Echo

The Hollywood Bowl is Mecca

Anyone who gets a chance should go see a concert at the Hollywood Bowl at least once in their lifetime, if not as often as possible. The shows put on by KCRW are usually the best as they pull a lot of artists from around the world, and seeing people who come from completely different cultures express themselves is something that gives you a whole different perspective on life in itself. But the whole feel of the place, the background as the sun sets behind the mountains, the positive energy, the fact that you can bring in your own food & drink (and they look the other way when it comes to weed)…it’s a spiritual experience.

This is a more recent thing, but I like to get high just as the sun’s setting, and then spend the rest of the evening feeling the music, the vibes and watching people and learning about all the different types out there. It makes me really love and appreciate people. I think being at the Bowl relaxes people which makes them project more honestly, and you’d be surprised how much you could learn about different personalities or humans in general just by taking in everything. It’s beautiful on so many levels.

Earlier this week, I realized that the only person I wanted to go with was my friend Colin. Otherwise, I wanted to go alone. Colin’s someone who’s himself almost no matter what, so you can talk or not talk to him, and it’s still very comfortable. I’ve found that lately, I’ve had a real lack of patience for vapid, superficial interaction and conversation. I just feel like I’m wasting myself and my time, because when you’re busy making small talk with people who don’t really know you or care to know you because they live on a more surface level, you’re trying to make yourself as bland, as acceptable and as mildly pleasant as possible. But it sucks! It’s like having a Ferrari, but you can only drive in a parking lot. It’s like being put into a little box when you know you have so much more to offer and you’re so much bigger, and it’s pretty magnificent. In these more surfacey interactions, I’m not really getting to be myself with all of my parts present, and I’m having a harder time being tolerant of that anymore if it’s not a situation where socially, I have to be a certain way (ie for work, etc). I would rather be by myself, or be with people who accept and enjoy the whole me. I just want to be able to relax and be myself. I don’t mind more superficial interactions sometimes. It’s good to have balance and relate to people on the different levels they’re comfortable with. But lately, I just feel like I’ve been doing a lot of spiritual work, so all I wanna do is be in situations where I can drop any masks or dividing lines within myself and just relax.

So I had asked Colin earlier this week, and he finally got back to me the day of the show that he could go. I met up with him at his house, which is within walking distance of the Bowl. We had a couple of tequila shots (I realized I like tequila because it doesn’t fuck with my body the way most alcohol can make me feel sick right away. It just goes straight to my brain while leaving my body alone), and headed over.

This is Colin. He’s 6 foot 4. He’s got red hair, fair skin and freckles. He’s gay. And he’s in a long-term committed relationship. I know him because he was a friend of a friend of a friend when I first moved out here, and he’s a good friend of my roommate now so he’s always been around. Once he was over at my house and we heard a party somewhere in the neighborhood. It sounded like it was raging so we thought it would be cool/funny to crash this random house party (we’re close to UCLA so we figured it was probably students). So we follow the noise until we find it, but when we walked in, it turns out it was all Persians. Basically, we were hoping to crash a college party, but we ended up walking into a party where a 6’4 red haired guy and an Asian girl so obviously didn’t belong.

So as we walked, I start telling Colin that I’m just tired of stupid shit. I’m tired of shallow connections and shallow people, and I just want to be myself and not care that it might make some people uncomfortable, envious or scared. I just want to be myself, no matter how bizarre, deep, inappropriate it is, because I fuckin’ love being me, and I’m tired of hiding it. He agreed because that’s basically the way he lives his life, and he’s survived and he’s successful. He tells me that he always has these random deep connections with strangers, like they know each other. He understands. It was such a relief.

So we get to the Bowl and we eat and we smoke and we’re super happy. The crowd around us is a little weird. A lot of your Hollywood Bowl experience depends on your section. We had the best section at the DJ Shadow show because it was one big block party, one big love fest of people having a fuckin’ good time. Groove Armada is opening for Cafe Tecuba and they were accompanied by a live band so it was really cool. We watched people dance–I pointed out some older white people who looked really stiff and uncomfortable, like they knew they should dance because they’re “having such a good time” but their faces looked really anxious and one guy was dancing towards this woman with this, “I wanna fuck the shit out of you look” that was super disturbing, but she was so caught up in self-consciously trying to not looking stupid while she danced, she never noticed. And Colin said, “They look like dancing pickles.”

