Tori Amos: Piece by Piece (39 page)

Every person has a public face. The woman who works on Wall Street, the soccer mom, the college student at NYU. My niece goes to NYU, and we have talked quite a bit about this: When can you let the mask down? Especially when you're living in a college dorm, essentially living with strangers, similar to a road crew. But a road crew should be professional and know the rules of the game. Students who in some cases are away from their bedrooms, their personal spaces, for the first time in their lives aren't supposed to be professionals. And yet they're thrown into such a lack of privacy, where they may find themselves rooming with a gay-hobbit-porno-web-site fanatic—that would test even the most experienced road dog. Remember, most road crews get at least one day off a week, and on my tour you usually get a room to yourself to regroup and have some privacy. At the worst, you get your own bunk where the curtains pull shut, with your own drink holder (wow), TV set, reading light … yeah, it's a tight space, but it's your own space with the curtain closed, where nobody dares to pull your curtain back unless they're on some vodka-crazed rampage and they want you to be the donkey in a game of pin the Velcro on the donkey. Honestly, if that's the least that happens to you on tour, then you are truly loved. But students don't even get anywhere near this privacy.

There is a strange way at work here, or at play If you have an image of yourself and want to be “in that skin,” to walk in those shoes—how can this perception of you be questioned by others, and maybe even by yourself? Why? I don't know how or why. A strange set of coincidences can converge to bring your perception of you and other people's perception of you into a questioning state. A state that can have a set of rules or laws that may and can be broken, intentionally or completely unknowingly. A state that can have a sheriff. The act of breaking these unspoken laws set into place in this public-image state can end friendships, sever acquaintances,
and cause overall mayhem. You could also possibly be taunted and humiliated if you don't follow the views of the “image connoisseurs” in your social circle and be who you should be, according to them.

I have to catch myself drumming up preconceptions of people: I pinch myself and say “Just observe without making judgments too quickly.” There have been guys who on first glance and meeting come across as maybe your worst nightmare. Basically sporting a chauvinist, shaved-head, arrogant stance—I'd say pretty much pushing a prehistoric “I'll drag you back to the cave, and I've got computer-nerd weenies on the spit, grilling.”

And then, sometimes, a strange circumstance presents itself where I see this guy's “stance / demeanor / personality / self” change right before my eyes. The gears shift. Then a laugh, maybe. And sometimes you find a big grizzly bear that, yes, can be ferocious, but can also be protective and even, once in a while, cuddly. If you don't have enough time with your private self to sit down and catch up with the voices inside, then how do you know who you really want to be? Not just who your family wants you to be, not who your lover needs you to be, not who your current crowd hopes you will continue to be … but who you want to be. I've constantly had to battle with the issue of what kind of woman I wanted to be. Sometimes I've given the complete opposite impression to some people. Why? Sometimes it was intentional. Sometimes it wasn't. There have been those around me who have equated the meaning of compassion with the definition of weakness. Because you want to give people another opportunity to prove themselves, you can get the reputation of being a softie. Then if you choose to break off the relationship after having been compassionate, you get the reputation of being a motherfucker. One extreme to the other. I've begun to firmly believe true compassion is a tough skill to wield and it takes a strong resolve to listen, be understanding, and then still be able
to say, “We've given this relationship chance after chance after chance of working together, of creating together, but it just isn't working out.” There doesn't have to be animosity over this—choosing different trails up the mountain—but if there is animosity, then there is. As hard as you try to be diplomatic and fair, other people may not see you as fair at all but as a manipulator, a crusher of their dreams. But what was their dream based on? A fantasy combined with an image they had of you (as a girlfriend, as a working partner, as somebody who could fix their life …). Did you buy into this image they had, because, frankly, for a while, it pulled you in? Let's be honest. You let yourself be pulled in because it felt good to be wanted, needed. But then it went too far, as projected images always do. If it's not a real image, but one that has been projected onto you, then you can keep up the masquerade for only so long before the mask cracks and the paint on the mask peels away.

