Mar

That time I crowd surfed

Back in the 90’s there was a phenomenon of dancing called “Moshing”. This is where you get with a group of people who would randomly bump into each other for no other reason than releasing pent up aggression and hormones. This was predominantly done in the teenage and young adult circuits.

One day at the beginning of senior year my friend had just announced that there would be a group performing at her church across the street. We were all excited and loved live music. There couldn’t have been a more fitting beginning to last year of high school. The night of the concert, we assembled with many local teenagers in the church parking lot to hear some grunge music. Well; Christian grunge music.

When I told my boyfriend at the time about the concert, he agreed he was going as well with his group of friends. In conversation with him leading up to the concert he had joked that I could go in the “baby” mosh pit which “is next to the actual, much larger mosh pit.” He made the comment away from me, chuckling with his friends. Unbeknownst to him this irritated me to my very core. There is nothing more I don’t like than being told I can’t do something.

When I arrived at the concert with my friends, it was hot, the sun was about to set and we were waiting for the band to come out on the stage. We began to cheer when four young men clad in orange shirts with the word “Juda” on them appeared. By the time they were in their second song, a small crowd of moshers began stomping, ramming into each other with their shoulders.

I had just been told I couldn’t do something because I’m a girl and I wanted in.

I didn’t blink when I fled from my boyfriend’s side. I ran into the sweaty cesspool of teenagers and began ramming myself against strangers. It was a strange freeing experience feeling like a pinball being struck against others who were going through their own angsty rebellion. In that brief moment running from being a spectator in my life I became a mover and shaker. We did what we did because we could. Nobody could stop us and it was incredible.

The crowd then started to give way from moshing to surfing people through the crowd on a sea of teenaged phalanges. It was very much like the scenes you see in movies where hippies, metal heads, or hair band fans are frenetically dancing and begin passing people over their heads while the person being surfed has an epiphany. In the movies the scene plays out over some poignant music of that decade in an arena or an open farm field like Woodstock. This scene played out in four to ten parking spaces.

When I looked to my left, the people launching others into the crowd were my boyfriend’s friends. He was standing in front of me to the left of them, just watching me. Not looking at him, I sensed his disapproval at what I was about to accomplish. I smiled at his friends as they put their hands down and we gave each other the signal. I ran full force, stepping into their grasp in my beloved brown Doc Martens as they launched me into the air.

I flew. In that moment I had no fear and was full of trust. I landed on a bed of fingers, with nails of metallic blue, gently rolling me through the crowd as I screamed all the air out of my lungs.

Photo courtesy of Mindy C.

The crowd gently set me back down on the ground as the music began to pick up. When I was placed on the ground, I hadn’t quite found my footing yet. The rush from being carried by a crowd full of adrenaline quickly stopped when two moshers accidentally knocked me to the ground. When I tried to get up their buttocks hit my head on the left and right side knocking me down again. I crouched in a Spider-man stance getting a whiff of something rancid. One of the gluteus maximuses had passed gas. I got up again only to be struck repeatedly by the pair of posteriors. I was able to perfunctorily wiggle my way out of the permeated labyrinth of derrieres when one of the owners of said derrieres lended a hand pulling me up. A few moments later a church official called out saying there would be no more crowd surfing.

They should have been more specific. We still moshed.

What is something you were discouraged from doing but did anyway? What did/do you do as an act of rebellion?

Aug

The Case of the Mysterious Singing Elevator

It has been said the human brain starts to become forgetful around the age of thirty. Well the joke is on them, (whoever said that, I can’t remember their name to be honest) because I’m thirty-four years old and going back to University to fill my head with new things.

Apparently this last Wednesday I filled my head too full.

I could blame it on walking up a total of eleven flights of stairs and down eleven flights of stairs and exhausting myself in the process, but I won’t. I could blame it on walking in almost one hundred degree heat between buildings on campus, but I won’t. Not to be conceited but the reason is, I’ve been finding when I get smarter, I start to forget other things, normal things.

