|
|
The Kitchen Sink #11 -
SOMETIMES YOU JUST GOTTA JIBOO (an excerpt) benjy@archive.phish.net
That's when I the park ranger came with his flashlight. He was looking for the city slickers and fun-loving Phish kids invading his park with joy. He was looking for the nine campers whose whoops and wallops rang out like a song in the still North Carolina night. He was looking for us. Nine guys in a lake....naked...spun-out...at two in the morning. It was simple, really.
Let me explain something here - I'm 23 years old. The last few years of my life have been spent trying to figure out what I'm going to be doing with the rest of it. And at Phish shows. And parties. And clubs. And late-night coffee with friends. And a beer or two at the bar. A couple of Disco Biscuits shows here, a festival or two there and even three days spent in Las Vegas last Halloween with a three piece suit and perma-grin: Yeah, so it's true - I like to have fun.
There was a Monday this past July which started off waking up in a pile of sweat in the back of a Winnebago. It was a day off on Phish tour and we headed to a state park near Boone, NC where we cooked ourselves a feast for dinner and played music around a campfire. A thunderstorm rolled through and by the time the rain cleared up, every beer was empty and accounted for and we had puddled ourselves and headed down to a lake to commemorate the evening.
It had been years since I've been in a lake. I don't like 'em. I've always been afraid of watersnakes and leaches and things like that. I think back to when I was growing up, how there had been many summers at camp where I'd go waterskiing or wind-surfing and suddenly it comes back to me - lakes used to be fun. As we trotted through the trees, I could barely see one foot in front of me and poor Kevin - I kept badgering him not to lose me as my glasses were smeared and my head a little spun and we were all hopelessly lost, every once in awhile stumbling upon a tent or a car and realizing we were back along the main road, accidentally intruding on someone's site. As we slid past the cars one of us would whisper "Shh!" and another "We're lost" and another "Is this the lake?" and it was a comedy show we were putting on really.
"I've found a trail!" someone would say. A minute later, they'd get a second confirmation - "Yes, yes, you're right! This is definitely a trail!" A few seconds later, "Are you sure this is a trail?" "Yes I'm telling you" "Who thought this was a trail?" "We're such suckas - that's no trail!" "Ahh, there's something ahead!" "Nah, that's not it." "Maybe we should give up already." "Where are we?" "Is there anyplace to get more beer around here?" "Kick it down!" "Weren't we just on a trail?"
So okay, we were nine clowns that knew nothing of midnight navigation. If this was a game of capture the flag, we would've surely been the first ones out. We also would've been the ones who had the most fun while playing....by a long-shot. We would've sat there in the prison box laughing and making jokes about our own inabilities while others ran around with their heads cut off looking for a nothing more than a flag.
After going in circles for an embarrassing length of time, and coming this close to going back to our camp site where we had a Winnebago with AC and electricity and a nice little campfire going outside, and a bottle of Tequila, suddenly someone in the front of the line became very excited, like a pig sniffing for truffles and suddenly BAM, the trees gave way to a clearing and without warning we were on the edge of a lake, a very large lake, and up above us the blackened North Carolina sky, where there was still some heat lightning streaks in the far distance now, and the lake, which was so black you couldn't see the ripples and could barely make out the waterline. We were standing right on it. We let out little victory cries and a joker in the bunch even said, "Yep, this here is a lake alright."
"Come on in!!" yelled someone, already in the water and we knew immediately on instinct what had to happen next.
Dave, a wonderful Long Island kid who'll be entering his junior year at Boston University this fall, looked at me and said, "I really don't want to be doing this, I don't think, but I don't have a choice do I?" and I will swear that there have been few times in my entire life (I can count them on my finger) when truer words have been spoken.
This whole time when we had been looking for this mystical lake, I hadn't once thought about what we were going to do once we got there - what the hell did I care? I was spun and having a blast and that's all I knew. We had fought to find this lake, and now that we were here, it was obvious. There really was no choice. We had to jump in.
Naked.
Suddenly I was 13 again and back at summer camp. Or 16 and sneaking out with some friends. Or, as the case actually was, 23 and on Phish tour having a brand new adventure. The type of brand new adventure that I can only hope I continue to look for for my entire life.
This time it was nine naked guys, standing shoulder-deep in the water on a log that was long enough to hold all of us. In a flash of brilliance, Jay swam back to the shore momentarily and the next thing I knew glass was being passed around and pretty soon we were out on the log, immersed in the most peaceful lake in the world, on the most peaceful night of summer, and cutting butts. "Ahh" smiled Johnny, "That's what I like to see!"
In the darkness, someone said, "Hey, we're in North Carolina - welcome to Marlboro country, boys"
There's a time in the beginning of a relationship, right before that first kiss, where neither person knows for sure what the other person feels or if it's right or if it's going to go anywhere and there's the possibility that at the end of the night it's going to be a "See you later" and you'll never hear from them again....or you become bold and you reach across what seems like a million miles, every second a lifetime, until your lips touch and then there's that suspended second where you're not sure what's going to come of it and then suddenly you're entangled in their arms and the tears roll like budding flowers of spring and after a very very long journey, you've finally arrived at the start of a new season.
And as I looked up across the lake at the distant treeline and then up at the sky which was blackened and still-like and magnificent and I looked at the radiating faces of my friends, all laughing and being silly and yet having their own spiritual experience, each one as unique as the person behind it, it was at that moment that everything in my life suddenly became so clear to me. It was a moment of perfect clarity. And it was all so unbelievably simple.
