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The Kitchen Sink - Installment #8
"My Favorite Five Seconds Of Phish"
by Benjy eisen - benjy@archive.phish.net
And so it's true that today is the first day of spring. By the time you read this that will be old news and you'll be counting down the days till summer. As I looked outside this morning, the sun was out and the air was warm and so I took my own advice and jumped in my car for my annual first-day-of-spring ritual. As I do every year, I popped in a "Scarlet Begonias" and went for a drive. Suddenly it all came back to me. The sunshine, the smiles, the short-sleeves, the fresh air, the green grass, the ice-cream cones and bumble bees and music, sweet music, there is music everywhere. Pulling out onto a busy Market Street from the Rite-Aid parking lot, a car stopped to let me pass. The woman in the passenger seat looked impatient but the driver stopped and let me pass anyway. As I waved with genuine appreciation, I saw a smile spread across his face and I could swear I almost saw him jump out of his seat in excitement as he turned to his passenger and said something. And although I don't know for sure, I wouldn't be surprised if it was a playful "I told you so!" or "See? A little kindness here and there..." And that, my friends, is a sure sign that spring has arrived. People can you feel it?
I continued onward for a couple of blocks and when I went to turn onto 19th from Walnut, I nodded slightly at two girls walking across the street and they nodded back and giggled and did their spastic little half dance/half bunny hop that high school girls are known for as they shimmied down the sidewalk. As for the nods, it was a subtle exchange but entirely pleasant and readers I must tell you that I do believe "the nod" goes a long way, especially while driving in the springtime. There's a lot to be said for it, you know.
For the past couple of blocks I had it in my head that today would be a great day to wash my car. And why not? The sun was shining and people were smiling and on a Saturday afternoon in late March, what more could you ask for? The car wash at the end of 19th, just before Bridge, was a pleasant scene of activity and I thought to myself, "Looks like others had the same idea too! After all, it is a *good* idea." And I laughed to myself about this, as I vacuumed out the back seat, finding an old Schvice, some matchbooks and an unlabelled XLII-90.
"Hmm," I said aloud, "I wonder what's on this?" The lady next to me overheard and chuckled and I knew I startled her when I turned around to look and say, "Yeah I know, right?" She had no idea what I meant by that though and went back to diligently cleaning out her car and probably wishing she had never chuckled in the first place. So I went over and gave her the tape, saying, "Hey listen, if you pop this in your tape deck and everything you've ever thought, felt or experienced in your entire life comes pouring out of your speakers, then it's probably a group named Phish. That's P-h-i-s-h, okay? Remember that - Phish."
I jumped back into my car before she could say anything and as I circled back around to Market Street, suddenly I knew that it was a day for an Italian Ice. I pulled into a roadside stand called "Rita's" and stood in line while watching kids play tag in a parking lot where the old Farmer's Market used to stand for over 40 years until it burned down just this winter, and I thought how fast and effortlessly we adapt to our surroundings. And so too did I watch the apprehensive parents feel the sun on their backs and breathe deeply the first breaths of spring and order gelatos and sundays for their children while they watched them play in the lot below, and as I went to pay for my medium Mango Italian Ice, the counterboy smiled and said, "Don't worry about it. They're free today."
And that, my friends, is a sure sign that spring has arrived.
One of the things I love so much about live improvised music is its ability to rip right through us and enter us like a spirit, moving from our bones to our soul, and connecting our tangible, physical surroundings with something much greater. It connects us, reconnects us, centers us, and reminds us of the most important things in our lives while simultaneously making us forget the extraneous - in other words, music cuts through the crap.
I'm pretty sure that my favorite personal Phish moment came on December 5, 1995 at the Mullins Center in Amherst, Massachusetts. I was finishing up a semester at Simon's Rock College in nearby Great Barrington. How was I to know that I was also finishing up a major chapter in my life, before starting a new one that spring? I remember that morning I sat in a small class of about 20 and didn't absorb a single word of what the professor said. And I remember looking at the setlist from the night before and making predictions for that night's show. For the past couple of weeks I had been doing Phish tour in between classes and it wasn't the best balance I could've come up with, but I had no other option. And if you can't understand that, then you probably won't be able to understand this column. Or me for that matter. Sorry.
