T. Kline's Decline: 2011

The name of this story is Fucked Up. And that’s not just because that’s what I am right now. But I am. It’s the name of the band I’m currently watching from the balcony at the Exit/In. I’ve already separated from my best friend, Daniel, who came here to spend time with Tracy, a girl he’s interested in. They’re somewhere in the densely packed crowd. I already decided that I couldn’t cope with being surrounded by other people in my fragile, inebriated state. Plus this volume is assaulting.

Fucked Up is a punk band. They’re not quite hardcore punk, but not quite pop punk. They lie somewhere in between. The music itself is melodic and catchy but dense and layered at the same time. And the vocals are aggressive and confrontational. The band itself is comprised of six people. The vocalist is huge, around 6’4” and about 300 lbs with phenomenal stage presence. He commands the crowd. The bassist is female; a sort of anti-beauty queen. She’s chubby but is dressed rather feminine, with a long floral printed skirt and a blouse that makes he breasts look like pyramids and shows the slightest amount of her stomach. Greg, friend that introduced me to this band in the first place, claimed that she was gorgeous. After showing me pictures and a video, I didn’t agree. Now I see what he was talking about.

The rest of the band (three guitarists and a drummer) looks remarkable in that they don’t look remarkable at all. They all wear Sperry Topsiders and polo shirts; not exactly what you would think someone playing hard, fast punk music would wear. And I find this odd because upon inspection of the audience in attendance I’m amazed at the diverse crowd of the people the band has brought together.

Now, I make conscious effort not to associate my self with any scene or social clique. I used to be hipster. I used to get dressed up and order gin & tonics and dance to bad house music. I also associated myself, through proxy mostly, with a group I’ll henceforth refer to as the anti-hipsters. The anti-hipsters are even more exclusive than the hipsters. They try so hard to be un-hip that they actually end up coming off more pretentious then the actual hipsters. Their group is mostly based around music, which is a narrow form of lo-fi garage punk. Not quite the music being played tonight, but their heroes, the band Jeff the Brotherhood (the band who has gotten the most mainstream exposure of their clique), were the opening act. (I missed them.) The two groups couldn’t be anymore different, but are essentially the same. They each are exclusionary and elitist, just in different ways. The hipsters sniff cocaine, the anti-hipsters smoke weed. The hipsters dress like it’s the twenties. The anti-hipsters dress like it’s the eighties. The hipsters attend dance parties at clubs with lit dance floors. The anti-hipsters go to rock shows in someone’s basement. But they’re both here. The band is melodic enough to attract the hipsters, but hard and fast enough to bring the anti-hipsters. You can hear it in their music; you can see it in their fashion choices.

This whole dichotomy begins to weigh on my mind. The band now seems calculated and passé. Their music comes off less genuine. The fact that their name is Fucked Up adds to this. Like they chose the name to be edgy and abrasive. It’s almost as if they made a deliberate choice to combine all of these elements into something that would be appealing in a narrow way to specific kinds of music listeners. Like a boy band, they seem like were put together by a record label. Obviously this isn’t true but that’s the way it appears to my drug-addled mind.

I also realize that I don’t know any of these songs. Don’t get me wrong, I have listened to Fucked Up. The band’s music may be loud and aggressive but three guitarists playing intertwining parts adds an atmospheric element to their sound. They have certainly taken cues from Phil Spector, the legendary producer famous for writing and producing the Ronnettes’ ‘Be My Baby.’ This song is the most famous example of his recording technique known as the wall of sound, wherein multiple instruments play the same part at the same time (not to mention a healthy dose of echo and reverb added) leading to a congealed sonic attack on the listener’s ears. Point being, his sound has influenced nearly all of the music I listen to. Maybe this why I don’t really listen to punk, but listen to Fucked Up. But at this moment, I realize that I haven’t really listened to them. I mean, I’ve heard their music but never truly listened to it. It’s just become background noise, like a fridge buzzing. I treat it like a more intense version of Brian Eno or something.

