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Fleigende_Hollander
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Name: Frans
Birthday: 7/10/1985
Gender: Male
Interests: Music, language, history, literature, martial arts, marijuana
Expertise: Avoiding dentists
Occupation: Student
Industry: Media
Message: message me
AIM:  Winewordswisdom
Member Since:
3/4/2003
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| I am a wreck on show nights. My hands shake, my torso, of all places, sweats profusely, my legs go side to side to front to back in a hopelessly absurd imitation of walking, I crash into things, I chain smoke, I cough, I speak shortly but at length. A real mess. No matter what the venue. Nerves nerves nerves - little electrical impulses telling me I'm going to fail, going to make mistakes, going to look like a fool, and the worst part is that I know that these little nerves telling me these little things are smaller and, on a grand scale, far more inconsequential than the strings my stumbling fingers manipulate for the potential joy of myself and others, smaller than spaghetti, smaller than the smallest sexual organ known to male mammals (mouse? gerbil? chihuahua?), smaller than the smallest lightweight, smaller even than the filament in a light bulb that I can turn on with the most unthinking of movements. But these same nerves, these tiny little fucks, control me before and during shows.
I deal with it pretty well, but not the way I'd like to. I'd like to drink until the room audibly asks me why I'm spinning. But I have forsworn alcohol and other drugs prior to shows at the behest of my far more confident drummer.
Knowing this, you might not be surprised by the story I am to relate. But let me assure you, what happened on the night of Saturday 26th, 2008, was not something I've ever dealt with before. Whether my nerves were already singing sweet songs of the most awful surrender or not has nothing to do with my actions, or lack thereof. Also, I must make it clear that I had no choice in this matter. I was not in control. Once again, this had nothing to do with a shivering, weak, waving, weaving waxing waning nervous system. The hallucinations, the headache the next morning, the sense of vertigo, though dizziness, the paranoia and claustrophobia...say what a neuro-scientist will, I insist that these were not the results of further stimulation of an overexcited brain. My reactions, for lack of a better term, had nothing to do with me.
They were the result of beauty. A true, pure, and completely inhuman beauty. Divine or satanic maybe. But nothing human. Nothing within the realm of our limited but limitless (all things being relative as aunt and uncle) perception. Not even within the realm of our conception.
Fucking Da Vinci couldn't have come up with anything as beautiful. Ditto for Bach, Wagner, Rachmaninoff, Toon Tellegen, or even Thom Yorke.
Einstein couldn't have written an equation for what I saw if he lived forever.
Jason and I showed up to the Redwood Gardens at 6 pm for sound-check and setup. We realized pretty soon that the Gardens were not an appropriate venue for us - it's a nursing home. Nothing like being in an incredibly loud and experimental band and looking out into a sea of octogenarians who, thanks to Viagra, are getting more than you. (Guitar does not make a difference.) But we laughed and joked and predicted, correctly, that we would be kicked off stage after the third song.
Some of my friends came. I spent some time living on the streets in California, and it was these friends, the street kids, the hitch-hikers, the travel kids, who came to see us play and catch up on old times. (Life is good on the street, believe it or not, though location and weather are important. Living outside was the most positive and liberating experience of my life.) Between the jokes about coronaries and the conversation with people I hadn't seen in months, I was avoiding the pre-show freak-out.
I noticed Bee in a corner, talking to December and two girls I did not recognize. Bee narrowly avoided arrest with me...he decided, at the last minute, not to go on that fateful food-run. (A story for later, and after the trail is over.) I walked over to talk to him, and as I approached his corner, I started to feel somewhat odd. I felt, or thought I felt, like I had taken a very strong pain-killer, and then drunk several shots of whiskey. Not unpleasant, but very disorienting. Mind you, this is before I saw the beauty waiting for me like a sucker punch to the balls in the corner. "Hey Bee."
"Amsterdam, what's up man?"
"Not much," and with that I turned to my right.
It took two seconds for me to go blind.
In that time I managed to say one thing.
"What's your name?"
