Meaning in an Evening with Zach Deptuy

Meaning in an Evening with Zach Deputy

Wilmington, NC August, 2017

After getting the Okay from the doorman (a simultaneous nod, wink, and smile; forearm jutting upward, protracted thumb pointing backwards over his shoulder) myself and a couple close friends entered The Blue-Eyed Muse just off the corner of Market and 3rd St. to talk with, and watch the performance of, Zach Deputy. Escorted by another individual murmuring dubiously into the mic attached to his ear - one hand on his auricle, the other resting on a walkie-talkie fastened to his waist-belt, through the venue room, shimmying between the growing crowd to a doorway on the left side of the stage. Through a doorframe, down a corridor, hanging a hard right, and climbing a narrow and precarious staircase we met another doorway—and then, an ingress to the greenroom where a rather large figure carefully studying the screen of his phone lay belly-down, knees bent, calves in the air, ankles crossed and oscillating, like that of a child waiting for the call to dinner after a long summer day outside. The head of this figure flicked up as his hands clasping the phone fell-down; we were greeted with a smile I won’t likely ever forget: outlined with a thin layer of bristled grizzle, beneath a jovially wrinkling Nubian nose, lay an ever-widening smile like a salmon-pink ocean crashing upon an ivory-white shore. The (at least) six-foot two-inch figure, using only his elbows and belly, popped itself up off the sofa and, standing fully-upright, gave contrast his immensity to the room and the three of us. I, alone, standing at a diffident five-feet ten-inches, just shy of one-hundred and fifty pounds depending on which restaurant I’m exiting. It wasn’t until he stood that I realized how small the room we were all standing in was. I didn’t have time to calculate the measurements but there was just enough space for a black sofa, a small table betwixt another sofa and a chair, a small dresser with a mirror and a mini-fridge stocked with bottled water (GenX free, compliments of the Blue-Eyed Muse), a bathroom just behind the chair furthest from the entrance the size of your typical airline lavatory, and just enough room to walk to each of these amenities without tripping over them or each other’s feet; well, I suppose that depends on how sober everyone in the room is at the time. After some hugs and a jolly “Hello!”, Zach, through a confidently curious voice popping forward with a rhythmic choppiness as if his lips and tongue were punching the words into existence, underscored with a tenacious sense of self, offered us some water and thus a conversation ensued.

Myriad questions from the three of us were met with humble answers from this gentle soul, sinewed to such a large corporeal form, animated with a convivial comportment; a gregarious and immense (literally as well as metaphorically) presence; yet, there was something even more fascinating about Zach: he was so childlike. Not childish—childlike. He exuded youth. Even through the beard, some distinctly certain, pronounced voice, and towering stature an inner preciousness and vulnerability permeated his every gesture, every cut and glance of the eye, every lift or fall of the eyebrow, every returning smile. Zach purveyed moments of giggling or cackling abandon while somehow intercutting them with moments of paternal maturity and sober insight. He is an optimist but not blindly so; Zach understands there is dark out there, and folks walk in with it all the time, sometimes unknowingly, sometimes intentionally, he responds the same no matter what: he’ll try to bring joy and knowledge, the knowledge of joy, and the joy of knowledge to everyone who is willing to listen and if they aren’t then he doesn’t let it bring him down. “I’m not going to be what I don’t like in you…” he admonishes with a look in his eye that is simultaneously present, precise, and also everywhere, sparking as if he were looking inward to the universe in himself, speaking to some cosmic congregation in his mind’s eye, his left forearm resting on his knee-cap, his right hand wagging its extended index-finger upwards. He also understands that life doesn’t work according to how good you behave, or how well you treat others while working hard, and life is never compliant; your efforts sometimes match up with how life is playing out, but most of the time “…you make plans and life laughs—you gotta be able to bend to approach the laugh of life.” (He shrugs his shoulders, raising his arms in surrender, his head tilting to his right shoulder, mouth pursing on the left side of his face and then widening, emitting a cracking laugh as his hands slap down on his knees and then cradle his belly). Through a steady suspire he continues “people are always saying ‘I need, I need!’—they need this or that. No! You need to quit, or just put aside. If you keep thinking of what you need next you will always miss out on being here in the now, where the music is made.” 

