And Then They Ruined Everything

2 Who We Are-1

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Who We AreThe rules of society form us. They direct us and control not only how we act, but the context that we understand our world in. This is Sid at KQOO 90.9 at 1:35 a.m.

It’s the context and our experiences that inspire our views and our expression. That last set was finished off by Arcade Fire. Can you believe that they managed to get David Bowie to collaborate with them? Talk about making it big. OK, let’s listen to Imagine Dragons and consider “Who We Are.”

FCC transcript KQOO 90.9 FM 09.05.2014 0135

Search Term: existential

Operator’s Comments: redacted

Who we are? I always thought that I knew, and maybe I did. Or at least maybe I knew who Kenn was and lied to myself only about who I was. If I didn’t always know who I was, I at least usually knew what I was.

I was hot and sweaty, as though I had the flu or was watching one of the late-night offerings from Showcase with Pyrah. As the sensation of discomfort and disorientation bled away from me, I realized Kenn and I were standing on sand. Soft sand that caused discomfort through the bottoms of my Chuck Taylors.

As we did so often, Kenn and I had been ruminating over pizza and beer about the state of rock ’n’ roll. About why gigs never came through town and how we had revolutionized our experience by discovering time travel. Before long, we were loading the album Battle Born, by the Killers, into the mixing table that I had attached to Kenn’s Guitar Hero console with the intention of crossing into a Killers show.

“Once that demonic mixing table of yours is ready, you can count us in,” Kenn said.

“I like calling it ‘Louie Louie’ better,” I responded, before counting out a fierce “One, two, three, four . . . Kick out the jams, mother f—,” and as I heard the thundering guitars of MC5 mixing with the Killers, the floor began to move. Slowly I started spinning as my nerves screamed at the bombardment of light and sound. Time travel, or crossing, was something I hadn’t gotten used to. There was a sensation of being shot through a garden hose, or being trapped inside a piece of fabric that was disintegrating around you. Never the same, yet not unpredictable. Worse if we were listening to something nuanced or ethereal like the Cocteau Twins or Brian Eno. Some of Stewart Copeland’s post-Police work left us staggering as though the mushrooms on our pizza had been spoiled. I certainly found the experience was always uncomfortable and bordering on violent, and now I felt as though I had been hit in the chest with a concrete block. When I tried to move my feet, they resisted, sinking further into the ground as though I were melting. Hot lead flowed through them instead of blood, or so I thought. Worried that our dalliance with time travel had failed desperately, I looked to Kenn.

“Look, dude, we’re at the Atlantis Hotel,” Kenn enthused while clipping my arm.

I turned around to survey our surroundings; Kenn was indeed right. We were on the massive grounds of the Atlantis, and the Killers appeared to be taking the stage.

“Awesome.” Kenn continued, “This must be Sandance. We’re in Dubai. Did you know that you can see these man-made palms from space?”

“So what? Kenn, you’re rambling.”

“So what, what?”

“So what that you can see the palms from orbit.”

“Are you kidding me? That’s cool. They’re manufactured features that you can see from space. That doesn’t impress you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe, but I thought that you and Vinnie said a few weeks ago that the NSA can read license plates from space, or watch people cross intersections. To me, if the NSA can do those things, they should be able to see a giant artificial island.”

Kenn gave up on the discussion shortly after that point, but I didn’t care. I was starting to feel better, and my focus was turning from sensations of nausea to the reason we had crossed: to see the Killers.

This crossing had been my idea from the start. I had wanted to see the band once Brandon Flowers returned from his solo “experiment.” Looking around, I tried to anticipate what we were in for. I was thinking about the gigs that Kenn and I had attended under the guise of the Little Red Hen theory, where we helped the roadies and watched the soundmen set up. I always found this fascinating, some times it was the best part of the gig.

In David Byrne’s book How Music Works, the main theme is how musicians craft their art to match the venues that they play. The acoustics, the audiences, the instruments, and the processing capacities are all part of the context that molds the song. Art and politics become the same. You play to your audience.

Byrne even suggests that live performances are often balanced by soundmen to sound like studio sessions. I never understood if this was to placate an audience that was familiar with the recordings or for the band to retain control over their art. Regardless, somewhere someone is always controlling what you’re listening to.

A vigorous opening of the Killers’ debut single, “Mr. Brightside” banished my contemplative thoughts. Ever since learning that they took their name from the fictional band in the New Order video for “Crystal” I’ve loved the Killers. The fact that the Killers were also interesting enough to collaborate with Lou Reed and seemed to head in a different direction on most new albums was even better.

Kenn and I made our way through the eclectic throng of sweaty Killers fans. America is supposed to be a melting pot of cultures, unified in the pursuit of liberty and all that, but here the desert was a pressure cooker of diversity. You would expect people to be crowded together for a gig, but even after the departure of the hot sun, which spent the day pouring its energy into the sand, the result remained. More than just the sand, the bodies around us were hot, and moving to the music and all getting hotter, like a visualization of boiling molecules. But heterogeneous molecules moving in such a manner as to make a single body of rock ’n’ roll fan.

Looking around, I saw a mix of cultures as diverse as the United Nations. Pale-skinned or sunburned expats ostensibly from Europe or North America, shrouded Arab men with garish watches and fancy-looking leather sandals, and then a collection of Indo-Asian men and women—indiscernible, from my sheltered Oregon perspective. Striking diversity in contrast to the relative uniformity of my American melting pot experience, this was a real mix, joined under one desire, a love of rock ’n’ roll. Ironically, the band with the violent name found its way past rhetoric, unifying an otherwise divergent group. It was another example of the influence of rock ’n’ roll and the power of the Killers.