Suddenly I knew that I hadn't been wasting the past few years of my life after all and I knew too that things were about to set sail in motion for me - that when I returned from tour, a new chapter of my life was about to begin, and somewhere, somehow, I also knew this - that everything was perfect. I was kissing life itself full on the lips...and life was kissing back.
That's when the flashlight appeared.
It's funny the way you think when you're committed to fun. As we all shh'd each other and whispered desperately, "Be quiet! Shh! Over there - look!" "Shut-up!" we couldn't help but to laugh and that's just the point I'm trying to get across with this - we couldn't help but to laugh. What a wonderful thing to be able to say! We couldn't help but to laugh. We couldn't help but to be enjoying ourselves. Even in the face of small disaster.
Here was this flashlight making it's way down a path, on a different side than where we had come down, and as common sense would tell us, the flashlight obviously had to be accompanied by a person. Or a group of people. My first thought was that it was just another group of kids, like us, who decided to check out where all the whoops and wallops were coming from and to get in on a little bit of the swim meet themselves. But the way the flashlight was being rigidly held, in the back of all of our minds we knew - it was the authority. Even that seemed funny though. I mean, what was the most they could do? We weren't trespassing, there were no signs that said, "No swimming" and we had paid to be at the park. We were customers, somehow.
Even trouble seemed like fun, at that moment. It was part of the game. We'd try to be quiet, nine heads protruding out of the water with smiles and wide-eyes and little glowing halos. It was impossible to hide us. But even getting caught seemed like a part of the game..."What? Oh, this is the part where we get caught? Oh, okay...let's do it then."
But there was incriminating evidence on some of us and others were underage with alcohol clearly on their breath. As incredulous as it was to think about it, there was a possibility that this could turn out "not good." But then I looked around at our glowing radiance and I knew - nothing bad could happen. Not this time. Things were too - I dunno - GOOD maybe. We weren't untouchable...but that purity of heart was. And still is.
As soon as the ranger got to the waterline, his flashlight immediately shined on all of us, illuminating us really, and maybe it was the way that the light reflected brightly on the rich waters or the way the light caught even the drips as they rolled smoothly off our bodies and fell gracefully into the lake, or the way that that light seemed to compliment and highlight the nine radiating faces that it shone across, but for a second I imagined that it was the light of heaven shining on nine of its angels, scintillent and burning brightly in this darkened lake in the North Carolina wilderness. It was as if the light from within us suddenly forced its way out and here we were, lit up for all to see how pure the moment was . It was a wonderful feeling and it was truly, truly a moment that will last forever - an eternal moment in which I felt absolutely free, in harmony with the earth, with it's inhabitants, with myself.
And then the ranger said, "Swim to the shore."
"But sir, we're naked and our clothes are over there."
"Then swim to your clothes and I will meet you there."
After a comical exchange with a very unamused ranger ("I just want to see what you're up to." "So we can go back into the lake now?" "Absolutely not.") we ended up getting kicked out of the park. It was my first time being kicked out of a state park and as we drove off at 3 or 4 in the morning, sitting on a couch in a Winnebago, I looked up at Will who was up front riding shotgun, his hands dancing along to "Gotta Jiboo." And we talked about what a great song that was and wondered why Phish hadn't broken it out yet. And we talked about where we were going to go from here and how far Charlotte was, where we had a show the next night. And as we pulled into a rest stop, we recalled the events of the night, and some of us played music on guitars and drums while others sat underneath trees wrote in journals. As for me, I stayed up until dawn and I watched the sunrise and I was no longer afraid of lakes.
Lakes weren't the only fear I got over that night though. You see, as I try to find my place in this world, and accept that fact that I am no longer a kid and that I'm too old to go to summer camp and too tall to jump in the balls at Playland, I was pushing off the responsibilities of adulthood because I thought that it was a trade. I thought that one day I'd suddenly wake up and look in the mirror and the t-shirt and jeans I fell asleep in would be gone, and suddenly I'd be looking out from behind a face filled with shaving cream at a deadpan stare, dressed impeccably in an Armani suit and putting on airs and that'd be it - instead of spending nights dancing under the stars to Harry Hood, I'd have to spend them watching the news and sighing as I looked at a stack of unfinished paperwork on the kitchen table. But here I am, 23, and I'm spending tonight with a smile and a Magic Hat as I listen to a tape of Galactic somebody sent me and looking at the unfinished paperwork called The Kitchen Sink and that's something that I'm only too happy to have to tackle and if I sigh it's only because of this: I still know how to have fun, and I know now that I'll always have fun. And I know that when I'm thirty I'll still be running around town with friends securing ice cream and Blockbuster rentals and other provisions for pajama parties and I'll still be filling out mail order forms as I laugh with friends recalling that time we got kicked out of a state park in bumfuck North Carolina and how many escapades we've pulled off since then, and how many more fantastic fiascoes await. And wherever I go, whatever I do - may there always be a lake waiting for me, and may I always jump in.
Columnist Benjy Eisen is a wind....or a bug. (He's windora bug).
benjy@archive.phish.net
c - 1999 The Toga Rogue Publishing
August Issue: Home | Editors | Features | Columns | Photos | Regional | New Groove
Road Trip | Tour Journal | Venue | Levels | Ghosts | Homegrown | Inaudible | CDs | Charts
JamBands.Com is published on the 15th of every month. Submissions are due ten days earlier on the fifth of each month. Please contact the specific editor for the section you are interested in contributing to. For general content comments, please e-mail jambands@jambands.com. For all technical web site related issues, please contact Sarah Bruner or David Steinberg