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My Ship At Sail Could Climb A Mountain
by Benjy eisen - benjy@archive.phish.net
This past April, while driving recklessly across the Northeast for a couple of weeks, I watched the sunset from behind. The rays of light reflected mellow on the soft cresting waves of the Atlantic Ocean as they rolled patiently and calmly onto a still Rhode Island coast. As I watched the moon rise over the water, I started skipping stones from the sandline and measured the tide. I had an important question to ask the ocean, one which I will reveal here. But first, before I can get to the question, I need to explain how I arrived on this beach in the first place. It starts, this time, with The Disco Biscuits:
Something has happened to the Disco Biscuits this year. They stopped playing music and suddenly they started letting the music play them. Their jams are no longer skilled music theory exercises which carefully navigate notes on a page. Given enough practice, anybody can do that. And many do. But the Disco Biscuits have taken it to the elements - they load their vessel with electric bolts of sound and they toss it into what looks like a tornado and they twist and turn in that tornado until the winds die down and the sun comes back out and suddenly we're on the streets of summer, jumping and splashing around a sprinkler as it goes around and around and we've just gone from the most frightening experience of our lives to a delightful one. It's a feeling, an emotion, a spiritual release that transfers from spirit to sound to spirit. From heart to instrument to heart. What we're talking about is soul.
I look around at a Disco Biscuits show lately and I see whole groups of people spontaneously raising their arms in the air, as if they were receiving the gospel. And who's to say they arent? Group hugs erupt as improvisationally as the jams themselves. People's jaws are left dragging on the dance floor, three feet behind them as they leave the show. Faces become radiant, rays of light shoot out from strangers as they pass by each other and exchanges of phone numbers and e-mail addresses are made - we've just gone through this experience together, I feel as though I know you.
And indeed it is an experience we're talking about here - To those tuned in, it is a feeling of SURVIVAL after a show, as if their souls were being tested, challenged, and those who emerged still sane can celebrate their victory. As for the others, well...there's them too - the group who have been pushed over the edge. The group who have squared off with Bisco and have found themselves so defeated by it, that they must travel from show to show hoping to one day get it back. Just two days ago a friend of mine called from Rochester to tell me that he can't miss another Disco Biscuits show....ever. He's not alone.
So this Spring, when I felt I needed a couple of weeks to find new direction and inspiration again, when I needed to do a little bit of internal spring cleaning, I headed out on the road for a two week Disco Biscuits tour. On Saturday April 24th the tour came to Curry College for an afternoon show with Run DMC before swinging down to some small town south of Providence, RI for the late show at The Ocean Mist. We had heard that it was directly on a beach, but coming from a childhood history of Ocean Cities and Myrtle Beaches, I expected, if not a boardwalk, a beach-front business district. I must've forgotten we were in Rhode Island. There was nothing on the beach. Just sand and the outline of scattered beach houses against the flat dryland.
As we pulled up to the venue, I watched the three passengers in my car jump out like Dukes of Hazard and dash mad-like inside. I'm not sure why - it was still too early to rock, what with the sun just getting low in the sky and all. I took a stroll down to the sandline and stepped across. It was the best move I made all day.
Here's a little secret about the ocean - it's all music. You look out into the horizon to where the water meets the sky and you know that that is just the beginning - that it is impossible to see further and yet you're only looking at the first step. And it begins to dawn on you that the water really does go on for not just hundreds but thousands of miles beyond. And beyond that too, probably. And you begin to wonder what it might be like, you know, living out there, and suddenly you look back at the empty beach around you and you start to realize that either sea or sand, you're still all alone in this world. And you begin to learn that alone and lonely are two different things and you continue to love your friends but you start to feel the presence of your soul when you go out there, all the way to where the water meets the sky. And it's all the way out there that music is born.
On the shore from where I was standing I looked back at the Ocean Mist night club where, faintly, I could hear the strains of the Disco Biscuits as they soundchecked. I walked on alone. I didn't want to hear that. Not now. I had my own song to write.
