[1046] Tee'd Off

I keep missing something when I write. I always used to write in order to feel better. I needed it to get my stomach settled or to get my head to stop hurting. When it became clear I was just always going to be an “on” person, a kind of regulating mechanism. I used to find useful bits of insight. I hadn’t really landed on as many pieces as I needed to shape and grow confident in my identity. If anything, today, I’m hard-pressed to tell you what I haven’t asked and answered about myself. The only thing “new” is my propensity to hyper-focus on doing a handful of new things every few months or years.

Take something simple, like band shirts. I’ve been buying a lot of them. I bought a heat press and 10 blank black t-shirts. I’ve spent what I easily consider “obscene” amounts of money on them so far. Until this shift into, basically collecting, band shirts was kicked off during Riot Fest last year, I reflexively balked at the $30-$40 price tags and completely ignored every table. Now? The shirts have come to mean something more. They stand for a “style” choice I almost never make for myself. They signify I’m supporting an artist directly who I’ve almost certainly been stealing their music their entire career. People have been noticing the shirts and complimenting me or saying they like a band. They’re more comfortable and fit correctly unlike the random shit I’ve bought from American Eagle or Goodwill. A mostly black wardrobe means you don’t have to think about visible sweat stains.

But I’m also feeling “fuck you” every time I buy one. Fuck you universe who says this should constitute more debt or something seemingly unreasonable. Fuck you teenage me who didn’t have the presence of mind to budget for shirts that would be vintage and extra cool today. Fuck you overpriced monopoly Ticketmaster which makes the whole spectacle of even seeing an artist expensive as fuck, so why not double it and at least take home more than a memory? I want all the shirts in the same way I wanted to obsessively write down animal names, collect Pokemon cards, or approach 50 different tasks at once in developing the land. I’m manufacturing meaning in a sea of otherwise ambivalence.

You know what shirt I absolutely don’t want? Your stupid brand, fest, or infinite lineup. I don’t support Rockville or Wonderoad or Bonnaroo or any of the way-too-many festival names as though they haven’t almost become parodies. If anything, going to so many shows has made me deeply appreciate the 400 person venue and the different palpable energy of a room verses the expanse of “festival types.” I’ve never had a concert touch what Steaksauce Mustache did at The Hi-Fi, but Anxious, and Knuckle Puck both earned t-shirt buys with their energy in the same room. Legacy bands like Earth, Wind, and Fire don’t need me buying shirts, but I’d slap a sticker on my speaker and testify to their unique power and energy across a stadium forever. I also bought a sticker printer.

I need shows and shirts and time-consuming activities like reading or watching everything because the alternative is darkness. The alternative is thinking, endlessly, about how often things get fucked, how hopeless they feel, how alone I generally am, or some narrative about how I still might not be doing “enough” in spite of any benchmark achieved. I need a story of indulgence and largess not because I’m blind and greedy, but because it’s what I’ve been working towards. I’ve arguably jumped the gun in overburdening the credit cards, but also, to this day, I’m in no more debt that I could have comfortably paid off had I not gotten fucked on the house flip. I can’t take the double whammy of not having anything to show for the time, effort, and investment. So I’m going to carry on like I invested in “the universe” and now that fucker needs to pay dividends.

It’s hard to get a handle on how angry I really am. I don’t do a lot of angry things. I don’t yell. I’ve even managed to dial back being particularly cunty in the road-rage vein. I’ve never just gotten used to or okay about the shit storm that is our politics or capitalist environment. If I ruminate on that stuff, “little’ things start to nag deeper; perhaps a proudly ignorant and defiant client or an entitled cunt baffled by the dynamics of a rock concert pit. I get angry that people praise and compliment me. I get angry at the idea of paying for glasses as my over-used contacts scratch my eyes. I get anxious about what I’m wholly prepared to say to the person who, for reasons I cannot grasp, thinks to treat me like I don’t exist or won’t react to them touching me or dictating something they have no business speaking to. I never know if it’s really appropriate to crack. I don’t have to. I don’t want to discover how much I needed to by surprise.

The amount of people who have asked me, ”Well, then, is he really your friend?“ when I’ve described the circumstances around the kid being in my friend’s care and the speeding and gun pull is getting high enough to mention in a blog. I’ve never made excuses for that series of circumstances and wouldn’t play along with the logic I couldn’t see. It’s also an undeniable crisis I still wish we could be rid of. I don’t know what to make of getting blown off. I can’t tell you the next time I won’t get angry at the words, ”I’m sorry.“ It feels as though my safety net is under attack. I’ve literally auditioned another friend for being the one to call in an emergency. I don’t think I have much of any real responsibility towards the situation but to keep speaking to it as honestly as I see it.

I’m not ungrateful, but I’ll stray. - not quite Tegan and Sara

There’s a version or mode of me that has every book I own read, an instrument practiced at least 30 minutes a day, and every video game beaten in the next 6 months. And then what? When I’m feeling lost for what to do, I start to vibe and feel gratified at the prospect of hunkering down like the world’s most accomplished introvert/nerd. I get home, dick around online, put on the next show, and retreat to the meandering middling task-handling for work or chores or needing to eat. Can’t retreat when you’re in Chicago next week. Can’t pretend you’ll know your focus or energy on your next in-office day. You’ll totally forget Secret Invasion came out or get a surprise perfect day for working outside. Best play things in stride, no?

