Showing posts with label Reflection. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Reflection. Show all posts
Friday, April 13, 2012
The Concert that Changed Me
Well as it usually happens, it’s 2 in the morning and thanks to YouTube I’m no where near going to bed like I planned to 3 hours ago. What has me enraptured is discovering most of the concert Guns n’ Roses did at The Ritz for Mtv back in 1988. As a kid in the very beginning stages of learning guitar and dreaming about rock stardom I saw this concert and it was THE experience that made me want to play rock and roll in whatever capacity. I was a huge Guns n’ Roses fan, as my folks can attest to, I had the albums, the posters, and I think I personally wore out two copies of Appetite for Destruction from constant playing. I know that album almost as good as I know my own recordings.
Watching this concert as a kid, I remember being mesmerized by what I saw. My concept of how a band performed was based on careful study of this show. A few years and a few shows changed my perception a bit on this fact but I still remember the dazzling awe I felt watching it. Every moment rang true with me. The manic delivery of Axl Rose, the full arm swinging drum style of Steven Adler, the punk flavor lent by Duff McKagan, the solid but quiet rhythem guitar of Izzy Stradlin, and of course the half man, half beast reason I took an interest in Les Paul guitars Slash.
Now, a couple of decades and a few hundred shows of my own later I watch this concert with a different set of eyes. I a guitar play who is clearly very drunk, a singer near losing his voice, additional vocals added only in the vicinity of being harmonious, the madness at the end of “Paradise City” and the foreshadowing of Axl’s well know “Temper Tantrums” as he throws the Mic at the end of “Rocket Queen”. Still, though, I can remember that kid sitting inches from the TV set in the living room late at night soaking in this experience. The last song (out of synch with the flow of the concert) is the live cover of Dylan’s “Knocking on Heavens Door” heard on the radio which inspired many of my friends to add this song to the various sets we’ve played over the years.
I’m not sure how this show will be perceived by some of you but for me and a few friends, the course of our lives might have taken very different paths were it not for these five guys playing this gig that night.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Perspective
I had an experience the other day that got me thinking. I was walking to my apartment after work and across the street ahead of me was a group of kids in their early teens screwing around and heading, generally in the same direction as I was going. It was a mix of 3 girls and 4 boys. I saw one of the boys pretend like he was going to lift the shirt up on one of the girls. He was not even close to serious about it and was easily 12 to 14 inches from even touching her. She said “It won’t matter, I’m wearing a bikini top underneath!” to which he (because he’s a guy) replied “I’ll still see ‘em!” No one seemed off put from this exchange and the group didn’t even stop its casual northern movement up the street.
Being that I’m easily a foot and a half taller then any of these kids I caught up with them and moved to the outside of the side walk in order to pass them without slowing down. Once the kids noticed me and saw I was heading in their direction the group came to an immediate halt most of them with their faces aimed at their sneakers looking like cats covered in canary feathers. One of the kids said “Hello Mister.” I said hello. Another kid asked for a high five so I gave him one. He joked about having his arm torn off. Everyone laughed; I smiled as I moved on past them.
As I made my way to my apartment, I reflected on being that age and hanging out with my friends. I tried to imagine how they perceived me. I’ve been told I can be an intimidating individual and my normal facial posture is sometimes confused with a look of anger or disapproval. Did they think I was going to scold them or something? They probably thought I was a mature adult and wouldn’t appreciate their “Tom-Foolery.” Little do they know I saw almost the same scene happen in a bar a few weeks earlier with people twice their age! I see myself as a young guy still trying to get the hang of this whole “adult life” thing I living. I get together with my friends and laugh, play games, tell jokes and stories way, WAY worse then these kids have ever experienced. I astound myself with my immaturity at times. I even joked about this situation on Facebook! FACEBOOK!!
How am I even remotely an adult? I’m a walking disaster of confusion and insecurity. I’m like a teenager without the acne, wondering what’s going to happen tomorrow or if there is even going to be a tomorrow! I wake up every morning panicked about everything I have to do in the teeny tiny amount of time I have on this planet. Constantly wondering if I’m going to walk my road alone or with someone by my side; whether or not I want to start a family. Who will notice when I’m gone.