After our all-around household coordinator Deb, fondly known as Super Debs, my niece Cody, and I spent a week in Ireland together, getting the house ready for the summer holiday, the three of us came to a conclusion. Even though we'd all been working together almost every day over the previous weeks, waking up with each other in Ireland took us to another awareness of one another's personal selves. I've worked with Deb for more than four years now. And Cody is my sister's daughter, so if you had asked me two weeks ago if I knew these two women on a personal level, I would have said absolutely, without question, I know these two women personally. But on this trip to Ireland those “public masks” got stripped away. Stripped away with every day—a few layers closer to what each of us considered to be truer to her real, private self.

The three of us, Cody, Deb, and I, were convinced that if anybody really thought about it they could pinpoint when the private self and the public self join hands—in the morning before you go to work, in the car before
you arrive as that wedding guest—who is in the driver's seat, the private self or the public self, depends on where you're going. In England, when we first boarded the plane, the public selves, for Deb, Cody, and me, took over in order to deal with ticket-counter check-in, security lines—we all know this dance—so we had our private selves protected somewhat by the public self. We all do this in order not to take so personally the cold, hard reality of such interactions. Because so much of life these days is impersonal, we all basically put on a protective coating, similar to Scotchgard on your dining room chairs, so that when somebody squirts their emotional ketchup or mayonnaise on you, intentionally or not, you can wipe it off without too much of a stain being left. By the time we woke in Ireland on the second day of our trip, with phone calls coming in that were personally affecting one of us, the public selves were ushered out the front door and mugs of lattes and Kleenex boxes were more the order of the day.

I've often thought that the people you become close to depend on certain circumstances occurring. For instance, sometimes you are with someone during a crisis: by chance, as I was with Lesley Chilkes on September 11 in New York City. Other people were there, but because Karen Binns went to deal with her family in Brooklyn and because Lesley's friends were stuck in Miami, she and I gravitated toward each other. Marcel and I also had a moment at the rehearsal studio that afternoon; while all the horror of the day was occurring, we seemed to find another depth to our friendship. I've been working with these people since 1991 and 1994, respectively. But during that time, because I was with them in circumstances when our private selves were completely on display, I saw sides of them, and they of me, that strengthened an already existing friendship by a hundredfold. Now I know these two people really well. I would say they know me extremely well. I realized my depth of love for them and I felt their depth of love for me as I had never felt it before.

People are the most fascinating mysteries I've ever read. I'm sure someone reading this has had another experience like the one I've had: You meet someone's public self and choose to work with them because you've had a good feeling about them. Then the nightmare begins. And familiarity sets in, the masks droop and slide, and you see the heart of a monster. What has blown me away is that some of these people retaliate if you don't choose to accept their monster. I have found that the only way to tour with the many different personalities you deal with backstage, as well as onstage, is to truly know the scope of your
own
monster. If you don't, you are a walking time bomb. Before a world tour starts, my private self always takes a long walk with my public self, and the protective clothing of the former and the masks of the latter are packed together in the suitcase, ready to board the bus. “All aboard” takes on a new meaning these days.

 

ANN:
Feminine power is not only a warm, nurturing thing. Furious goddesses have transformed the world since ancient times, laying waste to mans corruption, wreaking havoc until justice is served. From the wild dance of the Indian deity Kali to the rampage wrought by Tura Satana in Russ Meyer's exploitation movie
Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!
stories of women on fire with rageful power have taken hold of the culture's imagination. “No more nice girls!” these archetypes scream, reminding us that what is right is not always easy, and that kindness has meaning only when fierceness is its counterpart.

One of the oldest deities of Egypt was an angry goddess: Sekhmet, red-haired and lion-headed, hot as the sun. According to her legend, Sekhmet burst forth from the eye of Ra, king of the gods, to punish humanity for losing faith She relished her path of mayhem so much that Ra had to put a stop to her by leading his thirsty daughter to drink a lake full of beer and lose consciousness. Awakening, she saw the error of unwarranted destructiveness and lived on, transformed, as a righteous punisher of wrongdoers.

