Heavy Things

"From a song about tragedy impending, we're gonna move swiftly to a song about tragedy narrowly averted. It's another in our long list of tragedy songs..."-Bob Weir 10/31/80

It was a week I had been looking forward to for months. It was going to end in an event that I first starting planning for over a year ago. There it was, lurking on the other side of Christmas, Millennial Week.

Due to the quirks of scheduling and the luck of my location, I was going to be able to do three different events. On Sunday it was to the Kingdome to see the final regular season game at that non-so-venerated stadium. The Seahawks would play the Chiefs in a must win game. Monday and Tuesday would be the trip north of the border to Vancouver to see the first half of the String Cheese Incident run. On Wednesday I'd fly south to conclude the week down at Big Cypress and the promised all night set. Then I'd return home to recover.

Seeing how triple zero rollover dates don't occur that frequently, I decided that it was time to act like a Seattlelite and actually get a costume. I first went to Holly to get a pair of wings created. We brainstormed for a while and then I went to Bobbi's house. Bobbi is an amazing seamstress who specializes in making disco pants and other bright shiny clothing. After a week or two a theme emerged - Starman. I might have lucked into the theme, but it worked so well.

There was a superhero by that name in the 1940's who appeared frequently in my all time favorite comic, All Star Squadron. One of my current favorite comics is about the son of that character. While being a superhero comic, it also is about the relationship between him and his father, the differences between life in the 90's and life in the 40's, and the nature of heroism. It also builds up a mystique about the name "Starman" itself.

If that wasn't quite enough going for the name, there also is a David Bowie song by that title. How are these for lyrics to inspire a costume that you hope will freak people out in a good way:

There's a starman waiting in the sky
He'd like to come and meet us
But he thinks he'd blow our minds
There's a starman waiting in the sky
He's told us not to blow it
Cause he knows it's all worthwhile
He told me:
Let the children lose it
Let the children use it
Let all the children boogie

Of course when you throw in all of the glitter I would be using on the costume, "Look out your window I can see his light/If we can sparkle he may land tonight," seemed quite appropriate too. Everything was falling into place just exactly perfectly. I should have known that meant it was time to duck.

Maybe it my relative old age, maybe it's that I've finally learned some zen relaxation techniques, but border crossings don't bother me nearly as much as they used to. It does help that I don't do drugs or allow them in my car, but I still used to be afraid of them. Coming into Canada though, I was calm.

"Citizenship?"
"United States"
"How long will you be staying?"
"Two days."
"Do you have any weapons or firearms on you?"
"No."
"Reason for traveling?"
"Seeing some concerts."
"String Cheese Incident."

His voice became less formal.

"Do you also follow Phish around?"
"Yes, I will be flying down to Florida at the end of the week to see them."
"You guys are crazy, you know"

With that, he waved me through.

While most Canadian cities are safer than their American counterparts, Vancouver is an exception. If I were to make a list of all of the northwest cities in terms of where I would want to live, Vancouver would be in 153rd place, right behind Yakima. I was reminded of this fact while waiting outside the show. Someone walked by and gave my friend Lixa his ticket. "Just give it to someone. My car was broken into and I lost a $4000 computer. I'm just going home." Smashed windows apparently are as much a sign that you are in Vancouver as good chocolate and highway signs in metric.

The first Vancouver Incident pointed out the flaw of SCI's approach to music. I tend to associate the bands that I follow with a form of enlightenment. The Grateful Dead represent the follow a guru approach. Phish is more of a Sufism trip; they enlighten through humor. String Cheese Incident are Whirling Dervishes - the trip is complete body exhaustion. A hot Incident can leave me sore for days; the problem is that sometimes the energy seems a little forced. When every single jam is pushed into the play faster and faster and faster mode the body might be happy but the ear can get bored. The show had some highlights and I felt properly exercised, but I left wanting more.

