Dayton, Ohio is nicknamed the Gem City, though no one can remember why. The Wright brothers were based there for a while. The Dayton accords, which ended the Bosnian war, were signed at the air force base close by. In recent decades, the population has shrunk a bit. It’s not in decline, but it’s not particularly prosperous either. It is like a lot of other places. It’s not that remarkable.
But in the 1960s and 1970s, Dayton did experience a relatively brief, yet significant, cultural flowering. It was (and still is), the funk capital of the world.
Manufacturing jobs were plentiful then, while Dayton was strictly segregated: blacks in the west, whites in the east. But because of the prosperity, west Dayton became effectively self-sufficient, with its own shops and clubs, churches and high schools, which benefited from Title 1 schemes to fund the teaching of music. Those schemes were so successful that it became unusual if any young person in west Dayton wasn’t in a band.
Fourteen groups from west Dayton secured deals with major record labels. There was a week when Dayton had five singles in the US Top 50. West Dayton is half the size of Cork city.
Let’s face it, most of us are ordinary. We need to stop pressuring ourselves to be special
Seán Moncrieff: The word ‘old’ has become an insult. If you’re old, it’s all over
The estate agent quoted a jaw-dropping figure for what he thought our house would go for
Kieran Cuddihy: Newstalk hung all the shows on the brand, the personality. That changed with Andrea Gilligan and myself
For various reasons, that golden period didn’t last. Some of the signed bands recorded many albums. Some of them only produced a few. But there were also dozens of other groups who didn’t make it nationally. Some recorded singles and had local hits. Some never got the chance to record anything. You could argue that these bands were unlucky, or not quite good enough. You could be cruel and say they were failures. Yet, in an analogous sense, the experience of the not-quite-good-enough bands is the experience of the vast majority of us.
We like the myth of the lone genius. But it is a myth: the genius always has families, teachers, advocates and the work of others to build upon.
The myth also encourages a kind of hierarchical thinking, a not-so-subtle pressure on all of us to find some way of thinking of ourselves, or our children, as “special”. And it can infect every aspect of our lives: the way we look, the relationships we become involved in, how we operate on social media, how hard we work at our jobs. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be better, of course, or wanting to think of ourselves as useful. But we also have to balance that against the reality of our lives and who we are. Most of us are ordinary.
[ If I get ambushed by loneliness, it’s never when I’m by myselfOpens in new window ]
Most of our lives are ordinary. I’m writing these words early on a Monday morning. It never happens that I sit at my desk and the words flow out. Often I’m not sure what it is I want to say or if I’m expressing it properly. And I also know that it almost certainly won’t be the best thing in The Irish Times today. Or in the Magazine. Or even on this page.
And while I’m trying to write there will be regular interruptions. Daughter Number Four will come in and ask for toast. A few minutes later, she’ll ask for a bowl of Cheerios, then moan like it’s the end of the world when I give her porridge. Any time now, Herself will bound down the stairs with an arm full of laundry. Later on, I’ll get the Dart to work at the same time and see the same faces.
Poets often encourage us to find the extraordinary in the humdrum: an idea I’ve always found a wee bit patronising. Because there’s nothing wrong with the ordinary on its own terms: you don’t need to find some hidden brilliance there. Nurses and teachers and couriers and shop assistants: the ordinary makes the planet turn. Without the unsuccessful Dayton bands, the successful ones would never have happened. We all live in the world, and we all make it.
