Van dreams

I've had several dreams involving my departed 15-passenger Dodge Ram Van lately, the most recent being yesterday evening.  An old friend's dad was driving me, Jen, the old friend, his wife, and I think what I imagined to be their kids, making faded stops along Everytown streets of mixed-use commercial buildings and trees, ending up in Denver, where I was then floating in mid-air above the van, looking down at it, where suddenly everyone was out of the van wishing me good luck, as I got into the front seat as the van crept forward on its own, the seat too far forward, where the brake pedal was of no use as it just rolled on, the arc of my vision still from up above, somehow.  The next thing I knew, I was slowly plowing into a row of black Mini Coopers with UK license plates along a cobblestone road in central London on a bright sunny day, the van pushing them all forward, like I was in a drug haze where I knew what I was supposed to do, but was powerless to stop the van, and then the pinball-machine sound of my phone alarm.

Not much to read into there.  A change dream with lurching, unalterable motion, soaked with past images and mindscapes.  At least the van wasn't stuck in reverse at the same ambling speed, on a massive street with no traffic but parked cars all along the road, as it was in a dream I had about a week before I received the news of acceptance to graduate school.


What it also means, though, is that a huge part of me misses being in a band, with playing shows, going on tours, and seeing the country part and parcel of the whole experience.  It's been nearly a year since I bid farewell to my last band, which was a chance to spend time with good friends on a regular basis just as "the unemployment year" was gathering steam and I was realizing just what a long, tough fight I was in for.  I gave two-and-half years of my life to the band I was in before that, which was a great ride packed with ecstatic, visceral moments unlike any other, but after nearly 100 shows it had morphed into something I didn't recognize anymore, and it was just time to go.  I'll never forget the ride of my first band, when (after we'd finished our first and only tour) I woke up one day and panicked, realizing that I had accomplished the one thing I really wanted to do that I had any control over (unlike all of the grad programs I was looking into, trying to find something where I felt I could really contribute something).  I literally did not know what to do next, and lo and behold, I ended up somewhere that I would only get about two years' furlough from over the next eight years.

I used to go to shows all the time; they kept me going.  So much restless and organized creativity was to be drawn from and contributed back to (which was the part of the "scene" that was always the biggest draw), great people to get to know.  Plus, working in a bar that boasted a great live music venue allowed me to take in hundreds of bands, many of which were outstanding.  But suddenly I wanted to be away from everything, to take stock and figure out some other way to turn people's heads.  And with my money spigot quickly slowed to a trickle and not wanting to talk about having been booted from my job (the first wave of The Great Recession, long before everyone knew someone who was out of work), I just stopped going.  Nothing out there was inspiring, and it felt good to stay in on the weekends, as though I was taking my life back from the constant checking-out-of-bands.  And frankly, I was, and I did.  I was done with hardcore, done with pit ninjas, ADD kids, and poseurs masquerading as people somehow against the grain of society.  (Then I went back on that for a spell, and it was fun, but I'm REALLY done with it now.)


I miss playing and seeing live music terribly, but as a performer, when I stopped seeing many people I really wanted to see at the shows I played - when it became more about performing in front of strangers than getting to know people as people, instead re-imagining a "fan base" to try to cultivate or pander to - it was time to take time out.  I'm really hoping that Toronto has a musical needle in a haystack to find, one that'll re-open the outlet in a small way.  Until then, I bide my time, give thanks for all the people I've been able to get to know as a part of that process of taking in and giving back, and look forward to what lies ahead.

My next "tour" will take me, Jen, Negative, and Xenu to the northwestern edge of Lake Ontario, which will be only the second time I've seen it.  The only other time I saw it was just north of Rochester, New York, the day after playing a show as part of one of a dozen bands to 300 people all going a huge swirl of awesome crazy inside the lodge of a public park in Pittsford.  This view was nearly the polar opposite, but just as beautiful, and as happy and content as I was at that moment, I had no way of knowing that one day I'd call the other side of that Great Lake home.