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"It's a... Mad World." Why this particular melody popped up, I can only guess... the theme is right on time, though. Can't even remember who performed it... I'm thinking maybe Thompson Twins or someone who's disappeared since the eighties. More appropriate would be "Ball Of Confusion," Love and Rockets-style. How retro. This mood is unsettling... bad dreams started it all. War, cannon fire, and... shit. I don't even want to know where all that came from. Good thing I don't go to an analyst, or it'd be rubber room rodeo. The audio prescription to change the atmosphere? Johnny Cash's Love-God-Murder. Yeah, that'll lighten things up alright. Getting back to the weekend.... So, the House Of Usher cut off it's connection to the outside world. The only sound on the line was empty electronic vacuum. Thankfully, I'd bought Miss Jane a cellie last year (which she still doesn't know how to use... and will slam it down when frustrated)... so I was able to get to the phone company, which would send someone to look into the problem--Monday. Sweet life in Hooterville. Saturday: Can't even remember the first half of it, so it must have been inconsequential... building up to the "Reggae Expo" in the evening. I do recall digging through CDs, packing the bag with forty hours more music than necessary (you can never tell what kind of requests come up), "Miss" napping through the afternoon with another sinus headache. Then back to CVille, 7-ish, to help set up. And what a room. The warehouse entry in the back of an old movie palace, open to the street with the wooden doors swung wide... a fifty-foot brick cube. The wall opposite the doors was sheetrock, the movie screen on the other side... and you could hear the echo-y soundtrack on the other side as we unravelled cables and stacked speakers. Pretty cool, in a disembodied sort of way. The amps and mixing board were arranged atop this loft-type construction, fifteen feet up (which covered the 30's era heating and air conditioning units), and the roof soared... at least seventy-five feet above. A cavern. Mountain Rasta had enlisted his friend and wife to make food for the partiers (some of the best curried rice I've had), who began to straggle in around 9. He, himself, was a socializing blur... and never got around to coordinating how the four of us would organize sets. After some brief socializing of my own, I climbed up to the mixer around 11:30. Booming bass... the whirl of dancers... feeding the CD trays and fading from beat-to-beat... a "Big Up" from the MC to the cheers of the crowd... things you never experience on the radio. And just as quickly... time to pass the vibe along to the next selector. Miss Jane spent the entire set by herself, against the wall... so I sought her out to give her some rescuing air outside. Bass leaking out onto the street. An incense and oils vendor had set up just outside the door, and with the crowd surrounding, it was like walking out into a bazaar in the Casbah. A night that brought quiet, occasional smiles of remembrance on the 3AM trip back through the darkness. Sunday, on the other hand, completely lacked these charms... a blisteringly hot day, and I was sentenced to hard labour with chainsaw and mowing devices to tame the steamy Virginia jungle. OK, so it was really the lawn, and storm damaged trees. As the evening approached, so did another storm... inside the house. The closest I have come to walking away in fifteen years, with what few possessions I could carry . But that madness will keep until tomorrow. Since it's more of a catharsis for my own benefit, others might want to give it a miss... all three of you. I'm thinking that if I can see it in print, it'll be easier to reach a sane conclusion. "That's what the world is today... hey-hey." |
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