6.24.2008

After High School / Before This (Whatever This Is)

I) Minus The Bear is playing. Bamp, bamp! (keyboard). "...holding a vodka drink,smoking a cigarette, she's walking up to me..." I am not exaggerating when I tell you, half-embarrassed, a bit gleeful, and finally quite accepting this brief blip in my life, that every single time I heard their music during the summer and fall following my high school graduation, I said,

"This is such a perfect party band. I mean, it is exactly what should play at every party."

To my reason's defense, Minus The Bear's lyrics all sound similar to the cadence of inebriation in a backyard. The song titles are as impromptu as our ideas of mixed drinks were, and as abstract as the words puffing out of the mouth of smoker-friend-x who is rocking casually on the porch swing. Look 'em up. You'll see.

These nights were warm. It was summer first. Summer and what melted into a lethargic autumn. Our phones were electric as somewhere out in outer-space our satellites signaled that someone's back porch had an availability. Someone's house was saying, "Come ye, under-aged drinkers and take refuge in me." We primped and they purchased. Never me. Someone knew someone behind a liquor counter, you know? Someone always knows. Drifting inside in pairs, groups, alone, we were a stylish ensemble of slouch and straight hair and jeans that had been worn to perfection. Who put in Minus The Bear? Someone did, someone always does. It is perfect party music.

II)I wanted to know I was beautiful. We both did. We both were and are beautiful, and I love her more now than then. The past is in the past, in the present, and will be in the future. You cannot get rid of what has been. Being cannot expire if its essence, or at the very least, its effects ride down causal links into the unknown, into what will happen when we become aware of our pillows, sort through dreams, and face the new day. We stand on the ground of now, that grew out of the seeds and decay of the then, cultivating the ground-ness of tomorrow morning.

Josh Jiles Photog.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Word pictures of your past can be so fascinating. I have no idea who Minus the Bear is.

However, you want to know what great party music is? All the music that was playing at dance party--MGMT, Wolf Parade, a whole bunch of other bands I cannot remember. Dance!