I’m blogging…OUTSIDE. The weather here has been bearable, even though snow is scheduled for Tuesday. I’m sitting in this chair outside the Honors College that has “fuck you” faintly carved into one of the armrests. There’s a name also craved underneath, but it’s too hard to make out. An extremely yellow leaf just blew off the tree a few feet away from me and smacked me in the face. It’s quite a rainbow looking at all the nature around here. They don’t call it Tree City for no reason, unless they decide to make everything Esplanade flat and perfectly mowed and boring.
Taylor Hall is a glance away. I was sitting on Blanket Hill facing the old victory bell a few minutes ago, but I couldn’t concentrate on blogging just sitting on the ground. Quite a few people have been walking by looking at the unfinished memorial and the May 4 informational signs today. It’s pretty much always older people, no matter which side of Taylor you’re facing.
I think about that a lot, and the more I see how this campus functions, the more I feel that urge to enact some change. Things feel frozen in time here, and to be frank, it’s not in a good way. The weather might be okay for a cardigan, but I feel like too many people here are frozen in ice cube trays of apathy and acceptance. When people are encouraged to take action, they rarely do. On a general level, depending on the world view of whoever you’re asking, the only way to make change is to either vote for someone who doesn’t truly represent you or risk your life marching in the street and relying on buzzwords. They rarely tell you that there’s room for sneaky introverts in that process. And that sneaky, introverted work, the subversive work, the work that fits my style the most, is often the hardest.
Hell, half of the time the people who are rallying the most for change seem dismissive of the prospect of change actually occurring. There’s an exhibition of letterpress prints in Taylor right now, and some of them are truly amazing. There’s something so satisfying about a good letterpress design, with the jumbled remixed letters and strong colors. There’s just nothing better. But when I was walking through the exhibit the other day, one of the posters on display, frankly, made me angry. It was very post-Roe hopeless. All the text was about how women have the “freedom” to die of an ectopic pregnancy and be incubators and the like, topped off by the declaration, “so much freedom!” Like I’m going to let anyone tell me what I can do with my body. You make change by just not letting people do nefarious things to you. Or, alternatively, you make it by letting yourself do the things that you know are the best, even if they are unpopular. Both of these types of defiance can be very hard, especially the last one, and neither get you many political brownie points. You get those points by beginning and ending at complaining. That changes nothing. Speaking, writing, creating art and music, holding events, educating others, proving other people wrong is how you change things. You have to show that you own them when they try to own you.
With this in mind, no matter how hard it is to accomplish, I’m really hoping to skew the ratio.
DEVOtion, Day Two
Tuesday, September 27th, 2022And then the nerds re-congregated, and DEVOtional Saturday happened.
And what a de-evolved time it was.
The Jimmy Psycho Experiment, who have been DEVOtional openers for a few years now, set a relaxed mood well with their tiki-loungey versions of everyone’s favorite DEVO hits. Attention soon shifted towards the many special guests, whose Q&A sessions took up a good chunk of the night. Good old Mark was back for round 2, though he was slightly more subdued when compared to his misdemeanor on Friday. DEVOtional old timer Jerry Casale, who almost always comes out to support the fans, brought with him the music video premier of his next single, “The Invisible Man.” Without spoiling too much for everyone who wasn’t there, it was hands-down one of the most amusing things I’ve ever witnessed, and it only makes me more fascinated about what exactly goes on within Jerry’s mind that could make him conjure up something so perfectly, undeniably wack. But you’ll all see it in a few months.
Steve Bartek, the guitarist on Jerry’s recent music who is best known for his work with Oingo Boingo, joined Jerry in looking very smart and answering questions. I didn’t get to talk with him at all, but he seemed like a really genuine guy. The dark horse of the program, however, was one Michael Schwartz, better known as Rod Rooter, DEVO’s evil manager from way back. Throughout the night, Mike seamlessly incorporated his character into his talk-talk to the point where I initially genuinely wasn’t sure if he was joking or not when he discussed being the first white guy on King Records with a song produced by James Brown. (Spoiler alert: he WASN’T).