Her mouth started to move and everything went a blazing white. There was no sound. I had gone deaf, too, I thought to myself. I felt hopelessly dizzy, horribly drunk, and had a strange sense of vertigo, though I'm actually quite fond of heights. There was a sickening absence of taste in my mouth, the sharpening white in my eyes, and a strange hum in my ears. I found I could not speak. My lips felt glued together, my teeth felt rotten, my skin felt oily and unclean, I imagined by intestines were showing and that they were not at all pretty. Was my fly unzipped? Were my shoes tied? These mundane things did not go through my head. I was not concerned with making an impression. Blind, deaf, and dumb, I was worried about survival. And then I felt my skin go up in flames. But at the same time, I was freezing. I was hypnotized, repulsive, repulsed by how repulsive I was. I wanted, frankly, to die.
And then, somehow, I perceived that the walls were proverbially closing in.
Dying not being an option, I wrenched myself back to the left. I muttered something incomprehensible to Bee about marijuana. He gave me a slow, knowing smile. I noticed that he was not talking to the beauty either.
I staggered, literally staggered, out of the room, outside, where it was raining and cold and I could see my breath mist in the air, proof that I was still in some realm answerable to the laws of science, laws that stated, comfortingly, that I could not go blind, deaf, dumb, transparent, and the most ugly sort of old all at once.
I am telling you: this was the sort of beauty that makes you feel insignificant, unworthy of oxygen. This beauty is true beauty, and there is nothing pretty about it. This is the sort of beauty no man could ever hope, or even want, to hold. Women maybe - or maybe not anymore. Culture becomes more and more and more superficial.
I would die if I were even to speak to her again. Not in a good way. I mean that that there would be invitations to a very real funeral.
Hers is the beauty that makes us realize our insufficiencies, and there is not a soul who can deal with that.
I woke up the next morning with a headache that has yet to go away. I can't bring myself to do anything. What's the point of going to the gym? What's the point of reading a book? What's the point of yoga, meditation, breathing exercises, clearing your mind?
Nothing could ever hope to measure up to this beauty, and like it or not, but we are competitive, and we seek standards.
It is only now, four days later, that I wonder how life is for her.
If she even exists.
I found out later.
She said her name was Free.
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| 2430 Gary blvd san fransisco
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| "That hurt!" Ashley half-yelled, pointing her small finger at her skinned knee, the injury minor, the blood minial and bright red. She stamped her foot petulantly, her eight year old face scrunching up like a slinkly into an expression of immense distaste.
"Relax," said her brother. "It's nothing, see? It's already healing."
Ashley looked down at the skin, the torn edges of which were already starting to creep together.
"It's not as bad as the last time, is it?" her brother stated, making his assertion a question with an upturned voice, though perhaps that was just a voice crack.
Ashley shuddered. "Nothing could be as bad as last time." She made a different face, a wide, moon eyed, serious face. A face that could not accept another possibility.
"Oh come on. I mean, it was bad, ok? But not nothing. Don't you remember when I-"
The challenge was more than injured Ashley could take. Her eyes leaked frustrated tears and her voice quavered shrilly."
"You shut up! You weren't there! You didn't see!" She stamped her foot again, raising sand and dust from the ground, and in Billy the fear of that all-powerdul reprisal common to all younger siblings.
"You're not gonna tell Mom and Dad are you?"
Ashley's tears stopped immediately. She had played her trump card and she knew there was nothing her brother could do.
"I don't know yet. Maybe you could owe me. Mom wants me to clean the bathroom."
Billy weighed his options and opted for the less smelly route.
"I'll clean the kitchen, ok?"
"OK." Her voice satisfied, her juvenile quest for justice completed.
They continued playing, there parents no where in sight, gone on vacation to some distant place. A car abandoned on the cliff below them, the transmitter wafting up...Tired of long healing processes? Feeling finished with fears of debilitating physical injuries? Fed up with pain? Then talk to your doctor about RX-588, for decades the most trusted name in Plateboosters, just three shots a year, and see if you can't wake up to a reality free from hurt! (RX-588is not for everyone. Tell your medical practitioner about any liver or hormone troubles. Stop use immediately if-
"Hey, I'm not cleaning the bathroom!" yelled Billy.