Groove Armada was amazing. The one guy performing with them was young and very vibrant and enthusiastic, and you would sit there thinking he was the coolest guy on earth until he busted out some terrible moves like he was an emcee at some Florida resort event. Colin and I both agreed he’d probably be the kind of guy who has ten-hour marathon sex. Speaking of marathon sex, Colin and I were talking about Pisces men. First we agreed they’re kind of fucked up. There is no rhyme or reason to them in that you can’t cajole or force them to get close to you. They’ll be totally in love with you, then they’ll want nothing to do with you and all of a sudden, they’ve dedicated their lives to serving your every romantic need. As long as you ignore them. We did agree they’re pretty amazing in bed because they put every ounce of their souls into it, and that’s the kind of thing we like. That’s the best kind of sex, personally, the only kind that makes me put in any effort (I’m sure there will be a post coming that discusses my love for celibacy). So he told me about a boyfriend who was a Pisces, and Colin would get home from work and there would be a line of candles leading from the walkway all the way to the bedroom. Which sounds good, right? But it would happen all the time until the day Colin was exhausted from work and came home to find candles leading from the walkway to the bedroom and he was like, “Oh no, not this.” So Colin walked into the guys room and slapped him, then walked back out. By the way, Colin’s an Aries. I asked Colin if the guy was upset (because you know, I always want to know the emotional aftermath of stories), and Colin said the guy was crying in his room and threatening to kill himself. I felt bad, but then it sounded like that kind of chemistry fueled the relationship, so it’s one of those things you don’t judge and you appreciate hearing as a different experience of life. I think if people stopped acting like all our lives are as similar behind closed doors as they are in public, we would feel more integrated.

There was this guy sitting in front of us who sat there and didn’t really move. He didn’t have any food or any drinks, just sat there with his hands in his lap. I could only see the back of his head so I didn’t know what he looked like; from the back he looked like Tobey Maguire. So Colin whispers to me that the guy is clearly enjoying himself, but he’s so anxious that he’s afraid to show it. I look and the guy is tapping his legs to the beat, but he’s not moving at all. His head, neck
and back are completely stiff. Colin says, “Poor thing, he’s so anxious. He probably hasn’t come out yet.” I’ve got a good gaydar (I’m a nightmare for guys who don’t know or refuse to admit they’re gay) but Colin’s is on a psychic level. It’s like, I can name a song in 3 notes, but Colin just needs 1 (weirdly, Brian needs a chorus). So we started discussing, what if I just tapped him on the shoulder and introduced him to Colin, or if I just started massaging his shoulders. We were plotting and it got crazier and crazier and Colin said, what if this turns into some crazy threesome and I said that I was okay with that. It was really kind of hot, mentally, this crazy scenario we were plotting. I said, we sound like we’re tigers circling before the kill, and that poor kid’s a lamb. He said, we’re totally tigers who would tear that poor thing to shreds and just start fucking each other on his carcass.

Okay. In the light of day, that was a weird conversation to have with my gay friend. Or with anyone. But at that moment, between the music, the vibe of the crowd, and this poor kid that we were brazenly plotting to sexually manhandle, for a gay man and a straight woman to plot how we were going to have our way with this kid with clearly repressed sexuality seemed like the only logical conversation we could possibly have. We wanted to wait until it got dark and I said, I just hope he’s at least 18.

(Well, he left before Groove Armada finished and he didn’t come back. I wonder if he heard us. We did see him when we went to get more beer, and the kid was totally gay. Like future flamer, gay.)

As we basked in the glow of our devious plot, Colin said that I’m evil and it was delicious. I said he was, too. Who knows if we would have really done anything. It was fun to think that we could truly use our powers of not giving a fuck for good or evil. We shared a moment and I think we realized that we’re very similar in one very specific respect–the two of us have an ability to break down repression. Colin’s specialty is to relieve men of the conflict of their sexual identity, and you all know what I do…mother issues, human potential, blah blah blah. But we realized that we can see the truth of people, everything that is hidden but is still a part of them. And despite our love for breaking down walls and cages, we really respect and love the core of people, and it’s that respect and love that compel us to want to set people free to be themselves. It was amazing. I asked him how come we never realized how powerful the two of us are together, that we can both see things. He said, it’s because no one has really left us alone together.

Cafe Tecuba was not that great. I said it felt like being at prom in Mexico. Colin said it felt like we were at someone’s fat Aunt Betty’s wedding. Their stuff that I’ve heard on KCRW is so much better. The crowd enjoyed it though. Especially when they chanted “Mexico…Mexico…”

We left when we couldn’t stand it anymore (a lot of people were walking out. As the guy next to me said about the band, “This gives me hope that anyone can be in a band.”), and went back to Colin’s place. I had some port with Martin and we all watched Devil’s Backbone, which is an amazing but scary movie. I noted to myself that I have a strong feeling that their new house has bad energy in it. There is something wrong there, and it’s an energy that will break their relationship by bringing out negative feelings and feelings of separation and isolation. Later, I talked to Brian about it and he said he was so glad that I mentioned that because he felt it too, but he could never put his finger on it. He said the house used to be a duplex so there’s something very compartmentalized about the energy flow. I told him that I was worried about their relationship, and he said he was, too.

Okay. I’ve been stewing about the paparazzi thing for a whole day now. I think it’s not so much that I’m mad at the guy, because I don’t give two shits about him. I think the incident triggered one of my deepest fears.