Then I do the math and realize I started working at my current job before any of those kids were born.
Whoa!
I could, in fact, be any one of those kids’ dads!
WHOA!!
Talk about a reality shot!
I stop and take a breath. Look everything over and decide that it’s because of all of those things that I am an adult. Being a teenager was something that ended for me almost 17 years ago when I turned 20. Most of what I can remember from those years was a deep desire to get the hell out of school and start working for a living mixed with a mild panic about not knowing what I wanted to do for the rest of my life and a keen interest in girls I didn’t have the confidence to talk to. Time didn’t seem to be as big a deal as it is to me currently. Nowadays, I seem to feel Every. Grain. Of. Sand. Slip through my fingers. There are many things I can attribute my chronological hyper-awareness to but it doesn’t matter. In the end, I don’t want to end up feeling like I wasted my time here so I try to do what ever I can think of doing. There are plenty of arguments about how to best utilize ones life and I’m not going to delve into that ocean of pontification. I’m always open for a discussion about these things but here is not the place for it. Here is just a place for me to babble about the racket that ricochets within my brain.
So have I gained anything from this experience? Have I discovered the differences in the perception of me? Have any of the last 800 words made a difference in anything.
Probably not.
Those reading this may have their opinions of me swayed a bit but I don’t expect anyone’s’ life will be changed for better or worse. This is not new ground for my inner dialogue either. I sometimes contemplate how the cover of my book is read by others. I can sometimes be consumed by self-consciousness. But today, I just think to myself “Hmm..that was interesting.”
Being that I’m easily a foot and a half taller then any of these kids I caught up with them and moved to the outside of the side walk in order to pass them without slowing down. Once the kids noticed me and saw I was heading in their direction the group came to an immediate halt most of them with their faces aimed at their sneakers looking like cats covered in canary feathers. One of the kids said “Hello Mister.” I said hello. Another kid asked for a high five so I gave him one. He joked about having his arm torn off. Everyone laughed; I smiled as I moved on past them.
As I made my way to my apartment, I reflected on being that age and hanging out with my friends. I tried to imagine how they perceived me. I’ve been told I can be an intimidating individual and my normal facial posture is sometimes confused with a look of anger or disapproval. Did they think I was going to scold them or something? They probably thought I was a mature adult and wouldn’t appreciate their “Tom-Foolery.” Little do they know I saw almost the same scene happen in a bar a few weeks earlier with people twice their age! I see myself as a young guy still trying to get the hang of this whole “adult life” thing I living. I get together with my friends and laugh, play games, tell jokes and stories way, WAY worse then these kids have ever experienced. I astound myself with my immaturity at times. I even joked about this situation on Facebook! FACEBOOK!!
How am I even remotely an adult? I’m a walking disaster of confusion and insecurity. I’m like a teenager without the acne, wondering what’s going to happen tomorrow or if there is even going to be a tomorrow! I wake up every morning panicked about everything I have to do in the teeny tiny amount of time I have on this planet. Constantly wondering if I’m going to walk my road alone or with someone by my side; whether or not I want to start a family. Who will notice when I’m gone.
Then I do the math and realize I started working at my current job before any of those kids were born.
Whoa!
I could, in fact, be any one of those kids’ dads!
WHOA!!
Talk about a reality shot!
I stop and take a breath. Look everything over and decide that it’s because of all of those things that I am an adult. Being a teenager was something that ended for me almost 17 years ago when I turned 20. Most of what I can remember from those years was a deep desire to get the hell out of school and start working for a living mixed with a mild panic about not knowing what I wanted to do for the rest of my life and a keen interest in girls I didn’t have the confidence to talk to. Time didn’t seem to be as big a deal as it is to me currently. Nowadays, I seem to feel Every. Grain. Of. Sand. Slip through my fingers. There are many things I can attribute my chronological hyper-awareness to but it doesn’t matter. In the end, I don’t want to end up feeling like I wasted my time here so I try to do what ever I can think of doing. There are plenty of arguments about how to best utilize ones life and I’m not going to delve into that ocean of pontification. I’m always open for a discussion about these things but here is not the place for it. Here is just a place for me to babble about the racket that ricochets within my brain.
So have I gained anything from this experience? Have I discovered the differences in the perception of me? Have any of the last 800 words made a difference in anything.