After my three classes, while walking to my car the neuroplasticity was doing it’s thing inside my brain. I arrived at the car park after a long walk from the tall, overly hot buildings to find myself in front of the elevator doors. (I have a fear of elevators which I will explain to you another time in the future.) Because this was the first week of school, I was already riddled with some anxiety. It’s not that I have doubt in myself, it’s if I’m remembering everything correctly in class.

Because I was so concerned about retaining what I was learning a peculiar thing happened. I overcame my fear of getting in an elevator and stepped on. That wasn’t the peculiar part. Music started playing, in fact, it sounded a lot like Ben Harper.

Bear in mind I attended this University almost ten years ago. When I used this elevator before in the same car park, I didn’t recall music ever playing in the elevator.

As the elevator went up, suddenly the anxiety about school and memorization went away. Then a thought popped in my head, “I wonder if they started putting music in the elevators to calm nervous students?” None of the other elevators on campus play music. I was reluctant to step off because I wanted to stay on and hear the rest of the song, however daylight was burning so I decided to step off and walk.

As I walked, the music stayed the same volume. I didn’t look back. I wondered why the elevator doors hadn’t closed yet, and why if I was getting further away the volume stayed the same. In that moment I thought the music in the elevator was becoming increasingly louder seeing as I could hear it half way across the car park. I was actually thankful for that being the case because I was really enjoying the song.

Once my feet hit the pavement about three fourths of the way to my car, I realized the music was emanating from my back pack.

My computer had gone off and started playing music.

I couldn’t decide if I was relieved or crazy.

What is something silly that happened to you that was a result of you forgetting something? When have you done something that you were glad no one was around to see?

Jun

My Mondegreens

Poor heart? Not when you hustle like this!

Often times when I’m at work a song will come on, and usually everyone starts singing or humming along to it. I usually just “skat” the lyrics while putting things away on the shelves.

Its scary when you think of how many jobs you’ve had and the same songs keep following you from retail job to retail job. Recently I’ve come to the realization how often we take it for granted what is actually presented to us in the music pumped through the store’s speakers and how we automatically know the words.

Usually you will hear “Hotel California” a million times and wonder if your job has become your own version of the Eagles illustration of hell. Then you have some songs that remind you of happier times and some songs that remind you of when you were a kid.

However, last Winter I was working with some really cool people and we started talking about songs you misunderstood the lyrics to at one point in time or another; often called a Mondegreen. I kicked off the conversation with a song by the Clash.

I explained every time Rock the Casbah was played on the radio, I heard, “Rock the asphalt! Rock the asphalt!” Every time the song played, I relished in the thought of a rock band who was so cool, they had to hold their concerts on an asphalted playground because there wasn’t enough room in the gymnasium for those who wanted to hear them play. (As a kid, I associated “asphalt” with “playground” because of the recent construction of our middle school and how they designated playing boundaries.) What “dance-punk-rock” band wouldn’t want to have a rock concert on a school playground decorated by tether ball poles and four square outlines?

Another song frequently played in many places I’ve worked is by Sting; Every breath you take. When I was in grade-school and the song would come on the radio, I only half heartedly listened because Sting wasn’t the Monkees or any of my other favorite bands.

When it would play, I would hear, “I’m a pool hall ace, with every step you take…” As we all know, the lyrics actually are “my poor heart aches…” Here I am listening to the radio, thinking this guy is so lonely, he started hanging around pool halls perfecting his game. I had visions of some guy in a modernized version of a 50’s leather biker coat, aviator glasses, possibly with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth; sipping a green bottled beer while playing pool by himself. I imagined he was so good, no one wanted to play pool with him any more. By the end of the song, I was rooting for the woman who deserted him. Who wants to date someone who hangs out at seedy bars and hustles people out of their hard-earned money?

Sadly one day in my twenties someone burst that bubble with the actual lyrics.

After the co-workers and I had our go around game of Mondegreens it was time to clock out, say good-bye and start another day in the morning…hopefully with new Mondegreens.

What songs do you often mis-hear? What were some of your favorites? What do you and your co-workers do to pass the time?

Diary of a quirky girl

Tag Archives: music

That time I crowd surfed

The Case of the Mysterious Singing Elevator

My Mondegreens