The beach was empty, save for the outline of a couple holding hands and walking, some distance away. I began to shut out my thoughts and really listen - there's so much rhythm in the ocean...the way the waves pound softly on the sand, the way the tides come in and out, the gawking of seagulls as they look for one last meal before calling it a night. I glanced up at them and looked for Jonathan Livingston.
I asked the ocean one question. One which covered the thousand or so questions I had been meaning to ask. Questions I would've asked the gods themselves had they ever engaged me in conversation. I asked the ocean everything.
Ask the ocean anything and it will answer you with silence. It will answer you with truth. The same demon-like waters which turn into dragons and lash across wooden ships, breaking bows and masts and sails are the same waters which wash unconscious men up on shore, battered and beaten....but not broken. The waters become playful, carrying us on its back as we ride waves for sport or fish for food to eat. Further out from shore, the waters appear tranquil and meditative until sight of storm cloud or shark tail sends us screaming for land. And all the while the sea says nothing, does nothing. Because it will not lie to us.
I had come to the water to ask the world everything and the ocean answered me with silence. It answered me with truth.
I stared out past the water and saw the reflection of a child I once knew as a kid when I used to stare into the mirror and make funny faces before brushing my teeth and going to bed. I stared out past the water and saw the reflection of a soccer field at The Hill School where I used to walk back to the classroom buildings trailing behind the others and crying slightly because I wasn't good enough. And not just with a soccer ball. I stared out past the water and saw the reflection of myself frolicking by Green River at Simon's Rock, spun on a Saturday with a smile, the greatest of friends and an even greater jug of wine.
I stared out past the water and saw reflections.
The sun was getting lower now and I could hear faintly the sounds of cars pulling up to the venue, some feet behind me, as people started getting ready for the show. I started walking up the beach a little to a slight curve where once again I could slip out of sight to skip stones across the Atlantic. It was a starry night. And a full moon.
A sea-breeze picked up a little now and somewhere too Orion took his place in the sky as the stars increased their numbers. It was getting about that time. I would turn around now and go back to the Ocean Mist, where I was awaiting various friends of mine, all of which I was excited to see, and I would have a beer and maybe lose a game of pool and then get ready to get down. I turned around and glanced back at the venue behind me and I saw more cars start to pull up. I knew I only had a couple more minutes alone with the Atlantic. I started to take in my sails, throw down the anchor and step on the rails. I picked up one more rock to skip across the surface and if you think this column is a work of fiction, it was around this time that friend and fellow Jamband columnist Jeff Waful walked out on the sand to say hello and I all but ignored him. Sorry Jeff. I was "lost in thought" as they say.
I felt myself just about ready to start walking and head on in when I started to hear a certain music. At first I thought it was coming from all the way back inside the venue, although even out here on the sand it sounded crisp and clear and familiar. And then I realized that it was coming from within, like a personal jukebox fiesta. It was magical and inspirational and it was perfect note for note. It was the Disco Biscuits' Magellan:
"One with the raging wind
alive on the highest tides
my ship at sail can climb a mountain
ride it to the sky."My silent cover was as patient and as rewarding as the real ones that they have been playing lately and I looked up in affirmation at the horizon, where the ocean meets the sky, and I looked into the water one last time and I thought about the rock bottom, legions below, and realized how much my ship has already come just this far out. I picked up a pebble that the tide was just starting to wet, and I put it in my pocket, as if to take the ocean with me as a reminder, and then I started to head back into the venue, right as some more friends of mine arrived and together we smiled and hopped on inside to celebrate.
And the night was wonderful.
Watch columnist Benjy Eisen as he takes on a 350 pound stuffed Chihuahua on America's Funniest Home Videos (#6-351). Check local listings for showtimes.
benjy@archive.phish.net
Copyright 1999. The Toga Rogue Publishing.
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