WE LIVE IN TROUBLED TIMES

The day after our wonderful river rafting experience it was time to pack up and get out of Oregon. We said our goodbyes to the Treesort, took some photos……and then hi-tailed it outta there… We were goin’ back to Cali…

But our adventure wasn’t over yet. Tiffany, Charlie and I had a Green Day concert to go to in their hometown of Oakland. But that was for the next day. We had a nighttime Alcatraz tour planned the very day we were coming down from Oregon. It was going to be a tight schedule, time was of the essence to make it to the tour on time. As we got into Oakland, Charlie and I bailed out of the van to hit a Green Day pop-up store at the famed 1-2-3-4 Go! Records store… …where we waited in line, for not that long, and then were ushered inside to spend our shekels on “Oakland Exclusive” Green Day paraphernalia.

Now, I’ve never really been to Oakland, before. I’ve only known it by its stereotyped reputation of being a rough town. As we waited outside in the line, an assortment of locals — lots of body ink, piercings, urban attire…what you would unfairly equate as “rough” or “dangerous” people by their outward appearance alone — weaved through our line, and very politely said “‘Scuse me” as they pressed through. Oakland Coffee was outside offering free samples, and talking up a homeless person who showed up to sample the coffee. They treated her just like she was any other potential customer, talking about the beans, the roasting process, the various flavors, and letting her have as many samples as she wished.

Juxtapose that to SFO, where Charlie and I Ubered to afterward to rendezvous with the rest of the family for the nighttime Alcatraz tour. Our feet hadn’t even touched SFO cement for three seconds before some arrogant cyclist whizzed by and yelled at Charlie to “watch out!” calling her a “Dipshit.” As far as I could tell we were far from any pedestrian/cyclist faux pas — as we were simply getting out of a car at a tourist drop-off point. Maybe he thought Charlie was gonna be the one pedestrian to finally go nuts and take a leap at him, taking both him and his precious, over-priced bike to the ground, where his carbonite bike frame would inevitably crush the small, fragile, spindly nonnecessity which, on only his best days, he fancies as his penis. Anyway, it was a nail-biter getting on the boat to Alcatraz, as the rest of the family was stuck on the Oakland Bay Bridge for a millennium. However, we all made it, literally at the last possible moment. We resembled a Mentos commercial, minus the jovial knowing glances to one another as we leaped onto the boat. Instead we were all dripping with flopsweat as the adrenaline and annoyance drained out of our pituitary glands onto the boat floor.

But back to that fucking fucker of a bicyclist…I only learned about what that cyclist said to Charlie later as we were on the boat, and I felt sorry that Charlie had to experience that. Calling me names is one thing. I almost nearly deserve it at least 10% of the time. But Charlie is just a kid! There’s something straight up ugly about being verbally assaulted by someone who then disappears, rendering you powerless to confront them, to answer back, leaving you surrounded by witnesses, stuck with facing an embarrassment among strangers. It’s a complete pussy move. But sometimes, that’s life. Frankly, it clearly bothered me more than it did her, so I’m overthinking it…

…while we were walking around The Rock, the whole thing kept sloshing around in my brain. And really, the only conclusion I could come up with was, “Man, Fuck San Francisco.”  I kept thinking how San Francisco traffic is some of the worst in the world, and for all their progressive environmentally friendly agendas they can’t seem to master it. It’s bullshit. I kept thinking how it felt like every time we visit this city I like it less and less. That I rarely ever want to actually “stay” in San Francisco. It’s a different big city vibe than New York, for sure. In New York, to me, there’s no pretention. When visiting San Francisco, I’d rather stay in the neighboring areas and maybe pop in and out. And I’m sorry but if you want good Chinese food…come to the San Gabriel Valley. “Fuck San Francisco” is what I was feeling as I strolled through the abandoned prison, listening to the sound effects of “shanking” re-enactments on the tour headphones…

But I realize now, in light of the events in Charlottesville these past few days, that although I stand by all of my opinions of San Francisco: it’s crowded, it’s arrogant, it’s been living off of the hippy movement for wayeee too long, it has few things to offer that other towns don’t have, it’s not my flavor, or maybe I’ve just never seen the real San Francisco in the dozens of times I’ve been here etc etc — there’s one thing that would never happen down the streets of SFO:

Militiamen walking along with assault rifles defending white nationalists waving Nazi flags as they protest the removal of a confederate statue.