I couldn’t help but wonder ‘where does someone like this come from?’ Is it his rich ethnic background consisting of Puerto Rican, and Cherokee along with some African, British, French, and Irish heritage? Being born and raised in Bluffton, SC? Being one of four siblings? Your guess is as good as mine. I spoke with him briefly on his upbringing and as enlightening as the information was, it still didn’t explain much. It’s not the one thing. It’s never the one thing. It’s not a few things. It’s never just a few things. It’s the culmination of experiences embodied in the unfathomably complex individual. It is the unfathomably complex individual continuously encountering an infinitely nuanced reality. It is the sudden expression of that perplexing culmination of experiences in the evermore perplexing immediate moment—“where the music is made.” “We all have eyes that see people differently” Zach continued, “we all have eyes that see all life differently. We show that vision differently; we don’t have a choice. That’s what I’m doing. I’m not really trying to do anything; I’m just showing that vision in a way that feels good.” I smiled, because I get it. I get it and understand it. As Alan Watts once put it, “We are the apertures of the universe exploring itself.” All of us are these little ways the universe learns more about itself; we all may even be ways the universe chooses to learn about itself—I don’t know, I haven’t gotten that far yet. 

Music is one of those myriad ways the universe expresses itself via the individual; music is, in its essence, the reverberating reminder that the universe lives. Life without music is silence; life without music isn’t alive. Or, as Nietzsche once put it, “without music, life would be a mistake.” Hmm, Ole Friedrich also once wrote “art is the proper task of life.” Which sort of correlates to Alan Watt’s notion of the human-as-aperture. When I asked Zach what he thought the role of art in any culture played he simply replied, “an important one. I make sense of things through my art, if you wanna call what I do art.” I suppose that’s the thing: finding a pure form of expression; finding your own music; making your own music; rendering the world musical, artful; whether that is making people feel good or trying to change the world, or both, and/or everything outside and/or in between. We are all making our own art out of life, or making our life into art; or, more simply, making an art of living. Art has the power to render things meaningful, which is necessary, for reality is replete with meaninglessness. This world of facts and information craves context. The mind needs meaning. We are entering an age where folks are finding ways to make a living doing what they are passionate about; living to find a way to get paid to play. This is the inner child making a living in its matured state. Zach’s play-time, whether he intends to or not, provides meaning, even if only for an evening. 

Next thing I knew, Zach’s manager was at the door giving him the two-minute warning. We descended the staircase and Zach took a swig from his bottled water. He looked back at me and smiled. I said “much love, my brother. I’ll be listening.” He put his hand over his heart, exhaled and walked through the curtain to an uproar of cheers; a riot of hoots and hollers. I exited through the corridor with my two friends and witnessed his transformation: the musical complexity in what Zach calls an “island-infused drum-n-bass gospel ninja soul” sound harkens to the eclectic stew of his ethicities; the inherent complexity of this individual picking, popping, plucking, thumping, humming, singing, strumming, echoing, howling an expression of itself; bearing all of his experiences, those eclectic gene-streams merging in the moment via looping and layering the progression of chords, guitar, bass, drums, and beatboxing. While performing, Zach’s vulnerability and light burst into pure sound and movement, his eyes hardly open, his voice becomes a guttural hybrid of South Carolina low-country porch-talk and New Orleans street-funk as his face contorts; a floating melody-possessed countenance amidst a kaleidoscopic tempest of color and rhythm. You almost forget there’s an individual behind the mics and machines; in fact, you damn near forget there are machines of sound manipulation governed by the intonations, fingers, and toes of that one immense figure all together. 

The lights sway, swirl, and undulate. All eyes toward the stage eager for a dose of meaning for the evening; eager for a new show; eager to see if the moment matches up with how they planned it in their minds. Zach readies himself to deliver the gift of the novel present, where the music is made—and the crowd bends to approach his laugh.