Pinkerton Diaries: a Diary of an Ordinary Man

NB: Pinkerton is Weezer's second studio album released at 1996. However, this post is not an album review, it's a book review :)

I have reviewed this Weezer album before on this blog. However, somehow I want to write something about this one-of-the-greatest-rock-album-ever again. It's because lately, when I randomly surfed the web about that favorite band of mine, I found an article that Rivers Cuomo (Weezer's frontman, lead singer, lead songwriter, and lead guitarist), the one that act as a Pinkerton's narrator, will finally open the book of his personal diary from Pinkerton era, and I was just...wooww...just because that deeply personal album also remarked an unspoken deep meaning to me.

So, let me start reviewing the Pinkerton, again, from the perspective of mine. Pinkerton is a journal of a frustrated confused man craving the love of his life and his unattainable, unreachable girls. It tells me the story of how hard it could be to find a perfect fit of yours in this life. It started with the realization of what a human crave most from a relationship, that the relationship is way more than a physical need. Then the man tells the world that he want to shy away from a girl who captured his attention just because he's afraid of being hurt anymore. He justified his fear by keeping a thought that what he felt for the girl was nothing more than temporarily sexual attraction, but in the end of the song he felt like he was going crazy then he asked someone to knock him on the head just to make him sane. That's the story of "Why Bother?" (one of my most favorite track on this album).

The man is a kind of public figure that he received so many fan-letters. One of those letters was capturing his heart and he fell in love with the girl who sent the letters to him though he didn't even know her. It's the story of "Across the Sea" and the review could be found on my older post.

Then comes another adventure of love for that man. This time, he fell in love all over again to a girl. He then strongly felt that the girl also felt the same way like he did. However, this man didn't have enough courage to approach the girl and so did the girl. Then it was like a dead-end love story. (El Scorcho)

The man then turned and looked the other way where he find another girl that impressed him much. He even finally thought to marry this girl, but unfortunately, he found this girl to be lesbian. (Pink Triangle)

Finally, the man in the question have summoned the courage to speak to "El Scorcho" girl, and yes, he's right....that girl also fell in love with him for all of this time. However, this man somehow felt like he didn't deserve that girl. He spilled out his irrational fears of falling for her from the awkward feeling that he was a lot older than the girl and another fears...but yes he, again, started to think to settle down, this time with the "El Scorcho" girl. My favorite part of this chapter is when the man said (on his mind, maybe) to the girl that he wanted to "....get fat and old with you". That's really a sweet thought a man can have :) (Fall For You)

However, this album is closed by a song about a man who abandoned a girl that he loves so much just because he couldn't take it. It's not really clear what kind of situation that made him had to leave her, but he said sorry sincerely...over and over again. My favorite line in this ending part is when the man said "I guess you're as real as me. Maybe I can't live without, maybe I need fantasy, life of chasing butterfly. I 'm sorry for what I did..." ("Butterfly". I have once posted this line in my Facebook status sometime around the early part of this year and was shocked by the responses of it).

So, the conclusion is, the man (a.k.a the Pinkerton's narrator), in my opinion is a pathetic miserable frustrated far-from-fearless guy chasing around his true love...but it's just so humanistic. The Pinkerton's narrator is no one but Rivers Cuomo himself, so we can guess how personal and precious this album for him and how it felt like knowing that your personal art was very bad in the eye of people that you think would like it.

Now, more than a decade later since that album came out, many Weezer fans realized the deeply emotion of that album and considered it as one of the best album Weezer ever released. Rolling Stones Magazine even re-review that album and uprising its star to the maximum (3 star out of 5 in 1996 and become 5 star out of 5 in 2004). Rivers also had been through many changing seasons of his life along that time and thank God he is now happily married and having a 3 years-old cute daughter.

However, as he looked back on his pasts, Pinkerton remained a kind of darkly emotional session of Rivers' life that he could not remove, rather, he open those pages again this year with a brand new existing circumstances of his life (as a married man, as a father, and still as a frontman of one of the biggest rock band on this planet) through what he called as "The Pinkerton Diaries", the book containing about 200 pages that he wrote and will be launched this year. Sure I will be waiting for that book to be published and very looking forward to read that...or in other words, I HAVE to read that book! Not only the book, Rivers will also release his third solo album titled "Alone" (I have the first two "Alone" album by Rivers) this year, this time, it will be more about "Pinkerton" session. Weezer also will release their compilation of demos and other unreleased materials, again, from around "Pinkerton" era at November 2010. Their album will called "Death to False Metal" (and I HAVE to have this album also).

Why this Pinkerton things amaze and amuse me so much is what I don't know up to this time. I think I've never been through that kind of darkly emotional session in my life though I have passed several heartaches, and in my opinion, regarding its passiveness and lack of courage, Pinkerton was still written from the male perspective, and I am female, so I'm not that way to some extent. In addition, I think I haven't related with any man who have been through "Pinkerton" session on his life (maybe I have but I deceive, or I have but unrealized). Hence, I don't know how this Pinkerton things affected me so much, but somehow I feel like this is (gonna be) something to me, so I don't ignore my curiosity. For me, Pinkerton is all about an ordinary man that is craving love so desperately in his life, but he's nothing but desperate frustrated confused man with all his passiveness and lack of courage. He may considered himself as a man without an adequate appeal, jerk, insane, insecure, and didn't deserve to be with a good girl, though he wanted it so much.....but most of all, in my opinion, he's just an ordinary man. Yes, he is a geek, nerdy, weird, quirky, pathetic guy. Although he is far from perfect (who was perfect by the way?), but he was handing his heart to the girl that he loves. It's just nothing but a sweet white love, although he has a lot of trouble expressing it....but that kind of love will ask you nothing, will hide itself from the world, so that it will be just for you. Maybe it's all that I need. Maybe that's why I love Pinkerton's narrator so much.