And for that, I kind of love San Francisco.

When we were deliberating what our road trip should be this summer, we briefly considered something through the south. We’ve always wanted to go to New Orleans. Many of my musical heroes hailed from Memphis and I’ve always wanted to experience that with the girls. We’ve spent some time in Texas (Austin, call me, I love you.) We want to see America. But in the end we had no choice but to weigh the rise of intolerance towards non-whites that is bubbling up to the surface all across our country…particularly in the South. Racists are becoming too comfortable, feeling too free to express their bigoted feelings not just out in the open, but often right up in the faces of those they hate. The sense of shame with such hateful, ignorant rhetoric is dwindling. We’ve just seen too many headlines and, more importantly, heard too many personal accounts to risk taking a van full of Asians, half of whom are children, through regions where the mood is seemingly primed to aggress any shade of color darker than white. Road trips involve too many unpopulated rest stops, quiet gas stations, 100-mile stretches of country roads, and other unpredictable possibilities to take that risk right now. And that’s not even considering the casual racism that’s so easy to float into the ether via verbiage or regard. How can I prove to my daughters how great their country is when I’ve accepted there is a decent chance someone will call them a “chink?” How can the mantra of every state capitol we visit, “This is your government, your state, your country…” ring true in their hearts if I vacation them to places where they might be crudely presumed as “foreigners.”

So I’ll take “Dipshit” in SFO. Because that’s just an idiotic proclamation from an asshole that has nothing to do with the color of my daughter’s skin. That’s just existing in a city…

********

After the Alcatraz tour, as we ate a late dinner at Fisherman’s Wharf, I felt my strength draining out of me. All that day I felt a tinge of pain in the back of my throat with every swallow. I kept trying to deny it but by the day’s end, there was no avoiding the truth.

I was sick.

Now, see, this is what pisses me off about myself and vacations. In about 20% of the vacations I take, I end up sick. I don’t understand why, but it happens and it chafes my hide. At least this time asthma didn’t set in… but my joints got achy and my throat hurt like a sunnuva bitch. So much so that I decided if I had any chance of making it to the Green Day concert the next evening I was going to have to convalesce in bed all the next day while everyone went out to explore more of SFO. For a brief moment I thought that I might have somehow come down with the flu…but sleep did a body good, and by late afternoon the next day I was mobile. Sweaty, a bit dazed, but mobile.

I joined everyone for our last “Road Trip” vacation dinner, for the next day we were driving home to Los Angeles. And afterward, Tiffany, Charlie, and I peeled off and Ubered to the Oakland Coliseum for our Green Day concert.

A concert which we didn’t really think through. We had decided to get floor tickets. Which meant standing room only. Which meant we had to arrive early and stand there loooong before even the opening act set foot on stage. Factoring in the entire show, this meant about five hours of standing.

By the time the opening act “Catfish and the Bottlemen” had finished playing, my back was aching so bad I wasn’t sure how I was going to even make it through the 45 minute wait for Green Day to take the stage, let alone their nearly three-hour long performance. But I was determined not to spoil things for Tiffany or Charlie. We have been to many Green Day shows, it’s a band that we all love together, but we’ve never been on the floor. I kept my mouth shut and tried to shift the weight on my feet to alleviate the building pressure…but not much was helping. And hell, I couldn’t even go drown my pain in booze because that meant leaving our spot to get to the bars…from which there would be no chance of returning.

So here’s the thing about Green Day concerts for the uninitiated. During the performance, in the floor area, mosh pits spontaneously break out. From our usual viewpoint in the seats higher up these mosh pits resemble storm patterns on a doppler radar map…sudden swirling pools of flailing limbs and madness. We calculated that if we got up close enough to the stage the mosh pits would be safely behind us. I looked around and saw that we were primarily surrounded by an older demographic, too, and felt even safer…not to mention Tiffany and I had worn our sandals to a punk concert. Our toes were vulnerable. I even commented to Charlie, “We’re good, I don’t see any moshers around us…

The lights went down…Morricone’s “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” started to play. The roadies peeled off the black curtain and the roar of the stadium went to 35 as the members of Green Day strutted out on stage…

AND THEN THE FUCKIN’ CRUSH SET IN.