The plan for Tuesday was to meet up with Lixa at a corner near my hotel and then hang out for the afternoon. Thirty minutes went by. I was still waiting. I sang my "Someone's Gonna Die and Her Name is Elizabeth" song that I sing whenever someone is late. I waited some more. An hour later, I finally gave up and walked toward the food areas. Two blocks away Lixa almost ran right into me. Her car was gone.

Other than some superficialities (different money, curling highlights on tv), it's easy to forget that British Columbia is not part of the United States. The second your car is missing, that feeling melts away. I provided moral support during the many calls to the police, the New Mexico DMV, the insurance company, etc. The police wouldn't take a formal report until she got her license plate number. She didn't have it memorized because it had just changed. Around and around she went until she finally was able to provide it. "Oh," said the police, "we towed it."

If you ever want to see someone go completely ballistic, I have a good method. First have their car disappear. Then have the police tell them that it wasn't towed. Two hours later, when they're really freaking, tell them that it was in fact towed, for their own good. "We saw a sign of a break in, so we towed it for your protection." Then, if you want to really see them go nuts, charge them $75 to pick up their car, a car that was parked perfectly legally. I sat back and watched her rant, feeling secure that if it were me in such a situation I would react much more calmly.

After an amazing second Incident, a show that made the entire trip to Vancouver worthwhile, I headed back through the fog and ice to Seattle. I took a brief nap and drove to the airport. I would have preferred a bit more sleep, but I figured that I would have plenty of time to do so Wednesday night in the parking lot.

"Things are falling down on me
Heavy things I could not see....
When I tried
To step aside
I moved to where they hoped I'd be"
-Phish

My first sign that my trip to the Big Cypress Indian Reservation was going to be different than the ones to Maine and Plattsburgh came while I was still flying into Ft. Lauderdale. As we were descending over the Everglades, the pilot felt compelled to point out the traffic jam. "Well", I figured", I have seen bad traffic jams before. It is still 10 PM. I have plenty of time to get to the show."

At midnight I hit the jam. At that point I was about 20 miles from the parking lot. I started my stopwatch and reset my trip odometer. During the next half hour I went .2 miles. Whooo! Five hours to the mile! How bad was the traffic? The below pictures were taken 6 hours apart.

Those who have ever sat in traffic with me will be stunned, but I was actually calm and under control the whole time.... Well almost the whole time.

I had finally gotten to the exit (12 hours to go 15 miles) when the person ahead of me started to really piss me off. Cars would move but they wouldn't. They were way too busy selling cigarettes to people to actually drive. So I sat there and watched one car after another pull ahead of them while I was stuck there. As if selling cigarettes weren't enough of a sin, they were violating the only two rules of the event: Don't bring dogs to the show and don't come without a ticket.

Ok picture the scene here. I'm exhausted, on my second straight all nighter. I'm suffering from dehydration; if I hadn't begged the person who handed out wristbands for some water, I might have passed out. As a result I'm screaming something - I have no idea what - at the people. Now at most of these big events, Phish run a low powered radio station. I was tuned to it, figuring that when it started to come in I would be close. The frequency was shared with 3 other stations - an NPR station, a Christian music station, and a Christian station run by Focus on the Family. So there I was, face covered with glitter, completely exhausted, ranting incoherently, while my windows were down and my radio was blaring a preacher's rant the Focus on the Family station. That's one way of entering a venue.

I barely had enough time to find some of my friends and get into the show. It took me until set III to find a place where the sound was listenable and by then I was so tired that I could barely appreciate what was going on. I was having massive sleep deprivation hallucinations. Not even the opening chords to "Mike's Song" could make me excited. The jam that followed though was a different story. I've seen the song over 50 times and, at the time, I was convinced that this was the best version I had seen.

I spent the day of New Years exploring the venue. The village green area was as impressive as ever. No "Bubble House" this time, but there was a section of woods that had constantly changing lighting at night. There was a time capsule. There was an archeological site

As I was wandering, stunned by how many people wanted to take my photo, I came across a gang of performance artists that Phish had hired. They were T.I.M.E. agents. Their goal was to make sure that everyone had the correct time. After checking to make sure that my watch was ok, they deputized me, seeing how I am The Timer. They showed me a Polaroid shot of a stick figure claiming that he was an enemy of Time.