Sekhmet survives today in the imaginations of modern-day women battling the lingering forces of sexism. Despite enormous gains made in the past century, women's equality remains tentative and circumstantial; old-boy networks still dominate most areas of public life, while in private many women still fight to maintain confidence in their talents and authority. Nowhere is equality more paradoxically fulfilled than in the entertainment industries, where women artists are expected to present themselves as strong and independent, despite the fact that few actually control the nuts-and-bolts aspects of their careers. All artists are at risk of exploitation within a system founded on the sale of something as intangible as talent. Women, whose contributions have historically been underestimated, from the hearth to the hospital to the secretary's desk and beyond, are at the
greatest risk of being used and discarded. With so much emphasis placed on youth, beauty, and novelty, the female popular artist has no choice but to tap into fury to demand the right to a full career.

Tori Amos learned the need for anger's energy early, when she wrongly trusted the “experts” who led her into the ill-begotten artistic and physical makeover of the
Y Kant Tori Read
project. Reclaiming her identity as Tori Amos meant learning how to say no to bad guidance. Since those early years, Amos has never stopped fighting to maintain control of her art and her image. Battle after battle have taught her to wield her fire with uncompromising grace.

TORI:

 

I'm in a tight corner. Is it serious? Yes. Let's say that if we were playing the final chess game in the world, WWChess, then my opponent has just looked at me across all the chess pieces and said, “Check.”

I have one move left to save my soul. My mind races to a similar quote by Dr. Faustus made in 1592 (in a book with the same name written by Christopher Marlowe). Dr. Faustus wanted all the knowledge that there was to have. He made a pact in Blood. He made it with Lucifer, the one called Satan in the Bible. Once he realized the extent of the agreement, he wanted to break the pact, but it was too late. If only he could have his soul back … He studies the pact. “See, see, where Christ's blood streams in the firmament! One drop would save my soul, half a drop: Ah, my Christ!”

I have one move left to save my soul. Here I am saying this today, four hundred years later, from where I sit on this craggy Irish hill, looking out to America and the Power Seat of the music industry. I am reminded that today I am writing from what was once the Power Seat of Munster about 2,300 years ago. The Seat of Power changes. Yet those who wield the execution of power rarely act with a sense of fairness and integrity. Fairness and Integrity are more akin to Maat, the Egyptian goddess of Law, Truth
and Justice. The fact that power in the wrong hands corrupts is a tricky one. Because when we place power into the hands of those we have deemed worthy, in that moment they seem worthy. In that moment it does not seem that we are putting our faith into the wrong hands. Little do we know, the person we think to be just and fair will be seduced and corrupted by the shadow side of power. We all think we are above this seduction, but I guess no one is. Then the other side of the coin is the character in this little story who could be you or who could be me, who could not believe we could be fooled by or drawn into this power epic. No, we do not think we have the need to be the power hungry, the addicted-to-the-hunt and close-of-the-deal-type PHC personality. That would be “Power-Hungry-Crazed” personality. And no, maybe we don't have this PHC personality, but that's not where it all goes “tits down,” as they say. It becomes a real-life game of cat and mouse when you, or when I, in this little story make an agreement—a pact—with this power-hungry-crazed type of individual. Sometimes you don't find out who they are until you're in so deep, so deep to where the struggle of trying to get out of the situation can drive the hooks in even deeper.

In the music industry, like Dr. Faustus, you sign your pact in your own Blood. This contract can be with the record label, the manager, the business manager, the music attorney, the publishing company, or the agent. Or let's say you have no contract at all, yet you still have a massive fight on your hands because of the precedence that has been set in the years that the relationship has been going on, and yada yada yada, blah blah, puke. I have known too many people in the music industry, from label honchos to publishers to publicity assistants to accountants to managers to publicists to journalists who, when push comes to shove, will let you down and lower themselves morally down even further so they can cover their ass by doing it.