you will always carry a piece of Grammy in your heart.
Maybe when you wrote that lyric, “I won’t change myself for anyone,” that was partly Grammy speaking.
She loved you. Mom and I love you. You’re a wonderful person.
I can’t begin to tell you how proud I am that you are my son.
Love,
Dad
The world, which Kevin had embraced so buoyantly as a child, was by now showing its true nature to him. On the day of the attacks on the World Trade towers in September 2001, he wrote this to us:
Subject: hey
Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 20:29:32 -0400 (EDT)
From: Kevin B Powers
To: ropo
Dad-
What a day in history… I am beside myself with confusion as to who would do this, and why. There are no words for something like this its safe to say that this will be one of the biggest events in US history but we will see. I hope the guys fighting for our country will make smart moves and I hope Bush takes cautious but advancing measures whatever they might be. Do you have any colleagues in that area? Well everything here for the most part is fine, I think some people will be affected by this more than others but I’m ok and I hope you and mom are doing well. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this, and I will most likely call later tonight or tomorrow.
Kevin
I read his message and wished that I could drive to Interlochen to hug and comfort him. I could have, of course. In retrospect I dearly wish I had. But I wrote him this reply.
Subject: Day 1 of the New World
Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 16:06:56 -0400
From: Ron Powers
To: Kevin Powers
Kevin,
I just got home from the grocery store, and Mom told me I’d missed your call, which we both had been hoping for throughout this sad, terrible day. (We were so gratified that Dean called in the morning—we really wanted to make contact with both of you.)
The funny thing is that I was thinking about you on my ride home, probably at the same moment you and Mom were talking. Thinking about the things I’d want to say to you. The most important of those things is to urge you to be brave, and to keep your optimistic outlook on life. That will be important for everyone in the country in the hard days ahead. The second thing is to savor the preciousness of life, every moment of it—but I think you do that already.
The third thing is to be aware of the contribution you can make as an artist to the healing of your friends, your school and perhaps someday even your country. Terrorists, criminals and evil people are always the ones who blow our world apart, and always it is the artists who put it back together again. We really need your music now. We need to hear the joy and power and hope that you generate with every note you pick from that beautiful guitar. We need you, and Peter, and the people in your combo, and the whole widening circle of musicians across this shattered society, to help restore our sense of humanity and the sweet flavor of life.
Play well, and with extra passion. As you always do.
With lots of love and respect,
Dad
And he did, for as long as he could.
15
Antipsychotics
Few discoveries in the history of science triggered anything like the welling of euphoria in the Western world that greeted the arrival of antipsychotic medication in 1954. Certainly none reached as deeply into the wells of human terror and desire as psychoactive drugs, with their promise of identity restored and protected, the Self insulated from demonic colonization.
Cold War–fighting, Red-Scared, bomb-shelter-digging, beatnik-averse America hungered for some good news about humanity’s prospects. What better news than that madness was about to be wiped out? Newspapers, magazines, and television wolfed down the great helpings of sugary press releases served up by factotums of the once-staid, newly Delphian drug companies. They raced to trumpet the latest breakthrough, quote the most utopian promises of corporate lab scientists. The Freudian high priests with their dreary old theories of “mind-cure” found themselves blindsided at the height of their hard-won prestige—blindsided by chemicals!
The very notion—Sanity in a bottle! Peace of mind in a popped pill!—so perfectly fit postwar America’s marketing-conditioned faith in E-Z solutions via consumer products that the wonder-drug blitzkrieg was complete almost as soon as it started. The companies’ onslaught of grandiose claims at first paralyzed the usual gatekeepers of the public interest. Who, after all, had the scientific savvy necessary to analyze and challenge them? Not the press, that great consortium of laymen reporting to laymen. Not public officials, mostly science-illiterate and lobbyist-friendly. Not the academy, generally lethargic in shifting its sights from dusty tomes toward civic affairs (unless, as events often proved, certain monetary considerations were proffered). And not consulting psychiatrists, far too many of whom were only too happy to reinvent themselves as pill prescribers as they saw their talk-therapy clientele abandon the couch for the nearest Rexall.
As a preamble to exploring the deeply flawed rise of Big Pharma, a rise built largely upon avarice, profiteering, deceptive and even false marketing, bribery, and even—as its profits soared beyond imagination—a willingness to settle multimillion-dollar lawsuits out of court and proceed on to further perfidies as a preamble to all this, it is fair to acknowledge that the hope of the wonder drugs has not been completely misguided. Prescription antipsychotics, the good ones, anyway, have enabled millions of schizophrenic patients to experience quantum improvements in their lives. For them, the medications have restored cognition, suspended hallucinations, including “voices” inside the head, and enabled control over destructive irrational impulses. They have made it possible for mentally ill victims and their loved ones to resume communication, a gift beyond value. They have allowed uncounted sufferers to return to the workplace.
Modifications on the antipsychotic compo
und, known generally as psychotropics, have been effective in stabilizing the mood swings of bipolar sufferers. A host of antidepressant and antianxiety products, distinct from psychotropics* in their chemical makeup and their lesser potency, treat the complaints of “the worried well,” those one-in-four patients who crowd doctors’ appointment schedules with nothing especially awful to report. Whether the “worried well” actually need such sustenance is a question that has always triggered doubt. Lately, the doubt has been buttressed by new observations of mice. Laboratory mice, that is, not the other variety. Those are supervised by marketing experts.
Psychoactive drugs have impelled doctors and scientists to make their historic break with Freudian orthodoxy, shifting from “the mind” to the brain. As the new drugs were sweeping the world and turning pharmaceutical companies into financial empires, scientists remained ignorant as to what made them work. Lobbied and prodded by drug company salesmen—themselves as clueless as anyone—a great many doctors and psychiatrists dropped their initial skepticism and came to assume that antipsychotics cured chronic mental illness. They did not. They temporarily repressed its symptoms. When the patient stopped taking these meds, the symptoms came crashing back, sometimes with fatal results.
The antipsychotic revolution proved to have arrived with side effects. Within a few years of their appearance in the marketplace, and irrespective of their sustained bonanza of profits and popular prestige, these “miracle drugs” stumbled into quagmire after quagmire.