Ghost Amphitheater

I’ve had bad days before but this one takes the cake.

In fact, this one takes the cake, carefully removes the icing from the top, hollows it out, shits in it, carefully restores the icing back onto the top, and then proceeds with unrepentant glee to smash it into my face until I’m left licking my lips exclaiming, ooh, that there is some mighty fine cake alright.

You want particulars? You want all the dirt? You want to know why maybe your day wasn’t so bad after all? Let’s just say that when you work at a job you publicly hate with people you privately loathe performing the same idiotic task over and over only to appease clients whom you deeply resent and then, within one twenty-four hour period, you happen to discover that your wife has invested countless hours Facebooking with her high school sweetheart (and interestingly enough, that strikes you as way more dirty than one sudden unexpected physical tryst with a total stranger), your oldest son just got kicked off the basketball team after getting caught smoking pot in a locker room bathroom stall with four other players (not a pretty vision), and that your sister emailed you within the last hour to advise (and certainly not to ask as a favor) that she shall be dropping off your geriatric father late Friday afternoon because something unexpected had come up (sure, like a dalliance with one of her loose-dicked freaks up in the woods) even though you had only recently fulfilled your familial duty by entertaining him for the prior two weeks – well fuck man, give it up to me, those are the particulars, that’s the dirty dirt, stack ‘em all up and take ‘em apart any which way you deem as fit.

And to top it all off, to add yet one more layer of icing to that looming shit cake, my morning coffee was mistakenly delivered to me by a young smartass barista decidedly lukewarm and somehow, without question, wholly decaffeinated. Because if it had been caffeinated then you’d really be hearing it…

So was it really any wonder that by 4:59 this very afternoon I was already in that elevator shaft heading down to the parking garage and then pulling out of there with a reverberating squeal that might have underscored an urgency to simply vacate and twenty minutes later pulled up to one of those seaside beach bars that welcome sand and barnacles and anything else that you might be capable of dragging on in and shaking off onto their cool concrete floors, a place that doesn’t simply offer Happy Hour, oh no, it offers Get Drunk in Minutes with cheap shots and cold draft beer, a place where you can quickly lose yourself in sweet inebriated anonymity?

Misery loves company and drunken is the best.

And then a few hours later it was just me, myself and... uh, oh yes, that would be I.

How in the world could I forget good old I?

Well, maybe because there was the six-pack of cold Bud? And the dunes and the beach and the constant hissing thump of waves over wet sand. And a nice breeze. And then all those twinkling stars.

But other than that, really, it was just me, myself, and I, the three of us all alone on a Thursday night, with me rather lonely, myself not quite up to snuff, and I not really wanting to stay here but not having anywhere else compelling to go.

So in the end it was easier to just plop myself down on the beach and drink beer and pretend to be waiting.

Back to those waves... I don’t know whether to be comforted or maddened by their presence. Or their persistence. Their endless barrage upon the crystalline shores of all time. Sometimes they crash, sometimes they merely lap, but always, or at least until some great rogue force jettisons the moon away toward Mars and rips our planet apart pouring the oceanic contents into outer space, they just keep on coming. Wherever you are, think of them even now, at a certain height, at a certain width, at a finely-tuned frequency – they simply keep rolling, urged onward by the tug of the moon, as ubiquitous as the melancholy that presently drifts so woefully inside of me. Those ceaseless waves are dictated by the laws of gravity as forced upon them by a heavenly sphere propelled into orbital motion. Yet who really knows what forces are at work when a soul spins out of orbit, when a spirit springs loose from both heart and mind, unceremoniously set afloat beyond the breakers and drifting towards oblivion.

Sometimes all you can do is just let it be, let the winds blow and the currents churn and allow time to do its one absolute thing.

I usually do a decent job of keeping a keen eye on incoming action from all sides, from the left and from the right and especially from the rear – and even on this clear night, from straight ahead toward the capricious spewing ocean – being the exceptionally paranoid fool that I most assuredly am, so I was admittedly caught off guard when the man just... well, he simply appeared. He seemingly materialized from nothing, sprouting himself straight out of the gurgling sand like some kind of mystic crab-phantom. And there he was sitting beside me, no more than twenty feet away, leaning back upon his elbows while the wind tasseled his long scraggly hair. An old man, or at least he appeared older than me underneath a puddle of light tossed off by an indifferent moon, barefoot in cut-offs with an unbuttoned shirt whipping around his thin body. Before I could react, before I could even think of something half-way appropriate to say, he slowly turned his head and smiled.

“Beauty of a night, eh mate?”

I nodded in agreement, bewildered, somewhat frightened, preparing to find my feet and quickly scurry away from the dark beach and toward the refuge of the Pacific Coast Highway streetlights.

“Really now, you should have a quick nip on this. Or a long heapin’ one... makes no difference to me. But really... you should... now. So please. Indulge me.”

He leaned over and extended his arm as far as the bony limb would go. His slender fingers held a lit missile, the smoldering herb, a midnight offering that burned bright and smelled like a sweet cannabis dream – they held one huge-ass doobie.

