College Night Musings

Sometimes I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. Do I even deserve people? Do people deserve me? Even since I was young, I always saw my self as the side character of this never ending movie. I just appear sometimes, wandering in and out of conversations I have minimal understanding of. I’m not afraid to crack a joke however if the time is right. I can get a good laugh out of people every once in a while. The rest of the time I’m just a hermit. At the end of the day, I’m a terrible listener that likes moments of attention, not useful to anyone, but no one objects to having me around.

The only time I went clubbing was with a room mate and her friend in Gainesville. I wasn’t drunk so the whole trip wasn’t much fun. Everything is so disjointed in clubs. So much energy, but nothing its directed to. That’s what always bothered me about those crowds, everywhere is close bodies without a collective beat. It’s no wonder my friends got an existential aftertaste from it all.

We walked back home through the park afterwards. All that drink didn’t stop them from looking at the bike monuments. They’re several ugly concrete blocks pressed with bike parts from an accident. There’s one on campus and the rest near the playground. The dark didn’t help alleviate their dreariness, neither did the stagnant park air, humid and silent. I’ve had a few excursions on busy roads. The diver’s here are about as trustworthy as well trained chimps in racer carts. I wouldn’t put it past one to pile drive into a dozen or more cyclists on the side lane, killing a few and fatally injuring everyone else. No one knows which incased tire spokes are of the death bikes. I can’t imagine too many in these parts care for that sort of thing, not beyond a few passing remarks or childish gawkery. That’s how we were that night, getting our prescribed dose of A’s nihilism.

“And to think you could just end up here one day. Poof! I guess we all get there eventually. We’re all passing thoughts soon enough,” she’d ramble.

These moments would end with us walking back home. The conversation would devolve into racial politics with mutual agreement, then to musings of past nights, towed cars, and drunken 3am rants that were more song than word. Conversations tend to have life cycles for talkers. This was A’s system. One that would sink into the walls of our mold chewed apartment. I endured these turbulent consciousness streams about twice a month, none the same, all with a pang of mortified curiosity and pity between us. A could talk with a chirpiness no matter her awful mood. There’s few times I can think it turned into something else. I was bound to notice when it did. Moments like that came out in loud shrill bursts. They came through the walls, pointed at no one but the dying succulents. I’ve never had the internal projection to scream in public, not even for joy.

Last winter I considered teaching myself to metal scream. I didn’t pursue it any further than a five minute Youtube tutorial. I’d have to smoke for a while to get it down. That’s what all the local vocalists do. It’s pure unfiltered camels in the south. You never see a serious metal head without one, at least in Florida. Despite my desire to learn, the likelihood of destroying my voice through practice and questionable advice is high. I might not even sound that good by the end of it. I’ve never been a fan of most female metal vocalists. The thought of a Wisconsinite woman putting on a Burzum impression brings shudders down my spine. I still represent my choosen kind at the whole foods store nonetheless. I walk around UF campus and mainstreet in a sweaty battle vest I’ll never wash. I don it for three types of occasions: good vibes, nightlife, and shows. It’s about twelve dollars for a local gig, perhaps about forty for the bigger acts in Tampa.

I look back on these times with hesitant nostalgia, undulating memories of pain, disappointment, and triumph; nam flashbacks of idle vans on the freeway, humid nights lurching through parking lots of black mud quicksand, wet air blowing through open car windows as I tempt ninety on the interstate, stories of painstaking journeys with questionable rewards. Some days the idea of a local metal show is several baked bands in a room a six people. All of them muddling between acts in candid conversation to stave off exhaustion. It’s an endurance test of boredom and wondering how long you can push off the fact your car might get robbed by nightfall. I learned the hard way that nothing is guaranteed with local acts. That’s the fun and pain of it.

The things I do to get in the zone, even a few seconds in the zone. It’s the hardest and easiest state of mind to achieve. That energy more so chooses you than you choose it. I came across it the first time when Power Trip was still an active band. Metal is like no other form of listening experience. It’s a wave you either catch or don’t. When you catch that wave, it’s a mindset comparable to a deep meditational state, this eerie but powerful moment of lightness, a dancing monk in spikes, arms swinging to a crowd of no one, and the crowd answering back. There’s more dimensions to thrashing than most take credit for. Sometimes the best results come from a fire being lit under my ass. I’m not one to fantasize disemboweling though my tunes, I can transfer my pain in some ways however, see it as mere electrical vibrations, ones with a tantalizing rhythm. Once I hear it, I can not unhear it. For as far as anyone knows I’m not myself in these moments. I’m part of something powerful and indescribable, a transcendence of any cliche it may have sprouted from. It’s futile to ponder the state for long, perhaps equally futile to find it again,

I’m not sure what trying means. It’s a state so easy to remember and forget at the same time. There’s some use doing, but less use trying. It’s a horrid pendulum of both forces, one side there and back again, neither bringing out quality insight. Coherent thoughts come out in small spurts. It’s back to nebulousness then after that, a game of going somewhere and only being semi correct on the final destination. You don’t touch the same water twice, I suppose thoughts are like that. I suppose dreams are like that as well. The bigger question is, what’s the water in the first place, is it atoms, molecules, sounds, feelings, tastes? It’s the bane of a “deep” sixteen year old's existence, and one that still puzzles me to this day. I can never choose a creative endeavor without feeling its the right time to do so. It changes by years, months, minutes. I’ll be out of it all soon. All I can do is vibe and hope for the best.