Category: Creative Nonfiction

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Metal Manifesto Part 3

Can you be Buddhist — live a life filled with compassion and happiness, and listen to Death Metal?

Does spirituality satiate the same urge, the same hunger, as music?

Some Christians would have us believe so. I heard a sermon in a Mongolian Evangelical church where the pastor lamented the youth’s finding God in “fun” things. He used music as his prime example and mimed it out for the crowd.l, hands cupping imaginary headpohones and head bobbing to an imaginary disco beat, he grinned absurdly and continued the service, “Xogjim sonsdog…!” the service concluded with the parish band resuming their places on stage and leading the crowd in yet one more enthusiastic round of Jesus-loving song. But their needs were being filled by the Jesus part, not the music, right?

Then there is Christian metal. Though the thought of death and destruction sharing a bed with Christianity is a bit less strange to me than for Buddhism, there are many Christians who avowedly preach non-violence. The Crusades kinda hurt their image a bit though. Oh, and the whole European imperialism thing.

I search for a definition of Metal. I could qualify it endlessly: Death, Black, Power, Progressive, Avant Garde, Symphonic, Viking, Doom, Folk, Nü, NWOBHM (New Wave of British Heavy Metal), Pagan, Christian, Shred, Neo-Classical. It becomes absurd if it wasn’t already. So what remains when the modifiers are removed? Musically, philosophically, spiritually?

What do the Christian metallers share with the Pagans and Black metallers? What is shared between happy and bouncy power metal, dry, caustic and depressive Black Metal, and pulverizing, crushing and oppressive Death metal? What about those who love it all?

… to be continued

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Metal Manifesto Part II: The Radio Era

Continued from Metal Manifesto Part I: The Beginning

There are several major rock stations that are receivabble over FM radio broadcast in the Greater Boston Area (JOB?). Each tries desperately to define itself as THE definitive source of rock in the area, no matter how similar their mindless blathering DJ’s, or commercialized programming.

But it was a start. And WAAF isn’t so bad. Or wasn’t so bad. Dunno about nowadays.

There is no metal radio in Boston. Will there ever be? The metal scene is quite lively, especially out West in blue-collar Worcester, and I’m told in the Merrimack Valley as well.

So I spent my middle school years listening to crappy alternative rock/Hard Rock radio, searching for my musical identity. I found, and would later reject, for right or wrong, some bands: Sevendust, Tool, Powerman 5000, LImp Bizkit (the first step is to admit, right?).

Then I went to summer camp and met “Jesper Strömblad”.

Jesper was 16, I was 14. When you’re 14, 2 years is a bigger proportion of your life than it would be to me now, at 22. By exactly 4/77 times. Don’t ask me why that is important, it just is.

So Jesper was from a band called IN Flames, from Sweden. I would later learn that Sweden is the second most metal country in the world. (Data forthcoming). Though he was from Pennsylvania. He had long dark brown hair and a dry, caustic sense of humor.

He owned a stunningly gorgeous red Gibson SG that would inspire my own guitar years later. Why is the shape of a guitar so important? It just is. So Jesper started a band and recorded a song with them. I tagged along and gained my eventual nickname, “roadie”. But that’s a story for another time.

The next summer Jesper showed up with a CD and a story. The opening song on the CD (see below), captured my heart in an instant. The riffs were magical in their brutal beauty. It remains one of my favorite songs. And of course he had used the same main riff in the song he recorded the previous summer.

There he was in the liner notes, Jesper Strömblad. But the picture didn’t quite fit. The Jesper Strömblad in the liner notes had long blonde hair and was… a different person. Our Jesper told us about the strict Swedish laws — that prohibited minors from publishing music, thus forcing the band to use a stand-in for the photos (and live shows? So he could goto school or something?).

In any event, it’s unlikely I believed him then. I believed parts, but I was suspicious. I wanted to believe.

I also don’t remember when, exactly, the illusion dissolved and he shed the identity of Jesper.

