As I ride the express elevator down the back nine of my life, I do what a lot of middle-age baby boomers do: I seek, treasure and cherish regular doses of nostalgia. Nostalgia is what finally takes me to see the film version of the Broadway hit “Jersey Boys,” a jukebox musical telling of the band the Four Seasons.
The Four Seasons, rising to fame just before America is besieged by Beatlemania and following me through adolescence, isn’t necessarily a favorite of my formative musical memories. But vocal harmony is singularly my favorite part of music. It makes me crazy.
It changes the chemistry in my brain. It makes my blood boil. It raptures me. I am so compelled by vocal harmony, I’m drawn to it even in music I don’t prefer (barbershop quartet, carolers, doo-wop bands, the Beach Boys).
Two weeks ago at church, two women rendered a Felix Mendelssohn duet from the choir loft that made everything else in worship forgotten and unnecessary. I saw God, knew God, loved and was loved by God, all in those two voices. Oh my.
The Four Seasons: lead singer Frankie Valli, tenor Bob Gaudio, baritone Tommy DeVito and bass Nick Massi. Four men that make you think you’re hearing more like 11 men.
I knew nothing of the life story of these four men. I was surprised to learn each had a prison record. They were “street toughs” from street-tough New Jersey. They were not beneath thievery. They crossed paths and fraternized with organized crime, even benefiting from friendships with Mafioso types. But they forged a squeaky-clean image for a still-innocent America that would have otherwise rejected them.
But — what a nice surprise — the movie jolts me out of my nostalgic euphoria. And it makes me think about friendship. Perhaps, especially, “guy friendship.” What love means between men.
Frankie Valli owes his career, in large part, to Tommy DeVito. Oh, I suppose with a voice like Frankie’s, perhaps he’d have ended up on top anyway. But without Tommy, Frankie doesn’t get invited into the band. Without Tommy, the band never meets Bob Gaudio, the man whose ridiculous gift for writing ubermelody is the real core of the band’s commercial success.
Frankie and Tommy are close, close friends. Guy friends. Italian guy friends. Getting the picture?
But Tommy isn’t exactly the nicest guy. He’s deeply flawed. He lives just on the edge of the law. He is brash, reckless and irresponsible. He is immature.
In “Jersey Boys,” Tommy is depicted as feeling diminished, insecure and jealous of Frankie’s growing personal and business ties to Bob Gaudio. In a retaliation that would have turned Sigmund Freud’s head, Tommy comes on to Frankie’s girlfriend. Then, at the height of the Four Seasons’ success and celebrity, Tommy is confronted backstage by a loan shark and a murderous debt. Then, he is confronted by the Internal Revenue Service for a half-million dollars in unpaid taxes.
The original foursome dissolves. And Frankie Valli spends the next years recording and performing to pay off Tommy’s debt.
And that’s when the jolt happens.
Frankie’s girlfriend barks, “Why would you be a friend to a guy like that?” And Frankie barks back, “Because he can’t help himself!”
And I think about that verbal exchange for days.
See, my industry (behavioral health) coined ideas such as “codependency” and “enabling” and “boundaries” to admonish us never (or virtually never) to rescue someone from destructive or irresponsible behavior. But this moment makes me think there is more to love than pop psychological reductionism.
What if real love really knows us?
All of us?
Even our gripping, pernicious character flaws?
And what if real love doesn’t so much “give a pass” to those flaws as it does accept those flaws as part of what and who we love?
What if real love is obliged to the bond of friendship despite the flaws?
In some cases, because of the flaws?
There remains a sense of something owed.
This is not codependence or enabling or poor boundaries.
This is love.
Makes me think of a friend of mine who thinks another friend of mine is a not-very-nice man. I understand the first friend’s point of view, and even in some ways agree. But once, long ago, this not-so-nice guy extended to me an act of such unmerited kindness and encouragement, forging a bond between us.
I love him.
There is something owed.
Steven Kalas is a behavioral health consultant and counselor at Las Vegas Psychiatry and the author of “Human Matters: Wise and Witty Counsel on Relationships, Parenting, Grief and Doing the Right Thing” (Stephens Press). Contact him at skalas@reviewjournal.com.
