TASTY STORIES

What I Saw: Radiohead in Seattle

We had just barely got the timing right. Not a moment passed after I’d bought a poster and sheathed it in a cardboard tube when I heard the ethereal opening to “Bloom” playing over roaring applause. The previous majority of the day had been a whirlwind of work, planning, driving, rushing, and waiting, and all thoughts or memories of it vanished in an instant, leaving only one notion behind: I had to get into that arena.

I’ve never been more thankful for assigned seating. We found our way to our gate and walked straight through and down to our seats with no hassles. As we plunged deeper and deeper into Key Arena, it became clear the ways in which photography never does a venue justice, especially when one hasn’t actually been to it before. I hadn’t realized just how close to the band I was about to be. The excitement was growing, but it hadn’t really reached its full intensity yet. Perhaps I was still in shock. Was I really, finally seeing Radiohead perform after so many years of missing their tours?

I’m too certain that I’m not Radiohead’s number-one fan, although I do consider them my favorite band and know an unreasonable amount about them. I love them so much that I was prepared to admit to myself that their first couple of songs were a bit shaky. “Airbag” kind of sucked, and they seemed unsure of themselves. The mix was muddy, although I’m sure this was mostly because of my position far off to the side, stage left, away from the sound system’s direct throw. But they were obviously not quite together if one knew what to listen for or how to watch for the telltale signs of a band struggling to keep it together. I hoped they were not too weary from the first leg of their American tour.

A disease made it all better. “Myxomatosis” was one of the best songs I’ve seen performed live. Ever. The song’s complex rhythms and sawtooth guitars blew through me like a supernova. Thom’s energy and confidence picked up, and he lead the crowd. The light show and projection were perfect; lemon-lime yellows of flashing pixelated geometric patterns through arrays of recycled water bottles made us feel alive. I’d always thought of “Myxomatosis” as a yellow song. I’m glad the band agreed.

From there, the concert was nothing short of incredible. Notable highlights included the lively “Morning Mr. Magpie,” a stirring “How to Disappear Completely,” and a vividly charismatic “You and Whose Army.” “Weird Fishes/Arpeggi” captured and controlled the aural gamut so brilliantly that even the arena’s horrible echo played into the cacophony, building a song as quality in production as the album version with an added life-force that can only be achieved through live performance of real instruments by real musicians. These men were professionals, and they used the soundscape to its fullest in delivering a night of brilliant musicianship light on disappointment.

In fact, the most disappointing element of the concert, if such a thing existed, would undoubtedly have been the fans—at least, some of them. You know what doesn’t make “Pyramid Song’s” astral introduction better? Whooping and hollering. I cannot fathom, for the life of me, what compels idiots into raucous applause any time the volume or intensity dips, especially when the band is fucking Radiohead and you’ve paid $90 to see them do their thing. Perhaps these types forgot that the rest of us had come to hear the band practice their expertise in the sculpting of sound, and not for the primal emissions of self-important attention whores desiring to make their approval known. This happened many times while the band tried to achieve intimate moments with dynamic variation. If you are one of these cretins and you feel the urge to cry out during “Give up the Ghost,” remember that the band isn’t playing softly because they figured your input would work well in the mix. It’s because it’s a fragile fucking requiem meant to seep into our souls and make us shiver with forlorn sadness. We know it’s a good song without you. So shut up and fucking listen to it.

Where I can get behind rowdy accolades is in the call for encore. There’s something genetically powerful about an uproarious crowd that you can feel all the way through your bones and into the marrow. The sound races across your ears as though you could put your hand up and feel the arena’s energy manifested in some physical resistance. When the band returned for both of their encores, it was as if the fury would crush them alive. I wonder what it must be like to command that sort of response just by doing the thing you love. Some form of this notion must have been in Thom’s head, because he was of bashful smiles and polite thank yous each time he returned to the stage.

When the night ended, we sauntered out of the arena along with the other fans in a quiet murmur, each of us not quite finished processing what we had witnessed and none of us willing to say more than, “they were good.” Having left the arena back into the brisk Seattle night, conversation picked up and fractured lines flew back and forth as people coagulated in small groups to sing the concert’s praises. For blocks beyond the arena could be heard discussion of the show and just how wonderful it was.

