Strange Things Happen: A Life with The Police, Polo and Pygmies by Stewart Copeland hits bookstores today, September 29. Review by Nicole Pellegrini (sockii)
I feel a little bit like pulling a Jedi Mind Trick here to start off this review. Or that perhaps Stewart Copeland has pulled one over on all of us readers, or that he should do before the angry shouts and rampant confusion surely begins.
Police fans looking for, at long last, Stewart’s definitive statement on The Police?
*handwave*
“This is not the book you are looking for.”
As far as I see it, Stewart made his definitive statement on the early Police years with Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out. (You can read my original review of that film in my archives.) If you’re expecting much more here, you’ll be disappointed, although there are a few brilliant gems of observation that slip through the cracks when and where you least expect it.
Diehard Stewart fans–the self-proclaimed Nutters and Snarks–looking for deep personal insight and a detailed history of Stewart’s life and all his various projects?
*handwave*
“This is not the book you are looking for.”
Stewart Copeland is not here to divulge all his secrets, nor dish the dirt on his past relationships, musical or personal. If you’re looking for either type of information, you’ll be highly disappointed (go read band mate Andy Summers’ book “One Train Later” instead). What Stewart is here to do is share some stories with us, and most of these stories are quite lighthearted and fun in their nature and tone. They’re the kind of stories you’d share at a dinner party to good friends, people who will get all the in-jokes and references you’ll be making. It’s no wonder that when Stewart first shared some of these stories on his website, it was in a section of the site entitled “Stewart’s Dinner Tales”.
But if you’re looking for a traditional autobiography? Seriously, listen carefully to me, right now:
“This is not the book you are looking for.”
Structurally? Strange Things Happen is kind of a massive hot mess. It’s divided into four sections: Stewart’s early life (where he sticks The Police); immediately after The Police; the years 2000 – (roughly) 2007; and lastly the reunion tour. I found myself oddly reminded of a Kurt Vonnegut novel as I read through it all, with the various chapters jumping here and there through time–some very short, some longer; the narration from Everyone Stares stuck in-between the prose as a substitute for a developed chapter on the Police’s early years.
However this jumpy shatter-shot structure seemed to emphasize the surreal nature of some of these events and adventures Stewart describes in his tall (drummer) tales. How does one go from being at the top of the world with The Police to seeking out pygmy tribes in Africa? Playing polo matches against Prince Charles? Becoming a reality show “celebrity”/villian? It’s a wild life story that probably could have filled several volumes if described in detail, but that’s not the intent here. We get the highlight reel instead–and with Stewart’s clever prose and eye for pertinent, well-chosen detail, a great deal is often revealed in just a few words or sentences.
Some Police fans seem put off by the fact that The Police (v 1.0) is dismissed so quickly in the book. I think the important points Stewart wants to share about that time were, again, already made in his movie and then emphasized in the brief chapter that follows here, “Police Rule”. He doesn’t talk about the band, his bandmates, the creative (and other) tension between them. He talks about the disorientation of being The Rock Star, an idolized one, and the effect it has on one’s mental well-being.
It was getting claustrophobic. Privacy deprivation is something like sleep deprivation. The love that surrounds you becomes vexatious.
I often wished that I could merely turn my collar up and shun the light.
But Police fans really should relax and take a deep breath, as they get more than enough about the band in the last section of the book. Again mostly snippets from here and there as the reunion tour rumbled along, it is an enjoyable look into the machinery of the band: rehearsing and road rituals, major tensions and how and where they were resolved; what brought out the best and worst in each of them as musicians (and individuals) and why it was painfully, clearly obvious that there could never be a “new” Police album after all of this was over. As far as individual incidents go, I especially enjoyed the chapter “Raging Kumbaya”, Stewart’s story of hanging out with Rage Against the Machine as well as the section in the “Toast in the Machine” chapter on what happened when Sting and Les Claypool crossed paths.
The book’s Afterward, entitled simply “The Green Flag”, apparently seems troubling to some members of Stewart’s fandom and is getting very mixed reactions so far. I personally find it a very suitable ending in its ambiguity and the quandary presented. The afterword is placed side-by-side in the book by a full-page picture of Stewart with his wife and family, with the caption “This is who I really am”. The message is not very subtle, I don’t think: “I am not a superhero (Halloween costumes excluded.) I’m just a regular family guy who has had some strange things happen to me.”
The story of The Flag has been told well by others elsewhere, and will continue to be told by the fans who participated in its travels for years to come. (Goodness knows, whenever I can finally find the time to edit together my book of fans’ recollections from the tour, that story will be told many times over!) But fandom is a funny thing. I spend a lot of time thinking about and writing about fandom, having been involved in various ones for most of my life. Fandoms very much are communities which develop their own rules and rituals, symbolism and language, as Stewart hints at here in the Afterward. And they can develop an almost religious fervor about them. Fans converge at conventions and at concerts, often donning ritual gear and costumes to identify themselves in a crowd and feel united. Fandom can by joyous; sharing in a common love for a band, artist, film or tv show can be great fun. Yet it can also turn ugly very quickly and harmful quite easily, both for the members of that fandom and for those at the center of all that attention. Everyone Stares certainly gave many of us a first-hand view of what it could be like to be in the middle of that kind of fannish mania and attention, and one gets the sense that Stewart is rather cautious about anything that could encourage or set off that crazed adulation again.
Which is not to say I necessarily believe that Stewart “reads” the Flag as such. But I do get the feeling that there’s a sense of caution in embracing it too closely lest it get out of control–for those waving the Flag as much as for him. Throughout the book, we’ve read his stories of what it’s like to try to find a normal life in the aftermath of being The Rock Star one time around. And as much as he may have enjoyed the ride this second time during the reunion tour, there’s an understanding of where taking it too far can lead.
“The folks at the concerts aren’t bowing down so much as rising up in exultation, but I’m just saying that I have an idea of what it feels like to be a golden calf.”
It’s cautionary in tone as much as it is a loving (well, I think so, anyway) acknowledgement of this “nutty” fandom that Stewart has, which he’s long been more than generous with supporting and encouraging for these many years.
In the end, this is a book I’m very happy to be able to add to my collection of materials related to The Police and the members of the band. At times it’s frustrating, at times it’s hysterical, and some times it’s utterly brilliant. It’s another piece to the puzzle that is/was The Police that probably has no solution nor answer, but a piece I’ll enjoy going through again from time to time for a good chuckle and to mull over in my mind–like any good dinner tale that deserves retelling amidst the best company.