So Jesper introduced me to metal. 4 songs from 4 bands started it all: Iron Maiden with The Whicker Man, In Flames with Embody the Invisible, Kamelot with Nights of Arabia, and Sonata Arctica with My Land.

Many people seem to have a “Heavy Metal” phase in their life. A temporary and immature indulgence in an angst-ridden sonic landscape. Especially for those who where at their angsty prime during the height of pop/glam-metal-mania (the 80’s). But metal means something very different today, in a world where it is very much not cool. Not that people don’t think it cool if you like metal, since it’s kind of unusual, but there’s definitely stigma attached to it.

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Metal Manifesto Part I: The Beginning

So. It all began some time between the third and fifth grades. I seem to remember things from this period by grades. Each year is divided by that one major change–moving to the next level in school; like the next level of a video game the enemies get craftier and stronger, the bosses more lethal, and your weapons more potent. Or something. So there are several possible beginnings. Or perhaps it’s a series of events…

  • I saw the music video for the Smashing Pumpkins’, Tonight, Tonight and was, for some reason, struck by it. Logically, I went out and bought the CD, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. I wouldn’t understand the title of the album for at least five years. At least, I wouldn’t know that I’d understood the title. The meaning is a bit hard to miss when you hear the music. The album was released on October 24, 1995; so I was around 10 years old. Which is like, third grade, right? I always have to recount from the beginning to figure that out. So I bought the CD, a double album, despite the fact that the one song I knew was nothing like anything else on the album. Yet I don’t remember realizing that, or particularly caring at the time. But the songs I listened to most where the heavy ones. Like the buzz-sawing, Zero; the crushingly distorted Bodies; the ever-classic, Bullet With Butterfly Wings, with the timeless chorus, “Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage”. Etc.
  • The most random segment of the story; I saw the music video for Breakfast at Tiffany’s before a movie at the local theater. I liked the song, and borrowed the CD from a friend/babysitter. I distinctly remember the chill I felt upon realizing just what it was about the songs on the album (by Deep Blue Something) that spoke to me. The aggressive distortedness. But I wanted more.
  • My friend bought it. Someone brought it into school on their discman. I was intrigued. So I bought Smash by the Offspring. It 0wn3d me. It still does.

    • Thus began The First Era. And it was Pretty Good. But the Second Era would be Better.

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    Some Stranger Stranger Studies

    She is a shy looking girl sitting with an athletic shy-looking boy. Both are blondes and aren’t speaking. Now he raises his eyes from his Italian dictionary and talks to her. Her face animates and she returns the passing-the-time-reading events calendar to the tabletop. Is it awkward? He is listening to music. Or seems to be to anyone watching, who will see the black wires hanging from his ears. He wears a while, flat rimmed baseball hat that represents no team.

    A less-shy looking girl joins the table. She is also blonde, and looks tired.

    He wears blue sweatpants and a T-shirt decorated with a snowflake that tells us he is one of The Coolest Guys Around. Draped over his chair is a gray North Face fleece, like the one I left at home for its resemblance to ones like this. He may be a skater. Or at least likes their shoes.

    2

    He has a wide-eyed, yet simultaneously tired face that is framed by not-straight brown hair. He wears a bright purple fleece and a tie-dye shirt. He looks frenzied. Under the table are his legs, covered with snowman pajamas, though it is a Monday at 10:30am. Even his shoes scream unconventional, and are mottled with colors. Does he have something to prove? Or a sense of unique style. Meaning he uses style to prove his individuality, See?! Look, I’m different! Would you wear this?.

    Or maybe he’s just color blind.

    3

    He stretches, and wishes that God bless the girl, not because she’s necessarily special, she just sneezed. He looks into space and mouths words to himself, presumably related to the notebook on the table and the pen in his hand. Or he’s using the notebook and pen to disguise insanity. But if he has to disguise it, then he recognizes it, and is it really insanity?