Probably not.
Those reading this may have their opinions of me swayed a bit but I don’t expect anyone’s’ life will be changed for better or worse. This is not new ground for my inner dialogue either. I sometimes contemplate how the cover of my book is read by others. I can sometimes be consumed by self-consciousness. But today, I just think to myself “Hmm..that was interesting.”
Monday, September 27, 2010
That one night in ???
It is a small bar, kind of dingy and disheveled with neon in the windows that matched the tired sag of the building.
A gravel mud-pit parking lot plays host a myriad of vehicles in various states of disrepair and modification.
It is the type of bar that you wouldn’t really notice as you drove by unless it was raining.
Stepping in the front door offers a buffet of sensory input.
Your nose is offered up a potpourri of fragrances including sawdust, beer, whiskey, cigarette smoke, pool cue chalk, field mud, cut grass, sweat, and bar food with an underlying hint of debt collection, divorce and despair.
Your ears are treated to a softly undulating din consisting of the idle murmur of farmers and hunters taking a break from the fields, the banter of blue collar workers as they drink away their paychecks, the plaintiff moaning of country music intermixed with the sexual innuendo of hair metal, the clink of glasses and the cracking of pool balls.
Your eyes witness the spectacle of the Middle American low common denominator as they co-mingle in a stew of jeans, Harley patches, boots, tattoos, mullets, crew cuts, and T-shirts covered in bumper sticker philosophy.
Elbowing up to the bar you flag down the barmaid who is now in her early twenties but will likely live herself into her forties before the decade is over, tattooed and pierced to give the illusion of having three left nipples, and order a beer.
As she walks away to get your beer, you pull your eyes off the shorts she’s barely wearing to survey the room and you see three guys setting up band equipment over in the corner.
A question to the barmaid as she brings you your beer with a sidecar of flirty facial expressions confirms that the band is of the local variety, common to this establishment and will begin around 9 pm.
The clock hands meander their way through the evening as you continue renting your barstool and glances at the barmaid.
The music is cut off in mid-boot scoot and the band in the corner swings into the first song of what will become a four hour show, complete with Chuck Berry guitar tricks, groovegasmic bass solos, and a drum solo that lands the entire bar back in 1986.
The undulating din has been replaced by the frantic noise of invading troops and the bar hemorrhages beverages at a near fatal rate. The band is raining sweat as it moves with the music and the bar crowd sways along like a Cobra in the trance of a blues rock snake charmer. The bar, once tired and sagging, is now alive and breathing, drunk and lusting, seconds from combusting and on the verge of collapse. You are completely swept up in the experience, drunk on music and beer, not concerned at all with how you’re getting home or where you’re going to sleep because at some point in the night, a woman has seen fit to graft herself to your right arm, and though you have a suspicion you may be considering coyotes in the morning, most of your decisions are being made by other organs.
The words “Thanks G’nite” cause you to cast a bleary eye up at the clock and say hello to one thirty.
Between bouts of what seems to be recreational CPR with the woman who appears hell bent on sharing the cloths you’re wearing you survey the scene.
The band is packing up their equipment, carrying pitchers, bottles and shot glasses up to the bar by the armload, and trying not to step on the casualties of the night’s festivities who litter the barroom.
You are led outside by your newest, soon to be, regret and poured into the front seat of a rusted and noisy mid-80’s Camero decaled with cartoon characters urinating on various items, but not before slurring admiration to the bands bass player for his awesome performance of “Pink Cadillac” while laying on the pool table and smoking a cigarette, to which he says “Thanks!”
As you ride away into the night, that little bar on the corner of “Nowhere” and “Special” seems to sag back into its accustomed position then to fade into the inky country night all together.
It was a brief moment in the years you will spend alive but you will remember it fondly for a long, long time, or most of it anyway, and when, by chance, you happen to drive past that intersection, a small but evident pang will slip across your heart as you find an abandoned lonely patch of overgrown grass where that little bar used to sag and a gravel mud-pit parking lot played host a myriad of vehicles in various states of disrepair and modification.
A gravel mud-pit parking lot plays host a myriad of vehicles in various states of disrepair and modification.
