|
|
Stuck In Normal
by Chris Bertolet - bertolet@earthlink.netWhen you're dancing at a show, playing the band, smiling at strangers, and filling your soul, it can feel like you've bottled a drop of Heaven. At moments like those, it's nearly impossible to imagine that somewhere else on this wondrous planet, two adolescents can walk into their high school with guns and bombs and rain down Hell.
In the weeks that have passed since those two boys (let's call them what they were, after all) tore the heart out of Littleton, I've grown awfully sore of listening to "experts" tell me that They Know Why It Happened. I'm sick of hearing the NRA blame Sega, and I'm tired of hearing Sega blame the NRA.
Reality check: the causes for a horror like this are as many and as complex as the facets of the human mind, and anyone who pretends differently is scrambling for personal gain or political cover.
Of course, in some way, it makes sense that we try to find some external cause for events like the Columbine shooting. At heart, none of us want to believe that our children are internally capable of such unspeakable violence. It's easier to believe that TV has polluted their minds, or that Smith & Wesson has pimped their souls.
But it's not that simple. And we're all capable.
Call me a bleeding heart, but I feel for the Columbine shooters. Not in the way I feel for their classmates and the families of their victims, whose pain I can't begin to fathom. But I imagine those kids suffered greatly before they ever considered spilling a drop of blood. I believe that inside them, they ached to find acceptance, belonging, and love in a world that offered them nothing but rejection. I think their alienation carved a gaping, miserable void in their gut that even shared suffering couldn't fill.
In their own final, misguided analysis, they had nothing else to do.
Kids may be our future. But they sure can be motherfuckers.
I'm a fairly well-adjusted adult today, with a loving wife, a stable career, and the best friends anyone could ask for. When I tell those friends about my days in junior high and high school, some of them don't believe me. While my peers were growing into their bodies, I stagnated. In fact, I didn't break a reed-thin five feet until the age of almost 16. So from the seventh grade through the tenth, I was an easy target for bullies.
My hair was shorter than most other kids', and some of the tougher ones liked to call me "Butch" as they punched and pinballed me around the halls between classes. One kid in particular took glee in telling me each time he saw me that he was "going to fucking kill" me. I doubt he even knew my name.
Intellect was no defense; in fact, it was a liability. I had no interest in joining the packs of terrified, anti-social "brains" who huddled in the corner of the lunch room, as if to protect themselves from the popular kids. No, I wanted to make real friends. I wanted to be included. I wanted to be accepted. Again and again, I failed.
Time crawled. I figured I'd always be an outcast; that I'd always be waiting for that next shove, that next jibe. I considered suicide. I guess I entertained fantasies of homicide now and then; if I could have nothing else, I'd have the last laugh. Take a few with me.
Eventually, I started to grow. As I started to look like my peers, they began to accept me. I went out for the football team, and even though I was still too small and not very good, I had heart. The cool kids approved. I had escaped.
Then I went to college, and met the new boss ... same as the old boss. It was the same old hierarchy, only this time on a new and more elite stratum. Not surprisingly, I dove into the same vicious, all-consuming cycle again ... seek approval, find rejection, self-flagellate, seek approval...
It wasn't until a jolly and somehow knowing Rastafarian handed me two tiny squares of paper at a reggae concert on the quad that I realized I'd been going about it all wrong.
That night, I stared into a mirror for four hours. Though I didn't know it at the time, I was getting to know the person staring back at me. I wouldn't describe the experience as a happy one; in fact, it was a terrifying and ill-planned excursion into doubt and fear and regret. But when the sun came up and reality shone in again through the blinds of my dorm room, I had turned a corner.
Before long, I began to strike real friendships; unconditional friendships. One of those real friends ... a Herbie The Dentist look-alike named Blair ... turned me on to the Grateful Dead.
As Blair and I walked through the lot at my first show (Hampton Coliseum, 3/26/88, for those keeping score at home), I marveled at the artists, poets, musicians and freaks who were gathered there to dance their bliss. Among them, there seemed to be no hierarchy, no rules, no boundaries. These people were free. They were Individuals, and they were fulfilled.
And when I saw how that gray-haired fat man could make 11,000 people twirl in reverie, jump in ecstasy and weep for joy all at once, I knew I was home.
In Jerry Garcia, a man who had found his solace and calling in the moody strains of dirt-poor bluegrass pickers, I found a model of self-assured purpose, authenticity and grace. In Phil Lesh, I found a dauntless alchemist, creating new sonic forms from strange combinations and with inimitable authority. In Bob Weir, I saw the defiant outsider, slashing away at strange chords on unexpected beats. Their faces weren't fanzine friendly, and they didn't wear cool clothes. They were misfits. But somehow, they transcended cool, and sucked the meaning right out of the word.
I imagine I'm not alone when I say that I owe no small part of who I am to the music of the Grateful Dead. Draped like a silk cloth over the frame of Robert Hunter's sturdy words, those songs disintegrated my preconceptions and razed the walls of possibility. They made me laugh like I had never laughed before, and wonder boundlessly. They reached out with a tender hand to dab away tears of regret.
Most importantly, they gave me permission to find myself, and to be myself. For a few thousand bucks in concert tickets and Maxells, I can't imagine a sweeter deal.
The parents of the Columbine shooters have shouldered a lot of blame for falling asleep at the switch. In close company, I've even slandered them. Upon reflection, though, that's as simplistic as blaming the NRA or Sega. Imparting identity and esteem to children is no simple task in today's world, and it's becoming harder with every air-brushed, homogenized image of human "perfection" they absorb.
Still, I can't help but wonder what might have become of those kids had their parents ever taken them to see Phish, or Widespread Panic, or String Cheese Incident. If they had seen Mike Gordon, model outcast, vibrating the masses with his pants rolled up around his knees. If they'd seen Sunny Ortiz, all five feet of him, mauling the congas and beaming ear to ear as the sun-drenched Spreadheads beamed back. If they'd seen Bill Nershi, pot-bellied and bare-foot, leaning into a "Land's End" jam as souls joined on the floor below him.
Could a misfit see these things, and find no hope or solace?
Music is acceptance. It asks nothing. Music is love. At its best, it reminds us of what binds us to each other and to the Universe. Music is power. It can heal, overyjoy, and enlighten... and it's there for the taking.
If you're a parent, share the gift of music with your children. Watch it shape them and broaden their futures. Let it help you to teach them well.
And if you feel desperate, discarded, unwanted, or alone, please know that there are millions like you. More importantly, know that not only do you not have to suffer alone... you don't have to suffer at all.
There is a place for you, and all we ask is that you pick up your trash.
Chris Bertolet (bertolet@earthlink.net) has a world-class collection of back issues of _Tiger Beat_, and currently spends his days watching old episodes of MTV's "House of Style." He likes the Cindy Crawford vintage best. Chris would also like to clarify that his cat Tom is now dead.
May 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