Three Strangers

I am in Target. It is full of crabby shoppers and harried staff. I am just entering the aisle of 10,000 Christmas Things when my Tardis ringtone starts: rrrrWOOOrrrrWOOOrrrrWOOO… rrrrWOOOrrrrWOOOrrrrWOOO… rrrrWOOOrrrrWOOOrrrrWOOO…. (What’s a Tardis? you wonder. Here: more than you wanted to know, but you asked for it.)

A lady in the same aisle, coolly assessing wrapping paper, predictably  glances up, has no interest in the Tardis or me, and goes back to it. Suddenly, a (tired, stressed-looking) Target Employee comes running around the corner, yelling “TAKE ME WITH YOU, DOCTOR!” He nearly knocks me over.

Alarmed, the lady asks: “Is he ok? Are you a doctor? Should I call an ambulance?” Mr. Target Employee & I look at each other and start laughing like loons. We can’t stop. Wrapping Paper Lady looks affronted. He finally collects himself and says to her “Sorry, ma’am. It’s a geek thing. Happy Holidays.”

Then he shakes my hand, turns, and returns from whence he came.

I am still grinning when I walk out of the store. I am still grinning when a friend texts me one word: Connecticut. My smile fades as I scroll through my Twitter feed to find out what’s going on. The news is fresh and contradictory, but one thing is clear: some asshole walked into a school and killed a bunch of little kids. Holy fuck. Little kids.

The face of every kid I love shines behind my eyes. Then: no. Don’t go there.

I drive over to my sister’s house. It’s where I go when things feel rough, you know? We talk for awhile, about how horrible it is, how it’s not happening to us, yet it is happening to us. I mean, we’re fine. But…we’re all one family in the end. But we’re not. But it could happen to anyone, to anyone’s kids. But it didn’t, it happened to specific people and specific kids. It shouldn’t happen to anyone. But it does. All the time. All we can conclude is that little kids are dead, it’s messed up, and we feel helpless and terrible. In this moment, I am happy that I don’t have children. By the time I leave, my mind is back on my errands.

I stop at a gas station. As I walk up to the door, I see a guy in a Massive Pick-Up Truck (I live in the land of MPUTs). His head is down and his shoulders shaking. He looks up and I see tears running down his face.

Hesitating a bit, I go over to his window. He rolls it down. Big, burly dude, wearing a farm-battered Carhartt coat.

Me: “Are you ok? Are you sick?” Flashback to TAKE ME WITH YOU, DOCTOR!

Him: “No…I’m not sick. I’m not ok. I just dropped my boy off at practice, and I keep thinking about those kids in Connecticut. All those kids. And I just keep thinking of my kid…” He starts crying, hard. I reach into the window and take his hand. I start crying, too, of course.

I stand there and cry with this guy (I never got his name). He finally gives my hand a squeeze and lets go. He says thanks. I say, same goes. He rolls up his window, Puts his MPUT in gear, and goes. I sit in The Red Barron (my car) until I calm down. It never really happens, but I have to head home. I take the long way, feeling awful, and sniffling.

I am halfway home when: fuck this. I turn the radio on, and crank it loud. It helps. I’m waiting at a stoplight and singing along to LCD Soundsystem’s Daft Punk Is Playing at My House (My House), when I look over and see this kid in a Toyota, also singing his heart out. After a minute, I realize, Holy Shit! He’s singing the same song.  He notices me, does a double take as he realizes the same thing, rolls his windows down, and turns the music UP. I do the same. Winter air washes over me. The bassline makes our cars shiver. We howl along.

We don’t move until the cars behind us start honking. He waves once, and turns the corner.

 

Music for Mountain Roads

Things I associate with other things:
The MN State Fair and mini-donuts
Bare feet and the beach
The smell of alcohol and hospitals
Indian mountain roads and very loud music through headphones

*   *   *   *   *   *

On the way down from the hill town of Munnar, we bounce and shimmy over a road that is almost wide enough for two vehicles to pass comfortably. Sometimes, leaping around a switchback, we meet another vehicle. Both lurch to a halt. The drivers communicate with complicated hand signals and abrupt jerks of their chins. Usually the coming-down-the-mountain vehicle reverses, maneuvering backwards up a hairpin turn or two. We find a place to squeeze by, like a passenger in the window seat scooting up to the airplane aisle. Now imagine doing that if, instead of the seatbacks in front of you, there’s nothing but a drop-off and empty air. I peer out my window as we rattle past a truck; it may as well be 10,000 feet down.

As soon as we’re clear, the car sprints forward. This is less of a flat-race than hurdles: we spend a great deal of time partially airborne, crashing back to the road with elephantine grace. I hold the Oh, Jesus handle. (Would that be a Hai-Ram handle in India?) Unlike the USA, where the Oh, Jesus handle is so called because it’s what passengers grab in an emergency or accident, here in India, these situations are so constant they lose urgency. You learn to hold the handle (or the prayer, if you swing that way) the whole time. You keep your bag zipped up so that when it is flung onto the floor all your stuff doesn’t fall out and roll around. My headphone cord is arranged in such a way that it will not strangle me if I am flung onto the floor (learned that the hard way); the phone it is plugged into is wedged carefully so it does not become a projectile (same incident). 