What else could I do?

I accepted the offering and hit that motherfucker.

“The bus should be arriving soon.”

He nodded over his shoulder back toward the road.

I shrugged slightly, took another hit, allowing the magical smoke to infiltrate my lungs and then my veins and then straight into my already-inebriated cerebral cortex. I was feeling rather loose and open to possibility.

“Don’t mind me mate, but I gotta run.”

What? I thought, and then whatever, I don’t mind at all. Do as you please, as you must.

“As for the joint, keep it.”

Oh… okay, if that’s what you want, then I shall oblige.

I watched him rise to his feet, close his eyes and inhale the nighttime air with a mighty, almost resigned breath, and then without a word and with his eyes back open he strolled straight into the ocean. One thoughtful step after the other, a gentle splashing into the frothing shallows, the waves doing what they so thanklessly do, approach and then recede, deliver and then take away, and I felt no sorrow nor did I feel any fear as he slowly disappeared within them.

The ocean accepted him whole and I said not a word.

I suppose that was odd.

I was drunk, stoned, extremely high and I just nodded as if I somehow understood what I had just witnessed. A stranger had come and gone – that was all. ‘Twas no more than a coming and a going. The moon disappeared behind a stray cloud and somewhere a gull screeched. I took one last hit on the joint and then flicked the gleaming roach into the surf. It stayed there floating atop an edge of foam longer than I would have thought possible, a bright orange thimble pressed upon the frayed fabric of this strange night, until it too disappeared.

About the time I would have normally started to feel the paranoia creep in, I heard the squealing of brakes from somewhere behind me which, typically, would have made me feel even more paranoid. But this sound came from an old school bus pulling up along the Pacific Coast Highway – the aforementioned bus, I guess – but it was obviously no normal school bus. I could see all the psychedelic painting scribbled across it beneath the gleam of an obliging streetlamp. Then came a short toot of the horn, not even a real honk, more of a polite beep, a summons, and I found myself on foot and hiking across the loose sand straight toward it. I felt no trepidation and yet I did recognize the absence of trepidation, a lack of hesitancy not being a personal trait. For I was accomplished at avoiding trouble and keeping away from any situation which could potentially end up creating unwanted complications. But it was only now as I drew closer to the idling vehicle that I realized that maybe I’d been missing out on a lot of random opportunities as well – chances for unlikely connections, new friends, and unforgettable experiences.

You gotta cross the street first if yer ever gonna take a walk on the wild side.

All the same, this was hardly the time and place to conduct such a self-directed philosophical inquest as these people were apparently waiting on me. I hopped up onto the curb and the silhouette of the driver came into view, a stout bearded fellow wearing sunglasses in the dead of night, and he grinned and shot me a peace sign.

I was grateful and thought yeah, this could be cool, I might totally dig it, and as I rounded the back of the bus, I noticed a few more silhouetted heads inside and that gave me even more confidence to go right on ahead and board.

The door popped open and in I went.

“This here is the magic bus and we be truckin’… sit anywhere you like,” the driver said with a wink, and I hesitated and looked down among the rows of seats that ran on either side. In the faint light I could see that the bus was half-filled and up front where I could see a little better, I spotted three women sitting together, a couple leaning into each other and holding hands, and a few solo male stragglers.

“Go right ahead – nobody’s gonna bite. We’re all friends here on the magic bus.”

Despite my misgivings, I didn’t want to be the guy who made everybody else needlessly late so I shuffled down the aisle until I found one empty seat by a rear window. I slid in, took the proverbial load off, heard the door bang shut and the bearded guy put the magic bus into low gear.

As we slowly pulled away from the curb I looked back at the solemn beach scene from whence I came. For a moment I thought I saw a tiny orange flicker way out there, from that no longer distinctive line where gray water meets silver horizon, or maybe possibly from a point just below or just above. Soon enough, that scene was gone too, erased from view but sealed in mind, and my attention turned toward my fellow occupants and our unannounced destination.

Nobody spoke a word.

There were no whispers, not even the muffled titter of nervous laughter that so typically breaks out in such quiet social settings. And although I thought the whole thing was odd, I have to admit that I didn’t feel the need to talk to anyone either. I had no desire to hear the sound of my own voice. All was fine in this world. Breathing was enough. It was plenty. The heads in front of me never turned around and I never bothered to turn around either. There was just an overwhelming sense of peace, of joy and perhaps anticipation, and it seemed wise to sit back for once and simply relax.

The magic bus slowed and once again those brakes squealed like George’s weeping guitar. Then the same toot of the horn and the flick of headlights and looking over toward the beach I saw a distant shadow growing larger and then materializing into the figure of a woman and she too boarded the bus without a word. But I saw her face and recognized the look, one of measured risk and excitement trumping fear, and she shuffled into the seat right across from me.

It was then that I heard a commotion from near the front.

“Sir, I don’t think you really want to be on this bus.”

