Photo contributed by Nick Jaina
Northwest musician, artist, author Nick Jaina shares stories of self-doubt and success in Pendleton.
Self doubt is a stage of an artist's development that tends to receive little attention. Semi-autobiographical novels like James Joyce's "The Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man" and Henry Miller's "Tropic of Capricorn" describe one's life decisions made in bad faith before romantically discovering an almost divinely bestowed creative talent. However, the experience of devastating failures and the loss of faith in one's own abilities after discovering one's vocation is rarely explored. Portland songwriter Nick Jaina's first book, "Get It While You Can," seeks to fill in those gaps.
For well over a decade Jaina has been consistently releasing albums; first with his cult Portland band The Binary Dolls and then under his own name on a variety of Pacific Northwest indie labels. In recent years he has branched out into composing works for modern ballet troupes and even a one-man stage show. Penning a book feels like a natural progression for the multidisciplinary artist. Or perhaps it is a reaction to feeling an unease and dissatisfaction with the progress of his career as a songwriter.
"Get It While You Can" contains all the aforementioned stages associated with an artist's bildungsroman — awkward formative experiences, an epiphanic realization of Jaina's purpose and subsequent artistic triumphs — but the self-doubt, frustration and the measuring of what "success" means to an individual artist versus their audience (as particularly well illustrated in the recounting of a concert performance at Folsom Prison) functions as the book's overarching theme.
In the book, Jaina's life is in thrown into a tailspin after a lackluster show in Tacoma by the theft the acoustic guitar he had played since his teens. From there he re-examines the series of events that led him to pursue writing music and comes to terms with how his career as a songwriter has taken shape. These scenes take place in a variety of locales — from an aborted stint at California State University in Monterey Bay, working a series of mundane jobs in Portland, attending a Vipassana mediation retreat in Washington, embarking on cross-country tours, and finally retreating to Colombia to work on this very book. Occasionally Jaina ruminates on the similar crises of faith suffered by some of his musical heroes (Johnny Cash and Nina Simone) while watching video clips of them on YouTube.
It wouldn't be entirely accurate to label "Get It While You Can" as a memoir. It was originally intended to be a compilation of previously published writings for the webzine Somnambulist entitled "Unsent Love Letters" as well as an assortment of essays. Those essays eventually evolved into the chapters that make up the bulk of the book. Portions of "Unsent Love Letters" are interspersed throughout and, while they are tender and at times humorous musings on romantic relationships, their presence tends to disturb the rhythm of the rest of the book. The story behind his artistic development and coming to terms with success — or the lack thereof — is the more compelling part.
Although most Nick Jaina performances are exceptional concert experiences, his appearance in Pendleton this Friday will stand out from the rest. The performance of his songs paired with readings of excerpts from "Get It While You Can" will provide a rather unique telling of the story behind the music that goes one step beyond the typical "VH1 Storytellers" mode.
Nick Jaina performs at the Great Pacific (403 S. Main, Pendleton) at 7 p.m. on Friday, January 30.
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James Dean Kindle is a singer-songwriter and musician and part-time Pendleton resident. You can contact him at jamesdeankindle@gmail.com
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