THE DAY I MISSED THE ROLLING STONES

marisol

A couple days ago a dvd from amazon arrived in the mail. Rolling Stones concert 1975. It was the year I rode to Jacksonville from Charleston, a couple hundred miles in August to see the Rolling Stones. My neighbor and friend, Chip, came into two tickets and asked if I wanted to go. Rebel yell: Hail yeah! The Stones filled every major football stadium in the country that year. It was the apex of mega concerts, concerts so big the performers on stage were like colorful ants standing on their back feet. Didn't matter. The sound was dynamic. A Stones concert in that time was the very height of rock n roll as it had evolved to that year. It was also the year punk started in London, NY and LA. I didn't know it until the next month. The show on the dvd was LA in July. I saw this was a new release, had a good price on it, and I wanted to see it. I saw Thelonious Monk at the Bohemian Cavern in DC with Charlie Rouse in 1963. Not many years ago I found a 2cd set of the same concert tour recorded in LA at the It Club, 1962. It was wonderful to hear it. I'd totally forgotten what I heard that night. Hearing the recording was brand new. The show was after the release of one of the great albums in jazz, Straight No Chaser. I did see Monk, but failed to see the Stones. The reason why is so subjective I haven't told it; it's something I don't feel comfortable talking about. This morning on the phone with my friend Carole, I told her the experience, and this far away in time, forty years, it didn't seem as disorienting as it did at the moment. We rode to Jacksonville in Chip's Volkswagen bug he worked on himself and kept in good running condition. 

marisol

We arrived, parked, walked half a mile to the stadium entrance, went in, took our time milling about, walked onto the field up close to the stage to see the mechanics of it, neither of us being down-front guys, and we walked around in the stands looking for a good spot for visuals and sound. We picked the opposite end of the bowl. The place filled up around us and the Florida sun shone down upon us. The place filled in a short time. We waited. Some recordings were played on the sound system. People on the ground were playing beach party, blankets on the ground, beach balls bouncing around. The day went on and the day went on. The sun turned from friend to enemy. I had thought to wear long sleeves and a straw hat that went all the way around. I knew it would be hot, but had never experienced the Florida sun to know how hot it can be. People packed in tight all around. Shoulders, backs and arms turning red, burning bad. I saw several people who had passed out from the heat carried out on stretchers. I saw a guy walk up the aisle who had a Neanderthal face with big brows that hung out over his eyes obscuring them in dark shadows. Creepy. There came a time the beach party was over, everyone on the field quiet, in place, not moving. Nobody was moving throughout the whole place. It became eerie. I saw the people around me cooking, their faces twisted in pain. The Atlanta Rhythm Section came out and made some noise. They sucked. They didn't move anybody. They didn't connect with the music and totally did not connect with the crowd. Another band played, Paul Butterfield, again no music, just noise. Rufus came on with Chaka Khan in firetruck red pants and long sleeve top, wearing a red Indian headdress that ran down her back to the floor; eight or so feet of it dragged the stage behind her. She was dynamic. Their music soared. I was a Rufus fan; didn't know they'd be there.

marisol

Between bands it was wait in the heat a very long time. People streaming out of there carried on stretchers. I fell into a zone of suffering. It became like a desert. We had thought to bring a bag of grapes and some water. I came to a place where I got with self and asked, Would you go through this for God? At the time I thought I was a nonbeliever. My answer was, No. To which I said, If you would not go through this agony for God, why the hell are you doing it for the Rolling Stones? It was becoming obvious the Stones would not play until after dark. The sun was a long ways from the horizon. I did not believe I wanted to be carried out on a stretcher. I wasn't there for that. It became too steep a price to pay to see the World's Greatest Rock n Roll Band. Who gives a shit? So they're the best there ever was. So I'd been hoping for a decade to have a chance to see the Stones. I was feeling a very dark energy in the place, very dark. I was feeling the stadium was a ring, a circle with all these thousands of people in it, drawn by the magnetic force of the dark side. A time came when I felt like I had a choice; stay where I was and receive whatever darkness was going on there, or get out of there, away from it, whatever it was. A time came when to stay any longer became worship. I did not go there to worship a commercial enterprise, a corporation with their own private jet. I wasn't worshiping God, so why worship a rock band just because I like their music? That's not enough for me to worship. If I'm going to worship, it has to be something verifiably worth it. The heat grew more intense. I knew I could not make it til dark sitting in a ring of fire. I told Chip I was leaving. He was not expecting that. I told him to stay where he was. I'd find highway 17 and hitchhike home. He couldn't let me do that. I couldn't stay. He decided to leave and drive me back. 

