Wednesday, December 14, 2005
Oh yes, and before I forget. Here are some of the logistics of it all:
Fox Theatre: the venue of the show. Click on the 360 tour if you have Java in your browser. Imagine that view in the dark and with a black background with lights on it instead of the palace picture.
More photos here, here, and here.
From the Wikipedia description of the band:
The most recent incarnation of Phil & Friends, including Lesh, John Molo, Larry Campbell, Chris Robinson (vocals; The Black Crowes), Barry Sless (guitar and pedal steel; David Nelson Band), and Mookie Seigel (keyboards; David Nelson Band), debuted in November 2005.
The Phil & Friends concept takes the music of the Grateful Dead (and an ever-increasing number of other influences, including Bob Dylan, Traffic, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Haynes' own Gov't Mule, the Allman Brothers, etc) and continues the tradition of exploring it in new ways. A Phil & Friends show is often more focused on harder, faster rock than the Grateful Dead were [...] Yet they are also extremely adept at the long, spacy, exploratory jams the Grateful Dead made famous. Lesh has been fond of calling it "Dixieland-style rock."
The setlist will be posted in a link off of here at some point for those interested in seeing what was played.
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.
Thursday, December 08, 2005
So I had two new experiences yesterday, one of which was small but new, the other of which I'm still trying to figure out how to deal with in my head.
I went to the 40 Watt club to see a free screening of a new DVD of one of the late Bill Hick's shows that I hadn't seen. I bought a couple of drinks (an amaretto sour and a terrapin rye pale ale) to be more in sync and harmony with the vibration of a bar and because with each drink you get a raffle ticket to try to win a copy of the DVD. At the end of the showing, I didn't win the DVD, but I could still feel that I had alcohol in me. I'd had the two drinks over about an hour and a half period, fully finishing the second one just a few minutes before I left so I don't know how close I was to the legal limit or whether I exceeded it. Nevertheless, I was nervous but decided to make a go for it. The drive was uneventful.
The second thing happened when I stopped at Kroger to get some grocery shopping done on the way home from the club. I was just going about my shopping as usual when all of the sudden someone commented me on my earrings. I thanked him and tried to move on but he wanted to keep talking. He liked how I was wearing long, dangly earrings instead of the normal small ones that guys wear (and that I usually wear). I excused myself saying that I had early class today (true), but as I parted he mentioned something about how he wished he could follow me around the store and get my number.
I kept walking and when I got to an aisle out of his sight, I had to stop the cart and try to deal with the fact that I'd just been hit on by a gay guy. Although I wouldn't rule out some kind of experimentation, I don't consider myself particularly attracted to guys, so in that way it was weird. On the other hand, I have been heard to lament that guys have to do all of the work and how it would be nice to play the stereotypical girl role in these sorts of interactions, so in that way, it was a bit thrilling. So I just stood in the aisle with a grin on my face but my mind reeling.
I continued to walk and then he showed up again and started talking again. After just about every remark he made, he interjected "is it okay to say that?". He said things like how my smile matched my earrings, how I'd been turning him on back there, how I looked good, etc. He also asked me whether I ever go to a particular bar and proceeded to tell me where it was. All in all, his behaviour was very flirtatious. It was a little creepy at this point and letting him give me his number (I wasn't about to give him mine) was the only way to easily get rid of him, although even with that he mentioned several times not to lose it and how we could start off being phone friends.
So, what did I learn from this experience? Well, for one, just because they don't have to be the aggressive one in pursuit of romance/sex, the girl's role still is not necessarily easy or comfortable. Also, I have a deepened appreciation of how a girl's actions of just trying to be nice can be misinterpreted by a guy as romantic interest. I also learned what it feels like to have an experience that is, on one plane, pleasurable, and, on another plane, not what you want, is like and how it is harder to understand and deal with. I guess it is an infinitesimally smaller analogy to a woman dealing with the emotional trauma of rape mixed with the physical pleasure sensations that sometimes accompany it.
Another lesson came from the synergy of this experience and a conversation I had online with someone the other day. I learned that the average age of first sex (16.9 and dropping) in this country is much younger than I had ever guessed. I see more and more how pervasive sex is in society and how it seems to be an integral part of relationships even at the dating level at my age. Before last night, I'd never been given the opportunity to really make the choice to engage in sexual activity. If I'd actually been interested in this guy and wanted to do anything with him, with the way he was acting I'm sure I could have gotten something.