The entire crowd impossibly lurched forward twenty feet, filling in every spare nook and cranny that didn’t exist. We were pressed clean up against the person in front of us, and people behind us, too, pressed flush against our backs.  Like a flash fire, the temperature from the compressed body heat rocketed up twenty degrees hotter. Everyone was instantly drowning in sweat — all within a few seconds. I’ve never experienced anything like it. It was instant. “Know Your Enemy” raged to life from the band. Everyone went apeshit. And you had no choice but to scream, and jump up and down along with the huge mass of humanity! Chaos reigned through the song as water bottles flailed in the air, people thrashed and pushed, and some people from the front, succumbing to the fear of the crush, fought their way back through the crowd to a clearing somewhere far behind us, tears in their eyes, shellshocked by the suffocating crush. People would part for them as much as they could. Nimbus clouds of pot smoke wafted over our ocean of humanity, but the heat from our bodies never allowed it to land. The music screamed on and we screamed with it.

By the third song, “Revolution Radio” the mass of humanity started to find its groove. Everyone found their footing in a more reasonable stance, the crush loosened just a tiny bit. People could breathe.

…And then the moshers rushed the rear, wedging up through the tight seal of bodies, working their way up closer to the stage.

Right to where we were.

As the power chords churned so did bodies, explosions of limbs and sweat and torsos. Swirling and bashing and thrashing about. There was even a shirtless guy wearing a Hannibal Lecter mask on his face, colliding into anything near him. Men ripped off their shirts, slick with sweat, and commenced mosh battle.

At first, Tiffany, Charlie and I were completely taken aback. Very soon after this, Tiffany, who was standing behind me, literally flew off of her feet, as if connected to a tether and pulley and yanked backwards into the air — a mosh pit exploded behind her and a mosher collided into her then pulled her into the mosh pit. I spun around, grabbed Tiffany, threw her back behind me and was ready for a fucking fight. But everyone was just smashing into each other at full speed, having a good time. There was no ill intent.

As the concert raged on I started to find the rhythm, predicting, as the tempo of each song picked up, when people would begin moshing. I’d take a defensive stance, keeping Charlie and Tiffany on the other side of me, then as bodies starting careening into me I’d use all my weight and strength to send them flying right fucking back into the pit. And there was no time for considering who I was sending off… boy, man, girl, woman…I fuckin’ threw haymakers at all of them. All around us moshers would be hurled out of the pit, flying like rag dolls into unsuspecting people standing nearby, colliding in full force, taking them out NFL style. I was hellbent to make sure that this wouldn’t happen to Tiffany or Charlie. That, matched with the mad pace of the music, made it chaotic and astounding to behold. Two things I learned during this experience:

1. I’m a lot stronger than I have any justification being. I mean look at me. But I sent some of those fuckers flying.
2. This activity made my back FEEL GREAAATTT!!!!!

My back stopped hurting during the concert! In fact, I started to feel really good. Maybe it was the adrenaline, I don’t know…but I started to sort of get into it. It sort of tapped into something…deep…inside me. It felt good to work shit out on other people…

Here’s the other thing about a Green Day concert that I find so completely awesome. Yes, people in the mosh pit may be trying to take each other out with all their might…but when a mosher goes down in the pit, everyone stops, picks them up, and makes sure they are okay. It’s the oddest combination of aggression and brotherhood, and it seems to work seamlessly. One guy got knocked out cold right in front of us, and moments later, after being revived, he’s singing a song arm-in-arm with those who bashed him about. People who I ragdolled —  a girl being one of them — ended up putting their arms around me to sway in unison to a slower song mere moments later.

And maybe in part that’s because of the band Green Day themselves. Their message is love. Is unity. Is togetherness. At one point, they had the entire stadium chanting “No racism! No sexism! No homophobia!” During the show they not only brought two different fans up on stage to sing (then stage dive) but they also brought a girl up play guitar with them and then gave the guitar to her as a keepsake. By the way, think about that one… if they do this in every city they play, imagine all the future rock bands they are kickstarting by giving these kids an inspirational taste! That’s a lot of good music in our future.

In an age where every medium around you is trying to separate and categorize you, dividing us and  conquering us in the modern age…. everyone in that stadium simply existed as one. And I left slick from both my own sweat and the sweat of others, exhausted, and high from the rush of such a fantastic show. We had survived. And it was awesome.