"You are too, or I'm telling Mom you pushed me and I fell and there was blood.!"
Billy ignored his sister's rage and threats. "You tell her, and I'll tell Mom I saw you kissing Julian after school!"
Ashley's face, hitherto a portrait of prideful vengeance foiled, collapsed into embarrassment. Silence prevailed for a few minutes, Billy feeling too smug to talk, Ashley too defeated. But she was the first to break the silence.
"Harold's been gone for a long time. I think her and Sara are doing it." Her voice wise, her face the shape of a lemon, as she'd seen her mother look when discussing the same It subject.
Her brother was derisive. "You don't even know what it is," her snorted. "Anyway, he's right there." Billy pointed up, where Harold and Sara were clearly visible against the cliffs, climbing down them at an alarming rate. Even as the two young siblings watched, Harold slipped and fell the final twenty feet, cutting his arm and, with a horrendous crack, breaking his leg upon landing. Billy and his sister fell over laughing.
"See what happens when you show off!" Harold was always wry when hurt. He gave Billy a conspiratorial wink. "Girls are nothing but trouble. They love to see you make a fool of yourself."
Harold then turned his attention to his leg, which had already realigned itself. "That hurt though. A shit load."
"You said the s word!" screamed Ashley.
"Oh grow up, kid," said Sara, who had joined them, her angular features blocking out the sun, its desert rays now playing off her hair, forming a reddish halo. "You're gonna hear it a lot some day. You ok babe?"
"Fine, fine. Just a bit of an accident. I'm due up for another shit I think. I should be standing by now."
"You hypochondriac." But Sara looked concerned nonetheless.he was a brisk and unlikely character, but she felt concern for almost everyone and everything, and sometimes for things she did not understand, like that emptiness she felt when looking out from great height without ropes. As if something ought to be coursing through her veins, dominating her thoughts and her very breath, but wasn't.
"I scraped my knee," said Ahley as Harold got to his feet again, resting weight on his leg, ingerly at first, then with more trust and a smile.
"Hey, all's well! Did you now, Ashley?"
She nodded, pleased with her cousin's display of care.
"It wasn't as bad as last time though." Ashley shuddered again, a little more dramatically.
"Yeah," said Harold. "Last time was pretty bad, I heard.
"Nothing could be as bad as last time," Ashley asserted for the second time that day, oblivious to the sarcastic if silent imitation her brother was performing for Harold and Sara's benefit.
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| I am a big believer in post modernism. The idea that there is no such thing as an objective truth, dangerous as it is, holds great appeal for me. Most of the time, this tenet is easily defended, especially considering the shenanigans of politicians on both sides of the spectrum. But every once in a while something comes along that destroys belief in the concept of complete subjectivity.
The new Radiohead album is such a thing. Called In Rainbows, it conveys precisely what a rainbow is...an ethereal beauty, empty but profound. Some say that the band has regressed somewhat, in that they are using guitars more often and rely less on electronics.This, in my opinion, is not true. Firstly, Radiohead as never had to rely on anything but artistic genius. Secondly, the electronic and organic components to their new songs are the same as on Hail To The Thief. It is the mixing and the song structure that have changed. The new Radiohead album sounds much more restrained...electronic bursts are less effusive, and they are now geared more towards interaction with the guitar lines. It sounds odd to say this, given that Radiohead is a band that has, over the past twenty odd years, redefined music at least three times, but they seem to be maturing as a band. Their new work is much more consistent with HTTF and Kid A/Amnesiac than OK Computer was with, say Pablo Honey.
Plus, you can buy the new album for whatever you want.
Might I suggest your soul?
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| Yes. I am back. Let us proceed as if there had been no absence. The events of the past two years are not those upon which I should like to dwell. I have moved to California with my band. We can be found at www.myspace.com/theeuphoriaphone. Please check us out, add us, tell your friends, etc. I have also been reading far too much Kurt Vonnegut. And watching TV, the true Great Satan of our time. I willl be back tomorrow. Hello again. | | |
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