2020 is a year that none of us old enough to know what has been going on will ever forget. 2020 will be a year for the history books for sure. In my high school years, the Gulf War was a history-making event. Later in my life, 9/11 was the history-making event, and then in 2016, our president was a fucking idiotic, braindead reality show star. Now in 2020, we have the Covid-19 pandemic. So much shit has happened in my lifetime that I never could’ve even fathomed. I mean, I couldn’t even make this shit up; it’s so fucking crazy.
All over the world, people are feeling the stress, depression, and anxiety that comes along with being under shelter-at-home isolation. Even people like who generally hate people, miss people. Someone posted on Facebook recently, “I Still Hate People But I Miss Seeing the Ones That I Like.” That is me in a nutshell. I don’t mind staying home and not doing shit, but I do like the option of being able to do something. That freedom is no longer in my hands, and while I wish it weren’t the case, I just know that I have to make the best of this situation and do everything I can to keep me sane.
Writing has been something that has been keeping me distracted and focused. Writing gives me a creative outlet to express myself, address the reality of it all, or to escape it all into some mystical, faraway land where shit like this just doesn’t happen. Kind of like how when I was a kid and the music of bands like Iron Maiden, Dio, and Black Sabbath would sweep me away from all that sucks; I’m turning to music once again for more than entertainment; I’m looking to music as my life preserver and my ticket out of here to return to those places long since visited.
Last night I found myself in my basement just hanging out with our dog, Ozzy. My wife had gone to bed early, and I just needed some time to just, well, just be. I consumed a magic gummy bear edible, I walked up to my records, ran my finger along the spines, and stopped randomly in the As with Aphrodite’s Child’s album 666. I turned all the lights off, turned on my psychedelic ocean wave lamp, and put it on the turntable.
666 is a unique, weird, and mysterious album. The album is a conceptual album based on the lore of the apocalypse. The record consists of spoken word parts, oddly placed musical interludes, and some great psychedelic rock. I sat in my chair listening and then the song “The Four Horsemen” (not Metallica, you dumbass), and something happened. I stood up, my basement bathed in the slowly changing lights of blue to green to red to a mix of them all and back to blue again. I just closed my eyes, restarted the song, and suddenly I was moving.
I was moving to the song, my eyes closed, and feeling the mixture of the effects of the gummy bear mixed with the overwhelming feeling of needing to move to the music. The subtle movements turned to more broad reaches with my arms and then eventually into a full-on dance. Do you know those people at Dead shows that everyone makes fun of? You know, the hippies that just stand there, eyes closed, and just swaying and moving their arms. Well, that was me.
At this point, I wasn’t done, though. I felt so great. It felt cathartic and almost as if I was living that old cliché of “dance the blues away.”
I have my phone connected to my stereo via Spotify, so I pulled up a playlist that has a bunch of my favorite songs, but I really just wanted to keep dancing. It felt right, and it felt good. “Vestigia” by Lykantropi, “You and Eyes” by Jess and the Ancient Ones, “Help on the Way/Slipknot!/Franklin’s Tower” by the Grateful Dead, and “Sunchild” by Children of the Sun kept me moving for another 30 minutes, at least. I was sweating; I was smiling, I was high as a fucking kite but must of all I was happy.
When I went to my first Phish show on November 9th, 1996, I remember not knowing what to do. I don’t dance. I have the rhythm of a rock, and all the grace of an old mattress being thrown down a flight of stairs. This girl came up to me, hugged me, asked me why I wasn’t dancing. She said, “You don’t need to know. Just close your eyes, let your body move with the music, and dance like everyone is watching you!”
I always thought that was kind of a great quote: “Dance like everyone is watching you.” Typically, one would never agree to this because few like to be looked at like a spaz, but after many Phish shows and many Grateful Dead offshoot shows, I learned that nobody cares what you look like. Nobody cares how you dance. Everyone is there with their own agenda, but the unified plan is to just forget about all the bullshit that is happening outside those doors and live for that very moment that will not come again or has yet to come.
Ok, I know it sounds all cosmic and whatever but to bring it back around, I danced. I listened to the music I love, and I just dropped all inhibitions and let myself move. The music dictated where I was going and how I was going to move. For that small moment in time, nothing mattered. There was no virus, I didn’t feel trapped, and I didn’t wish for things to be different. I didn’t even think. It was just me, the music, the overwhelming and exciting feeling of becoming one with the music.
So I guess what I’m trying to say here is to don’t lose faith. Things aren’t going to be like this forever, but while things are fucked up and crazy, find solace in the things that make you happy and fulfilled. If it’s painting, paint outside the lines. If it’s running, run until you can’t run any further. If it’s music, put it on, close your eyes, and dance like everyone is watching you. You’ll be glad you did.
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