[1001] And The Band Played On

The last couple of weeks have been busy. I don’t really know that I’ve given myself the time to process. I don’t know if there’s that much to even process, but I know that I’ve taken in a lot of information I’ve yet to spit back out.

Less than 2 weeks ago I was at Cedar Point. I rode every roller coaster worth riding several times. I walked until my feet hurt immensely. I drove there the day before, and taught myself again to not rely on the kid that was there to be thankful or accommodating or helpful and I should always spend a little more for my own comfortable space. I was able to turn what felt like deliberately scammy marketing about a “season pass” into getting the day comped when I discovered at the gate I only had a “summer pass.” My fast pass felt like a worthwhile investment.

The next day I drove to Cincinnati for the Is For Lovers festival. I get acquainted with some new bands and see again a few I had earlier this year. I was in pain the entire time, but managed to walk between stages and get up close to most of my favorites. I drove through the night back home, and 4 days later would find myself in Chicago for Riot Fest.

Before getting to that festival I got to see Smash at her place for the first time in years. We got to talking about the past and how the group dynamics changed. She showed me her kick-ass art that I need to find a way to get promoted or turned into a series. It was the kind of interaction that proved to me time is an illusion and that we’re all just where we are, either making  and enjoying and investing in the moment together, or not. There is no other side of the hill. There is no place to occupy with someone else if you don’t already do with yourself.

She had another friend over who brought an expensive thermal imaging toy with him where we spotted deer, owls, and coyotes in a nearby park. When we got back to the house Smash and I kept talking as her boy and friend got dreary and went to sleep. I got some insight into my incredible insensitivity back then, and we explored just how cynically one might regard the person next to you in how you establish expectations. It’s literally gradations of that kind of interaction that had me so thoroughly invested in the friend group in college.  

The next day it’s off to Riot Fest. My AirBnB kind of sucks and I can’t get checked in until after the first day. I Uber it to the park, a mistake when I discover my phone almost dead and thousands of people trying to catch a ride away at the end of the day. After a miserable battery balancing act, I get one after walking far enough away, and with 1% manage to access the series of door codes that get me inside my AirBnB. Did I mention it kind of sucked? Not clearly marked, 1 towel, paper thin walls, and poorly air conditioned. At that point, very late, I just crash. Did I forget to say the oversold concert took 40 minutes just to walk outside from?

Days 2 and 3 were comparably better in that I learned from another friend who attended of a parking garage considerably closer than the distance I walked away to find an Uber. I better planned to leave before the final song, listening to the closing tracks on the walk along or on a bench outside the fence. I had “Deluxe VIP” tickets, which were seemingly also oversold and only worth the money because I’m a generally poor planner who didn’t bring a cane/seat, shade, or backpack that would have eased some pain points. The “VIP” viewing areas were further away than you could comfortably stand or even access in bigger crowds. Only a proper alcoholic could drink the money’s worth at the open bar. It kept me out of the “everyone needs to step back” after every song crowd for My Chemical Romance, but it was mostly a learning experience I’m happy was better than what I wasted on VIP for System of a Down. I drove back home through the night, and called in sick when I couldn’t sleep by 4 AM.

I didn’t meet anyone worth mentioning. I got some compliments on the Four Year Strong jersey and Bayside T-shirt I bought. I got complimented on a hat I found on the ground and started wearing. Most people that I caught looking at me smiled. I didn’t really think twice about the money I spent on food or other things at the concert. I only drank 1 of 3 days, and that problem of “Why drink if it’s alone?” arose pretty quick. I feel incredibly thankful for being told about the parking, being able to drive the car Hussain lent me, and being able to make the drives safely. It’s also the first day that it’s starting to feel like I’ve been doing a little “too much.”

Someone on reddit posted all of their concert tickets from 1970 to 2010. I started counting. He had between 40-50 and they included baseball games and to things like “The Wiggles.” In the comments he said it was only about half of his concert tickets. By the end of the year, I’d have 56 if I had physical tickets. I’m always counting or making comparisons like this. You could tell he took a lot of pride in his collection and got a lot of engagement and upvotes. I have this sneaking suspicion were I to upload printouts of all the shows, it would just strike people differently.

I just seem to go hard in every direction. Once it’s picked, game over. I want to watch all the TV, learn all the instruments, see all the bands I like after collecting every track well-independent of if there’s enough hours left in my life to consume it all. THEN I DO THE FUCKING MATH AND DISCOVER THERE IS! And I’m even planning to watch things when I’m too old to move around or that I think will be funnier or easier to galvanize other elderly watchers when we’re all stuck in the same boat.