I have realized in thoughts after I got home and today that quite frankly I'm scared shitless of sex, even if it was with someone that I would actually be interested in. Autoerotic activities, seeing pornographic media and joking about sex with friends doesn't phase me at all, but any thought of actual interpersonal sexual interaction or physical actions which typically increase sexual arousal levels and/or lead to sex, absolutely paralyze me. I'm not even sure what to attribute the cause of these feelings to. Although my first thought is to blame the sexual repression of mormonism, I am rather sure that I can say that mormonism does not systemically cause this reaction in people. My primary evidence for that is that most mormons, once married anyway, eagerly, though nervously, hop in bed and go right at it like jackrabbits. I can't blame it on my family atmosphere either because my sister seemed to have no qualms about it with her marriage. I don't think my brother will have any issue with it when he chooses to do it since he rather enjoys physical relations with girls insofar as he has experienced them. So, why do I have this problem? Is there some aspect of my personality or diathesis that made me particularly vulnerable to some family, church, or social stressor and triggered this condition? Even within the bounds that church, family, and society has said that sexuality is okay (typically marriage), I don't think my fears would be assuaged, so I can't even just blame it on mental shaping to provoke a bad reaction in "wrong" situations and a good reaction in "right" situations.
Today it is rainy and cold, but yesterday the clouds were beautiful. Very high, some wispy, some fluffy but all thin. I sat on the bus looking at them and the mix of the various types as well as one of those airplane trails and the following is what ran through my head:
like a trilobite in the skyNevermind that real trilobites didn't have blood. That doesn't change the imagery.
pierced through the heart
with God's own arrow
the energy of its motion
twined with the mist of its blood
painted a dewdrop road
to the earth
Sunday, December 04, 2005
Thursday night had a nice alignment of ideas. Allison has recommended to me before to try out the Phi Kappa literary society at the school, but I've been unable to do so since their meetings start at 7 PM and I don't get out of class until 7:45 PM. I've also wanted to check out other activities on campus but rarely do I find one that fits with my schedule and is interesting enough to me to make it worth the drive and parking and time to go to it
So, early in the week I get an invitation on Facebook to go watch a debate sponsored by Phi Kappa. I note that it begins at 8 PM rather than their normal 7 PM and that its topic is the War on Drugs. Hmm, need I say more?
So, I arrive at the UGA Chapel a few minutes early and I walk in, making progress on another of my projects, that being to see and become familiar with more of campus so that I feel more kinship to it. I love old buildings and this was no exception. I walked in and sat down at one of the pews to wait for it to begin. When I looked to the back wall of the building I became entranced when I saw a magnificent painting hanging on the wall. It is a 17'x23 1/2' oil painting called "Interior of St. Peter's Rome" by George Cooke. I've been to St. Peter's cathedral before and it was amazing but I don't remember having the same amazement at it being there as seeing this painting. Both are incredible but I think they speak to different parts of the psyche. Speaking of paintings, today I learned that the paintings of Delacroix are fabulous.
The debate itself was interesting to watch. Both sides seemed to be against the use of drugs and the question of debate seemed to be more focused on whether the anti-drug offense should be treated as a criminal problem or a medical problem. Both sides gave some interesting facts but only the pro-War on Drugs person managed to toss out anything that really got me to wax philosophic. He did it in two parts. He mentioned that a lot of his viewpoint on the war on drugs come from the perspective of a parent and that he believes that most people's opinions on a lot of things, including drugs, change when they become parents. The other thing he mentioned that played into this thought is that a lot of the ethical/moral stance of the anti-war on drugs side comes from an adherence to social contract theory but that this viewpoint is flawed because it assumes that everyone comes into the world as a fully functional and capable of making decisions adult rather than as a dependent child. This was important to me since I quite heavily subscribe to the social contract theory. For those that don't know what it is, in the form put forth by Rousseau, it is: "In order to live in society, human beings agree to an implicit social contract, which gives them certain rights in return for giving up certain freedoms they would have in a state of nature" (Social Contract). In a libertarian sense, as I like to use it, it comes down to the Wiccan rede of "An it harm none, do as ye will."
The reason that it got me thinking is because it requires that a world inhabited completely by adults would function differently from a world in which children are a factor. It may even be generalizable to the point where any deep rooted need to protect another person would cause the same problems. It causes an imposition of belief, will, and values on other people and standing in the way of people trying to find their own path because in your beliefset, what they want to explore is wrong. In some objective sense, it may actually be wrong by a common set of values (things like dying is bad, doing things that hurt your body is bad, doing things to ruin social relationships is bad, etc.), but even this is an imposition of values rather than an education of ideas in a non-biased way and allowing the person to make their own choice. This, however, brings us to the social contract problem. A child's reasoning ability is not matured enough to allow them to make rational judgments on things and sometimes if we want them to be around long enough to be able to explore rationally, some guidance is needed. Then there is also the little problem I learned about in my abnormal psych class. It turns out that people actually need structure, and in some people with some conditions (e.g. AD/HD), lack of structure can cause a lot of psychological problems. So, I want to be able to live in a world where I am free to explore and find myself, my path, and experience what I feel I need to in order to become who I want to, but due to the way the universe is built, especially with regards to emotional attachments, maturity of children, and other psychological/biological issues, society, like the mormon church and other organized groups, must build itself around some common denominator and thus restrict people like me, perhaps even to the point that some of the experiences I need will be forever out of my reach, not due to universal laws, but due to the restrictions of other people. Even though I can understand some of their reasoning, it is still difficult to not develop some level of frustration or misanthropy when you know that some things will never change and those things stand in your way of where you want to get.