Later that afternoon I saw them doing some skits showing the importance of time and then there was an actual confrontation with their dreaded enemy. I don't know how Phish find these people, but it sure makes the time before the show pass quickly.

The schedule for the night was an unusual one. The first set would be between 5 and 7, there would be a long break, and then there would be a set between 11:45 PM and sunrise. After getting separated from my friends while going in (the searches were incredibly light, but I overdid how little I worked to disguise my camera at first), I managed to find J'eliz and spent the show with her.

The first set was really a warmup. Other than the stunning "Split Open and Melt"-> "Catapult" - after which Trey said that only in the largest concert in the world could someone get away with playing a song like that - it was pretty much standard versions of standard tunes. The set closer though- a cover of Eric Clapton's "After Midnight" - changed everything. People were whooping it up and getting all sorts of excited. I found the Halley's Comet people and walked back to their campground to kill the long break... or at least I tried to. Tanya was wearing her glowing Cowgirl outfit, Holly was in her neon disco suit and I was in my Starman costume. We couldn't go 5 feet without someone coming up to us and asking for a photo. "Photo op!"

The set break pretty much flew by, and it was time to go back in. It was weird having a set start and not knowing at all what to expect. Would there be a three hour jam? Would there be a cover album? While none of that happened, in retrospect I'm glad. The Millennial Set proved to many jaded people that Phish can play an amazing set without relying on gimmicks; more than one person said that their faith in Phish was renewed this night.

After a brief incomprehensible skit involving feeding meatsticks to father time, the countdown started. The fireworks show at midnight was one of the most impressive I had ever seen. No subtlety here; let's just go through an hour's worth of fireworks in 2 minutes. Fifty minutes into the set, all of the lights came on. ABC 2000 was about to cover the show. Returning to an idea tried on a radio broadcast of 12/31/92, Trey asked that, after the song was played, that people not cheer or anything. Instead just say "Cheesecake." In fact, say "Cheesecake" like you're pissed off. Better yet, chant "Cheesecake." ABC went live, Trey gave his message of peace for the millennium ("Drive on the right, pass on the left. Things will be a lot more peaceful then."), "Heavy Things" was played, and the chant, well it went about as well as instructions to 80,000 tripping people were going to go.

"Cheesecake" became the word of the set. The post YEM vocal jam revolved around that word. The lyrics to "Axilla" and "Albuquerque" were changed to include "cheesecake" in them. The occasional chant of "Let's go cheesecake! (clap clap,clap clap clap)" was started. Apparently even the Orange Bowl the next day had some people chanting "Cheesecake."

My notes for this entire set are pretty sketchy. It was less of a concert than an endurance contest. I lost a large chunk of the 30 minute version of the Velvet Underground's "Rock and Roll" when I went to brave the crowds to get caffeine. I didn't even notice that the "Sand" a few songs later was almost 40 minutes until I looked at my timings the next day. The whole set combined in my memory to one long moment of tiredness and happiness.

One song that did stand out was the "Piper" For those who don't know the song, Piper is an exercise in building a theme. It starts out with the main theme playing quietly. As the song goes on it builds and builds until, while they are playing at a fervent pace, the words are sung:

Piper, piper the red, red worm
Woke last night to the sound of the storm
Words are words I sailed upon

Faster and faster they are sung, going around and around until the energy propels them out into a jam. At first look, those words appear - like many Phish lyrics - to be chosen more for the way they sound sung than any actual meaning they have. In this case they describe the song. Piper is the sound of the storm. First you see a flash of lightning of in the distance. The wind starts to pick up. The first drop of rain falls. Then another. People dash for shelter ("Piper, piper the red red worm"). Cars pull over to the side of the road ("Woke last night to the sound of the storm"). The tarp is moved across the infield. ("Words are words I sailed upon"). The strikes of lightning get closer and closer. Lakes start to form on the Interstate. The chorus is reprised. Then, being a summer shower, the clouds part and the calm after the storm theme is played.