Sometime before DEVOtional started, Max had the brilliant idea of making Rod an entire election campaign which proceeded to snowball from a joke to people on Facebook actually buying made-to-order polo shirts emblazoned with the phrase “America’s Begging For The Barrel Room.” The virus had spread so far that Max didn’t even have to give Mark one of the campaign buttons he was handing out; he had already been given one by someone else. With Mike’s charisma and wit, I wouldn’t hesitate to vote in his favor, and I can’t help but hope he becomes a mainstay. (“The Man” did approve of Max’s effort, by the way.)
Max signed one of his posters for him while I stood by, causing him to ask Max in character, “Is THIS your GIRLFRIEND?” Max would go on to be very fixated on the fact that Mike was a few hours early to the punch on that.
Jerry, Mark, and the rest were signing items for hours. I heard someone say their autograph session clocked in at over three hours, which blows my mind and makes me want to pray atheist style for their dominant wrists. Max used the opportunity to gift Mark and Jerry bags containing some of his original music and hand decorated lab coats, with airbrush art for Marky and colorful tampons for Jer-Jer, while I stood by as photojournalist and emotional support.
(Jerry sadly didn’t try it on for us in person, but the photo he uploaded later more than makes up for that.)
I wasn’t immune to the photo opportunities, either.
All the while, Al Mothersbaugh’s band, Massive Hotdog Recall, brought the party as usual, proving that “Shout” can be a good song if you add some non-synthetic, whip-spankin’ horns to it. New Devolution, an energetic tribute band who came all the way from Chile to perform, followed by plowing through high-power early 80s DEVO tracks. The fun factor was through the roof as the spontaneously generated giant helium balls the crowd was serving around threatened to make a dent in it.
After the raffle, which I did not win anything at, the highly anticipated Fight Milk, who were not balls, took the stage. They exemplified the fun factor just like last year, but having more than one guy on the stage again (while retaining last year’s cardboard cutouts) totally elevated their energy. Alongside Jackson, the band’s creative mastermind and sole constant, it was great having Tavi from Finland back onstage, whether he was flashing a creepy smile at the audience with down pitched vocals or scurrying around the stage wrecking his guitar strings. Those boys be DEVO.
Max was also making his live performance debut, and he absolutely killed it. Not many other DEVOtional performances would both perform a song that hadn’t been performed since 1974 and make the live debut of Jerry’s latest single. (TAKE THAT, OLD MAN! Just kiddin’.) Max took lead on both, and it was so great seeing him in his element. It truly wouldn’t have been the same without him up there in that goddamn tampon coat hurling his Rod Rooter buttons at the crowd. I even caught a photo of one in mid air! I love blinding everyone with the flash from my camera.
Detention finished off the night, though I sadly didn’t get to see most of their set because, deja vu, I was too busy having a conversation in the Ballroom’s bar the room over. (I got to hear their Steve-tribute cover of Oingo Boingo’s “Little Girls” in muffled format, though!) At least I did get to chat with their singer Elliott, who I’ve bumped into a few times on the Kent campus, beforehand. Us Kent chicks gotta stick together.
And then, just like that, the night had winded down. Everyone packed up, stumbled out of the ballroom, and hit up Ubers back to their hotels. And then it was over.
Did it beat last year’s for me? No. That year was too special! But I’ll gladly let it be the first loser.
And hey, I got a boyfriend out of this one, so I guess that’s a plus.
Tags:concerts, Detention, DEVO, DEVOtional, DEVOtional 2022, Fight Milk, Jerry Casale, Mark Mothersbaugh, Massive Hotdog Recall, Michael Schwartz, music, my boyfriend, New Devolution, Oingo Boingo, photo opportunities, Rod Rooter, Steve Bartek, tampon coat, The Jimmy Psycho Experiment, things I enjoy, Zhir Vengersky
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