It’s almost a given that a group of Radiohead fans will inevitably wander into the territory of hyperbole and perhaps even theology. But this is for good reason. The band isn’t content at simply making killer albums. They apply several times the craftsmanship to their live performance. Thom’s voice held out the entire two-and-a-half hours, and save for the first three songs, not a mistake was made the entire show by the others. They have such an impressive back catalogue that they can choose almost any song and please a crowd, and as such, they vary their set lists fairly dramatically from show to show. Less polished acts might fall into a formulaic rut, or stray away from older material until the encores. Not Radiohead.

Radiohead’s set list was a vibrant mix of old and new, spanning OK Computer to The King of Limbs, yet none of the material felt dated. “Lucky,” which is over a decade-and-a-half old, could have been written yesterday, and they played it with the same energy as if it had. Even the newer B-sides, such as “These are My Twisted Words” piqued the enthusiasm of the audience, and reliable standbys like “There, There” excited the most novice fan. It was a concert made to stick in memory, especially for someone like me who’s been to a lot of concerts, but never Radiohead’s.

And as with the other great concerts or films or shows that I’ve seen, I knew I would experience that hangover one gets when one realizes they’ve just experienced something great that can never be got back. Indeed, I did experience this. The idea of this concert had been on a pedestal of mine for six years at least, and I was surprised at how well it delivered. Now that it was over I wanted more. At the concert I stood in giddy anticipation of the next song, not knowing what it would be and delighted at whatever came. But afterwards I thought of all the songs I wished they’d played—which could easily have filled a completely new set list—and lamented that I may never live to see those songs performed in front of me. Now that the anticipation had passed, and the experience experienced, all I had left was nostalgia and the dreadful uncertainty surrounding our next meeting. This amounted to a dull sadness that numbed most of the following day. Of course, I would never trade the experience for removal of despair, though; this despair is fleeting. I finally got to see my favorite band in concert, and that’s something worth smiling about.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, I had a good time.

Fifteen Minutes of Salvation

Tuesday morning rains down on my windshield, and I’m reaching for the radio dial. My throat is a bit scratchy like a faint omen of illness, but the hot coffee seems to help. Earlier this morning, I decided I would not like to be sick, so I slept in for a full eight hours—a rare treat which I must make up for in time by driving to work instead of busing or biking. It’s on these sorts of days that I indulge some inner masochism, some desire to hear that which many find poisonous and vile. My finger powers on the radio and I begin scanning the airwaves for an AM preacher to fill my car with righteousness, or whatever is passing for it these days.

This Tuesday, Turning Points Ministries catches my ear. I’m at the tail end of David Jeremiah’s lecture on…the economy? At first, I am disappointed. I’ve come for a discussion of heavenly rewards, not earthly riches, but I don’t change the station. I’m curious what the Bible has to say about our current economy, or what this man’s expertise in Christian spirituality lends to financial instruction.

It’s not long before I discover that the answer to both of those questions is, “nothing.” Jeremiah is drawing up analogy after analogy so that the smaller minded among us might comprehend just how much money the United States spends. Did you know that if you went back in time spending a dollar a day until Jesus’ birth, you still wouldn’t hit a trillion? And here, our government owes other countries several times that. He proceeds to mangle the difference between the trade deficit and the national debt. I’m waiting for the part where Jesus comes in.

Our wanton ways put tens of thousands out of a job and on the streets every month. Oh, surely Jesus will come in now. After all, his thing was caring for the poor and downtrodden, correct? That’s how I remember it, anyway. The messiah does not come. National responsibility is more important. Of course, our preacher insists, this is not political and there’s plenty of blame to go around on both the left and the right. After all, his domain is spiritual, and it would be wrong (perhaps even illegal!) for him to endorse a particular politician or specifically condemn another.

It’s just a matter of coincidence, then, when the appropriate solution is the exact opposite of President Obama’s and lines up perfectly with modern neo-conservatism (which in turn just so happens to align socially with his brand of Christianity). He asks us how we can possibly think of spending money on ourselves when we owe others so much money. Obviously no amount of taxation can ever spare us, but some unnamed powers might have us all paying upwards of 70% of our income to keep the ship afloat. What kind of responsible, righteous nation can whimsically adopt a future full of public health entitlement programs while owing so much? How impossible a dream is the bright future when the strongest nation on the planet behaves so irresponsibly? Isn’t it our moral responsibility to repay our debts before all else? I hear the congregation applaud in the background. They must be as excited as I am to find out how Jesus is going to help straighten us out so we can fly right.