It is the type of bar that you wouldn’t really notice as you drove by unless it was raining.
Stepping in the front door offers a buffet of sensory input.
Your nose is offered up a potpourri of fragrances including sawdust, beer, whiskey, cigarette smoke, pool cue chalk, field mud, cut grass, sweat, and bar food with an underlying hint of debt collection, divorce and despair.
Your ears are treated to a softly undulating din consisting of the idle murmur of farmers and hunters taking a break from the fields, the banter of blue collar workers as they drink away their paychecks, the plaintiff moaning of country music intermixed with the sexual innuendo of hair metal, the clink of glasses and the cracking of pool balls.
Your eyes witness the spectacle of the Middle American low common denominator as they co-mingle in a stew of jeans, Harley patches, boots, tattoos, mullets, crew cuts, and T-shirts covered in bumper sticker philosophy.
Elbowing up to the bar you flag down the barmaid who is now in her early twenties but will likely live herself into her forties before the decade is over, tattooed and pierced to give the illusion of having three left nipples, and order a beer.
As she walks away to get your beer, you pull your eyes off the shorts she’s barely wearing to survey the room and you see three guys setting up band equipment over in the corner.
A question to the barmaid as she brings you your beer with a sidecar of flirty facial expressions confirms that the band is of the local variety, common to this establishment and will begin around 9 pm.
The clock hands meander their way through the evening as you continue renting your barstool and glances at the barmaid.
The music is cut off in mid-boot scoot and the band in the corner swings into the first song of what will become a four hour show, complete with Chuck Berry guitar tricks, groovegasmic bass solos, and a drum solo that lands the entire bar back in 1986.
The undulating din has been replaced by the frantic noise of invading troops and the bar hemorrhages beverages at a near fatal rate. The band is raining sweat as it moves with the music and the bar crowd sways along like a Cobra in the trance of a blues rock snake charmer. The bar, once tired and sagging, is now alive and breathing, drunk and lusting, seconds from combusting and on the verge of collapse. You are completely swept up in the experience, drunk on music and beer, not concerned at all with how you’re getting home or where you’re going to sleep because at some point in the night, a woman has seen fit to graft herself to your right arm, and though you have a suspicion you may be considering coyotes in the morning, most of your decisions are being made by other organs.
The words “Thanks G’nite” cause you to cast a bleary eye up at the clock and say hello to one thirty.
Between bouts of what seems to be recreational CPR with the woman who appears hell bent on sharing the cloths you’re wearing you survey the scene.
The band is packing up their equipment, carrying pitchers, bottles and shot glasses up to the bar by the armload, and trying not to step on the casualties of the night’s festivities who litter the barroom.
You are led outside by your newest, soon to be, regret and poured into the front seat of a rusted and noisy mid-80’s Camero decaled with cartoon characters urinating on various items, but not before slurring admiration to the bands bass player for his awesome performance of “Pink Cadillac” while laying on the pool table and smoking a cigarette, to which he says “Thanks!”
As you ride away into the night, that little bar on the corner of “Nowhere” and “Special” seems to sag back into its accustomed position then to fade into the inky country night all together.
It was a brief moment in the years you will spend alive but you will remember it fondly for a long, long time, or most of it anyway, and when, by chance, you happen to drive past that intersection, a small but evident pang will slip across your heart as you find an abandoned lonely patch of overgrown grass where that little bar used to sag and a gravel mud-pit parking lot played host a myriad of vehicles in various states of disrepair and modification.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Low Tide Flush
Sometimes I am reminded of the time I spend wandering through the forest of my memories. As you hike through the swirls of the cerebellum you are surrounded with all sorts of woodland creatures in the form of memories. Some of them are warm and fuzzy, some are brief glimpses of bright color that flitter away without solid imagery, others are the rough bark of a tree you stumbled against, and at some point you discover a cave. Partially grown over with brush you have to work a bit to gain access ans as soon as you do you realize there may have been a reason this cave was abandoned. The images etched in mud, blood , and root dye depict a scene of chaos and pain and in the midst of this revelation a splash of cold bitterness floods the world and I become aware of the fact that I need a refill and that maybe it's time to stop daydreaming and find something to provide some good memories which will hopefully help the vines regrow over the den they once were shading.
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