Flowers was captivating, alternating between strutting around with his microphone in tow, vigorously playing behind a lightning-bolt keyboard stand, and hopping up onto the black crates assembled on stage—spurring the crowd into a fervor under the hot setting sun. Before long he discarded his leather jacket onto the stage, sweltering in Dubai’s heat, providing a short distraction to the audience while he interjected some dialogue, further engaging the Sandance patrons. It was the usual paint-by- numbers intervention that fills the pause for a band, the fermata that allows a band to regroup and unleash another torrent of music, while making the audience feel connected to the performance. For me, this wasn’t a pause but a reminder of my own black jeans and heavy shirt, which were draining the life out of me faster than a Winnebago burning gas in the Grand Canyon.

Ninety minutes later, Kenn and I were walking away, looking for Gatorade or at least bottled water, and hoping to return to his basement. Predictably, we didn’t notice that we were becoming dehydrated as we discussed the stunning performance; Kenn and I were still laughing over the whimsical rendition of Tommy James’s “I Think We’re Alone Now.” The Killers. Pure showmen.

“Kenn, have you noticed we haven’t crossed back?”

“Yeah, d**k, I’ve noticed that the streets of Dubai are markedly different from my basement. But thanks all the same for pointing out the obvious. What’s next? You’re going to tell me that we’re surrounded by sand? I’ve got an idea. Let’s grab a taxi and some beer.”

It wasn’t that Kenn’s idea was so bad. Kenn’s ideas often flirted with the line between reckless and idiotic, but I felt as though our options were limited. Although I always had a choice, a choice to check his recklessness or offer an opinion, it was easier to let someone else take control. Easier to say, “We really didn’t have any other options,” even though I knew that I did. Again I would pay for my complacency with Kenn as we all pay for complacency, even when we dress it up as a lack of choice.

Outside the hotel gates, we found buses idling along the road, with a long line of Sandance patrons waiting to board, all with concert passes on flashy lanyards.

“Kenn, this isn’t us. They’ll never let us on the bus.”

“Let’s go inside and see if we can get a taxi.”

Eventually a taxi was arranged, with the reluctant assistance of an indifferent concierge. It was all about how the concert had resulted in road closures isolating this section of Dubai, so he said. It sounded dubious to me, but it allowed Kenn and me to grab a few beers while I cooled my feet in the pool.

“Racist pig,” Kenn hissed under his breath as we moved away from the cab into the hot night air of Dubai.

“Kenn, you offended him.”

“How?”

“Probably when you asked, ‘Dude, where can we score some beer?’ We’re in a country governed by Islam, where you can’t just walk around and buy a can of beer like back home.”

“We got beer at the hotel.”

“Yeah, but they would have a different license and they cost about twenty bucks each.”

“He’s still racist.”

“Yeah, I’m not feeling you on this,” I continued. “Racism is when you’re treated differently because of your race, not because you’ve pissed someone off. Prejudice isn’t the same as racism.”

“So?”

“So, I’m just saying that I’m not sure we’ve got the same rights here as we might enjoy in America, but regardless I think you pissed the dude off.”

“So you think he’s got a right to hate Americans? Or white kids from Oregon? He doesn’t even know me.”

“Kenn, there’s lots of people who know and hate us. I’m not sure that I’d say ‘a right to hate,’ but people hate and have prejudices. Prejudice actually comes from the act of prejudging, and while it may have undesirable consequences in some cases, it’s often expedient and actually linked to our survival as a species.”

“So evolution is based on prejudice? Now you’re promoting hatred, or defending a bigoted jihadist? I thought you were an artsy college kid. Are you the last non-liberal to have a degree? You really did waste your time getting those degrees.”

“No. Not bigotry or hatred. And just because someone doesn’t like American kids doesn’t make him a jihadist. I’m just saying we have the right to prejudge. Look, it’s how we know a situation is dangerous when looking into a dark cave, or why people don’t usually venture into dark alleyways without reason. We assess situations based upon our experiences and make conclusions. In fact, you’ve done that with your Eve theory.

“The Eve theory is sound. Anyway, racism can’t be contingent on legal protection. You’re confusing the motivation with the context. This isn’t “Know Your Rights” by the Clash. I thought you always said that there are certain non-alien rights.”

“Inalienable,” I corrected. “Certain rights are inalienable. They can’t be taken away.”

“Well that’s bullshit, too. Anything can be taken away, dude. Rights or otherwise.”

“OK. I suppose I should have said ‘should not’ or ‘ought not.’ Certain rights should be inalienable.”

“You should never confuse what ought to be with what is. Pizza ought to be good, but too often it’s not; live music should always be awesome, but it sometimes fails; and the CIA ought to come clean about assassinating Tupac.”

“Really? We’re back to the kid of parents with the Black Panthers thing again with Tupac? I thought we were talking about inalienable rights.”

“Like being prejudiced?”

“Kenn, are we going to keep circling the block looking to park this conversation or are we going somewhere?” I asked, following him along a dusty lane, trying to split my attention between “Should prejudice be a protected right” and why the hell were we still in Dubai and where were we going?

“There ought to be an underground punk gig here.”

“Really? Ought to be?”