Tom Brier and Moe Howard and Grief and Morality and Life

Several years ago, I want to say at least five, I was looking up some old video game music and stumbled across a video of pianist Tom Brier playing some level music from Super Mario Land.

It’s a three-minute ragtime interpretation of the theme, and it’s incredibly fun, but the real kicker comes in the last seconds of the video, after his fingers leave the ivories.

“When was the first time you played that, Tom?” an off-screen voice asks.

“Just now!” he exclaims, gesturing at the sheet music.

A read-through of the video description elaborates on what’s happening. Mr. Brier was given a single page of simplified sheet music that he’d never seen before, and was asked to play through it once, then start improvising. It’s incredible. Knowing what he’s doing makes the process even more fascinating on the re-watch.

Apparently one of his friends, presumably the owner of that particular YouTube channel, got into the habit of presenting Tom Brier, a man who is extremely good at ragtime piano but apparently not a video game connoisseur, with video game sheet music he had never seen before to play in whatever ragtime fashion caught his fancy.

There’s a lot of fun pieces in there.

The channel’s library is full of other musicians so it’s hard to filter out just Tom’s videos, but I’d come back every so often and pick out a few videos and enjoy them. And then one day I drifted into the comments section.

“It’s a shame that Tom can’t play anymore.”

Reading a few more comments, I got the impression that there had been some sort of accident, and that more information was available elsewhere, but I didn’t look for that information. I felt remorse, and I sort of mentally wrote off the channel. The other musicians were good, but there was something effortless and exhilarating about Tom Brier’s performances, and I felt I didn’t have any reason to come back if he wasn’t able to play. That was a also a few years ago, but a lesser value of “few.” Maybe two years ago.

But yesterday, YouTube reminded me that Tom Brier exists. So I went over to the channel again, found an older piece I hadn’t heard before, and then went digging to see if there were any updates. Surely whatever happened, Tom must be improving.

There are a few videos talking about Tom’s condition, but like everything else, they’re scattered. I picked one and started listening. Whatever the accident was, it had apparently put Tom into a coma. He’s conscious now, but it sounds like he suffered severe brain damage, and doesn’t have the motor skills to hold a pencil let alone play the piano.

And listening to his friend talk about what was happening, I felt sad. And I want to say that I felt sad for Tom, and the life he’s living now. I want to say that because I want to think that I’m a good person. I want to be the kind of person who is sad because I empathize with Tom.

But the truth is, I don’t know Tom. I’ve seen him play piano, I’ve heard him quip here or there before or after a piece. He seems like a good guy, and someone whose company I’d enjoy were I to have met him. But I haven’t met him. To me, he’s just a series of blinking lights accompanied by a series of vibrating sounds that I happen to find enjoyment in.

And if I’m being truly honest with myself, the reason I’m sad is because I know he won’t ever produce any more of those blinking lights or vibrating sounds that I find enjoyment in. I am sad for myself, not for Tom. I’m being selfish.

I suppose a person is allowed to be selfish sometimes. You don’t have to constantly feel every empathy to be a good person. We don’t have that emotional capacity. It’s not a burden we should bear.

But.

But, by sheer chance, I spent a large portion of this past weekend thinking about Moe Howard. You may better recognize Moe’s name if I were to place it after the name of his friend, Larry, and before the name of his brother, Curly.

The Three Stooges was before my time, and not quite my sense of humor. But, like anyone growing up in the modern media-scape, I was certainly always aware of them. I just had no idea, until very recently, that Curly Howard had had a stroke about mid-way through the Stooges’ illustrious run. That he was replaced by his older bother, Shemp, because he could no longer handle the rigors of film work, and died a few years later. I didn’t know that Shemp Howard was featured in over 70 Stooges shorts before he died suddenly, leaving Moe and Larry to continue the act with a series of work-arounds that included fake Shemps and new actors to play the third Stooge. Then Larry suffered a stroke, and that was effectively the end of the Three Stooges.

What a tragic story Moe had. Imagine watching your little brother get hospitalized, and then having to figure out how to fulfill your contract to the movie studio while the reason you can’t fulfill that contract is in a hospital bed. Imagine recruiting your other brother, who had his own successful solo career at the time, only to watch him die as well. Imagine seeing the end of a decades-long comedy career as the one man who was with you the whole time suffers a debilitating stroke. It’s gut-wrenching.

But, as far as I’m concerned, Moe Howard, too, is nothing more than a set of blinking lights and vibrating sounds. And they’re not even blinking lights or vibrating sounds that I particularly enjoy.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, I understand and respect the Three Stooges’ massive effect on film and culture and comedy, but they’re not blinking lights or vibrating sounds that I connected to in the way that I connected to Tom Brier playing Birabuto Kingdom.

So why does Moe Howard’s story affect me so deeply, why do I empathize, truly, with Moe, but am regrettably selfish when I think about Tom?

For that matter, why is it Moe’s story that I find myself attached to, and not Curly’s, the man who died tragically young? Or Shemp, the man who had to re-route his own career to save his brothers’ careers, and then died early, himself?

And it occurred to me that, when it comes to medical tragedies in my own life, I’ve never been the victim. This is not a complaint. I am very happy, and very lucky, that I have effectively never been hospitalized thus far in my life. But I’ve seen loved ones hospitalized, and I’ve watched them die. I empathize with Moe Howard because he had to survive through the tragedies of his brothers and his friend, and I know what that feels like.

But I don’t know what it feels like to be the one going through the tragedy, myself.

I will, some day. Inevitably. It may be tomorrow, and it may not be for 60 years. It may happen once, or it could happen several times over a long period. It could be quick, or it may drag out, but if it’s the last thing I do, at some point in my life, at least once, I’m going to be the one debilitated or dying.

And while I am certainly not eager to get to that point, maybe once it happens I will find it easier to empathize with Tom Brier than with Moe Howard.