One of my office managers asked how old I was recently, and when I said 34 she went “Oh, that’s so young!” Like, in a sense, yeah. I can walk my happy broken ass all over parks and drive through the night and mosh and eat kinda shitty and think about the future like it’s still open to what I might do with it in business or cultural revolution. But there’s that infinite disconnect, be it in awareness, partnerships, commitment, or just spirit of “yes” and “do.” We’re still trapped. No matter how rich I get, or if I’m seeing a different show every day of the year, my practice is unlikely to become yours. And I don’t know that there’s anything I can really do about that.

I called off work today and intended to watch TV straight through. I kept falling asleep. Then I decided to update my dating profile with so many words. Now I’m writing this and it’s going on midnight, and because I’ve had several consecutive days reminding me that I get most of my energy at and through the night, I’m trying not to persuade myself into the dread of going back to work on a “normal” schedule. I felt it for a second as I started that sentence, and then was like, nah, because I know what I’m about to say next.

It might be 3 weeks or so before the house sells. The buyer did the walkthrough and agreed to the terms. This means enough money to pay off all my debt, plus 2 more paychecks, and theoretically I’ll have started taking on clients either via Marion County DCS or places we know who have overflow clients that need to pay via insurance. In 2 to 5 months, my already “fuck you” spending could turn into a situation that transcends any monetary access and living arrangement I’ve ever had. I’m technically already not in debt barring a catastrophe where the house never sells. The gaping wound of all I didn’t know in how to get this business started has begun to sew up. I’m struggling to find the thing to worry or complain about. I feel like there’s a way out, and if I can get firmly in the flow that always finds the next opening, I might be able to focus on how to create that access for anyone else willing to dive in.

[1000] Warped

As the year starts to feel like it’s winding down, and as I’m back home trying to recover from an immense amount of walking over the last few days in ill-equipped shoes, here we go on my (not-technically) 1000^th digression.

I would call my position in life extremely privileged. From small things to grand scheme, I can point to what I like about being me and, more important to me, what I wouldn’t like about being someone else. I can readily dream about becoming any number of things in manageable timelines and within different budget restraints. I’m almost always feeling healthy. I’m never hungry. I’m capable of learning new things, stepping back and thinking about difficult subjects, and confident in my ability to “go,” “do,” or “be” whatever example I wish to set in any given moment. I feel so powerful that I primarily worry about what happens if and when I let that power get out of hand.

Each thing I do to demonstrate that I’m more than under some debilitating delusion often serves as something that isolates me. Whether I turn on a capacity to, seemingly, over-indulge in seeing “all the shows” or dive into an interesting subject, I’m doing something I can’t really relate to others, or doing so in a superficial way. Take TV, where if I watch “everything,” and you have a favorite show you’re often quoting from watching it so often, I’m not watching it the same way, so even if we share liking it, it’s different. If we both work in the same field, I’m not haplessly trying to “help,” or make up for my childhood, or falling for the manipulations of the desperate and addicted. I’m trying to manage and hold accountable and utilize my perspective verses pray for mercy from it.

I like lists. I’ve posted my list of things I’ve been doing all year several times. Each thing I move to the “did that” category is a little dopamine rush. The lines on that list represent hours of driving, walking, singing along, laughs, money, good luck in weather and traffic, Instagram posts liked by the artists themselves, story reference points, food beforehand, solidarity, cultural appreciation, and inspiration. They, occasionally, represent a shared experience with anyone I’ve known for longer than a day. I have all the power in the world right up to the point after the invitation.

I try to be what I feel I don’t have. I’ll be very deliberate in how I speak to this. I have people who will invite me to things. I have people who will tolerate me. I have people who I think like me. I don’t have someone who would genuinely like to see me or extend an invitation to pretty much any show or activity like Cedar Point. I occupy a very specific place in people’s minds, and it’s not something “easy” that can just be around or part of whatever they’re doing. I, in an explicitly opposite manner, would think I’d died and found out I was wrong about heaven if any combination of anyone I’ve met or enjoyed were around in a reliable way to hang, meet each other, or otherwise buy-in to a series of life experiences that preferred togetherness verses being apart.