    His movements are sluggish, as if his veins flow with something thicker. His words come out crisp and low, yet thin. He walks stiffly, his upper body is firmly affixed to his hips. He wonders aloud if the girl just left without saying goodbye. His friend (the frenzied one) doesn’t know, I’m oblivious and returns to his newspaper. He reaches for his green sweatshirt, hanging on his chair, and dons it; he takes his plates to the dish rack and leaves. He may or may not say goodbye.

    4

    He looks Jewish. I can say that because I’m Jewish. Well, half Jewish. But I look Jewish. It’s the Friedman nose, I think. And he wears headphones that fit his head a bit too well. The shape of his head, and his excited hair conspire to create an unfortunate illusion of squished-headness. The headphones are separate, attached to each ear, but appear to be squeezing his head like in those old Gushers commercials when people’s heads turned into fruits upon biting into the acid-filled fruitsnacks. Can you imagine the lawsuits? Like, if it really happened? What is the restitution for having one’s head turned into a giant cartoon fruit? I’d be pissed.

    Whatever music he is listening to appears not to move him, for he is not moving. Maybe he doesn’t care if people think his music is moving him or not, and feels peaceful when he sits still. He is reading the newspaper. He rises to leave, carefully folding the pages and tucking it below his arm. Now standing, he looks slightly less Jewish for no particular reason.

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    Un-Braided Essay

    Why I know no song.

    I do not know a single song from beginning to end. I’ve played music since I could read: piano, clarinet then sax then guitar and back to piano… yet I couldn’t play a single song from memory on any of them. Even on guitar, once I was finally playing music I loved, I would learn pieces here and there, or play the whole song from written music. Sure, I remember a few riffs, but most didn’t occupy my attention quite long enough to stick.

    Ninja Turtles

    I don’t remember much from my first years in the world as a ‘real person’ (to quote the grandpa from Little Miss Sunshine). But there was a kid in my kindergarten class who knew the whole theme to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Which was super awesome. He was known for it, and was expected to do his part by singing it on demand, regularly, so the rest could sing along to the parts we knew.
    Heroes in a half shell
    Turtle power!

    Be Prepared…

    Everyone who goes to Mongolia, and plans to venture outside the bubble that is the capital, Ulaanbaatar, must be prepared to sing. Mongolians love to sing, and love to ask their awkward foreign guests to sing, “Amerik duu duulakh uu? Duu! Duu!” (“Sing us an American song! C’mon…”)

    We sat in the ger of a family who I assume is somehow related to my host family, since everyone is related to everyone somehow in Mongolia. Or will be soon. Their 5 year-old son lay sleeping, comatose on a cushion in the back of the ger, directly behind a row of three seated adults, none of whom I’d seen before. They handed me a bowl of airag (fermented mare’s milk. imagine a drink with the consistency, carbonation and alcohol content of beer, and the taste of… well, fermented milk. The taste is strong, but not necessarily unpleasant.) Then a small silver bowl carefully filled with Xaraa, the most popular mid-range Mongolian vodka. I thought for a few minutes, then settled on an easy choice. I began to sing Old MacDonald, as the 7 Mongolians sat and watched, delighted. My self-conscious voice came out weak, and restrained with self-consciousness. Mongolians are also very good singers. As in, you hear a song on the radio, and if you in a group of five or ten people, chances are at least one of them can pretty much sing it like the artist. Soaring vibrato and all. And then the rest can all come pretty close. Maybe one or two happen to be tone deaf, but I’m sure even they could out-sing someone from a (comparatively) songless culture. I made it through about two verses before hitting a blank, but by then I had satisfied the crowd. “Cain baina!” (“How good!”) they offered, and I replied with the colloquial Mongolian, “Za…!” which sort-of means what it sounds like (So… And then… Okay… etc…) but is used for many of the more formal Westernisms like the casual “thanks”, “nice to meat you”, and whatever else. This got them laughing again, and I relaxed against the cupboard behind me.