When I played guitar 10 hours a day for months, I was becoming what I felt was a decent musician. When I read every single thing I could find, watched every lecture, and wrote extensively on a topic, I was confident I could earn my PhD or obliterate the ”lazy“ and ”ignorant“ person who couldn’t be bothered to learn anything before they spoke on it. When I decided the land was the place to live, I sacrificed fucking everything by way of comfort and self-respect, sleeping in my car, on a couch, and working non-stop at as many as 3 jobs at a time. I’m not meant for whatever it is you want to call what I’m doing. The average person sees 3.2 live shows a year. If that’s true for you from 15 to 55, you’ll get to 128. I beat that by 1 tonight between now and last year.

I’m growing increasingly fond of having a handler and being pointed in a direction. James Bond is an employee. I don’t need a mythical daddy, but I do need a sponsor or benefactor or nominally malicious overlord. I can function better when I’m housed within something. I keep working my job. I got through school. I’ve never been fired. I can memorize the rulebook. I can learn the language of your field. I could be something if you’d just give me a chance.

[978] You Pull Me Down

I went to another concert today. In my totally absent-minded approach that’s increasingly taking over my life, I didn’t even register where its actual location was until I was sitting in a restaurant 40 minutes away. It probably could have been held where I thought it was going to be, Mr. Josh Groban didn’t draw that large of a crowd for a Thursday, but that’s not important. The sequence of events in my body and mind during it was, at least briefly. Bitches be talking.

You might know, I’ve complained about how we seemed to have collectively forgotten that you need to shut the fuck up in a movie theater. I lamented that I could readily predict one in three movies I was going to have to “shush,” say, “Shut the fuck up,” or otherwise adjust my posture relative to some dumb cunt sitting near me. Well, this last time, as two whispery, coughy, and ever-undulating obese people carried on as they found the last Jurassic Park movie more and more boring, I just moved to the other side of the theater.

At the concert, at all concerts, I wear earplugs. If I didn’t, I’d probably lose my hearing within the course of a year. If I can hear you talking, laughing, or otherwise being an oblivious and entitled cunt, on top of the music no less, you’re being too loud. If you’re that way for song after song, and I’m growing more and more agitated, that I managed to respond to it in the way that I did I’m rather impressed with. My adrenaline shot through the roof as I stared them down, which, of course, they didn’t notice. I literally turned around and just watched them for 3 minutes.

Let’s set the scene. They’re about 7 seats away and 2 rows back. 3 middle-aged women, and one who brought her daughter. I could sum it up with, “It’s Karens, you know the type,” we are in Noblesville, after all, but that feels cheap if still correct. I’m getting jittery. I’ve accidentally purchased an entire bottle of wine for $42 which I had zero desire to finish. I’ve also just eaten the world’s soupiest snow-cone.

I got to thinking. I didn’t want to make them about me. I, pretty habitually, can turn things about me well without my desire or intention. I rehearse the lines I might say. “Hey! Shut the fuck up!” Classic. Do I look like a dweeb around all of these ageless greys and just make an exasperated shush and add my finger to my lips to really sell it? I shouldn’t have to be thinking about any of this shit! I’m not even some major fanboy of Josh Groban, but fucking gas is expansive, and I live an hour and a half away, and I’m pissing away even more money on wine and sugar, and I just want to sit here in the moment with a good singer without constantly jerking my head over my shoulder to investigate your dumb fucking ass.

Finally, I snap. I jerk around and yell out, “Hey, are you enjoying the concert!? It’s good right!? You enjoying yourself? Can you hear it okay!?” They get Karen-face and one attempts to turn it into a conversation about how they’ve been talking the entire time…I turn around and reinsert my earplug. They talk even louder for the back half of the song. They don’t speak for the next. They continue, ever-slightly muted for the rest of the concert afterward. I still want to fucking stab the one in particular.

It’s not that “all people” are a certain way. It’s that today, the worst of what it means to be a person has been given such license that we all carry on like that bitch isn’t in the wrong. And not just in the wrong, but wrong in a deep and profound way. She came to a concert to disrespect the artist, the people around her, and when confronted, doubled the fuck down. Can I think of a more on-the-nose analogue to this Faustian nightmare that is Trumpism? My blood pressure is skyrocketing trying not to be the sore thumb about the raging bloody cunts bleeding into our collective experience. I remain extremely confident that no one else is going to say anything, and if they feel the same pulse and stress that I did, they won’t handle it in as contemplative or a proactive way.

I’m very disoriented. It confuses me when I reach out to 3 to 5 people, and get no response all day, particularly if I know their phone behavior. I’ve had next to nothing to do in this “training” period, so I’ve had a lot of idle time at home, cleaning and rearranging things, and ordering more not-precisely crap from Amazon. I spent, and this must be a form of self-deceptive theater, YEARS avoiding reading this manga I find very interesting, and with the books in front of me, I’m dragging it out. The goal isn’t to get it done, like so many bad TV shows. I enjoy it. It’s intriguing where so little else is. I want to sit with it and think about it and escape into its lurid landscape.

But, that’s what I want out of my life. I want books to be a playground, not an alternate reality I’m desperate for. I want to live in a world where people shut the fuck up and respect each other, and none of us need finishing school to figure that shit out. I want to live in a world where the minority zealots don’t capture the majority psychologically. But I don’t. I live in a quiet place, by myself, in a tick-ridden field and occasionally pop my head out at the prospect of capitalizing on the misery or distracting myself with a shiny new stage performance. And they’re coming for that too, like they’re coming for libraries, and fucking water!

When is it over? When will the deluge of opinions about how to conduct life coalesce into either enough death that whomever is left over can try something new, or we just stop letting the mouthy cunts dictate the noise? There’s a goddamn performance and work on display every day that we just cede or ignore. Like so many texts and so many blogs with so many words that speak to who?