L011a

Lollapalooza 2011.  Saw Deftones a few hours ago.  It's already a good day.

I'm drunk; not on booze, as I came alone and didn't feel like shelling out ten dollars to a stranger (ten dollars I may never see again) for a single music-festival beer.  This is my first and so far only Lollapalooza.  I don't know how to sneak things in.

I'm drunk and here alone.  Drunk not on booze but the energy, the enchantment of shows I've seen by people I normally don't even like or that I've just come to appreciate (see above).  I'm a zombie, a damned gluttonous soul looking for more experience, more sound, more songs I don't know to scream along to, more movement and bodies to roll in.  Between sets, I meander.  During them, I'm part of everything else.  I watch, learn, and before long, I'm moving like they do.  Leaping, gyrating, heads banging, even to things that aren't remotely metal, a dance of chaos.  That's music to me.

I'm here alone and I can do this.  To me, that's special.  I'm alone, but yet... we are legion.  We're all here for one reason, the reason on the stage at the time.

It's night.  Evening.  Whatever.  Headliner, in the Big Damn Field.  Eminem.  Spirits are high.  So are the people.  Like, everyone but me.  Not upset; I don't smoke.  I look around.  It's the first time in this whole day that I've really observed rather than experienced.  For the first time that day, I feel as alone as I am.

These aren't exactly my people.  They're not even the people from before; they're not who I saw Fitz and the Tantrums, Black Lips, Death from Above 1979, and Deftones with.  These...  These are people from my high school.  Not actually - that's a small blessing.  But they're the same concept.  Bros with neon tank tops, Kanye glasses, dumb tattoos, snapbacks.  Girls with brown roots in bleached hair, cutoff shorts, pierced belly buttons, ridiculous eye makeup.  One hanging off the other, screaming their asinine jokes.  The lion's den, folks.

My judgments and reservations washed away soon enough, right when the sun went down and the music began, when Slim Shady himself took the stage.  I survived the show unmolested (in any sense of the word), loved it as much as any of the others.  One of those girls - the ones with their obvious bleach jobs, wearing next to nothing, slippery with sweat that isn't all theirs - one of them asked if she could get on my shoulders.  I obliged, of course.  There she remained for the latter half of the set; my face in a vice grip between thick pink thighs, her buttocks on my upper back (thank you scoliosis), her cooch saddling my neck, her stomach caressing the crown of my head with each heavy breath.

This isn't the story of how I fell in love at a concert with a girl whose name I never knew.  No such thing happened.  The only attraction was purely animal.  I'd have liked to screw her, but I didn't.  I didn't even get a number.  I was used, and it was awesome.  Strangely enough, she was there with a boy.  Several boys, but one boy in particular, I could swear I saw her kissing earlier, unless my ridiculous contact high was playing tricks on me and I was an idiot for being so chivalrous.  Out of all her friends, including possible-boyfriend, she went with me, some random stranger, there alone with his little red pool bag, trusted me as beast of burden, trusted that I could support her (substantial) weight for more of this set than the boys (tank tops, Kanyes, snapbacks) that she came with.

I was used, and it was awesome.

I'm not sure what this story is about.  The one pattern I can recognize is, even when I wasn't among my favorite demographic, when I was a nomad in the enemy state, I had as good a time as them.  Maybe this is a story about my ego boost.  Maybe it's one about how you can't choose your fans, or a story about music bringing people together.  Maybe it's a story about nothing, or a story about me telling this story.

Maybe it's a story about me trying to tell a story, a story where with each story I tell, I get closer to the end, closer to what the story means.

Bye Chi; Like Tai Chi, But Tragic and Depressing

Damn...  Two posts in a week about metal bassists dying.  Sorry if this has been a pretty bummer week, dudes and dudettes, but this is something I feel I need to post about.  Hell, I wish I'd posted about it the day it happened.

Five years ago, Chi Cheng, Deftones' bassist, was in a car accident that left him in a coma.  Just last year, he'd woken up, on the Fourth of July.  I thought that was it.  I thought, "I've heard of people recovering from worse.  He seems like a strong dude, has a lot of support.  Few years, and I can see the original Deftones and it'll be the best damned thing that ever happened to me."  Maybe it was naive, maybe it was uninformed, but goddamn it did I hope.  Just a few short days ago, he passed away due to related complications.

When I'd first seen Deftones, it had already been three years since the accident.  I was familiar with their music, though I wasn't nearly as big a fan as I am these days.  Until that day, I hadn't immersed myself in it, explored every crevasse, spent hours just listening to it, tried like hell to emulate it.

