Finding Catharsis With Tool

by editor Michele Catalano

Have you ever looked back on a period of your life that was not so great but you don’t mind remembering it because of the small things during that time that brought you joy?

This was 1996 for me. My divorce from my first husband happened that year, and I was reeling, flailing, depressed. I had become a ghost, but one unsure of whom to haunt. I wandered around feeling invisible most of the time, and when I was visible, I became a nuisance, pestering people with my problems that couldn’t be solved.

My kids were eight and five and demanded most of my time and attention, which kept me from falling off a cliff. I focused on them and sort of ignored myself, until that became untenable. I needed to get out of the house. I needed to be present in ways that did not include finger paints or Discovery Zone. I needed to go back to work, at least part time, and rejoin the company of productive members of society. 

My sister let me know that the mall restaurant where she worked—the one that a friend’s family owned—was hiring. I had experience. I had the time. And I certainly had the need. They hired me on the spot.

Musically, 1996 was weird for me. I was kind of out of it, living in my own little world, occupying a headspace that didn’t allow for pleasures, and my listening habits suffered. There was grunge, there was alternative, there was some metal, and there was the ever present Sarah McLachlan, singing to me about pain and sadness. I was peripherally aware of the popular acts of the day, but depression makes everything you hear sound like Charlie Brown’s teacher—sounds that mean absolutely nothing. 

I started at the restaurant in November of that year. I would hostess some, waitress some, see where I fit in and what I could do. The job paid immediate dividends. Within days I was feeling less depressed, less angsty. Within weeks I was feeling like myself again, I felt like I had worth. Within six months I was the manager. 

The crew at My Pi became my family. They became my confidantes. They became a lifeline. I went from feeling lonely, sad, and hopeless to feeling like life had something to offer me. No, managing the restaurant wasn’t a long-term solution, but it was serving a purpose until something else happened. Meanwhile, I threw myself into the job, and I started to enjoy life again, thanks to my new friends. We’d hang out well past closing time, putting the chairs up on the tables, setting up for the next day, drinking beers, and listening to music. It became a way of life for me. 

Sam was a kid, maybe 19 or 20. He was a busboy working his way through community college. He bummed cigarettes off me, and we’d talk about music while we smoked in the alcove. I’d regale Sam with stories about acid-fueled Dead shows, and in return he would tell me about all the new albums he was listening to.  He would bring in CDs for me to listen to at home. Because I enjoyed the talks we had about the music, I tried out each one, even though I knew they would most likely be hit or miss.

It was Christmas season, the mall was bustling, and our little deep dish pizza restaurant was busy as hell. We’d barely had time to goof off or take smoke breaks or gossip, it was go go go from the shift started until closing. On the night of our Christmas party, Sam said he had something for me. It had been a while since we had the chance to bullshit about music, so I was looking forward to any CD he had for me. 

This one was wrapped in bright Christmas paper. He handed it to me and wished me a Merry Christmas. “I listened to this for the first time last night, and I went to Sam Goody this morning and bought one for you because I won’t give mine up for even a day. It’s all I’m listening to.” I stripped the CD of its wrapping paper and held it up. It had no band name or title on the cover, just an abstract splotchy image, but I recognized it. I still read Rolling Stone and the Tower Records magazine, so I wasn’t completely ignorant of what was out there. I knew this was the new Tool CD, and I had been hearing them on K-Rock, but I hadn’t paid a great deal of attention. Now I was intrigued. I needed to know what Ænima was all about.

I popped the CD in the car player on my way home that night. The night was cool but not cold, and I had the window partly down as I drove down a deserted Newbridge Road. The party had wrapped up late. No one was on the road. It was just me and Tool, cruising down the road in my hand-me-down Cadillac. I was feeling good cheer left over from the party. I had a good crew, I liked my job. Things were getting better at home because I was less depressed now that I was working. I was, for the first time in ages, enjoying life, feeling really good. And then there was Ænima.

It’s a brutal album, full of dark imagery; not necessarily the kind of music you’d put on to celebrate life. But I didn’t care. I was hooked. There was something about Tool’s music, about Maynard James Keenan’s pleading voice, that grabbed me. I needed to hear these songs again and again. Especially “Stinkfist” and “Eulogy” and “Jimmy.” I learned all the lyrics. I could belt out “Hooker With a Penis,” with the best of them, sneering “Fuck you, buddy” with the exact amount of contempt the song calls for. 

Ænima allowed me to do something I’d been trying to do for a year—get my anger out. I’d drive around listening to it, I’d play it in my headphones at home, I’d put it on in the restaurant kitchen and Jim the line cook would say “fuck yeah” while Terence would complain (Terence liked techno). I lived and breathed with Ænima for months, and with each listen, there was a sense of catharsis, of letting go. I appreciated the album for what it was, but also for what it did for me. It is dark and unrelenting, and I think I needed to snake my way through the swamp of this record and become one with it in order to work out my own dark, unrelenting demons. 

I stopped listening to Tool for a long time and only recently put on Ænima again. I thought I would reject it as being too “of a time,” but I was surprised at how much I still enjoy it. Maybe I am in a place right now, due to the state of the world, where I need release, where I need to comb through decadent, dark, and dangerous lyrics, where I need to feel the driving drums in my stomach. I appreciate having Tool for this purpose. And, so many years later, I still appreciate Sam for this gift. He may have been a kid, but he knew what he was doing.

I stayed at My Pi for two years, until the owner decided he had enough of rent hikes and smoking laws. Sam and I exchanged a lot of CDs in that time. He introduced me to OK Computer the day it came out. I turned him on to Incubus and, surprisingly, Sarah McLachlan. 

I found a new job in the courthouse. That’s a long way from managing a restaurant. But I did have my own office, which contained a CD player. Every day for a long time I would play Ænima in the morning as my day starter, a stark turnaround from when I used to play it on my way home from a restaurant shift. I’m even thinking of going for a drive tonight, to listen to Tool and work out some feelings. Ænima: the gift that keeps on giving, almost 30 years later. 

My America OnLine sign off sound was that of Maynard screaming “gooooooodbyeeeeeee” which I, at the time, thought clever and cool.