I turn nineteen tomorrow. It should feel like a bigger deal to me, but it doesn’t. It feels like just another day in my life is coming up.
So many people have never lived to see nineteen. Mortality has been on my mind as of late, mainly due to family affairs, but especially after yesterday. While we were driving on the highway, we saw a reckless motorcyclist whizz by us—not the least common sight, though most of the time it’s a car instead of an exposed man. I remember his medium length brown hair catching the wind, his pale shirt whipping up to expose his suntanned back. And then—in the backseat of my father’s truck, I couldn’t see much—there was a series of tracks embedded in the edge of the freeway jungle bed, and a faint puff of smoke.
One man gone in the blink of an eye before our own; a man at once becoming one with his maker. Was it an accident, or intentional? There was no way he could’ve survived. We considered pulling over, but two cars already had, meaning it only would have been to feed our morbid curiosities. We would have gotten in the way.
I am one of the last people to survey that man while he was alive. He went out in a terrifying blaze of glory. And all we could do was carry on. If the act was intentional, there will probably be no Wikipedia article detailing his reasoning; that was an act with barely any impact on the world other than his family, friends, and its witnesses. Did he view himself as a martyr? He was no suicide bomber, but was he fighting some war in his head that he could only win through complete self obliteration?
I’ve been taking the time to myself that summer has granted me to consider this archetype—one man against a world—in relation to my own life. So much has happened this summer. I feel like a more well built person; I feel more aware of how things work. I see better now what people are fighting for.
The lone motorcyclist from the other day sought glory, but he also sought closure. He sought transgression—transgression from the image of the makeuped body neatly displayed in an ornate casket in a dusty beige funeral home. He sought a death that was thrilling. He sought a death on his own terms.
If only more people sought to live life on their own terms as he found such in destruction.
The marching masses subject themselves to the name tags and identification badges, always updated as to not offend, that those in power dole out in scratch-and-sniff candy flavors. They take pride in being liberallibertariancentristcommunistsocialisttraditionalconservativemaggot like the little boy who got a rare card to trade on the playground. We take pride in consolidating our perspectives, our opinions, our idiosyncrasies into business cards sharp as razor blades to flash at all who pass and slash at those who got sorted into another pile. But we only leave surface level paper cuts. We do not cut deeper into the fertile dirt; we do not let our true colors flow like rivers of blood. Instead, we reinforce ourselves out of fear. We do not want a soul to see the problems in our individual biologies, the DNA-level mutations that don’t fit alongside our assigned prescriptions. We don’t just fight a war within our own heads—we fight a war against our heads.
We fight a war against deviation from the norms our chosen cultures have built up for us. We lash out at our hypocrite friends without considering the inherently flawed nature of humanity. We forget that human is the only label that truly means anything. We label, we observe, we scheme, we divide. We succumb to the allure of the fascist brain. But we never conquer.
We are trapped in an ever overloading warfare—“us” versus “them”. We let people in power make problems out of things that were never problems to begin with, and we allow ourselves to play along. We follow the rising tides, the rising prices, the rising temperatures. But we save the backlash for those that the powers that be tell us to fight—or some figurehead who cut a little too deep for our liking, who may retreat but will never truly exit the stage. But those cuts still are surface level. We attack the facade but never think to pull back the curtain to find the Wizard. We trade the truth for comfort and self doubt. We build ourselves up to the point where we think we have everything to lose, to keep safe and sanitized as some supposedly upstanding example of purity and sanctity. We forget that the people pulling the strings—and maybe one lone motorcyclist—already live as if they have nothing to lose.
But living like there is no tomorrow does not equate oblivion if your will is strong enough. The people we claim—and fail—to fight against know this. Their voices would not echo on, much to our dismay, if they did not know this. We just cannot hide behind excuse any longer. We must allow ourselves the strength to make impact in the name of what we truly believe in, no matter what anyone else thinks or tells us. We must allow ourselves to take control, and then we must allow ourselves to lose control. We must allow our true colors to bleed out down the highway; and the world will drink from that endless river; and then the world’s hands will finally show their true dirtiness, with every speck of soil and gushy worm entrails creating a disgusting, entrancing, beautiful portrait of what it means to be human.
At age nineteen, I want the truth. At age nineteen, I speak my truth. At age nineteen, I reject dilution and suppression. At age nineteen, I reject the fascist brain.
Fun Times With Some Rowdy Guys
Tuesday, July 5th, 2022My first log as a legal adult. Who would’ve thought! Yeah, I’m pretty hardcore. It’s definitely an interesting time to be going through so many rites of passage, from graduating to reaching adulthood last Sunday. It’s also pretty interesting how all these rites of passage seem to coincide with similarly wonderful concerts. I got an incredible DEVO show as a graduation party, which I’m still not quite over. This time around, it was the Melvins who brought me into adulthood on Friday, two days before my gestation completion anniversary. I wanted special for my birthday, dammit, and I ended up getting much, much more than I could have ever asked for. At the very least, I can check off my list seeing the mighty King Buzzo’s hair in person.