By this time the lead singer has hopped off the stage and has entered the audience. Soon, he’s out of my field of vision and I figure he’s gone under the balcony, so I just focus on the band. Eventually I look at the crowd and realize that they’ve all turned around and are looking up. I look to my right and realize that the singer in all his sweaty shirtless glory is up on the balcony. A mere fifteen or so feet away from me. I was so stoned I didn’t realize it. Closer and closer he approaches me. I realize that sooner or later I’m going to have to face him so I get up and begin dancing with him like a sex crazed teenager his first time at real nightclub. Almost immediately I become self conscious because everyone is staring at me and I hadn’t noticed the singer up there for at least four minutes. I just sat there thinking about aforementioned things. After he descends back to the stage, I’m so embarrassed I retreat to the bar to get another beer and make my way to Daniel, who I owed a beer to anyway.

I’m six feet from the stage now and the volume is rattling my organs and piercing my soul. It’s the complete opposite of my experience atop the balcony. My field of view has narrowed and the majority of the sound I’m hearing comes from one guitarist’s amp. I’m standing next to Daniel, Tracy, and Mikey, who’s more Daniel’s friend than mine mostly because that’s who Daniel buys his pot from. I tell Daniel that I have a tab at the bar and to get himself a beer on it, but before he can Tracy grabs his wrist and drags him to the mosh pit. So I’m standing there feeling completely uncomfortable. I also know that my ears will be ringing for the next two or so days.

I look behind me and see Jake and Jamin Orrall, who comprise the opening band Jeff the Brotherhood looking like they don’t care as well as they possibly can. I also see Adam Moltz, the singer in Mikey’s band Badcop. I was supposed to shoot a music video for Badcop some time ago but later decided against it when I realized that Adam was hell bent on destroying himself. He confessed to me backstage at one of his shows whilst on a combination of psychedelic mushrooms, Xanax, beer, and weed that he thought of himself as a Jim Morrison or an Ian Curtis. Someone who was going to release three albums and die before he turned 30. He ended our brief exchange with, “Live fast, die young.” I never called him again.

Allison Waid passes me by and I intentionally bump into her, maybe just a little too hard. I worked with Allison briefly before I got fired. I immediately found her attractive and spent the remainder of my tenure at our restaurant devising ways to appear attractive to her. Everybody that we worked with told us that we were supposed to be together and even the assistant manager confessed eventually that she had hired her to fix her up with me. We went on a couple dates, none of which were supremely eventful or went anywhere. The majority of our conversations jokingly revolved around how we hated each other’s social groups (hipster and anti-hipster). Right after I bump her she turns around and punches me in the arm rather forcefully, but smiles. She goes onto the edge of the stage and begins talking to Bekah Cope, who as ever has her camera (film, not digital, obviously) strung around her neck and his taking photographs for her blog, NASHVILLESDEAD, the bible for all things anti-hipster in Nashville. Both of them stand next to Ben Todd, who also runs the blog, and looks totally numb to the fact that he’s onstage at a giant rock show. Allison gets off the stage and comes up to me. For a second there she looks like she’s about to say something, but instead just punches me again and walks off.

By this time the noise is starting to get to me so I retreat further back and can finally see the entire stage but can also enjoy the concert at a reasonable volume. I turn and see Bekah Cope who waves to me. I’ve hung out with her a couple of times but we are by no means friends. I raise my hand to high five her or shake her hand or something, She goes in for a hug making this incredibly awkward.

The band launches into some riff I recognize as by some hair metal band from the eighties but I cannot place it beyond that. I contemplate getting out my iPhone and using Shazam, an app that recognizes songs and identifies them for you, before I realize that it wouldn’t be able to do this for a live song, much less a cover. I find myself disgusted at myself for even thinking this because I’ve realized that this is some post modern way to experience music. Using technology to tell me what I like and what I should listen to.

