My Time as a Human

Bob Dylan never really had any appeal to me until the universe woke up one day and decided to introduce us in a manner to which I am most receptive: complete meltdown. In May of 2004 the Flipside effigy was a giant six armed monkey that spewed fire. You could hear his trumpeting, honking cry for miles every time the fire bursts shook his tiny rubber valve seals. I had broken my foot rock climbing that year and so I was hopping around on crutches when I discovered that my girlfriend of two years had run off with a mutual “friend”. I couldn’t hear the monkey sing over the roar of the engine as I stole my suddenly ex-girlfriend’s car and floored it along the dirt road away from the event. I drove north out of Texas until I could drive no more and, after at last taking a moment to figure out where I was, aimed west towards the mountains.

As I was winding my way up into the Rockies, I pulled out a CD by a musician friend I’d met working at SxSW. She was a singer songwriter type, and as I was a musician primarily interested in strange changes and weird jazzy improvisations, I found the idea of three strummed chords mind numbingly tedious. Somewhere in the mountain air was a voice asking for it, though, and I wasn’t in any state to argue so I popped the pink and yellow disk into the little slot on the dash to wait and see what would come out. After an hour I had mixed feelings about the CD in general, but for the first time I found that I was listening to the lyrics more than the song. It made me wonder about the heralded icon of the genre, Bob Dylan. I wondered if that’s what I’d been missing when I had dismissed him years ago.

For some inconceivable reason my haste had been so great that I hadn’t brought a guitar with me. I set myself on a mission, that as soon as I took a little time to smash some large rocks and scream at the sky, the next order of business would be to find a cheap acoustic.

As I walked empty handed out of the first pawn shop I found, I passed an old guy arguing with a little kid of about thirteen. “Man I’m telling you, you don’t even understand. After Blood on the Tracks…” at this point the old guy looked up at me and noticed my stare as I processed the coincidence of coming across an argument about Dylan. “Do you wanna get in on this?” “No,” I said, “but do you know where I could find a used record store?”

The first place didn’t even have a single Dylan CD in the racks. On the way to the next one, I wandered into a T-shirt shop. The walls were covered with posters, but two faces looked out from 90% of them: Albert Einstein and Bob Dylan. I was beginning to wonder if Boulder was secretly a shrine for an underground cult hidden in the mountains.

Two record shops later I took a break to walk into a coffee shop. They didn’t have WIFI and so I pulled out my paper notebook to scribble about my experiences so far. As I was writing I suddenly paused to squint and listen to the music piping through the old speakers tacked to the wall. In the time it took me to nurse my cup of twiggy green tea, they played the same Dylan album twice through.

Now I was really an unstoppable force. The cult of Bob was reaching out to me in every way it knew how. I cruised neighborhoods until at last I got a strong signal to my laptop and the universe we call the internets beamed me a crude copy of “Blood on the Tracks”. It didn’t even have breaks between songs. And yet there it was. Track three.

I woke up and there it was, a new song. Sometimes I struggle for hours trying to get anything interesting to happen but the best music just pours out in a quick, continuous session. A fair amount of crafting and polishing follows but once the core is there the excitement drives the rest of the process.

This piece is about an experience I had seeing my old friend Margaret and having the strange sensation that everything that had happened in the years we’d been apart had been some sort of silly game I’d been playing, or a dream I had until we could get together and laugh about it. Like reality only existed when we were together. I had this sensation with her and several of my old housemates from the same era a number of years ago at a wedding. I can’t help but feel that maybe this set of friends were there for just the right moment in time and we were all marked forever.

I made a promise to myself to start trying to share more of my music, most of which never leaves the pile of cassettes in an old tool chest in the corner. This seemed like the perfect opportunity so I got to work trying to record a version to throw out to the internet audience and see what happened. Paralysis set in immediately. There isn’t enough life in the vocals. The tempo drifts. The lyrics are trite and meaningless to anyone but me.

I have a motto, though: anything that scares me, and won’t kill me, I must attack. So this song is going to go live to the world well before I’m ready for the simple reason that being ready 1) would mean that there is no more fear and 2) will probably never happen.

The vocals on my crude first recording are really not quite listenable at the moment, so I’ll start with the lyrics as they poured from my brain yesterday morning and post the music later.

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Awake With You Again
by
Kai Mantsch

——————————————————

[MELODIC LINE]

I had the strangest feeling
when I talked to you just now
I felt as though the years in between
were meaningless somehow

It’s as though our time apart
was a story that I made up just for you
and now that I can hear you laugh
it’s all a joke and I feel like it’s true

what’s real was shared with you

—————————-
REFRAIN
—————————-

Being with you again
feels like I just woke up from a dream

everything I’ve done
since we were together
has passed like texas weather

hearing your laugh
and knowing what has passed between us

it feels so good to be awake with you
a-gain

———————————————————

Around the corner, from our house
wondering what to do
It was cold and early and all it would take
was to let myself kiss you

I’d already sworn it could never happen
But you weren’t going to let it get away

I said goodnight and tried to leave
but there was no where else to go

so we went wonderfully astray

—————————-

walking ’round the block and holding hands
in the morning after sun’s rays
all bright colors and sunrise light
felt like hippies in all the right ways

our house was full of constant laughter
so full of friends exploring what was new

we were all in tune and in sync and in rhyme
writing music with you
writing new lines all the time