The Big Cypress "Piper" was not a summer shower. We were in Florida after all; a full fledged hurricane would be more appropriate. Almost as soon as we first got a warning of the oncoming storm, we were pelted from all sides. No slow build here. Gale warnings were out in force as this "Piper" attacked furiously. Around the time I began to hope that my car was boarded up, a third chorus was sung. Phish seemed to know the power of this version. Instead of the reassuring ending letting us know that we survived the storm, the song segued directly into Free. FEMA would be arriving any second to help with the post-"Piper" repairs.

As the night passed, Phish did a great job of bringing back the energy whenever people were beginning to fade too much. Both the "Roses Are Free" at 6 AM and the "2001" at 6:45, got all of the tired people to jump back up and boogie some more. As the sun came up, my favorite of their ballady songs - "Wading in the Velvet Sea" was played, and I looked around and it was good. The set wrapped up with a "Meatstick" to mirror the opening of it.

As "Here Comes The Sun" played over the PA, I said goodbye to my friends and ran off to my car. I wanted to beat the traffic to get my 5 PM flight. Past events took 3-4 hours to get out.

The good news is that it didn't take 4 hours to get out of the lot. The bad news is that it took 8 hours. As I watched my chances for catching my flight diminish, I got more and more worried. Talking to someone who called his airline on his cellphone only to get, "You missed your flight? Too bad. You'll have to buy a new ticket for $900." did not help at all. I didn't have $900. I was on my 3rd all nighter in the last 4 days. I hadn't eaten anything in about 24 hours. Only the fact that some kind person gave me a gallon of water prevented another case of heat exhaustion. I was going to be trapped in Ft. Lauderdale, a location about as far away from Seattle as I could get and still be in the continental US. If I didn't get back soon I would lose my job and my apartment. As I finally got onto I-75, the stress got worse and worse. What was I going to do?

I arrived at the airport and went to TWA's counter. Ok maybe I can't get to Seattle, but can you get me SOMEWHERE out west so I can catch a train or something. Nope. Nothing but standbys for 2 days. The suggestion was to try other airlines.

There were four airlines in that terminal. United couldn't help me. I didn't even bother trying Southwest as all of their flights were local ones. Then I tried Continental.

"You want to try to get to San Francisco?" "Well ideally I would want to get to Seattle, but anywhere out west would do at this point." "Actually, I have an extra seat on a flight to Seattle early tomorrow morning. You interested?" "WHAT?!?!?!" He then spent the next twenty minutes fighting with TWA to get my ticket transferred over. I would be flying to Seattle for no extra money! Once he finished that, Sam Marmolejos, the hero of my world, asked me where I was going that night. I was more than happy to sleep in the airport but then he shook his head. What? You can't sleep in the airport here? I had misunderstood. After a quick call, he handed me a room voucher for the Airport Hilton and a $10 meal ticket. I looked at him, stunned that this was happening. Getting someone at their lowest point and acting with completely unexpected kindness is a very effective form of brainwashing. All I knew is that I would be flying Continental whenever possible from now on.

After actually getting a good night's sleep - and taking 3 showers - I returned to the airport. Check in went smoothly, and I found myself on a plane to Houston. I arrived in Seattle in time to see the Raiders beat the Chiefs and get the Seahawks, who had lost their game, into the playoffs. The reporters kept saying that they had never seen people go so quickly from depression to euphoria before. They should have seen me in the airport.

Before New Year's Eve, I was an outspoken opponent on the Incidentalist about SCI's planned ritual at the date rollover. Seeing Phish that night made those thoughts more clear. The amount that you will value a lesson is directly proportionate to the amount of work that you underwent to learn it. No ritual could ever be as powerful as Sam Marmolejos handing me the Hilton room voucher. The potential for danger is what makes a truly life changing event possible. The traffic jams and near ruining of my life made the show that much sweeter.