A CONVERSATION WITH THE SHERPAS (continued)
PM: The readers always want to know--they frequently write in to say, "We like it when you ask what the musicians are reading."
TPR: Ah, reading.
PM: Anybody reading anything?
TK: I'm reading something.
ML: I'm reading something.
PM: Well, spit it out.
TPR: The Ground Beneath Her Feet by Salman Rushdie.
PM: Ahh.
TPR: What a great story, man. I mean, it's set in India, but it's this guy and this girl, and they're like pop stars, music pop stars, and they take over the world.
ML: I'm reading one called Underworld by Don DeLillo.
PM: And what's that concern?
ML: Well, it's the opposite of fiction based on fact, it's sort of fact based on fiction. He takes a historical event, but gives you a possible alternate way that it happened. I've only read one of his other books, Libra, and there he presumes that the Kennedy assassination indeed was a conspiracy, and that the CIA was involved. So he basically tells it from that angle: "Here's a way it could have happened."
TK: Oh, man, that was a good book.
ML: This one, however, is about the shot heard 'round the world, the baseball home run by Bobby Thompson.
TK: In '61?
ML: Yeah. And when that happened, at the same time, during that game, is when the Russians first detonated an atom bomb for testing. And J. Edgar Hoover was sitting in the stands with Frank Sinatra and Jackie Gleason when he got the word.
PM: [laughs]
ML: And it's jumping around a lot, but it's centered around this little black kid who snuck into the game that day and ended up with the home run ball. It's a really awesome book, captivating.
TK: I'm reading Trans-Sister Radio by Chris Bohjalian. It's about what happens to the people in a little sleepy town in Vermont when a local tenured college professor undergoes a sex change operation. And I'm not done with it yet, but it's really interesting the way it brings a lot of dark stuff to the surface, in terms of people who would profess to be liberal and open minded, but how different it is when, say, their children are in the class of this man's--now woman's--sweetheart.
PM: Wow.
TK: It's really a well written book. I'm digging it.
PM: So a lot of the repertoire of the Sherpas has to do with matters spiritual. Is anyone willing or able to disclose particular spiritual inclinations or paths current in their life or important in their life?
TK: Yeah, I'll talk about Michael and Tom's spirituality.
[laughter]
TK: Guys?
TPR: I was born a Christian, my parents are Christian, even though they come from India. So I kind of have that background. And at one time I was actually in the seminary.
PM: What kind of seminary, like a Catholic seminary?
TPR: No, a Protestant seminary, maybe twenty years ago. I realized that that wasn't for me, and so I started on my own path. My path has been going back to where I felt my family might have been had they never become Christians, or who my family might have been had they never come to America, or whatever.
PM: So they were Hindus before they were Christians, or they were Buddhists?
TPR: I just went to India in January, on a pilgrimage with my grandfather. And I never knew this before, but my family were Untouchables. They were Hindus, but then they became Christians. And so it was a really cool realization to come to, that the reason my grandparents became Christians was because they were Untouchables.
ML: What does that mean?
TPR: Untouchables means you are like the scum of society. And that is your lot in life. There was no way--
TK: No upward mobility possible.
TPR: So they became Christians in order to escape the confines of the caste system, and escape the dictates of Krishna and whatever all that stuff stood for. So my whole life I've been pissed off at my parents for leaving, for not really wanting to have anything to do with India, and for not really knowing anything about Hinduism or Buddhism, or what all that meant. But this trip really gave me the realization that it all had a purpose. You know, I wouldn't be playing guitar if they hadn't become Christian. You know what I mean?
PM: What's that connection, "I wouldn't be playing guitar if they didn't become Christian"?
TPR: Well, okay. My grandfather became a Christian. My parents were born Christian. They were Untouchables. They had to leave in order to have a better life. They migrated from Ethiopia to the United States. I was a young kid when I came to the United States, fell in love with, like, Simon & Garfunkel, always wanted an acoustic guitar, started playing when I was very young.
PM: So they, more than the Beatles, got you playing the guitar?
TPR: Simon & Garfunkel, yeah. Peter, Paul & Mary, Simon & Garfunkel.
PM: Right.
TPR: Well, that's my spiritual past.
PM: And now it's not so Christian oriented, it's gone back toward--
TPR: My parents probably won't be happy hearing it, but yeah, it's gone back. I mean, I promised myself I wasn't going to really have a discipline once I decided to leave Christianity. I read a lot of Buddhist stuff, a lot of Hindu stuff, and I feel like I just want to respond to truth wherever I find it.
PM: When you read Buddhist stuff, is it on the Zen side or the Tibetan side, or--
TPR: Well, one guy who I read a lot is Thich Nhat Hanh. He's a Vietnamese Buddhist monk.
PM: Right.
TPR: I don't know whether he's Zen or whatever.
PM: I don't know either. He's really resonating for a lot of people today.
TPR: Oh, man, yeah. He really is for me. That book, Living Buddha, Living Christ, it's like my Bible, man. I love that book.
TK: It changed my life.
TPR: Yeah.
PM: Some of my favorite musicians keep mentioning this book.
TPR: Oh, man, it's such a powerful book. It goes through the sayings of Jesus and correlates them with the sayings of the Buddha, and how everything is kind of interconnected, you know. It's a beautiful book.
PM: I've been listening to this Stephen Mitchell tape called The Gospel According to Jesus.
TPR: Oh, I love that!
PM: Yeah.
TK: I'd like to borrow that from you.
PM: So any more to say about your spiritual path, Tom, or does that cap it?
TPR: That's pretty much it, right there.
PM: Thanks. Tom [Kimmel], you want to say a few things about yours? continue
