Polaroid of the Artist as a Young Man (Page 4)
I’m going to change topics just a little bit because you just found some phrases funny. What is something that you heard recently that you thought was hilarious, like laugh-out-loud hilarious, like a joke?
The funniest thing I’ve heard, hilarious, just happened a couple minutes ago. A friend of mine saw another friend of ours at the festival, walking, and he had these girls around him. And he doesn’t even know this guy, but in the few seconds of walking he heard him say, “You see how everyone looks at me.”
I think that’s hilarious, and that could find its way to be an album title.
The funny thing is that you put that as an album title and someone else will give their own meaning to it. So they’re saying, “Oh, he’s being egotistical,” like that’s talking about him, when in actuality it came about this story I just heard, this little part of a phrase that’s hilarious to me. Imagine a human being walking and that’s what you’re thinking.
I’m thinking so many other things when I’m trying to go somewhere.
OK, I have a bit of a challenge for you. Can you name all of your albums in chronological order?
No, I can’t.
Okay. I was just curious.
No. Like I said, the end result is useless to me. The end result is nice for everyone else, meaning the people around me. And eventually, lucky for me, it means also an audience. But I can’t apply it in my real day life, and I can’t use any of those albums to better my relationship with my mother. It’s completely intangible.
Ximena Sariñana, a two-time Grammy nominee, is Omar's long-time partner. She's performed on his solo albums and toured with the Omar Lopez-Rodriguez Group. Photo Courtesy of MTV Iggy
If I’m known as a very good guitar player, that’s completely useless to me. How do I apply that in everyday life, how do I apply that in my relationship with my women? I can use it in two ways that are completely superficial: I can pay rent, and my ego gets fed.
That’s nice, people think I’m a good guitarist. But how can I apply it in everyday life? I can’t.
What I can apply is the process it took to become a good guitarist. This means I had to have a certain amount of will power, that means that I had to have discipline because I sat down and played guitar, it means that I had to have an incredible amount of passion; it means that I had to have imagination. These are things that I can use in my relationship with my mother. 15:51
Just the things that got you to the point of becoming a good guitarist.
Yes, it’s the process. The process is the only thing that matters. Being a good guitar player is a completely throw away thing. Most people place the emphasis on that: I’m a great guitar player. Great, but that doesn’t mean you’re a good person.
You said that once you’ve done the albums they’re meaningless. But if they’re a Polaroid, as you said, for some people those Polaroids are fun to go back to, and say “Oh, this is me when I was eight, this is me when I was 15.” Are those feelings the same for you?
Yes, it’s definitely fun. But it’s the difference between eating your vegetables and protein or just eating sugar and pudding. They’re fun: eating pudding is fun, eating a pizza is fun, but your body can do nothing with that except start to shrivel up.
Your body needs things. It will tell you eventually, “I need vitamin C, I need vitamin E, I need spinach.” You need the nutrients. So yes, it’s fun to look back and go, “Oh, I remember that.”
But everything that it took to make that record, I carry with me all the time. All my records are inside of me, because they’re all part of the same thing. All my conversations are inside of me.
So you changed as you were making it?
Now I changed, yeah. The same way that all our friends are inside of us all, our enemies are inside of us, all our experiences are inside of us. That was just an experience, that’s all it was. It’s nice that there’s this tangible thing that people can share and experience, but again, they give it their own meaning.
This question is going to seem like I’m forcing a destination on you, but say in 40 years and of course you don’t know where you’ll be. What would you like to be if you were dreaming?
In 40 years I would like to be wonderful. There’s nothing else.
What does that mean though?
It means that I would never take anything for granted and live every moment in the moment, and realize that right now the wind is shaking the leaves, and so I think the wind is shaking the leaves, but its not, it’s my mind that’s shaking the leaves.