The lead singer announces that this will be the band’s last song and they launch into ‘Son, the Father’ the only song that I really know from them. The only reason I do know this track is because when I first began listening to the band I was very angry with God and would play the song ad nauseum because of its chorus which is a scathing rejection of salvation. And then I feel like I shouldn’t be here. Like all these things I’ve seen and all the people who I haven’t seen in months, that I’ve encountered tonight are telling me like I need to separate myself from all social cliques because somehow the evening’s absurdity represents a larger metaphor for my current state of being. I exit before the song is finished to avoid a panic attack.

The show’s now over and I stand outside contemplating the past hour and a half. The crowd is now outside. Cy Barkley, who plays in a local punk band named after himself, announces audibly to everyone to go to Dino’s, a local anti-hipster dive bar. Dino’s is right next door the No. 308, a hipster bar where the ‘official’ show after party, organized by Brandon Jazz, overall scumbag and local hipster kingpin and promoter for the Mercy Lounge and Cannery Ballroom, two adjacent venues in town. The battle lines have been drawn. Where you end up after the concert is where you stand in Nashville’s music scene. I smoke a cigarette and don’t want to appear as panicked and shaken up as I actually am so I get out my iPhone and begin looking at something. I look up and realize I’m staring at Cheyenne Cannon.

To say that Cheyenne and I have a history would be an exaggeration. We dated for a few brief months and never slept together. This was mostly because I could never open myself up to her sexually because I knew we would never end up together. I knew we would never end up together because our worldviews were so inherently polar opposite. Every argument we ever had would eventually lead up to the fact that I believed in God and she didn’t. I knew that it was destined to end. As a matter of fact, the day I knew I knew we would start dating was also the day that I knew we would break up just as quickly. Ironically, that was exactly one year ago, give or take a few days. She’s talking to Adam Moltz and my first impulse is to wonder if they ever slept together. The thought of them doing so sickens me further and I feel like I should go home.

I approach Daniel, who’s talking to Tracy and discussing which party they’re going to be attending. I tell him I want to go home and he objects stating that he wants to go out. Being a good friend, I comply. Right then, Cheyenne passes us by and only says hi to me. Daniel turns to me and says, “that’s all you get.” I shrug my shoulders and we leave and head over the river to East Nashville.

I immediately go into 308 and Daniel heads to Dino’s. 308 is new and I’m not sure it will last long before going out of business. The drinks are overpriced and the décor is overtly modern. Brandon Jazz is behind two turntables mixing Elvis Costello and Television together. I sit at the bar and see Shea Steele who owns a local vintage boutique and was once interested in a guy I briefly played in a band with. Our exchange is awkward and soon after she heads over to Dino’s. A bartender approaches me and asks me what I want. Since the bar’s whole shtick is custom organic sodas made to order, I explain that since I’m so dehydrated and that I don’t consume caffeine I want something non-alcoholic and non-caffeinated. He gives me a blank stare and sends the owner to me.

Here’s the thing about the owner, who once introduced herself as Alexis to me: she is the most attractive girl I’ve ever seen. She’s not particularly pretty, not particularly skinny, but just has this thing. That thing, if you know what I mean. I’m positively entranced by her. Enraptured. I repeat my strange request to her. She suggests something which I can’t really hear over the music and I approve. She fills two glasses with ice and pours one full of water and sets it in front of me saying, “this is to start you off, and work on that hydration thing.” I think this very maternal and even make mention of that to her. She gives a flirtatious smile and begins concocting my beverage, pouring syrup and injecting carbonation. She begins shaking it, wearing a wife beater with no bra, making her breasts rapidly bounce. I know she’s doing this purely for a tip but I wish she was doing it to naturally flirt with me.

The drink is phenomenal and I hand her my card and she asks me if I want to start a tab. My plan was to have one drink and close it out but her eyes are just so perfect I say yes. I sit there and drink and contemplate the evening’s events. Daniel sends me a text telling me to come over to Dino’s. In some feeble attempt to make the bartender jealous I leave without closing out my tab and head next door.

