I have an intimate relationship with violence. My first memory of school is pulling a kid down of the monkey bars and smashing him. We moved around the country a lot when I was growing up and my Dad taught me to fight to prove myself to the locals. This usually worked as way to amass fear. Close friends, not so much.
My Dad is an intimidator, I became an intimidator.
I learned that I was very comfortable with emotional detachment.
I learned that I enjoyed pain, giving as much as receiving.
These lessons became a part of the core of my being. They translated and reinterpreted themselves in aspects of my entire life and personality, that is easily seen in my addictions and my overall taste for darkness. I rarely participate in physical violence anymore, unless it's directed at myself. But I am always willing. The level of psychic violence and intimidation that I participate in daily, both outward and inward, is constant and has been for as long as I can remember.
I have a some friends(and a Wife)who are particularly gifted at violence. They are efficient ,skillful, and clean. I, at times, have been (oh yes.....oh... yes) but usually I am very messy. Once my fuse has been lit it's chaos. Blood, Broken Glass, Chairs, More Blood, Car Tires, Bricks Bats and Bottles, Some Bleeding, Up, Down, Deep, Dark, Sticky, Nasty.
Bring a fucking lunch.
A couple of other things that I learned from my Dad is that it's not over until I say it's over and that I can never lose. Which means if you get the best of me that I will eventually get you(and I can wait...)one way or another, even and and almost exclusively this means that I will fuck myself over in the process. It doesn't matter because at the root, this all about fucking myself up anyway. I fully realize this when I am not consumed by it but my ability to negotiate through rage is non existent.
I feel that this sole(soul)internal external experience and expression is responsible for so many of things that I have and don't have in my life. It IS the fire inside me. It IS the destroyer. It is also the thing that makes me want to bring life and light to the world. At times it is a righteous gift but I feel at odds with it and it's attachments. The baggage is enormous. In truth it is too much.
I feel blessed to be able to write about this and express myself through art and music. Somehow I have been able to get to this point. Many of friends that I grew up with expressed there life through violent death, either taking there own or someone else's. I really, really miss them all.
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6 comments:
Way back in the day, when you had a mohawk, I was fucking terrified of you.... This was even before Neurosis, and I made sure to steer clear of you path at shows, on the street, etc.
Years later, I found out the capability of violence was very real, but you were a very soft spoken indidivual. (Maybe not behind the microphone, though.)
In 1995, my friend tagged along with me to a Neurosis show, but he didn't go inside. (San Jose.) When I came out later on, he shook his head and said, "Sounds like they're angry at something!"
It's a miracle that not only have you made it this far, but that your life and art have flourished.
I can vouch for you being intimidating, the last time Neurosis played London I walked past you on the street and even though I wanted to say hello I crossed the road. The aura of menace surrounding you was immense, it was as if you were about to step into the ring to kill your foe. Approaching you seemed like a very bad idea and even being on the same pavement felt dangerous.
That said I still regret not saying anything.
When I met Scott a couple of years ago I gave him a big grin and he gave it right back. Granted it was at one of his solo performances and a bit more intimate / less intimidating. Maybe it sounds corny but I figure, give what you want to get back. Would you rather a bloody nose, or a grin and a handshake?
I knew that this piece would come off overly puffed up. I didn't intend it that way I just haven't figured out any other way to express that part of who I am. The reality of this curse is that I have lost many fights, be they physical, mental, or spiritual and in the end I will lose again. I have learned that the chance too fight is a gift.
its intense that your dad told you to start fights as the new kid to earn respect. that's kind of a prison mentality deal. real american.
i had to move around the county a lot too as a kid. i wasn't big or tough enough to earn respect through fighting or violence. i had to use my personality to make friends. i had to develop my "people skills," and i was generally successful, for that i'm lucky.
ironically you are one of the friendliest, realist people i've ever met in my life. when i first moved to the bay 20 years ago from arkansas you became one of my first and closest friends. folks don't let the rough exterior fool you! thanks...ben
I came across your blog (via link from the Neurosis page on wikipedia). I think I understand the capacity for violence you're talking about, as I have observed it in others though never experienced it myself. When Neurosis came to Belfast, Northern Ireland (in the early 90s?), you stayed at my house and several of us were crashed in living room (I think I'd given up my bed). I remembber, like one of the other posters does, you were softly spoken and you talked about your kids (is this right? Are some of them fully grown now). -- Julia, formerly of Belfast, now in the Bay Area
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