I am listening to Kanye West: aggressive, misogynistic, smart and melodic: Everybody knows I’m a motherfucking monster. I turn it up all the way. The sound is fantastic.

I have (have always had) diverse musical tastes. Growing up, I was as likely to listen to Air Supply as Iron Maiden, Billy Joel as Peter Tosh. But when it came time to buck over the narrow, nearly vertical paths and ruts of the Himalaya of my childhood, I always chose the loudest, most parent-disapproval-earning, ear-drum-punishing sound for my headphones. When I was young, it was as much escape from my family as anything else. I don’t know why I do it now.

Kanye threatens, howls and opines: I mean this shit is, fucking ridiculous…

I listen to the pounding bass and observe the bewildering tragicomedy of Indian billboards: smiling sari-clad women loaded in gold jewelry, a child sprays water at an Audi, half-dressed men lurk on motorcycles and scowl, happy couples jump for joy, a swami floats beatifically over a temple, a group of anxious people are menaced by a gigantic snake. There are signs for something called Globstar Sofas (that is not a typo). Every single person in every single ad could pass for white. The signs are mostly in Malayalam, a language I can’t read or speak. Besides the sofas, I have no idea what the ads are for. Movies? Wedding jewelry? Undershirts? Motorcycles? White folks?

Praises due to the most high Allah
Praises due to the most fly Prada
Baby, I’m magic. Ta-da!

I settle my sunglasses more firmly on my face (they will shake lose again in a couple of minutes) and glance over at Urban. He is wearing a fine, cream-colored cotton shirt, and a lungi (the sarong-like garment traditionally worn by Indian men). It looks good with his fair skin, unruly blonde hair, and the ease with which he carries himself. His eyes are closed and he counts prayer beads on his mala: he is meditating. I look down at myself: I am wearing capris and a shirt I bought at Ridgedale. Kanye thumps and cusses in my ears.

We got nothing to lose, motherfucker, we rolling. Motherfucker, we rollin. With some light-skinned girls…

I am the Indian one, although all the Indians in the billboards now rushing past at roughly the speed of sound have complexions closer to Urban’s than my own.

Ain’t no question if I want it: I need it. I can feel it slowly drifting away from me…

We pass painted trucks & indifferent cows, sometimes whipping by inches away. A group of shirtless men squat by the roadside drinking chai. A young woman in a pink salwar kameez roars by on a motorcycle. Our eyes meet. She does a double-take at Urban and gives me a grin and a nearly suicidal thumbs-up.

Would you rather be underpaid or overrated?
(I consider this line for some time, and try to imagine a scenario where I would have to choose between these two options. Then I realize that I already have both. This makes me happy.)

Turn up the lights in here, baby: extra bright, I want you to see this.

Urban finishes his mala, digs around for his headphones, and plugs them into my phone. This is possible due to a device that goes with me everywhere. I call it The Nifty Dual Headphone Jack Adapter Thingy. Getting all this technology out of bags and connected while the car jumps and spins takes some doing. Now Urban is trying to take pics of the billboards while holding on to the Hai-Ram handle with one hand. I turn the music down for him, a little. Kanye is picking up steam:

No more drugs for me; pussy and religion is all I need. Grab my hand and baby, we’ll live a hell of a life.

We pass a bus with an Indian-looking Mighty Mouse emblazoned on the back. Urban & I grin delightedly. We reach out to each other, but the car careens around a corner, and we have to clutch our respective handles to avoid being thrown across the bench seat and out my open window.

Exchanging amazed glances at the world outside, the same music in our ears, we can’t hold hands because the ride’s too wild. Coming down the mountain, hurtling toward the sea: we have no idea what we’ll find there.

That’s one hell of a life.

A Night at the Temple

Concerts. Kirtan. Vodou ceremonies. I don’t care, as long as there’s music.

My body is caught in the current that flows over and from 18,000 people screaming along to Tool. I had a bad day, but that’s gone now. When the music starts, the music is everything. It both brings me completely into, and totally out of, myself.

50,000 people fall silent at the opening chords to The Smashing Pumpkins “Disarm.” We are sitting on a hill on Harriet Island, back when Lollapalooza was a tour. 10,000 people chant ancient hymns on the huge ghat steps leading down to the river in Varanasi. The whole city is lit by oil lamps on this sacred night. The State Theater is packed for the Black Crowes. We have balcony seats. I will talk about this night for the rest of my life, but right now, my whole world is Chris Robinson, on stage, wailing and dancing barefoot on a Persian rug. Over the course of two hours, 1400 people at the (old) Guthrie slowly lean forward more and more and more until we are all perched on the edge of our seats, breathless, as Ali Akbar Khan first caresses, then strums then totally fucking shreds on the sarod. All these experiences were distinct, but they are all the same.

Music usually raises a fierce joy, but there have been grueling times I endure only because music protects me, insulates me, wraps around me, and keeps the world out. Sometime the only thing that keeps me from being alone is a song that express what I am unable to articulate. Music lets me know that I am not the only one to feel something; it both helps me feel it more keenly and to overcome it: with music, the only way out is through. Sometimes I think that in buffering me from the reality around me, the music somehow absorbed it. So when I hear that song again, a little of that reality leaks out.

