february 23 ffs
I haven't tweeted in years but I still keep up with my friends' posts when I can, and when they post a banger, I try to tell you about the banger. This is a long and overly dumb way of saying that my buddy Sergio Da Silva, owner and operator of Montreal's venerated Turbo Haus and onetime political candidate, posted something wonderful on Twitter the other day:
Some people have never been to a basement show that’s way too packed and way too loud and way too small watching a band that’s way too good and way too fun not to drastically change the course of their lives. And that’s what’s wrong with the world today.
It's an oversimplification, obviously, but like... yeah. Fucking yeah. That's how Serg did the thing and how I did the thing. Every now and again it was how we both did the thing, in the same room, at the same time —— him onstage and me in the crowd being a criminal.
I can't speak for him, but for me going to those kinds of shows and feeling that kind of thing was the end result of decades spent going out and experiencing everything I could so that I could figure out who I was, what I liked, what I loved. I'm glad I did.
Today, at 47, I'm glad I did for reasons including but not limited to that I meet a lot of middle-aged people who don't have the first clue who they are, what they like, and what they love. I want to grab these mfs by the shoulders and shake them and scream DO YOU GET THAT YOUR LIFE IS ENDING ONE DAY AT A TIME?!?! into their faces 'til the pigs drag me to the pokey. I don't do that of course. I'm crazy but I'm not stupid.
Anyway, I know the experience of being young, wild, and messy at night while being adult, respectable, and presentable during the day in the way that existed for me in my 20s (okay fine, my 30s and a few years of my 40s too) isn't really on offer anymore. I know that COVID fucked the prospect of going to a sweaty basement show into a cocked hat, and I know that everything is unaffordable these days. But, like, you absolutely have to go to the sweaty basement show and get your mind blown. You absolutely have to call your friends when you can. You absolutely have to make plans and show up. You absolutely have to spend at least some of your life fucking up, and failing, and falling in love, and getting your heart broken. You have to learn by doing. You have to have to have to learn by doing.
You don't have to take the post literally, either. Like, it doesn't even have to be a sweaty basement show. Maybe it's a poetry salon, or a foreign film at a rep cinema. Maybe it's a pottery class, or sex club. Maybe it's you saving your coins diligently in order to blow the stack on a tasting menu you think might change the way you look at and think about food. Maybe it's the same thing but you're putting it all on black and crossing your fingers. All I'm saying is that if you aren't spending your time on this stupid blue marble trying to figure out who you are and to figure out what life is, then at least stand to the right of the escalator because the rest of us need to get where we're going.
🌲 gonna slep
🌼 go slep
🌱 touch slep
🌳 grass slep
🌷 zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Be good to yourself.
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