Everyone I Know Was Born in March

And if had just one more day
I'd tell you everything, everything I had to say

       I miss you
A recent Sunday night. Most of the places I go to are closed. After a long day of just lazing about I find myself feeling restless, lonely, and out of gas with simply sitting in front of the television any more. So I put myself together to see if there's any adventure to be found out there.

Different cities shake hands in different ways. I remember nights in Tampa where I felt an almost Richard Wright-ian invisibility in the midst of what seemed like a million faces. I remember hidden places in New York where somehow among all the people there it felt like the director hadn't started the scene until my friends and I showed up (was that really the case? -- of course not, but there was something about that night at Red Rocks where it seemed like there was energy surrounding us, pulling others towards that center and demanding that we do shots with them in celebration of their shipping out the next morning).

But here, on this side of the river in Jacksonville when that feeling hits, it presents itself as a void. There are no cars. The streetlights flicker at unexpected intervals, and the red warning beacons on the top of the bridges blink like eyes moving in slow motion. There are no cops hiding in parking lots with their faces illuminated by the computer screens on their dashboards. There are no stray cats scurrying across the road. There are no trains to be seen (and believe me, there are always trains).
On nights like this, this city feels lifeless and asleep.
You drive around aimlessly, wishing the car stereo wasn't broken while making occasional checks to ensure that your cell phone isn't (even though you know that it's not), which would provide a logical explanation for the fact that no one is calling.

There are places open. Catch-all dive bars, strip clubs, donut shops, all-night breakfast places. There are choices, but the experiences are always the same. What's the difference between sitting by yourself staring into a coffee cup and sitting at a bar circling your fingers around the lip of a beer bottle because there's nothing else to do, no one else to talk to?

I ended up making a few circles, looking for activity, trying to weigh the options of the places that might have people inside. Your mind wanders as the deserted parking lots pass by your windows, conjuring up images of buildings falling down or mythical creatures pulling up beside you at red lights. You hear the sounds of lyrics to songs you've never written, and sense the aroma of silken hair in a million colors you'll never have the chance to guide behind someones ears so you can look into their eyes.
And that's when it hits you:
The problem isn't that nothing ever happens in this place
The problem is that anything that does may never be enough.
Out of the corner of my eye something flickers on Hendricks avenue, a motion that hadn't been there before. People. Two of them, in fact -- paying to get into Jackrabbits. A beloved local music place, Jackrabbits offers a stage to touring bands of all descriptions to stop and play at. But the unfortunate truth is that there are so many bands out there that it's just not possible to see them all. For better or for worse, it's become a habit to scan the list of shows they post in the local entertainment newspaper -- and if I don't see anything on that list that catches my interest I don't go to Jackrabbits that week. This must be one of those weeks, because for the life of me I can't even begin to remember who's supposed to be playing there tonight.

Now comes the dilemma. I'm hungry for human contact, for shared experience, for something other than driving around by myself trying to outrun the end of the weekend. But not having any idea who is playing tonight at the local alternative live music bar means that I could be walking into a situation where I'm asked to pay $15 at the door and $5 a beer only to discover that some Rufus Wainwright-wannabe who's huge in West Virginia is going to be doing ten acoustic sets full of songs who's lyrics only contain the word's "You're Beautiful" repeated over and over and over while complaining about how bright the stage lights are. Or worse yet, find myself in a room full of children with black X's painted on their hands chain smoking like death-row inmates while we wait for the first of 17 local christian death metal bands to come on stage and growl something unintelligible while I do my best to duck badly executed karate kicks from the fat kid in the Lamb of God hoodie who seems to know every word that the guy on stage is singing.

Eventually I decide to take the chance. If it's good, then my spontaneity will be rewarded, and if it's bad maybe I'll find something funny to write about. I ask the doorman who's playing, and he mumbles three band names at me that I've never heard before. I think about asking him what they're like, but I already know that he not only doesn't know -- but couldn't care less. He's the doorman at a place that hosts live shows 7 nights a week. He stopped giving a crap what the band's names were ages ago.

It turns out that I've shown up late enough to miss the opening acts, but will still have a chance to catch the entire headlining set. There are maybe 20 people in the place, and they're all standing in front of the stage. The ages vary -- there's a married couple maybe my age, two guys wearing almost the exact same outfit consisting of jeans, cowboy-ish button up shirts, and those horrid emo/hipster trucker hats that I'm always bitching about, and a general smattering of 20-somethings that all seem to know each other, but don't stand out in any individual way.

I get a beer. The band starts up soon after. I wouldn't find out there name until a day later when I re-checked the entertainment weekly, but I was the only one with that problem. It became almost immediately apparent that these 20 people were here to see a performance by their one and only favorite band. They knew the words, they were calling out song requests, every time the band started into a new song the trucker hat dudes would jump up and down and high-five each other in that way that only someone who loved that song and couldn't believe that they were actually getting a chance to hear it performed live can do. As the show progressed, it became clear that some of these people had actually driven several hours to come see this performance, and there were even some people in the crowd who were on their third or fourth night of seeing them in different places.

I had wandered into something magical. Inadvertently become a part of an incredible night for a group of people that I didn't belong to. It was like being at a wedding for people you didn't know, or crashing a neighbors party only to realize that you're the only one there who doesn't know anyones name.

The problem was that the band was actually pretty good. The music was complex, but the choruses were catchy. The guitarists used all kinds of effects, and there was a healthy amount of improvisation going on. The songs seemed to have really open forms, but you could tell this band knew their stuff backwards and forwards. It was a really entertaining show, save for the fact that I was the only one who didn't know what to say when the band would pause for a moment so they could hear the audience singing along (which they did almost all night long).

A day later I would discover the group as Moneen, an emo quartet from Canada who's studio recordings barely do justice to energy of their live performances. Possibly because there was such a serendipity to that show, a singular energy that I was totally aware of, but somehow separate from.

It's not an experience I don't understand, having been on the other side of it many times with bands I love that other people hadn't heard of -- but it added sort of a strange feeling to an already lonely night. I had shared in something powerful with the people in that crowd, but I wasn't really a part of it in the way they were.

It was like the feeling I had when I first moved to Tallahassee to go to college with my friends who had already been there for a year or two, where I had to continually be introduced as "my friend from Jacksonville, don't worry he's cool." or those moments when an ex-girlfriend comes through town and asks you to go to lunch to catch up on old times, only to get there and be introduced to her new husband -- who is glad to meet you, shakes your hand heartily, and then asks in a completely innocent voice
"So, how do you know my wife?"
[Listening to: Dry Kill Logic, "Nightmare"]

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