[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.

[984] Dance Monkey Dance

I don’t know that it means anything, but it feels worth mentioning. Today, in two of my groups, two members expressed they were feeling suicidal. They gave full-throated explanations of either the extreme guilt they felt about the people who have been hurt, or their overwhelming depression and anxiety that was making it so they couldn’t get up or out of the house. Neither, mind you, is on the brink of suicide, but both were trending poorly and needed some redirection, questioning, and encouragement. Both looked focused and like something clicked when I told them to put everything on their mind on paper and we can parse through each thing until we get to smaller and smaller bits that feel manageable. Then, I went to see a band who has a famous song that goes, “I wish you would step back from that ledge my friend.”

Seeing so many concerts back-to-back or in relatively quick succession is provoking another series of thoughts. The Third Eye Blind frontman invited the crowd to turn to their neighbor and introduce themselves, and later to put your arm around the person next to you and sing together. One of the HAIM sisters from a few weeks ago said something akin to, “I want you to have the best night of your life!” Few bands not located deep in the metal genre aren’t going to encourage you to clap your hands as the band pulls back and riffs on what an amazing tour it’s been, how strange covid lockdown was, or the privilege of rolling with their supporting acts.

Both scenarios are a show.

In the first show, I play counselor. I use my genuine connection to a hopelessly embittered and resentful existence and certain enthrallment with death to hit a tone of voice, type of word choice, and borrow from my earned experience dealing with a lot of sad people to turn you from desperate chaos into littlest productive or uplifting bite. It’s unfortunate I don’t feel a certain way about that ability. I just know I’m playing my part. These people need healthcare, money, and individual therapists. I’m so much duct tape.

In the second show, there’s a degree of custom and lack of options. Instead of clapping, what? Squawk? I could see the likes of Steaksauce Mustache eliciting a raucous parrot chorus, but that’s not most bands’ vibe. I find encores generally bizarre. There’s the suggestion that, because we all know some or most of the words to a song that’s been playing on the radio for 20+ years, we’re all connected by something real and meaningful as opposed to merely familiar. I did not take a stranger in my arms, for several reasons before implicitly rejecting the premise.

Music is personal. I can sing along to hundreds of songs. I might have a few dozen that have conjured any real excitable or puncturing feeling. If I thought too hard about that, it might be less. But my experience of music isn’t why hundreds of bands I’ve never heard of in genres and languages I don’t listen to can still greatly succeed. Put out 300 songs over 20 or 30 years, keep touring and advertising, and buy off a radio station, you’re likely to get a plurality of people just working the playing field.

Your experience of your feelings is personal. This is why when you tell us you’re feeling suicidal, we don’t panic and try to get you committed, we run you through a few questionnaires. You have the language of “not feeling” or “thinking about suicide” in the manner that you have the songs on the radio or words you’ve been taught in how you relate to the world.

Why am I thinking about this? I’m not searching for anything more or less from my job or the concerts I attend than the money, the “I did that” points, and the ability to talk about new facets and patterns of my experience. My experience of music is not necessarily diminished the more I feel like a scene head or find the live renditions of favorite songs lacking. Nor am I less likely to try to keep someone alive and moving just because I can.

I think I’m attempting to illustrate once more how I’m after that “real” shit. I want to go to a concert where I’m feeling so good and the music is so moving that the crowd starts spontaneously hugging each other. Is that going to be your typical show? Are most people going to be sober? If you’re being honest, is even your favorite band pulling that off? (Okay, maybe Jacob Collier.) You know why I don’t feel like hugging my neighbor? I live in Indiana, and there’s a decent chance they’re a fascist. Because the venues I go to, for their thousands and thousands of people, aren’t a collection of diverse agreeable people singing in unison. It’s people with money, and free time, and sometimes an infuriating degree of ambivalence and entitlement with regard to those around them or what’s happening on stage. I’ve counted like 6 black people and 2 Indians in the 20 thousand I’ve encountered the last few months.

We’re not all in this together. The ones pretending to are sitting down and chatting away through any song released after 1999. Maybe this is why raves and DJs got so popular. You can all take molly and bounce around without even having to pretend to mouth the words to engage in the pageantry.

On the drive, I was watching The History of Comedy. I appreciated Dick Gregory talking about how he knew he was not going to turn the racist tide of America by telling jokes. They discussed Chappelle experiencing the wrong kind of laughter at one of his skits. So many comics discuss their pill regimen or addiction history and the ones who died too young. We’re unified in laughter! So goes that genre and familiar lore. Or, we gravitate towards what we already agree with like we listen to preferred genres of music. Not everyone is in on the jokes or appreciates the art form, but if you’re first to a niche, and you grind, if you don’t ascend to legend, you certainly fit like so many opening bands.

You’re not struggling through the music you like. They aren’t doing you a favor. Insofar that you share networked radio stations or shaky fond memories associated with an album or track is the extent of the connection. There is no shared sacrifice or journey together. You may cling to certain bands as the soundtrack for your whole life, but I’d start speculating something weirder was going on there. I just find myself thinking I’m not going to like the song or artist anymore or less the harder they sell or more completely explain what they think they’re doing or signifying.

You wouldn’t find me crass for claiming to save people’s lives every time they don’t die after saying they want to? For how much time we spend and words we dedicate to describing our experience as some kind of way, we work to ensure it actually is that way so little. You know how you get depressed no matter how much you affirm your love for your kids as the reason you’re still alive? You don’t work to love yourself, so onto entertaining the idea of death and gambling on what that example will set for them. Brilliant.

Listen to your music. Sing your song and tell your jokes. Feel your feelings, and if it helps you find or move on from them, you can write like me. You know what my blogs aren’t doing? Rallying us around thoughtful actionable coalitions working to discuss and move on the ideas nor discuss the themes. You know what you can’t be? The first to say anything you’re soaking in word for word from those around you. You know why we don’t know what really brings us together? We don’t accurately identify, let alone actually try to do the work to share and receive or mutually sacrifice in service to a greater end. It won’t be the bandleader, your counselor, nor Jesus who can do the work for you despite so much of our experience acting incredibly thirsty for so many mythological scapegoats. All you have to do is cut ties with all the lies that you’ve been living in.