marisol

I stood up and wiggled my way to the aisle walking over feet. At the stairwell opening I came face to face with a cop. He was looking troubled. I stopped and spoke to him, saying, Something is going on here that I don't like. He saw it too. We spoke of what we saw, both of us tearing up as we looked out over the crowd where nobody was moving and nobody talking. However many thousand twenty- and thirty-somethings still and quiet as stone. I told cop I had to get out of there and he concurred, it's the best way to go. Under the stands in the big walking area nobody was walking, a few people on the ground leaning against the chain link fence. I felt like I was in a Calcutta slum. Chip had no idea what the cop and I were talking about. He didn't get my Calcutta reference. A Krishna kid approached to me in his orange gown and little pony tail sticking out from a shaved head. I asked where the exit was. At that moment I needed to be outside the circle. Once through the gate I was free. The Krishna guy told me the Stones are not where it's at, come on over here with us, we're just inside the gate. A little gathering of them singing and playing spiritual. I told him nothing inside this circle is where it's at. Y'all are inside the circle. You're not where it's at. Went through the gate and nearly danced in the parking lot. On up the highway we thought to turn right and go to the beach to see the sun set. It was getting big and incredibly beautiful like I'd never seen it before. We made it as far as a marsh at a state park area with a road. We found a place to watch the orange-pink ball sink into the marsh at high tide coloring all the water passageways through the green marsh the pink of the sun. Farther on, arriving at Charleston well after dark, I wanted to go to Folly Beach and lie down in the water, feeling like I'd been in the desert. I went under water, let the water wash over me and everything I was wearing, even held the hat under water to soak it. A tiny light on the horizon I took for a fishing boat and idly watched. It grew bigger. It was the tip of the new moon. I watched it rise up into the sky. I felt like the cosmos, the heavens, were celebrating my decision. A month and a half later, I learned to satisfaction that God, indeed, is. I watch the Stones concert this many years later and feel like I missed nothing. 

marisol herself

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PLAYING WITH CHANCE

A Friday the Thirteenth Full Moon. Can't beat that. I'm a fan of Friday the Thirteenth. It has been my good look day as long as I recall. In childhood I wondered why I never had bad luck on Friday 13 like rumor said it was supposed to be. My best Friday 13 experience was in the winter of 1975-76. I went to work that morning with no thought of it being a loaded day. Walking to work I took a shortcut through Kress, a variety store, used to be called a Dime Store. I took my time through the toy section looking at everything. Found a wobbly rubber snake that was so real I could not buy it. I knew if I bought it, I'd prank somebody with it, and it would give somebody a heart attack. I'd probably still have it and it would be on the floor someplace in the house. It was too creepy. Then I found Silly String. Hadn't seen any before. Bought a can and went to work with it in jacket pocket. High tension time at work. I was dressing crazy in this time for the fun in it. Wore a black mohair suit that day, an electric blue shirt and white dress shoes. Had co-bosses, a couple, people I'd seriously lost respect for. I was at my space doing my work when "Miss Bird" sauntered by saying something smart-mouth and looked at me like, what are you going to do about it? I took the can of Silly String from my right jacket pocket and emptied the contents on her standing still in shock unable to move. A spontaneous sculpture of pink Silly String. Steam was blowing out her ears as she picked the pink string from herself a string at a time like lifting tinsel off a Christmas tree, taking her time, deliberate movements of suppressed rage. A co-worker struggled just as hard to suppress her laughter. Miss Bird picked it all up from the floor, dropped it in a trash can nearby and marched to her man with glowing red eyes. I had a good laugh within, laughing at myself for doing something so spontaneous. It surprised me. I didn't see it coming, not a second before it happened. Subconscious saw it, but conscious mind was outside the loop. Even wondered if subconscious mind might have set up the situation. I picked up what few things were mine, said good-bye to co-worker and walked out the door. Passing the front desk, I said, Bye. Mr Bird said, Forever? I said, And ever, and stepped out the doorway onto the sidewalk, never looked back.