It would be nice if there were some parallel world or society where a world existed that would facilitate these other forms of growth. Unfortunately, since the roots of the problem are psychological and biological, such an alternative society would be ultimately untenable. Emotional flux would still be present, people would still be damaged from their time in the real world, and eventually emotions would lead to sex would lead to children inviting in that virus where your previous goal for self-progression and self-expansion through experience is coopted and redirected to fueling the growth and expansion of your offspring and you are reduced to a paranoid human cyst. No longer do you yourself progress in mind and spirit but that particle of being of yours was thrust out of your body as gamete and taken over by your children. You no longer have the vigor to change the world, to see the world, to be the world. I may be speaking strongly and naively out of inexperience, but it is difficult for me not to see the world in this way. I think it is possible in some ways to break out of this sticky mess, but I really don't think it is possible to completely escape what it does to you, but only to perhaps put it in remission like the herpes simplex virus. Nevertheless, once you have it, it is always there. Enough on this before I get really out there and piss people off.
So, after the main debate, Phi Kappa retreated across the court to the Phi Kappa building (yes, score, another checked off of my list!) to continue with their own debate on whether or not marijuana less than 28 grams should be decriminalized. By the end of this debate, I decided that debate societies are really not my thing at all. The whole thing seemed like a farce to me. The structure, while perhaps necessary, was glaringly obvious and seemed completely ridiculous. There was required protocol on how to get the floor, how to address the floor, as well as specific codified procedures on roles and positions in the society. On top of that, they use the whole fictive kinship thing of calling each other "brother" and "sister". Watching them in their various roles was ridiculous as well. They tried to operate within the protocol of their system as if it mattered and you could almost see the rigid structure of their ruleset and they were like worms inside the mold squirming around obviously trying to fit a mold that was not native to their individual shapes. This noncongruence of forms served to make the whole thing look even more contrived and false. Some people would get up and give out useful information, others would get up and make an emotional argument and refuse audience questions. It bothered me that people could go on their little rants and spew out ludicrous information and ideas and be able to refuse any input or questions to challenge them. Even when they were done, there was still control over who could have the floor, so really it is possible to give the appearance of free speech while dominating from the chair. Other people seemed to be arguing just for the sake of arguing, not because they wanted to refine the point or express some idea with a rational passion (that's not an oxymoron, is it?). By the end, when they took their vote, views from both sides had been expressed, but the result to me was meaningless. In order to have their debate they had to make the issue so narrow as to make it too simple. I think that most everything in this world exists in contexts and relationships and that to try to examine an issue completely independent of these relationships and contexts is to examine a completely different and irrelevant issue. It also left many valid questions and ideas from the audience in limbo because they were refused a voice.
In short, I liked the first part of the debate a lot more. It was full of more useful information and more fully develop their arguments to give the audience things to think about. The second debate, while admittedly less serious by their account, had more of an unreal feeling to it due to being in and old building with a tripartite pulpit, secretary's stand, gavel, set of roles, and protocol which is neat since it is almost like a different world, however it betrayed its falsity by its rigid structure.
So, in summary, I went to learn about the war on drugs and instead I learned that there are limitations in the foundations of society that restrict me from achieving some of my life goals, but that those limitations have psychological and biological roots and as such are not likely to be gotten rid of and are likely to be inherent in any society that is created and even if a separated society is created on different rules, these fundamental attributes of humanity will pervade and the alternate society will fall apart out of its own glaring incongruity with human nature. Is it then human nature itself that I am both victim of and opposed to?
In any case, must I really choose between abandoning my spiritual quest and living a path that I know I can never complete?
Perhaps this is why I'm so obsessed with the dream state, studying the drug state, reading unusual books, etc. They allow me even a fraction of time in a parallel world that perhaps can transcend even these fundamental limitations. But if this is so, then the psyche is capable of that state ("it's all in the mind") and ... maybe a topic for another time.
