Killing me (softly)

Remember when Pearl Jam - in 1995, when they had recently been assigned the heavy and fleeting title of World's Biggest Band - decided to challenge Ticketmaster? Having taken shape in a Seattle that was deeply shaped by the indie movement of the late 1980s, and recently empowered in a way that allowed them to dictate, to an extent, their own terms, the band sought to work around the giant ticketing agency's virtual monopoly, and to structure concert deals that were nominally fairer to fans and musicians alike. A noble idea, perhaps - but the ensuing self-organized and self-promoted tour soon became a fiasco, as Pearl Jam wound up playing in venues that couldn't handle their crowds and cancelling a number of dates. Soon enough, the band abandoned its crusade, and fans were left to complain, for years hence, about the harsh fees imposed by the even stronger Ticketmaster. "Ticketmaster is killing me," wrote a disgruntled music fan in 2007, and he was hardly alone in voicing a frustration that had only been redoubled or intensified by the failure of Pearl Jam's attempted rebellion.

You're killing me. It's a phrase that's apparently been circulating in the Yellowbird classroom recently, as well - complete with a whining, high-pitched melodramatic voicing. I first heard it yesterday, when Cleo and I were talking about the birthday party of a classmate. 'Well,' I said, 'her birthday was actually on Friday, but her party is on Sunday, so that more people can come.' But Cleo felt differently, insisting that the party would be on some unspecified day in the future. We'd reached an impasse - until, suddenly, she upped the ante with a practiced Dad, you're killing me.

Well. My first reaction was simple, unalloyed surprise - how did my little daughter come to be able to recall, so skillfully, the pained, self-sacrificing tone of a Jewish comedian working the Borscht belt? And I laughed out loud. Which meant, in turn, that Cleo decided to repeat the phrase, whenever appropriate - and, too, at a number of times that weren't appropriate. Our walk home, in short, became a series of repeated variations on the theme. You're killing me, Dad. And, by the fifth or sixth variation, I found myself tiring of it. Partly, that is, because I wanted some fresh material, and partly because Cleo didn't really seem to have a sense of why the phrase might be funny - or of why it might not be funny, in certain contexts. Interestingly, she's been fascinated by death of late: she shocked her teachers this week by announcing that when her favorite singer, Lisa, dies, she will become, in turn, Lisa singer, and she was deeply interested in the mock tombstones that we saw decorating suburban yards on a Halloweenish walk around Rodgers Forge yesterday. Dead people can be placed underground? She puzzled over that for a while, before telling me, yesterday evening, that Lisa singer might have a house underground at some point, when she's dead.

And so I stopped walking, and asked Cleo if I could talk to her for a minute. I tried, in a stereotypically Serious Dad manner, to explain that kill is a heavy word, and that literally killing someone is a terrible act, with real consequences. Sure, Cleo, you've stumbled upon a funny phrase. But do realize, please, that it is not always appropriate. And, anyway: you're a big girl. There's no need to whine, even if you do do it in an entertainingly hyperbolic way. She took that in. She tested out her phrase a few more times, to see how it felt now. And then, when I asked her if she'd say it once more, so I could make a short video, she altered it, as you see above.

In the heat of their battle with Ticketmaster, Pearl Jam recorded a plaintive, grinding song called 'This is Not For You.' Sometimes read as a jeremiad involving their recently developed celebrity - an articulation of their resentment, in other words, at the demands placed on their time by their hue new body of fans - it has also been read as a summary of Generation X's willful, slothful unwillingness to work for The Man, or to give into the system. It seems most appropriate, though, to read it as a document born of their wars with Ticketmaster - a battle cry, that is, in a battle that they soon lost.

Challenging the powers that be is often, of course, laudable. Seizing creative control of one's appearances, as a musician, or resorting to comedic exaggeration, as a 3-year-old, can be deeply inspiring. But those acts of rebellion sometimes encounter considerable resistance; indeed, they may never unfold as simply, perhaps, or as beautifully and cleanly as the rebel might wish.