First, though, we require doomsday predictions. I feel much more at home now that the end is nigh. Maybe it won’t happen in our lifetimes, but this spendthrift path of wanton financial neglect is surely the way towards national destruction and bloody revolution. The only people alive today who remember a time of greater hardship are those who lived through the Depression, and even their experience will surely pale in comparison to what’s on the United States’ dark horizon. Still, oddly, Christ is absent. I feel like I, and all the other concerned listeners, could use his comforting presence right now.
But I’m still stuck on the previous bit. Did a follower of Christ really just postulate that the balancing of budgets stands more noble a goal than providing care for the sick and needy—that somehow the salvation of a nation lies not in its ability to catch the fallen and downtrodden, but in the quality of its bookkeeping? I think back to my decades of Christian learning, but I can’t conjure up a time when money outweighed good deeds. In fact, I seem to remember Jesus casting the money changers out of the temple and dismissing outright notions of evading Roman tax and hoarding wealth. Perhaps I lost my faith too soon. Maybe If I’d stuck with it, I’d suddenly have answers to economic problems in realms outside my expertise.

Throughout my entire Catholic and Jesuit pre-collegiate education, I was enamored with Jesus’s willingness to do good works for the poorest of the poor when others had shunned and left them for dead. Indeed, I remember the stories of him healing the blind and raising Lazarus and curing the lepers. I don’t seem to recall the bit when Jesus and his apostle strolled back through town a few days later collecting payments and tallying up interest. I always loved and remembered Christ as one who favored well-being over good accounting and was willing to sacrifice his own well-being so that we might have ours. But again, perhaps I lost my faith too soon. Maybe entrenched in those tales were lessons on national fiscal policy and the dangers of health care entitlement programs. At any rate, Jeremiah seems to have figured it out, and he’s certainly studied the Word in detail.

So what can we do to ensure our national salvation? Jeremiah has thought long and hard, and has finally decided that we should buy some book. Pardon me. Did I say buy? I meant offer a gift to Turning Points Ministries, which will qualify us to receive this book for free. I don’t suspect any shady accounting or tax dodging in this language. But other than obtaining this reading material, there’s little else to send us along our way with. I can’t help but wonder if maybe this whole sermon has just been a long and winding path to a donation and a vote this November that Jeremiah might approve of. I suppose I’m not surprised when Jesus never shows up to the party.

It’s now the top of the hour and Turning Points is over. I sit and wait for the news when a commercial begins playing. It’s offering loans which you should use to get out of financial trouble and buy the things you need right now.

Captain

I’m the captain, you see. I’ve got a ship, and it’s too late to turn back. It is not a large craft, but it will suffice. The hull is still young, and the sheets taught. It will hold back the wind and the dangerous sea. To the men who peddle in credit and coin, I’ve put what’s good of my name for her, that she might go faster and farther and someday be all mine. She will certainly suffice.

I’ve got books full of charts—so, so many charts—that I’ve studied a bit, enough to know vague notions of far off ports lying unseen. I can take a compass reading and respond to the changing wind. I can pilot a course, perhaps not as well as some, but well enough nonetheless.

The problem, inevitably, is which course to take. The ship glides beautifully, full the sails with white wind. This captain can sail wherever he pleases. I waste no haste in flying a flag and pointing it towards a sensible port. By day, it whips in the wind towards my chosen destination, and this comforts me.

At night I list, on a quiet sea, where stars are up, and the immensity of the universe reveals itself. Rarely is this mind quiet in these moments. The constellations point in different directions, and new courses appear like lines of phosphorous spilled in the water. The heart pounds, adrenaline beckoning me back to the helm for a turn of the rudder and a tip of the sail towards the radiant possibility of a still unseen port somewhere in the distance. Against the dark and sparkling pantheon flies a new flag. I sleep above deck, drifting away as the constellations battle, and I dream of joining that theater, certain of tomorrow’s beauty.

When day breaks, the lines are gone along with the glee which endeared them to me. There is no panic, only dull confusion. It’s back to the charts, where the original course lies, but it is no longer so interesting. It offers no guarantee. Still it is the original plan, offering a semblance of security. I find that appealing so the course is reset somewhere in that direction. The wind pulls the sun across the sky and my ship follows it until, at last, it falls behind the waves so that the far off stars might exert their own pull once more.

This plays over and over again, and soon I find my journey a vast slalom across the wide sea, sailing at times parallel to that row of ports near the edges of the charts. Now panic begins to creep in. The ship has taken the weather well, the progress fast and far. But now progress erases itself each day, and the promise of one port usurps the appeal of another, only to have it stolen in turn.

