Pit
When I think about freedom, I also think about the movie, Team America.
I had it on DVD, and I would often go to sleep while watching it, to then wake up to the 30 second title track still playing in the wee hours of the morning. It probably wasn’t good for me, but that’s what I chose to do with my freedom at that time.
Long before that, I lived in my first punk house when Lights, Camera, Revolution came out. I loved that album so much, and for weeks, I’d wake up every morning with it still playing on my headphones. Even my roommates thought that was a little extreme, but I didn’t know how to sleep.
I always felt that sleep was just a necessary evil. I have to sleep, and I will if I’m fall-down exhausted. When I was a kid, I had a bedtime, and I’m not sure if I was ever exhausted, so I listened to tapes. Now they’re audiobooks, and digital, but back then they were actual cassette tapes, and they had been recorded via RCA cable from records, or speaker-to-mic from the radio. I’d always have a few beside my pillow with the cassette player, because one tape was often not enough. I’d make sure they were set so that I could put them in right side up in order to effect the shortest possible delay in the story. For years that story was a full cast theatrical telling of the Old Testament of the Bible. It was awesome. The Old Testament is my kind of story, a retelling of the endless fall of man with all the trimmings.
It goes like this, depending on where you pick up the story: peace, everybody listens and lives their lives, boring, boringboringboring, then a new invention, enemy, calamity, or deity spawns insane, power mad prophet/savior, followed by genocide or other generic purge from which arises a flawed hero who saves everyone, and for a while, the people are strong, and the government is weak, but then it’s discovered that the flawed hero’s grandparents had brown slaves, and he made mistakes when he was young, so he’s crucified in the style of the times because he was also a leader, and thus resented, and is replaced by some pathetic mewling milksop that lies for a living, and the people who like to listen to lies feel better about themselves again because they think they’re better than the ones they put above themselves when they didn’t want the responsibility that comes with freedom.
That stupid song from Team America gets stuck in my head a lot, even to this day. “Freedom isn’t free..blahblahblahcountrythemeaboutmoney. Freedom is a buck 0 fiiiiiiiive, etc.” I’m pleading ignorance, but I could sing the whole song A Capella if I were so inclined, but I rarely am.
I’m sure there are as many definitions of freedom as there are brains, but here’s mine: If you really want to see the band, you’ve got to get into the pit and behave like you deserve to be there.
If you’ve never entered or seen a mosh pit at a metal show, here’s a brief description: You’re at a venue, and there’s a band playing for 5, or 500, or 10,000 people. The band might be Slayer, or it might be Wretch, it really doesn’t matter. All going well, there are at least several people, and maybe several hundred, in front of the stage, behaving like lunatics. It looks really violent, and it is, in a way. People are throwing themselves around however they like, and colliding as often as possible. People are getting smashed and mashed all over the place, people are getting shoved, elbowed, head-butted, tripped, yanked, and yet almost nobody is angry. Occasionally there will be some jackass who is looking to hurt some folk, and is throwing fists and elbows with intent, but there are codes and unspoken rules of the pit, and if his friends don’t collect him soon, he’ll be unconscious. Yes, it’s always a him. The mosh pit is actually a pretty safe place if you can handle a beating and keep your feet. Just keep your head up, and be ready to slip, stand, push back, and pick up.
What you never see from the outside of the pit is how many people are falling, and how few of them actually hit the ground, because EVERYBODY’S instinctive reaction to seeing one of us fall is to make sure they can get back up before it’s too late and they get seriously injured.
Because it’s a rough sport, freedom. Freedom can never be allowed, and it’s not a state in which one can live; freedom must be earned, over and over again, because its nature is to dissolve quickly, and hide in a place that you tend to avoid.
What did you think, that you can just saunter into the pit and enjoy Slayer’s last show standing flat on your feet? No, you need a pain tolerance and good cardio. You need good reflexes, and quick feet, especially if you’re my size or smaller. You need to be competent. No one is special in the pit, no one asked you to be there. It’s not a right, it’s a privilege. You fucking earned your spot because you wanted to be there for Slayer’s last Raining Blood break down, and when it hits, when everyone’s feet stop moving, and we all just stand there all wide-eyed and goosebumpy, we all feel it, then we start head bobbing in the next four count, then, in the next, the knees and elbows free up and start to move, then the spine and shoulders, then someone screams it out early, but its not the album, and Slayer knows how to rile up a crowd, so they build it up slowly, stringing us all along until Tom finally screams out, “RAINING BLOOOOOOOOOD!” and it’s mayhem until it’s not.
When you walk out of a pit like that you feel all sorts of things: respect from those in there who know what it’s all about, and give you the nod-which you give back, gratitude for the show and for getting picked up so many times, anger at the guy you almost fought with-or anger that you didn’t, confusion because someone fondled your package and you’re not sure whether you liked it or not. Sadness that it’s over. Elation. Loss.
But it’s supposed to be over, you can’t live like that, you can’t live in freedom, you can only live for freedom. You can’t share it either. If you want someone else to have freedom at all, you just have to accept that means you’ll sometimes have to fight for yours, and if you’re worth it, you’ll help each other up afterwards, dust off, nod, and move on; if you’re not, you’ll seek the power to allow it.