Music has always been something that frees me. At First Avenue, 200 people dance to P-Funk. George Clinton swings his multi-colored hair in a circle and yells “Are we LIVIN?” We roar back an affirmative: yes, we are livin. 100 people on a River boat chugging along the Mississippi jump up and down in unison to Michael Franti telling us to “throw your hands up high, ‘cause you never know how long you’re gonna live till you die.” The boat is shaking. 40 people crammed in an unfinished room at The New Orleans Healing Center groove to the Afro-Jazz rhythm of Kora Konnection from Senegal. There is no room to dance. A dozen people dressed in white do have room to dance around the center pole of a Vodou temple, as the drums call the Spirits. I am barefoot on the sand, under the stars, listening to music played by gypsies. We are deep in the desert of India, and I dance with my oldest friend.

Live music is best, but my everyday life has had a variable soundtrack coming from the radio, records, tapes, CDs and now our ever expanding digital collection. I love discovering new music, but I treasure the old stuff too. It can take me back to moments, places, people I have not seen in twenty years. The beat kicks in and suddenly I am there again, the memory stored in the music.

My husband and I, and most of our friends, slamdance to Ministry’s “Jesus Built My Hotrod” in the ballroom at a Marriot: he is wearing a tux, I am in my ivory silk wedding gown. We are grinning, young, drunk. I plug my headphones in and listen to Guns and Roses. Axl Rose is the only other human being who might be as pissed off as I am right now. I am in a car with my three best friends when  Prince comes on the radio. We crank it up, pull over on the freeway, and dance. We laugh like loons, and hug each other. My mom puts on a Peter Tosh record and we move to the sound of the Caribbean. Outside, the Minneapolis streets fill with snow. I must have been about six years old.

This is the story of my life. Then, now, always.

Bands I have seen live (as well as I can remember): 
Pixies, Beck, John Mooney, Smashing Pumpkins, Twilight Singers, Tori Amos, Ministry, Dead Can Dance, Flock of Seagulls, PJ Harvey, Bela Fleck, Ani DiFranco, Stanton Moore, Beastie Boys,  Sade, Black Crowes, Blink 182, Fall Out Boy, Sean Johnson and Wild Lotus, Panic! At The Disco, Gypsy Kings, The Decemberists, INXS, Beck, Billy Idol,The Killers, Liz Phair, Gypsy Kings, Modest Mouse, NIN, Roxy Music, Rage Against the Machine, They Might Be Giants, The Black Keys, Tool, Jewel, Ravi Shankar, Trombone Shorty, Jimmy Eat World, Aerosmith, Trip Shakespeare, Lenny Kravitz, Burning Spear, Alice in Chains, Ziggy Marley, The Breeders, Ali Akbar Khan, Babes in Toyland, Tracy Chapman, Michael Franti.

I would see every single one of those bands again, with the exception of Lenny Kravitz, who was so surly and wooden that he has the distinction of being the one artist who managed to make me dislike his music, which I previously liked, after seeing him live. Maybe he was having a bad day. But come on, man, you’re opening for Aerosmith. Have some humility.

Bands I hope to see:
MIA, Primus, Santigold, Lady Gaga, White Stripes, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Rolling Stones, Snow Patrol, U2, Gaslight Anthem, Arcade Fire, My Morning Jacket, Muse, Gutter Twins, Wolfmother, Rob Zombie, Vampire Weekend, The Strokes, Ozzy, Sleigh Bells, Prince, ZZ Top, Marilyn Manson, B.B. King,  Pink, Godsmack, The Cure, Atmosphere, Black Eyed Peas, Arctic Monkeys.

Bands I wish I could have seen:
Ramones, Queen, Johnny Cash, Joy Division, GNR, Led Zep, Patsy Kline, The Clash, The Beatles, Nirvana, Bob Marley, The Doors, Peter Tosh, The Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix. The thought that I will never see Jimi Hendrix live in concert sometimes depresses me.

I almost didn’t go to the last show we had tickets for (Modest Mouse at the Orpheum) because I felt crappy. I have endometriosis, which results in chronic pain. I’m not in pain all the time, but when I am, I’d rather be curled up on the couch at home. But I wanted to go, so, fuck it, I went. There was a great crowd, everyone on their feet, screaming, cheering, singing along to the music. I look around at the wonderful cross-section of goateed, pierced, vintage-clothes-wearing Minnesota geekdom, and think: these are my people! At first I just stand there, sort of bouncing, listening to the show. But music comes in my ears and out my hips, so pretty soon I am swaying and grooving. Tentatively. Pelvic pain and pelvic motion do not go together. But after awhile, the music just…takes me, and I stop caring. I dance. I stop feeling anything besides the music. I stop being anything besides the music.

When the music gets going the beat comes up through the floor and pounds through the air, pulsing my sternum like another heartbeat. Everyone is moving, jumping up and down or swaying in place. I feel the life coursing through me, those around me, the universe. There is no difference. How can there be? We share a heart.