—————————-
[REFRAIN]
—————————-

you laughed and pointed out with glee
as hallmark’s day descended
how very far, we had strayed,
from what was intended

while everyone else was uniformed,
and spending money on expensive meals

we were dressed like total freaks
preparing to tear our clothes off for a crowd

we had nothing to conceal

—————————-
We drove out to Colorado
Lost my car on the way
Wrapped our gear in duct tape
and took the last greyhound that day

when we got to the mountains
we rode the snow like waves between the trees

you were that snow rabbit that I’d
always dreamed of
having next to me

—————————-
[MELODIC LINE]
—————————-

After three months apart I wandered Buenos Aires
looking for your face
I turned to see you run to me
and nearly died in our embrace

you taught me all my spanish directions
and then we marched and practiced in the park

we learned folklore dancing
from strangers who saw us
safely home after dark

—————————-

we snuggled on an overnight bus
riding westward toward peru
a wide eyed little boy wondered
by what luck I had found you

when we finally reached the mountains
we sang all night in spanish in a fire-lit room

the daytime sun watched us waist deep in snow,
trying to reach the lake
at the base of the hill

and smiled when we finally got through

—————————-
[REFRAIN]
—————————-

We did so well together
and so much was so right
but then at last the time came
for our last kiss goodnight

we only had, so much time,
I think that we both knew it from the start

I stole your car and with my broken leg
drove away with my broken heart

and headed for the mountains one more time

—————————-

And now that’s a story too
one more in our collection
the romance that we shared was just
part of our connection

and all we’ve dared and time we’ve shared
now is part of something we can feel

when we are together
I can tell again
what is real

what is real

[MELODIC LINE TO CLOSE]

The flaming tetherball-induced burn blisters on my right arm are beginning to heal. A couple of rounds of cheap shampoo took care of most of my funk and the socks I wore have been properly disposed of. After an intense, relentless nap I’m ready to type out a few lines about Flipside 2008.

“It’s like Renfaire. And hippies. But not at all. Much smarter. And also, dumber.” My friend Zekahh was struggling to use her first few hours of the event to crush it into an intellectual box as we floating naked in the creek during the hot afternoon. I’m always curious about how people see these things now. When I first went to Burning Man in 1996, it was the most incredible experience I’d had to date. People treated each other in a universally playful, intellectual, and loving way that I found astounding and helped break me out of a shell I’d put around myself. Being surrounded by so many people that felt like me made me feel much better about letting the weirder parts of myself out.

These days I’m immersed in that culture. Going to the desert is like going home and Flipside is a family reunion picnic. Huge fireballs thundering into the sky, crowds screaming, tesla coils surging webbed streaks of lightning overhead while singing in harmony… these are a familiar backdrop as I hug friends and catch up on their latest projects and romantic entanglements. It’s really hard for me to imagine what this would be like for someone new.

Every year’s event seems to have a personal theme. This time mine was about spending time by myself and figuring out who I am when I don’t have someone else’s needs and desires to concern me. Without a girlfriend and without having convinced anyone to come, I was responsible for no one but myself and it gave me a chance to remember that, hey, I’m not such a bad guy. I’ve been letting the fact that I wasn’t giving everyone what they wanted creep in and strangle me with guilt. I reminded myself, yet again, that I’m not responsible for making sure everyone around me is happy all of the time.

Of course I also got to ride a spring-loaded duck and a massive dinosaur hobby horse. I had far too much fun grabbing people in the fun house with sock puppets. I ran in sandals at top speed towards a radar gun to try to beat my friend’s record. I looked up at the stars. I counseled a confused man about women on top of a fire-spewing tower while swapping a bottle of whiskey. I ran in a giant wooden hamster wheel and rode it across a field. I had a slumber party with dear old friends who had scattered. I danced my posterior off to electric thump. I hugged strangers and was fed honey. I played Go on a dance floor later covered with beautiful belly dancing women. I loved. I was loved. I lived. It was good.

As always, click on photos to link to photographer’s Flickr page

All of my Christmas toys, clothes and games came from garage sales when I was growing up. I was prepping at the top of a snow hill, ready to prove my teenage skiing mastery, when an older guy almost fell over when he saw my skis. “Wow! Those are the first Cubco bindings ever made!”

I grew up in the middle of a relatively wealthy area and so some of the castaway gear I used had been, at one time, pretty top notch. I always felt like it gave me a sort of James Bond mystique, in that most of my sports equipment would have done well in the playboy club of thirty years earlier. I would even recognize the styles in the films. Things like wooden skis.

One Christmas I was overjoyed to open a pair of hockey skates still in the original shrink wrap. I’m guessing they were of about a 1920′s vintage. They looked something like Chuck Taylor All-Stars with metal blades attached to the bottom.

[ed. Holy Kataka! I found a picture, and they really were from the 1920's! Mine were just like this but shiny, new and black, and here they are in a museum!]

In college I started playing B-league hockey. The bizarre smoothness of the ice, completely lacking in the holes, rocks or protruding reeds of a pond, threw me off a at first and it took a while to adjust. I was doing reasonably well when, at some point, someone pointed at my beloved skates and said, “You know, I think those might be holding you back.”

When I first started playing in a band, I was using a secondhand guitar run through the one working channel of a homemade Heathkit amp that my dad had built in high school. I tried making my own distortion pedal by overloading a transistor, but I kept blowing them out. Literally. They would explode with a tiny pop and a whip of magic smoke. My friend Doug “Magic” Swanson was our drummer and he was fond of saying, “a great musician never blames his equipment”. I was equally fond of nodding in agreement.

But this time I decided to give the advice some due and dug up a used gear store where I found a pair of the cheapest, most destroyed pair of Baur skates that would still wrap a foot. They were barely alive, but they were also of some near-modern design. I strapped them on, stepped out onto the ice… and flew. Suddenly I was carving and leaping and effortlessly zipping backwards across the ice.

I’m at a time of transition. I’m looking through my safety nets and the things I cling to and wondering which of them are the beloved hockey skates I need to leave behind to move forward. Sometimes it’s hard to know when it’s time.