I mull over this vicious cycle. I read the charts again. I watch the stars each night. And the currents pull the ship, her sails full with wind. And no flag flies. I know this can’t go on. Sooner, not later, the course must set, lest provisions and good fortune dwindle, wasted on the capricious fantasies and fears of an uncertain man. This can’t go on.

I’m the captain, you see. And the decisions are all up to me.

Empty Rooms

Some old musings from when I moved out of my last apartment back in August. I had just graduated with job prospects in Seattle and California, but I wasn’t sure which, if any, of them would come through.

Move out day is especially tough when you are not sure where you will wind up next. The act of packing evokes an acute awareness that you are cramming your memories into boxes in hopes that you can bring them with you wherever your uncertain future lies. The more you remove your belongings, the more you understand how this space was a vault for your life, and when you walk out the door that last time, your life is released to the whimsy of the boundless world.

When the last item is stowed in some idling car or truck, and the floors have been mopped, the carpets vacuumed, and any other evidence of your presence there erased or covered up, you find yourself in an echo chamber. The bare walls bounce your voice back at you, as if to reassure you that they welcome your presence, beckoning you to fill them with your life.

You walk out the door, leave the key under the mat, and the walls wait for someone else’s voice.

Christmas in the Trenches

Dispatches from the front-lines of the war on Christmas.

Peering over the muddy lip of our hastily dug trench, I can make out the dome of the capitol building looming not a mile away. A brisk jog – ten minutes, on a slow day – would find me at its foot, but such wishful thinking is merely the remnant of a late season. Now, in the field, the Douglass Firs have all been cleared, sent to living rooms and dens to emanate their pleasant aromas, their stead filled with the frozen waste that lies between us and the capitol where the enemy encampment has dug in for the long holiday.

The Nativity Scene sets an eerie glow across the battlefield, silhouetting their machine gun nests and reflecting off our scopes, giving away our spotters’ holds. We are set to take it down, claiming the Founder’s rights. A rifle cracks, a muzzle flares, and a lifeless body splashes into a filthy trench. Whose, we are not sure. We know only for certain the gain that has not resulted. The stench of death lingers. A sickly wretch beckoning the bile from my gut owes warm thanks to Plastic Christ, whose white light shines the brightest over the mangled bodies of the doomed.

“Get down!” Captain Silver screams as a procession of mortar fire erupts from across the field.

We wait, shivering in the cold, guessing at the shells’ trajectory and wondering who of us will be found under this mistletoe. The seconds spend hours passing. When the shells hit, the sound waves collide with our skulls shocking us into a temporary stupor. The attack was vicious but amateur and only a few have perished – certainly a Protestant shellacking.

“Get on the line! We’re going over!” an emboldened Silver shouts. His glare is of determined rage and the sincerity of his resolve is indisputable.

The rest of us glance uncertainly at one another, in our minds the same thoughts echo. Each year our ragtag band throws itself at an opposition unrelenting in its entrenchment. Each year, our trench is dug a bit closer to the enemy lines, aiding their supply of fresh martyrs, whilst our graves fill only with the dead. And each year a small man from the News entreats us to wave a white flag, and when he returns home to report our refusal, anger brews in his befuddlement. Why, then, should this be the year to go over?

The question goes unanswered as another round of mortar fire lights off in the distance. Too recently shell-shocked to summon enough adrenaline to be frightened, we half-heartedly shut our eyes and cover our faces. Only this time, the explosions don’t come.

We wait. Still nothing.

We’ve all fearfully reached the same conclusion..

“Frankincense!”

The White Death. The Christmas Croaker. The Vail of the Vengeful Virgin. The white cloud drifts silently down our trench. Its ghastly aroma hits our nostrils and all thoughts of counterattack are shoved aside as panic and terror take control. I hold my breath and fumble for my mask, but my heart beats with a hummingbird’s flutter, eating up the oxygen in my trembling blood. As the respirator slips over my mouth I inhale sharply and hope that the mask’s barrier will protect my innards from the ravaging mist.

Nearby, others are not so lucky. Corporal Perkins, a kid fresh out of high school, looks fearfully up at me, mask-less. A better man might have offered Perkins his, but I, fearful for my one and only existence, can only stand petrified and useless. The fear in his eyes as his eyelids blister shall not leave my memory for as long as I live. He screams. Those screams. The tears run in agony down his face and he claws at his throat burning from the inside out. Seeping deep down into his lungs, the Frankincense whips his sad form into pitiful convulsions, leaving him as a puddle of foaming, bloody vomit and a twisted young face.

