Finding myself again - hair and metal
Just last night I witnessed one of those rare cosmological moments, when truth is so bright that you turn your head from the shadow puppets, strain your chains and get a glimpse of the sun. I found true love again, and I was transported to the beginning of time. Really.
Last night, some friends and I were cutting styrofoam for the body of our 2007 Idiotarod vehicle (a race in which 6 men pull a shopping cart through downtown DC racing against other teams for the coveted 1st prize...or best costume prize). Phil had purchased a soundtrack for our little gang. One after another, slowly, but steadily, I re-lived the beginning: Crazy Train, Bang Your Head, We're Not Gonna Take It.... Yes, our theme is the 80s hair metal band; in fact, an 80s glam band pulling a shopping cart mounted with an 8 foot replica of the Washington monument, in pink (the monument, that is). Our name, "Monument," in gothic letters proudly displayed on the sides of the cart. (I should digress in defense of our monument as a civic exercise...after all, the inventors of civics and democracy, the Athenians, required their foreign allies to send such a monument to the Great Dionysia festival to process in an official state parade attended by dignitaries from the world over - the Greek part of it, that is.)
Our head banging theme had seemed silly and, honestly, an exotic, almost alien, exercise. But I found myself cued in to the metal, in sort of the therapeutic way that a baby receives the loud shushing of womb soundtracks. I was lulled into contentment.
This morning I found a web radio station, all the time 80s metal. And I haven't been able to turn it off. The music has forced itself onto me, and adjusted my vision of myself and the world. Because, this music, this ridiculous thrashing around about sex, drugs, alcohol, and Satan was the soundtrack to my adolescence, the time that my sexual identity was developing, i.e., the beginning of time. For example, the slow ballads bring me immediately back to my first dance (involving little dancing...mostly watching)...and I realize, that scene is how girls and boys are supposed to relate to one another, i.e. just dying to touch each other in some way, any way.
Today's rule: to never lose Twisted Sister again...ever.
Last night, some friends and I were cutting styrofoam for the body of our 2007 Idiotarod vehicle (a race in which 6 men pull a shopping cart through downtown DC racing against other teams for the coveted 1st prize...or best costume prize). Phil had purchased a soundtrack for our little gang. One after another, slowly, but steadily, I re-lived the beginning: Crazy Train, Bang Your Head, We're Not Gonna Take It.... Yes, our theme is the 80s hair metal band; in fact, an 80s glam band pulling a shopping cart mounted with an 8 foot replica of the Washington monument, in pink (the monument, that is). Our name, "Monument," in gothic letters proudly displayed on the sides of the cart. (I should digress in defense of our monument as a civic exercise...after all, the inventors of civics and democracy, the Athenians, required their foreign allies to send such a monument to the Great Dionysia festival to process in an official state parade attended by dignitaries from the world over - the Greek part of it, that is.)
Our head banging theme had seemed silly and, honestly, an exotic, almost alien, exercise. But I found myself cued in to the metal, in sort of the therapeutic way that a baby receives the loud shushing of womb soundtracks. I was lulled into contentment.
This morning I found a web radio station, all the time 80s metal. And I haven't been able to turn it off. The music has forced itself onto me, and adjusted my vision of myself and the world. Because, this music, this ridiculous thrashing around about sex, drugs, alcohol, and Satan was the soundtrack to my adolescence, the time that my sexual identity was developing, i.e., the beginning of time. For example, the slow ballads bring me immediately back to my first dance (involving little dancing...mostly watching)...and I realize, that scene is how girls and boys are supposed to relate to one another, i.e. just dying to touch each other in some way, any way.
Today's rule: to never lose Twisted Sister again...ever.
posted by Michael at
9:04 AM
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