Jordan Peterson, his ongoing convoluted legacy aside, still delivers lines that keep me thinking, even if I find them more worth challenging than incorporating. He’s said to be the kind of person who is best for someone else as opposed to finding someone worthy of you. It was a sentiment offered to men who are struggling to find a mate. Peterson is a big proponent of marriage and recognizes a lot of the mental crisis space modern men occupy. I don’t share their plight, and I get what he’s getting at in offering the advice, but I also recognize how that would play out in someone like me. I, still, worry about persuading myself into being an unrepentant manipulator. The second I recognize what you need me to be, well, are we to disregard the details as long as we post smiling pictures and make an earnest attempt at an honest family?

Again, I try to be what I feel I don’t have. You don’t have to “discover” and “play to” what I freely offer up about what I desire or how I wish to go about getting it. You know I want companionship, honest companionship, built on a shared desire and individual perspectives drawing from and contributing what only we can. I don’t want to play you or spend our time together with me probing for vulnerabilities. I can’t really stress that enough, particularly because I’m so good at it, I fucking enjoyed being a DCS assessor. Playing on vulnerability, stress, ignorance, and with more power than damn near anyone should be trusted with is like checkers. You move in specific ways, hop here and there, but there’s only 1 of 2 ways the game is gonna end. I can’t figure out why people either pretend not to know the rules, get bored and give up, or don’t copy what I’m doing.

No one shares their intimate convoluted or seemingly contradictory and angry confused thoughts? Here’s my thousandth, one fucking thousandth, stab. It’s here I can iterate on how much I appreciate about my life in spite of what seems to come up short. It’s here I can explore why turns of phrase stay lodged or images from an endless ream of experiences stick out. The answer to “why,” is so often “for the record.” Just so I can record that I did so. I showed up. I saw. I invited. I tried. I’m still trying.

The “Is For Lovers” festival I went to is one of the several that have spiraled off from the ending of Warped Tour. I almost want to call the force that was that tour a “movement.” I think it’s as large a unifying marker of a certain style and sensibility that most of my cohort has and there’s a reason it’s having a cultural resurgence. All that angst and anxiety didn’t go anywhere. All the emotionality turned into fascism, and the still-arbitrary directions we’re headed have at least turned into a little extra in the bank after 15 years to “splurge” on an hour or 3 drive and $100 or less ticket to scream, “I’m just a kid and life is a nightmare,” in your 30s.

Ironically, the music starts back up after the pandemic, and you can still feel the hesitation to turn the numbers in any direction outside of the circle pit. Where do you want us to go? Up off our feet! Side to side! Along the wall of death! I will not be able to shake the dissatisfaction of attending female-lead shows where abortion or voting don’t make it through the mic after Roe. It’s not just girls who need to be speaking up, of course, but the only show I’ve been to that’s made even slight mention to the veritable pending dystopia, I forget, because it was almost in passing before firing up the next song. The viral Dropkick Murphys video trumps anything I’ve encountered in person.

We’re scared, or more specifically, you’re scared. You’ve been scared, for many many years, and you’ve been quiet for even more. Just like you don’t think to speak your mind about me until I’m months or years-removed from the picture, and then of course not actually to me, you don’t speak to the raging dumpster fire in real time. You don’t locate a hose, bucket, or even bother to spit at it. You grow psychologically “conservative,” trying to protect your precious concert, idea of family, or “empowering” opinion in spite of literally everything else. I call myself a spite engine, but what I’m contradicting is the fundamental existential spite that works to kill everything I try to be. I want the testimony to affirm, not struggle through choking and tears to defend and excuse the indefensible and inexcusable.

I’m not complacent about not having the kind of connection or solidarity I seek. I’m still sensitive to the resentment it conjures when I’m prepared to sacrifice in service to it. I’m mostly just confused, because time still feels illusory to me. I don’t know why you’d wait until tomorrow to do something better that doesn’t cost you anything. I don’t know why you’d prevent yourself from coming to the show or keep antagonizing yourself with my presence. I’m 34. You can’t tell me, “When you get older you’re gonna realize!” as though I don’t appreciate the use of my limbs or made a certain kind of peace with my impending heart failure. Like I haven’t been in relationships or worked consistently or been responsible for people’s lives.

We’re not really together, right? Like hundreds of isolated anxious bags of feels all at the same show, but finding no genuine peace or resolution as they bang their head or throw themselves against the pit.