Anyway, I remember sitting there and as I confessed sheepishly to the professor that I really hadn't been paying attention to a word he had said, I drew a circle on a page in my notebook and I remember thinking I was at the circle's end. It was a premonition that I wouldn't realize the extent of until just this moment, three years later. God, has it really been three years? And how many more circles come and gone? How many overlapped?
During the fall, Phish had been experimenting with Harry Hood. There had been a couple of cases reported out West where endings went unfinished - where there was no "You can feel good about Hood" refrain but rather, before they got to that cinematic climax, the band suddenly sounded like a jet plane landing and they rode out the ending by coming to a halt on a hard, concrete runway strip rather than in the magical land of milk and cookies. On December 5, 1995, after leading the audience through a sparkling Bathtub Gin, which included a Tweezer Reprise jam, the band settled in for Harry Hood half a set later. I followed along, going out on the waves of insane and paddling to a raft in the middle of the ocean as a storm washed in, eventually making a mad dash for the shore, swimming freestyle as if my life depended on it - because maybe, just maybe, it did. Eventually the band arrived at the part where normally they would prepare to enter the "You can feel good" section of the song. But something was different - something was going wrong, and as I realized that I might not make that shore after all I opened my eyes to see just what the problem was.
I looked around and noticed that there was a slight tension in the air. People's faces were looking towards the stage with both anticipation and bewilderment. Some of them that is. Others were on the boat, unaware of the possibility that there might be a hole in the bottom. The lights seemed to dim a little and I heard some guy behind me say to his friend in amazement, "They're not going to finish it are they?"
Urgently I said, "No they're going to finish it, they're going to finish it!" On tape I didn't mind it when they didn't finish - it was just another casualty of improvisation - you know, "as the spirit moves" and all of that. But, looking around, it seemed that this particular version needed finishing. The spirit and the muse and the vibe and the collective unconsciousness were all pushing for it. But suddenly it sounded as though Phish had already made their resolve - they really weren't going to finish it after all. The lights were dimming all the more now and people had started to shift instead of dance, already anticipating its early ending as they took out their notepads and shook their heads at the setlist note.
And then, out of nowhere, it happened. Trey looked up at the audience and maybe he saw something that he didn't see there before, or maybe he was just going through the same transcendent realizations that we were all going though, but suddenly his face just lit up and in one glorious and unforgettable moment he took the sound of that jet airplane landing and he turned its engine back on and he made it take off again and suddenly Phish was right back in Harry Hood, building up to that climactic ending, this time even more climactic than ever before, and suddenly, as if right on cue, the faces all around me lit up, radiated, and the stage was flooded in bright lights again and it was if a collective sigh erupted from the entire arena at once and I could literally see it lifting in the air as people danced wildly and freaked out in joyful celebration and a choir, ten-thousand strong, sang "You can feel good, good about Hood!" Ahhh!!!
It is those five seconds, where the airplane shifts from landing to take off, that are perhaps my favorite five seconds of Phish. Because it was in those five seconds that I was practicing for my own landing and takeoff. One chapter, one very large chapter, of my life was coming to a close that semester, but another one was going to begin the second the first circled around and hence I could rest easy knowing that endings actually feed into beginnings. Knowing that there would be no period of suspension but that, like the seasons themselves, circles feed into each other, regardless of whether we're ready or not. And you go through winter and the trees are bare and the ground is covered with dirty, grimy snow and black ice and windchill and then, suddenly, you open up your curtains in the morning and outside the sun is shining and the snow is all melted and you can go outside in light clothes and roll around in the grass and everyone is all smiles and it just feels so good.
...about Hood.
(Naturally.)
I love it when that happens.
Columnist Benjy Eisen currently works full-time as a door-to-door Avon Lady. For a real thrill, check out his complete line of Betty Crocker Beauty products.benjy@archive.phish.net
copyright 1999
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