 

 

I walked home thinking, What have you done? I didn't regret it even a frog hair. But it surprised me. I'm not that spontaneous. I was discovering and playing with chance in that time and learning the value of spontaneity. I learned it better than I knew. It was a time in the life of a major inner change and chance was becoming something I relied on, learning that chance and the random was quite different from what  I had thought. The I Ching showed me chance opens to a new idea of order. I was trusting chance in that time, going with it, seeing where it might take me. I'd gone nowhere thinking I was doing something. Letting go and giving over to chance was admitting I'm no good at directing my life. Chance couldn't do worse than my conscious mind. I was walking home, a half mile or so, and it struck: This is Friday the Thirteenth! What have you done? Wait a minute, I said to self, Friday the Thirteenth had always been a good day for me. It didn't ring true. I was looking at leaving the job a mistake. I thought, What the hell, I'm interpreting again. It was no mistake to leave that job. Should have left it months before. By the time I reached home, I had shed thoughts of leaving the job as an error and was left with jubilation to be free of the interpersonal knot of tension that went with the job. A few months before, I had found to my personal satisfaction that God Is. I was changing fast and didn't know it. I was wondering, too, if now that I'm a lover of God, maybe I'm supposed to act right and not spray people with Silly String. Maybe I'm supposed to keep a lousy job and try to make it work like a bad marriage. I don't think God saw it that way. I felt like God had a good laugh too. It was like God was saying, Get out of that Negative environment, buy some Silly String. I was happy I'd done the right thing by the time I reached home.

 

 

Chip, whose apartment was behind mine, I saw working on his Volkswagen engine with repair book, parked by the curb in front of the property. He asked what I was doing home at this time, between ten and eleven. I said I'd quit my job. He said, It's time for celebration--I'll get some beer. He went back to his apartment and brought out two bottles of beer. We sat on the curb behind the Volkswagen. He told me what he was doing on the car and I told him about my morning caper. It was a good spirit between us. We laughed all the time we talked. After we'd finished the beers and our talking wound down, he needed to get back to his car and I wanted to change clothes and settle. A few minutes after twelve, co-worker pulled up out front and brought me a big package of every color of Sugar Lips in celebration. Shortly thereafter, another friend, Bob Brown, dropped by with a bottle of champagne. He saw I was home and stopped. He didn't know I'd left the job. He just happened to have this bottle somebody had given him and was looking for a reason to drink it. Pop went the cork. He had with him Patti Smith's new and first album, Horses, exclaiming I needed to hear it. I can only keep it overnight. He'd be back to pick it up next day. Fine. Chip came in and had some champagne with us. We drank it in plastic cups in celebration of the country song then popular, Champagne In A Dixie Cup. I probably had a Kiss Live album on the record player. It's what I was listening to at the time, Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood's band Traffic, among many others, like Dylan and the Stones, Isaac Hayes, Santana. Saw Kiss in concert a few months later. It was just before they started filling auditoriums. It was the tour that put them on the map following their first live double album. The entire day and into the night spontaneous party went with me like having a troupe of modern dancers swirling in circles around me to Steve Reich's Music For 18 Musicians, chance encounters with friends ready to celebrate. By bedtime late that night I was convinced that chance had done its thing again.

 

 

I don't think of it as chance anymore. Its meaning has grown. I like the saying, Let go and let God. That's what I was doing. Just because I didn't know about God doesn't mean God didn't know about me. Following chance, God led me to his/her metaphorical doorstep. It tickled God that it was so easy to reel me in and impress me out of my mind doing it. I don't mean giving over to chance is the Path to finding God, because I don't know. I felt like God was saying it's time for me to wake up, it's time. Exploring chance opened a trust in the unknown, becoming aware that consciousness is everywhere. There is only consciousness. Like what Emerson called the over-soul, I've come to see that what we call the soul is consciousness. Consciousness sees through our eyes, hears through our ears, feels through the skin, thinks through the mind, is the self that sees our dreams. All living beings are animated by consciousness. Life, itself, is consciousness. The nature of consciousness is love. Consciousness is only love. When I allowed chance, I opened into realizing I had discovered consciousness. It is so not separate from self and others, even insect and worm others, it's like a word that is merely a thumbtack, it tells nothing, a nonsense syllable. It's why God is the commonly agreed upon word that amounts to a sign pointing to the unnamable. It is so much our very self, our very innermost self that sees thought, is the self we mean when we say, "I thought to myself." I see in that common saying an unconscious recognition that consciousness observes thought. It's consciousness seeing the thoughts in my mind and directing my fingers that dance on the keyboard independent of thought, automatically. When we say I, it is consciousness we mean. I is a much deeper part of ourselves than our names. I is the consciousness within. God is the ocean of consciousness, of which we are not separate. We are no more separate from consciousness than we are separate from the stars. I'm fascinated by a recent discovery in astronomy inspiring thought that the universe might be a brain. In infinity, micro can recede infinitely and macro can increase infinitely. Who's to say the universe is not conscious? Consciousness Is. There is only consciousness. All else, illusion, imaginings. Illusion in infinity is, itself, infinite. There is no end to trying to figure things out. I wonder if my explorations with chance opened a peephole in the veil of illusion, enough for the light on the other side to catch my attention. That's illusion too.   

 

photos by tj worthington

 

 

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