I don’t really believe I’m ever going to find what I want. I know what I want is a process, and I’m practicing my process, and I’m making bets on ways I can turn that process into something capable of processing more. It’s not a “thing” or “person” to find. It’s not a few years away or “over there.” It’s no more lost than it is a secret to anyone who isn’t practicing the same thing as faithfully as I try to. I’m honestly sad that in all the years since college we haven’t figured out anything about what brought us together that would bring us back. I’m terrified that I could hold in such high regard people who won’t speak or answer back. I don’t think the insecurities or drama of this era are unique in the choices on offer for how to live and orient in the world.

I know the power of doing things poorly, with deception, or in secret. I know the insane impact of even one extra hand to help in doing something better or the right way. We’re not choosing the right way. We’re not fighting to put our energy into things we believe are worth the time and money. We don’t believe in each other, because we’re not speaking to each other, and even when we get the stage, we’re scared and unwilling to say what needs to be said. I don’t really see us getting better nor think the music will save us. I don’t think the lives you’ve cut out for yourselves thus far will have any more room for me or what I’m doing than they have so far. I don’t really think you know what I’m doing though, anymore than you know how to play checkers.

I’m sure you’d just tell me you don’t like checkers and tell me I can’t expect everyone to play my game like I invented the fucking thing lol on your way to blissfully ignoring the point.

[990] Slaphappy Birthday

Even though time is an illusion, it looks like I’m 34, at least, at 10:58 PM. I’ve just woken up, made coffee, and wanted to explore how I spent the last few days. I got home this morning after driving all night, and I think I discovered the secret to falling asleep immediately. As soon as you get home from driving through the night, put on the podcast “The History of Philosophy Without any Gaps.” I ended my trip the way it began, considerably more prepared and awake on the drive home than to Cleveland. Cleveland, by the way, does rock. I see myself going back there.

I decided, because Facebook’s targeted ads are working, to see the band Anberlin play 3 nights, each night an old album. Anberlin, though celebrating their 20^th anniversary as a band, is one I came to relatively late. They have songs that are familiar-enough and an overall style and tone that, the moment I recognize it’s an Anberlin song playing, I’m almost-never skipping the track. I tried to “study” by playing their albums on repeat so I wouldn’t be a poser standing right up front against a stage only as high as my ankle. It really highlighted how hard it is to memorize songs in my genre that don’t make the vocals crystal clear. I’m not going to stay hunched over lyrics like I’m about to perform.

The venue was located in what I understood as a historical “hang-out” area with several quality places to eat and get smoothies or coffee. It had its Leftist book-store and on Saturday an artsy street fair with little booths and jazz band. Cleveland gives you a very palpable sense of its busy history as the old buildings weave throughout the new and the renovations attempt to keep basic features intact. I caught an article on the wall of the Grog Shop commemorating the first edition of Altpress which I didn’t know started there. The band was funny, engaged, and did great each night. During the last song on the first night the lead singer invited everyone who could fit on stage to dance, sing, and position themselves to catch him as he hung upside down from a beam lining the ceiling.

I had good food, a comfortable Airbnb room. I got to sleep on a big bed and really lean into a normal shower and bathroom setup. I was able to get my remote-work job done, desperately tired, but meeting my obligation. I read a book. Unable to get the nagging sense that I was incredibly close to Cedar Point out of my head, I decided to put the jewel in the crown of my time away, and got in 5 of the top roller coasters in the country before making my way home. It hit me, for as much as I loved going there, I don’t think I had been in 15 or 16 years. I listened to most of a book on the history of The Daily Show on the drive back.

While at Cedar Point, and while tucking myself into bed, and while standing in line or amongst the head-banging crowds, it may not be the first thing I notice, but it is persistently in my head that I’m alone. I want to make pains to distinguish “alone” from “lonely.” I have what I take to be an incredible capacity to enjoy myself, by myself. The roller coasters aren’t any less fun. I’m not less likely to sing along, eat to my heart’s content, or wander about a space. I can make the drives. I don’t have to concern myself with being entertaining enough during all of the down time that comes with arriving early so you can be up close.

In the crowds at the show, I listened to people. You think I’ve been to a lot of shows? A girl behind me knows the intimate lives of The Academy Is… and has seen them 120+ times in different countries. A couple shared, several times to new people, how this is the first time they’ve gotten away from the kids, and they were celebrating their anniversary in Cleveland. Cleveland has a robust rock/punk rock scene and groups shared who they saw and when, their opinions on albums, and their histories as it pertained to this world they felt they belonged. I was never moved to engage. A big part of me doesn’t feel sincere in my “scene cred.” My identity isn’t rooted in black clothing, lyrics, or being able to recognize and name each band member. That’s not a prerequisite for engaging those conversations, but you feel this pull to live up to a certain archetype. It’s akin to adopting office cliches, but for music.