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    Enter the Blessed Ones

    NOTE: This piece is from last year, posted here for posterity and for the time when I eventually resume working on it. For now, check it out if you’re curious, but by no means feel obligated. Feedback is always welcome, of course.

    Date of last revision: 1 November 2006

    There is a look that I have grown to recognize; one that creeps up mid-conversation and fills me with dread. It says “Ok, I hear you. Uh, yeah. Okay. I get it already”. It says “Why is he still talking?“ It shows a polite disinterest, a rising level of conversation-fatigue. My mind floods with questions: How long have they not wanted to listen? How do I rescue the situation? Why aren’t they interested? Was it the way I was explaining things? Did I say too much? Too fragmented? Too much detail? Too tangential? It only happens at parties, or at dining hall.

    Attention deficit? But I have no shortage of attention, if anything there are times when it is in excess! Yet there is some truth to this, as researchers have consistently found AD/HD to be linked with inefficiency in the allocation of attentional resources.

    Attention: The span thereof. The ability to regulate and allocate the necessary attentional resources. Executive brain functions. Like the CEO of your brain, but wait, he’s a drunk! Where’d those papers go? What do we do now? When do we do it? What do I do? Which do I do? where who why when what… {//… kernel error. overload}

    Continue reading “Enter the Blessed Ones”

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    Fernando and Marisela by Bruce Berger

    I found one particular element of this short, from In Short: A Collection of Brief Creative Nonfiction, Judith Kitchen & Mary Paumier Jones, Eds, particularly interesting. Bruce Berger opens this story with a curious and striking line; one that also creates a seemingly understated metaphor. He beings with a strongly worded metaphor — a promise to talk of nightstands and hexes against the long dark? –, yet he seems to veer from this course before even beginning. This story makes no secret of the author’s ignorance in the matter. He begins his narrative in the second line with this admission, For reasons unclear to me, I keep a piece of litter I found… The entire story is a fantasy, we follow the author into an imaginary world, whose purpose neither we nor he knows. Yet are we left with any more understanding at the end? Why is he haunted by [her] eyes? How does that give him solace? In fact, it doesn’t seem all that clear that Berger knows any more about his reasons for holding on to this scrap than he did at first. Is that ok? What about discovering something new through the writing?

    I found this progress and understanding materialize in the penultimate paragraph. The entire fantasy world that the narrator has conjured up is summarily torn down, revealing that the very desert that so amazingly preserved his snapshot, is less and less able to keep what we throw away…

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    The Wall of Atwater Hall B: Perspectives

    The wall.

    Lost son in war: The wall stood before me like an insurmountable obelisk, crafted of carelessly hewn colorless stones. The building itself sits in the ground like a mammouth ship, its smokestacks belching sulfur from the furnaces below. The uniformity is morbid. Like rows of pine boxes.

    Just fell in love: Each stone fits into the next, lovingly cradling its shape, conforming to its contours. The wall is endless, we see no beginning or end. Only beauty.

    Bored: The wall is grey. Like the world. The stones were cut by some poor soul who spent all his living hours slaving over a pile of rocks, probably sitting in an excavator or something. Then some other guy had to stack them up. Yeah. The wall has some windows, but they’re kind of ugly. Who designs a wall like this anyways? Wait, no, who builds a wall like this?!

    Frightened: The wall stood before me, blocking my only route of escape. I stared up at the innumerable hewn stones, each fitting impossibly into the next, leaving not even a ledge on which to grasp.

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    Responding to Kafka

    Writing should serve as the axe for the frozen sea within us. –Franz Kaftka

    Personally, this quote seems to be getting at a truth that many other writers have also quoted; that is, that writing is not the destination, or the final truth, it is a means of drilling through the layers of bullshit and all that, to get at what we really want to say, but don’t know it. The image of the author, standing on the surface of his own frozen sea, hacking away furiously, at times maniacally, is actually pretty hilarious. Yet strangely appropriate. There certainly are times when writing takes on a similar sense of desperate urgency.