I grew up in a house where there was someone who could exhibit the most awesome, destructive, senseless violence at a moment’s notice. You never knew where it was going to come from, when or why. It would just happen. Like I said, over spilled milk. Over not eating fast enough. Over wanting to eat too much. Or for absolutely nothing or everything, because he was angry at our mom or overwhelmed by life’s stresses. It was like being caught in a terrifying storm that came out of nowhere, and it would leave you broken and wrecked when the sun came up, wondering what it was that caused this and how you could possibly avoid it next time. But here’s the thing. You couldn’t. You have no control over this force, and you can’t reason with it. You can kind of predict it by reading certain signs and making yourself scarce, but there was an inevitability to it. I was completely helpless.

So I have all these feelings in me, the fear, the rage, the anger at myself for not having protected myself and my brother. The helplessness, the vulnerability. Look how strong my body is–I have the body of a fighter, a warrior. I’m obsessed with keeping it strong because I guarantee you any physical attack anyone launches at me, I will fight back. And I will fuck some shit up. Look at how angry I get when I finally decide that someone is not on my side but is trying to do me harm. I have no qualms about using the words that will cut deepest and cause the most damage. Truth in words is my sword, and it is always at my side. And should I not be able to draw fast enough, I still have my hands for survival.

I have worked very hard to gain the spirituality which allows me to not get to a point where I feel cornered, where I don’t need to be on the defensive or need to be at arms. I’ve worked to make my mind incredibly strong, to analyze both instantly as well as continually to find perceived threats, to know very quickly who someone is (even their secrets and repressions), and where they’re coming from. I’ve learned how to be aware of my body, to relax myself when I’m feeling threatened, to know that unless it’s a dangerous threat of bodily harm, that I can handle anything else, that I’m not helpless. It works in that I have ways to consciously keep my heartrate down, I can keep my body relaxed, I can process everything logically so I don’t become overwhelmed by my emotions. I can get irritable but it takes a lot for me to become angry because I’ve got a lot of discipline, because I delineate everything logically and process information bit by bit rapidly rather than as a large chunk so I don’t become overwhelmed too quickly. But in those moments when I get overwhelmed and feel threatened too quickly, if my mind loses its grasp…I’m scared of those moments. Of losing control, of what might happen. I have the storm in me. I have stored in me the vibrations of my father’s rage.

My soul and my mind can say, it’s over, you aren’t in that place anymore, you’re safe now. You aren’t in that house anymore. Nothing can hurt you that way anymore because you are no longer helpless. And I absolutely know that. I’m completely conscious of that. But there’s a part of me that I’m scared of, the part that lays dormant in my unconscious. A part of me that has to take over when I feel backed in a corner, because it’s the last resort when my mind, which is always my strongest defense, becomes too overwhelmed to handle the threat. Then what? How deep is my rage and what can it do? How dangerous is my rage?

I meet certain people and I can see it in their eyes. It’s an intensity. We are drawn to each other because we know each other’s secret–that we are terrified of something that lays deep within ourselves, something that we did not ask to carry but we can not help. And even if we so desperately want to get close to other people, we are afraid we will someday lose control and hurt them. Razor hands. What if we hurt the very ones we’re trying to love? There is no forgiveness in our own souls for that. So we keep our distance from people. We go through life and we can learn how to be gracious, how to be kind, how to be wonderful jovial company, even how to give the good parts of ourselves unconditionally and nurture and protect others, because we give to those that which we always wanted. Sometimes we convince ourselves that we enjoy being alone, that it’s the ache of loneliness that truly reminds us that we are alive. But we are lonely, so wary of others and so afraid of ourselves.

What if someone gets too close to us and hurts us, if this thing could unleash and be so primal, that it could do things that would morally horrify us in the aftermath, where everything that we have built of ourselves comes crumbling down, and all that is left is one ruined, fucked up individual with blood on his or her hands. How could life possibly go on after that?

You don’t want to believe it. You don’t want to believe it could be so bad. So you have faith. And you hope. And you believe with the right kind of love, it will heal you from this burden. And you try to meet people like you, so scared but so aware, and you want to see how they can work through it, because if they can diffuse this bomb and extricate it, then so can you. That maybe if you can talk them through towards healing, that once they achieve it, they’ll in turn be able to help you set yourself free, because that’s the irony–the only way to free yourself, is to let someone get close enough to you to touch it, but that’s the absolute thing you’re most afraid of. You don’t want to believe that this is who you are, this darkness. You don’t want to believe that you are destructive. People tell you it’s just in your head…it’s just fear, trauma, but you’re okay. Look how gentle you are. But deep down, you worry. You always worry.

All I have in my life is faith and hope — that there is order to this chaos, that there is a reason behind what can not be explained, and at the end of the day, there is healing if you work hard enough. My greatest hope, is that there is light at the end of my journey.

I can’t say it enough. Never, never, never schedule big events during a mercury retrograde. Remember what the retrograde did to the 2000 elections?

Read this rumor about how the Warriors were working out a deal for Garnett on draft day that got screwed up due to miscommunications and the phones in the war room not working. Phones in a team’s war room on draft night not working? Sounds like classic mercury retrograde weird.