At Cedar Point, you can really forget that we’re in a country bordering on full-blown fascist overthrow. Tens of thousands of people eating over-priced theme-park food, hitting the water park, or waiting in line. These are either people who live close and this is their primary occupation of time, or people who can afford the pilgrimage. It almost feels like a micro-country with every kind of American represented proportionally. I can’t say in that sea of people I saw anyone there by themselves. I saw family groups. I saw, perhaps divorced, parents with their kids. I saw packs of teens. I saw polo-shirted high-thigh khaki types. I saw couples. I didn’t see ANYONE sitting alone, walking alone, or standing alone who wasn’t wearing a park uniform or clearly waiting for their unit to return.

Did I want to be there with a family? Well, no, not really. Do I want to be a rich “business guy” with his pack of other business guys who talk more about our hobbies than how we’re integrating our wealth into a survivable future? More than I want to be carting kids through a park, but that also comes with its disappointing and unfulfilling details. When I speak to how “different” or “weird” I perpetually feel, not “bad” mind you, it’s because I’m noticing how often the space I occupy isn’t literally shared. The conversation is most often with myself, and I talk to people for a living.

I don’t know when or how it hit me, but I know it was around the time I was in college as I was attempting to set up weekend get-togethers and finding little beyond exhaustion and confusion. The impetus to be very deliberate and energetic about what might today be understood as “self-care” is not lost on me. Incidentally, the books I read and listened to on my trip are about the relatively recent past. The themes that we are suffering as budding fascism today have been drumbeats hammered-out by historians and satirists alike since I was a child. We haven’t been getting better at acknowledging and combating them deliberately.

We arrive at the different space I occupy. I allow the genuine and ongoing concern for my broader context to enter the conversation even as I’m having a good time. I’m looking for the joke. I’m curious about the practical steps it will take to alleviate the problem before it becomes life-threatening. I’m paying attention to the aching back as I’ve stood in place for hours on end, and then feeling myself wise and undeterred as I utilize my new back-roller balls to press kinks as I drive. That’s not what people do. People want to share vacation photos, collect souvenirs, and sing as though songs weren’t inspired by anything than a desire to populate tongues.

My space is different mentally, physically, and in the story it tells about what I think is important or what I believe about my options. Facebook is reminding me that 3 years ago is when I took my first “real vacation” to California with my “real job” money. That could have been yesterday. A year, with each year that passes, can be a rounding error in the proportion to the rest of your life. How many times in blogs would I repeat to myself how old I was? I was trying to hammer in how to pay attention. The time may be illusory, but the entropy feels real. Now, I’m 34. I’ve seen dozens if not a hundred bands, read hundreds of books, played as many video games, typed hundreds of thousands if not a million words. I have more stuff than I know what to do with. I have hobbies I enjoy and engage regularly. I have professional goals I’m working, maybe slightly less-diligently on than I should, but working on nonetheless. I don’t have a 30-year mortgage or car loan and my job will pay my debt in 4-5 months if I could bother to stop spending. I’m healthy. I’m full. I have people who will occasionally join me here and there. But in a significant and meaningful way that I wish wasn’t the case, I’m alone.

I don’t wish it because I’m lonely, I wish it because I feel like I have something valuable and honorable and worthy that I don’t know how to translate or share. Why can’t you pick up and come on a trip or show with me? Why can’t you feel comfortable pairing your day-to-day work or mental preoccupation to the larger narrative? Why can’t you find a sense of purpose or belonging in honestly engaging and doubling-down on the things you enjoy? Why don’t you feel obligated and responsible to talk about how your mind works or how it perceives your corner of the world? Why aren’t you practicing with the urgency that respects impending death?

I feel like I’ve earned what I have, in time, money, or right to say and share what I think. I feel like I have an appreciation for the difference between the fun of spending money and indulging oneself and the fun of helping people through utilizing real power in consequential ways. I think my life is as much a reflection of the infinite things I can’t control as it is infused with my intention collapsing the infinite sea into a conscious choice to pay attention. I’ve worked to push the direction of my life one way over still-probable others. I don’t need my will to be “free” more than acknowledged for its existence at all and recognized for what it’s manifested in service to our shared experience.

We are sharing experience, right?