Just as I tried to honor Peter Steele with humor to complement the black tidings, something he was good at, I don't feel like I should mourn Chi's passing the same way.  He was a deeply spiritual man, a thoughtful man, a poet.  That's something I'd like to emulate, if just for a bit.

Again, in the extraordinarily unlikely event that any of the members of Deftones should read this (Chino Moreno, Stephen Carpenter, Abe Cunningham, Frank Delgado, Sergio Vega): I sincerely hope I did justice to the passing of your friend and brother.  You have no idea what your music has done for me.

So much more I want to say, and I'm afraid of not saying it well enough.  I know you shouldn't let your fear rule you, but for once, I'm going to take a step back from myself.  Chi was a greater wordsmith than I can strive to be.  So to close this off, here's one of his poems from his spoken word album, "The Bamboo Parachute".  It's called Braces, and... I don't know why, but I feel it's strangely appropriate.

It's cooler to be in your shade, easier to predict the future of plastic than to be the mess that is you.  It doesn't mean you don't shine, it's just... time isn't taking care of your wounds.  Faithfully with you, a plain pocket caught in turbulence.  Nobody knows what they mean to you.  I have no right to wonder, but I'd miss all my beautiful friends.  Pre-Christ lives, imitating, living.

Hole in the Earth

Some more prose for y'all!  Now, I realize yes, I'm just posting this because the title of this short story comes from a song by a 90's band.  That's right: motherfucking Deftones.  'Course, the song itself didn't even come out in the 90's.  Also the story has little > x < nothing to do with the lyrics, or even a literal interpretation of the title.  So far, I've presented absolutely no evidence that I didn't just poop out this story and slap a kind-of-90's thing on to name it.  I came up with the story, or its barest of bones anyway, while walking my dog and listening to this song.  The song helped establish the mood, and Chino's vocals make the song sound kinda darkly romantic, so that kinda helped get
OH JUST READ THE GODDAMN STORY

Hole in the Earth

            Boy is older than girl.  Girl is younger than boy.

            Girl is lonely.  Boy is lonely.  Girl tries to fix it.  Girl doesn’t succeed.  Boy has dog.  Boy does not have father.  Boy’s mother is lonely.  Boy’s mother drinks.

            Boy always walks dog.  Boy often sees girl.  Boy and girl never talk.  Girl always plays hide-and-go-seek with “friends”.  Girl’s always It.  Girl doesn’t like always being It.  One day, boy says to girl, “In the bushes.”  Girl’s “friends” are in the bushes.

            Boy is older.  Girl is older.  Boy has same dog.  Boy’s dog is dying.  Boy still walks dog.  Boy will join the marines once the dog dies.

            Boy often sees girl.  Girl is often with boyfriend.  Girl loves boyfriend.  Boy always sees girl in same spot, a bench by the library, with boyfriend or no.  Boy sees boyfriend in two different spots.  Boy sometimes sees boyfriend in coffee shop with different girl.  One day, boy says to girl, “Coffee shop.”  Boyfriend is in the coffee shop.

            Boy comes home.  Boy becomes police officer, detective.  Girl leaves home.  Girl chooses friends poorly.  Boy has no friends.

            Boy’s dog has died.  Boy has new dog.  Boy takes dog out to apartment stoop to smoke.  Boy smokes, not dog.  Girl smokes too.  And drinks.  And shoots.  And snorts.

            Girl always passes boy on his stoop.  Girl always comes to visit “friends”.  Girl’s “friends” move around.

            One day, girl passes boy on his stoop.  Girl is not well.  Girl has insects beneath her skin.  Girl can’t stay clean.  Girl needs to find “friends”.  Boy says to girl, “1107.”  Girl’s “friends” are not in 1107.  Girl can’t search all apartments.  Girl’s “friends” get busted.  Girl does not.

            Boy’s colleagues are dirty.  Girl’s “friends” get away.  Girl disappears.

            Boy finds girl.  Girl’s at “friend’s” house.  Girl’s on couch.  Girl’s scared.  Girl whispers to boy, “Closet.”  Boy turns to closet.  Boy moves, shot misses.  Boy’s shot doesn’t.  Boy and girl leave.

            Boy always takes dog out to stoop to smoke.  Boy smokes, not dog.  Boy never sees anyone.  Boy got no press.  Boy thinks about moving.

            One day, boy sees girl.  Girl doesn’t walk past to see “friends”.  Girl no longer has “friends”.  Girl stops in front of boy.  Boy is smoking.  Dog is wagging.  Girl says to boy, “Hi.”  Boy is never lonely again.  Neither is girl.

Oh, don't like love stories?  Well TOO BAD AND GET OVER IT.

Twatbucket.