Wednesday, December 14, 2005
Most concerts are hot and crowded and smelly. Some of them like my first Ozzy Osbourne concert have a phenomenon where the music floats through the air like ripples in reality and when it penetrates you it envelopes you and you are changed essentially.
Many have heard my laments that it is hard to find experiences where everything around you with the sounds and sights and smell and feel is all in synch together. I wished to have it after the cave party scene in Matrix Reloaded. I felt some of it at Dr. Fright's Deadman's Party at Six Flags.
Monday night I was again immersed in what the world should be according to my head. I arrived in Atlanta and parked. I began to walk in the midst of the city knowing that I was close to the theatre but not knowing where to go. A homeless man came up to me and tried to sell me his coat for a few dollars. I didn't want to deprive a man of his coat, but I gave him some money to show me the way. He hugged me while I guarded my pockets and left with a smile on his face. I walked up to the theatre in anticipation seeing people with Jamaican caps or long hair or dreadlocks on their heads. I entered the palacial theatre.
I walked about alone surrounded by a concentrated solution of beautiful people. I watched them. I looked to see if there was anyone I knew. There wasn't. I went and found my seat only to move a seat down to let some others sit together.
The lights dimmed and I looked around me. Above me was the floor of the balcony, to the sides of me were arched stone doorways. To the sides ahead were facades of windows on the walls. It was like being in a cavern, a castle, or an Arabian palace. In the front of the room was a stage littered about with musical equipment. When the band came out to the stage, the crowd rose to their feet as if the density of the room had changed and everyone floated up to another plane. The music started the flow and the rest of the environment followed. The lights projected on the black backdrop, the air began to waft with smoke as little amber glowing pockets sprouted and then disappeared. The ushers to complete the balance took on the authoritarian role in the midst of this happy gathering and walked about scanning the crowds with their flashlights. They couldn't stop what had begun.
After about an hour it stopped and everyone began to move out. I thought it was over so I started to move out and looked for the exit. I found myself following the flow of the crowd and then I discovered I'd been flushed into a caged area where smoking was permitted. Only the legal smokes took place out here, the real stuff happened surreptitiously as a part of the creation of the temporary alternate world inside. After fighting out of this stagnant mass of bodies, I walked around in the lobby and located the exit door. Nobody was walking out of it, so I stood near the door and watched. I stood there in a dazed confusion trying to figure out why everyone was just hanging around. Was there some Dead tradition that I did not know about? Was the first session only an opening band and the real thing was yet to come? I felt like I was on the trail to Eleusis and that the great mystery was yet to come and so then I must persevere to gain enlightenment.
After some time the lights in the lobby blinked a few times as if it was a signal to the subconscious mind to reactivate the newly created channels. The auditorium acted like a vacuum and we all flowed back in and then the ceremony recommenced. The same performers came back to the stage and then upped the ante a bit. Through the Arabian haze, they sent out waves of guitar and drums and keyboard and harmonica and violin and sitar. The uninterrupted stream of harmonies were like seeds of consciousness allowing you to just be yet think yet still be in the moment all at the same time. When my legs would get sore from standing I would sit like Buddha on the arm of the chair so that my eyes were still high enough to lock in on the signal.
When it finally came to the inevitable end and Phil had his words about the beauty of the venue and the importance of organ donors and the encore was finished, the house lights came on. Like a subconscious signal again, these lights let me know it was time to go this time. As I walked back toward the car, another homeless man approached me. He was nice and seemed legitimately down on his luck but I didn't want to just give out money when I am myself limited financially. As the crowds dissipated, I had an idea. Though I felt that being alone with someone I didn't know in the middle of a city was perhaps not a safe situation, I flipped some cosmic switch and realized the way to solve the problem. I asked the man to walk a little more with me. I liked him and talked to him along the way and got him to walk with me all the way to my car. Having someone along like that made me feel safer because I knew that there were worse situations I could possibly find myself in alone. When we got to the car, I gave him a few dollars for his troubles and we parted amiably.
I think I actually like homeless people. I wish I could spend time with them and just talk to them and hear about them and their life. I wish I had more money to give to them for that bit of time I wish to spend with them. Though in theory they could be filled with deceit for the purpose of procuring money, it seems to me that when someone is that down on their luck they become more real than if all of their life has been spent in artificial suspension through the holographic reality that society superimposes on top of what is real.
As I began to drive home, I realized that I had a problem. I was tired because of the long day and early final. I had a little headache from the intensity and duration of sound. But that wasn't all. As I drove, I would notice that I was wandering around inside my head and that my hands on the wheel driving down the road was detached from my mind. At times in my field of vision I'd only catch a few frames of vision of the road giving me a jumpy, slideshow view as if life were a movie and didn't matter but I knew it had to. Although I had not used any substances myself at the show, obviously the haze in the air was heavy enough that I definitely picked up a contact buzz. Driving around lost in the city and then on the interstate slightly stoned wasn't exactly an appealing idea, but I had to get back. As I drove my fatigue grew noticeably. Coupled with the headache and the light high, I became increasingly aware that I wasn't in the best conditions to drive, but that it was only getting worse.
I got home safely and going to sleep seemed like a heavenly idea. Following tradition, the following day I put on the t-shirt purchased at the concert and began walking down the hall toward my car to go to take a final exam. I noticed that the hallway smelled very strongly of marijuana and then suddenly realized it was my own shirt. After a good laugh, I rushed back to the apartment, sprayed on a little perfume, and resumed my trek to the final. When I got there, one of my classmates said it looked like I was glowing so I must have gotten a good night's sleep. Whether it was simply the light effects from the shirt or the experience the night before I cannot say....
but it was unbelievable.