The concert also coincided with my first time to what was once a steel capital of the world, good ol’ Bethlehem, PA. Sounds quaint, doesn’t it? The town surrounding the venue and extending across the river itself is nice and quaint. The venue is located right by the old Bethlehem Steel plant, which was operational until, somehow, the mid-nineties. It now looms over a bustling little cultural spot, towering as a series of antiquated pagodas of rust and dead industry. (The morning after the Melvins my family checked out the self guided walking tour along the plant’s old material transport trestle, which allows for some incredible up-close action. It’s truly an incredible and fascinating sight to experience.) The venue itself also houses a movie theater and boasts an orange spiral staircase adorned with intricate blown glass art where we waited to get our tickets checked. Within the ballroom, concertgoers could’ve gotten a table at the also orange balcony looking out on the crowd and stage. The steel plant loomed behind the stage through the large glass windows and would later be illuminated in neon light when the sun set. All in all, it was very atmospheric.
I was initially positioned directly stage right, up against the security gate as I’ve gotten used to at shows that feature them, for openers Harsh Mellow (excellent name). I was impressed at their energetic, intense brand of noise rock, and I’m really excited to see what they do in the future. I had drifted back slightly and more towards the front of the stage to talk with some of my dad’s friends by the time the second band, Helms Alee, took the stage and proceeded to turn everyone’s minds to sluuudge. I actually wouldn’t be surprised if their set went on for longer than the Melvins’. I had a good view of their drummer, who was a total powerhouse in her own right and also very sweet at the merch booth before and after the show. Fun times.
And then, promptly as the headliners took the stage, I was shoved—or maybe something in my consciousness pulled me a little bit—right up against the gate, just slightly off-center from Buzz Osbourne’s microphone stand. What followed was something akin to my mind being blown—or maybe it’s more like my mind being unfolded and refolded, like origami. The more I think about it, the more I’m sure the triple threat of “Oven”, “Lovely Butterflies”, and “It’s Shoved” that opened the show flipped some sort of weird, hidden, primal switch in my brain. I feel like a reformed young woman now after having seen the Melvins. As a result of the weekend’s sonic therapy, I feel respectable and healthy urges to put myself out there more, engage myself more creatively, and try different styling techniques that would increase the volume of my hair. Well, maybe the latter is just the aftershock of getting to see Buzz’s incredible hairdo in person. I am being completely serious when I say that no photograph or video can truly replicate how absolutely incredible it is to see with one’s own eyes.
But I digress.
To put it simply, the band was relentless. Songs launched into each other with the beat of Dale Crover’s pounding, primal drums with barely any time to spare, blending the night’s sequence of events together like a syrupy sweet molotov cocktail. Yet sonic blasts of pent up punk rock fury still played ping pong with sublime, smirking moments of teasing quiet throughout the night—thanks, complex and diverse song structures. “Bob” bless their current bass player, Steve McDonald, who wore what I initially thought was an ironically awful white disco suit before realizing it was some sort of fancy kung-fu jacket accented with gold, elevated from it’s previous Halloween costume status. He was clearly having the time of his life up there, hopping around, crouching, and striking many an audacious pose throughout the night. And then there was Buzz, the one perhaps most appropriately dressed up for Halloween in July in his iconic skeleton robes. I can safely say I’ve never been more intimidated by a man than I was there in my spot in front of the vicious King Buzzo himself, and that’s a good thing. I was even too intimidated to take photos when he got probably as close to my part of the audience as he could’ve gotten as he hammered on his transparent-body guitar. I was that in awe. He and Steve thrashed surprisingly precisely around the place, making good use of the stage’s expansive floor area due to Dale’s drum kit being placed so far back. Dale emerged from behind his instrument of choice at one point to use one of his sticks as a sword in a brief fencing match against the neck of Steve’s bass, which was extremely entertaining. The same goes for Buzz’s liberal use of hand gestures during breaks in songs where he didn’t play guitar, which I will always find very, very amusing no matter who is doing it (and no matter whether or not their hands should actually be strumming those strings at that place in the song). Yes. I dare say the whole band took it to twelve.
I got more used to my surroundings as the night went on. I was marked safe from the inevitable pit the entire time, though I briefly considered joining it before remembering how lucky I was to have acquired the best view of Buzz in the house. Besides which, it was really funny glancing over periodically at the antsy, stingy looking security guy at the front of the stage, who was jerking back and forth as he watched the pit with much concern. It was pretty great to glance back at, too—imagine “Honey Bucket” tearing up such a clean, modern, composed establishment! At the beginning of the show there was some sort of country band playing on one of the complex’s outdoor stages, visible through the glass wall from my initial standing position. I wonder how those guys would’ve reacted to what went on inside. In terms of my reaction, I was mesmerized, pulverized, and totally hooked even after the band left the stage. They could’ve gone on another hour and I still would’ve been wanting more.
But hey, the band is pretty well known for their tour grind, so it’ll presumably be easy to see them again down the road. I slept contently that night knowing that.
Two days later I turned eighteen. If it were 1970 I’d be old enough to kill, but not for votin’. I’ll probably be woman enough to not be able to kill or vote at all soon if this country keeps going the way it is. 246 years this week, huh? I see so many people nowadays wondering how many years it’s got left with the way things are.
Based on their hypotheses, it’s probably less than the Melvins still have in them.
(I posted some more photos here, by the way.)
Tags:Bethlehem PA, birthdays, concerts, Harsh Mellow, Helms Alee, Melvins, music, Musikfest Cafe, new experiences, photos, things I enjoy
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