Dino’s is just a shit hole. It’s basically a greasy spoon that somehow realized that they could make money by staying open late and serving PBR because these punk kids somehow came there because somehow it’s cool and ironic to eat at shit holes that serve beer in mason jars. I don’t see Daniel inside, which is tiny, so I head upstairs and to the roof. The roof is where underage kids can drink the beers their legal friends got for them with no threat of being caught; it’s where people can smoke weed with no worries. I don’t know anyone and feel out of place. I see Cheyenne talking to a group of people I don’t know and glaring at me. I can’t locate Daniel so I cut my losses and go downstairs and back to 308.

To avoid the bartender for some strange reason I sit on the 308’s patio which is the only place you can smoke. I light a cigarette and realize that the bartender’s outside having a smoke as well. She soon approaches my table and clears it not before she gives me a look I want to get lost in forever. Daniel soon approaches me with Tracy by his side. Not much later Cheyenne comes by and begins a cordial conversation with me discussing mostly her roommate, who I find myself missing hanging out with more than Cheyenne. She leaves as quickly as she came.

Tracy discusses my recent move to country with me after I say that I need to leave so I don’t get to bed at 4AM because of my hour long drive.

“Why would you possibly want to move an hour away?” she asks.

“Because I need to be by myself right now and not continue to screw people over,” I tell her.

“Why do you screw people over?”

“I don’t mean to. I’m just a shitty person.”

“No one’s a shitty person.”

“If you believe that, then you’re a fucking idiot.” I reply.

“We’re all good.” She says, “We just need to learn to master our evil impulses.”

“That’s bullshit. You can’t have an evil nature and be basically a good person. Humans don’t exist on some existential plane of nothingness. You believe in a perfect love right?”

“Absolutely.” She says without hesitation.

“Then by default there has to be perfect evil. The laws of nature even say so. To every action there’s a equal and opposite reaction.”

We leave not much long after this conversation and I do get home at 4 but not before I hallucinate on the car drive home from being overtired.

I will say that the God concept is at the heart of 2001 but
not any traditional, anthropomorphic image of God. I don't believe in
any of Earth's monotheistic religions, but I do believe that one can
construct an intriguing scientific definition of God, once you accept
the fact that there are approximately 100 billion stars in our galaxy
alone, that each star is a life-giving sun and that there are
approximately 100 billion galaxies in just the visible universe. Given
a planet in a stable orbit, not too hot and not too cold, and given a
few billion years of chance chemical reactions created by the
interaction of a sun's energy on the planet's chemicals, it's fairly
certain that life in one form or another will eventually emerge. It's
reasonable to assume that there must be, in fact, countless billions of
such planets where biological life has arisen, and the odds of some
proportion of such life developing intelligence are high. Now, the sun
is by no means an old star, and its planets are mere children in cosmic
age, so it seems likely that there are billions of planets in the
universe not only where intelligent life is on a lower scale than man
but other billions where it is approximately equal and others still
where it is hundreds of thousands of millions of years in advance of
us. When you think of the giant technological strides that man has made
in a few millennia -- less than a microsecond in the chronology of the
universe -- can you imagine the evolutionary development that much
older life forms have taken? They may have progressed from biological
species, which are fragile shells for the mind at best, into immortal
machine entities -- and then, over innumerable eons, they could emerge
from the chrysalis of matter transformed into beings of pure energy and
spirit. Their potentialities would be limitless and their intelligence
ungraspable by humans.

About Me

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

this blog only makes sense if i'm writing about you (love will tear us apart, again)

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

i shouldn't do this.

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

I'm really sorry if you read your name. But you probably wont. No one reads my blog anyways.

Friday, August 19, 2011

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

is everything

Monday, May 23, 2011

kubrick on god

Thursday, May 19, 2011

ebert on malick

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