Across the field, a few cheers ring out, our suffering comrades fit for fun. Had I any adrenaline left, anger might have flown through my veins, and I might have revived the call for attack. All I can seem to do is stand against the muddy wall in stoic silence and conjure the fading warmth of home. The battle will loom on, and when I am ready to rejoin it will invite my return with cold arms.

For now the guns have gone silent and it’s a game of waiting. Amazingly, the boredom sets in rather rapidly. A crumpled scrap of paper burns a hole in my pocket, a note from Perkins penned not three hours before. Some sort of shitty poem.

At once both a lie and truth,
the stable and the boy, his mother’s grace,
the state lawn for three kings’ plastic embrace
Or so the story goes.
The righteous take up arms,
indignant of bold foes,
brandishing prayers and charms
for one bright day to at last replace
soulless men and learned youth,
for privilege with no proof.

this week in bad poetry: the first friend

an ode to coffee

Faithful elixer
Dawn is wont for your embrace.
Unconcerned with calendar fetters,
the clock’s hands of disinterest,
you wake the dead who slumber on,
whose eyelids cling to lifeless rest
and beg for encore at the mind’s theatre.

With each new sip
slowly open closed arms
to grasp the waking day.
With each new sip your heat decays,
the last few lukewarm drops remain
discarded and washed away.

Tomorrow, love will be yours again,
a gauntlet of blades and electric fire.
Back to the crypt, the living dead will smile,
your aroma of resilient hope.

A Rant on the Status Quo

The world is full of milquetoast ideas. Real boring shit that’s been done a million fucking times before. People package it up and change a few colors or words and call it good. “There, we were different,” they say. Only they weren’t. They weren’t trying one goddamn bit.

Why didn’t they try? Why didn’t they want to work harder? Maybe they were lazy; they just didn’t want to put any work into it. They saw what others were doing, thought they could easily copy it and make it slightly different. That was the quick way. They could save time and money by achieving the bare minimum of creativity and originality.

Or maybe they were scared - scared that others wouldn’t like them, that they would be perceived as strange and unapproachable. “That will affect the bottom line!” they thought. They knew what was already working and they were afraid to change. They didn’t want to challenge their customers and fans. They thought they could get away without changing. They were like the poker player who slowly dwindles his stockpile away on measly bets because he’s afraid to bluff. At the end of the game, he finds himself unhappy because not only did he lose, but he didn’t even have any fun!

Well fuck that!

King of the Hill

Life on Earth can be boiled down into the desire to control story. We’ve all heard something akin to “history is written by the victors,” and we all see the struggle for story at play everyday when we turn on the 24 hour news or hear any sort of political discussion. It’s essentially one large game of King of the Hill, where opposing forces battle to control the high ground. And as any gamer will tell you, you can only win at King of the Hill if you collaborate and work as a team.

In a nutshell, collaboration and teamwork is what it means to be storyteller in the digital space. Digitally engaged audiences have become so accustomed to influencing subject matter that to not include them in the conversation seems reckless at best. In order for brands to thrive in the digital space, participants must be made to feel as though they are part of the experience, as though they are building the story alongside the brand itself.

The mechanics of this interaction are simple, and can be drawn from choice-based games like Deus Ex, Mass Effect, Knights of the Old Republic, and even classics like Chrono Trigger. These titles have been so successful and enjoyed so much repeat business and nostalgic remembrance because they knew the power of the user’s unhindered imagination. The makers of these games understood that their audience would become more fascinated with the subject matter if they could let their own personalities and imaginations influence the outcome of the game. In these games players have the opportunity to enjoy the experience not only from their own perspective, but also from any other perspective they choose. They have the power to be themselves or to be someone else, and this is powerfully interesting.

Brands hoping to survive in the digital space need to recognize the desire human beings have to control story. They need to collaborate with their audiences to achieve a mutually beneficial narrative. What this requires is not only a willingness to guide and monitor engagements, but also the correct storytellers. Brands need people who can weave narratives that invite audiences to contribute their own experiences while still driving towards the benefit of the brand. The better a brand can collaborate with its audience, the better chance it will have at holding the conversational high ground, and the closer it will be to becoming King of the Hill.