“What do ya mean I don’t want to be on this bus? I’ve been waiting out here all night. Got nowhere else to be. Nowhere else to go. This looks exactly like the kind of bus I need to be on... like, any old fuckin’ bus.”

He scurried up the steps but then hesitated just within the rattling threshold. He looked everyone over as he tugged on his whiskered chin and seemed to be in immediate deliberations and suddenly entertaining second thoughts as the driver looked at him with a what-did-I-tell-you kind of grin.

“Where you folks headed, anyway?” the man asked

“They don’t know,” the driver happily replied.

“They don’t know! What do you mean they don’t know?”

“I haven’t told them. Not yet, anyway.”

“You mean to tell me these folks are on a road to nowhere? What kind of a bus is that?”

“You’d have to ask Mr. Byrne about that. Actually, it’s more like they’re on a bus to anywhere… or actually, to everywhere.”

“Hell – that’s just as bad. Worse even. Sounds like a bus to the nuthouse. Think I’ll pass.”

“Thought you might,” the driver said with a sigh.

The man clambered back down the steps and into the comfortable shadows of somewhere muttering to himself, probably a word of thanks thinking himself as duly saved.

The bus driver turned to address us.

“You got to earn your ticket to ride this bus, folks. You gotta earn your way in your life. You must attain the proper outlook. If you do it right, then it aint work. We all know that.”

Had I really earned my way? Somehow I doubted that. And the guy had a point – like, where are we actually heading?

Legitimate questions both and I chose (yet again) to pay them little heed. We were rattling down the highway once more and the night had again changed and spinning through the void was all that mattered.

Finally, we pulled off the road and came to a slow gravel-crunching stop. The driver killed the engine and cut the lights.

It was dark. Dark Ages dark. No electric bulbs, no buzzing fluorescent artificial light, only the faint smell of an unseen ocean. We seemed far removed from civilization. I hadn’t seen the stars like this in years, maybe ever. To be honest, it was a jolt. The cosmos lay splayed out above us, the smear of the old Milky Way spackled generously with countless twinkling lights, and it’s easy to forget your place in the universe until once again you experience this kind of vision and are humbly reminded.

Like anxious passengers inside a plane which finally taxis up to the tunnel and then powers down, we all stood up at once, relieved and if not eager then acutely curious. One by one we silently disembarked. Our driver clicked on a flashlight and led the way down a narrow dirt path that cut through dense vegetation and even with that beam slicing through the night it was akin to an act of faith to proceed onward, the very next step placing a foot onto an unseen patch of earth while the person ahead of you remained barely visible. And yet somehow I didn’t just hope. I in fact knew we were approaching something good, something wondrous, and I felt like a Little Leaguer about to enter his first Major League ball park, or perhaps somewhat more decadently, a young man entering a brothel. I felt wonder, excitement, along with a distinct pinch of trepidation. Now I could hear the ocean as well as smell it, those rolling waves slurping and crashing somewhere down below, even here (or especially here) driven by the laws of the lunar tide. Up ahead the dark lightened just a bit, the air became faintly lit, and I could see that there were torches stuck into the ground giving off just enough light to allow distant shapes to form. At last we entered the rim of a terraced mount that descended toward a rocky beach far below. It was huge, this natural scooped-out bowl, reminding me of that meteor crater I had once visited in Arizona, and it was absolutely crammed with humanity. As far as I could see into the murky light there were people, people like me, like all of us, a smear of tiny dots undulating in and out way down below, living cells in a petri dish just happy to be there, and the sound from the crowd’s anticipation was a palliative hum. But there were no loud shouts, no rambunctious shenanigans, only good folks waiting, abiding, getting more comfortable as they anticipated the show.

Surf’s up, bitches.

I sat down on a patch of dry grass and joined them.

Of course I felt a strange brew of mounting excitement paired with a good shot of the fear of the unknown. I didn’t really know what was going on... hell if I understand much of anything these days. But every time I started to feel rising concern I squelched it with the idea of just going with the flow, of just going along for the ride, no one here is expecting anything from you so what’s the problem?

For once in your life just shut up and seek your bliss.

I looked around and saw that people were filling in the open space behind us. In fact, the throng of folks went on and on and in all directions. I turned back around to face the front and noticed that the bottom of the terraced bowl appeared much closer. Huh... that’s strange. I could now see a stage area in front of the rocky outcrop where the foam of the ocean trickled and explored. It was difficult to distinguish between the misting spray of the tide from the thin wisps of fog that so often materialize this time of year. It all seemed to come together, to fall apart, and then to come together once again.

And then there he was.

The guy from the beach walking towards me, sitting down next to me (completely dry I might add), and once again articulating.

“You made it, mate,” he said, and it was both observational and congratulatory. “Good thing. Not everybody does. Some folks get lost along the way, some folks bail. Can’t take the uncertainty, I ‘spose.”

A brief pause, and then, “After all, it is an act of faith.”

Feeling somewhat unsettled I barely nodded my head, pondering this ancient mariner who had some time ago walked off and then disappeared into a merciless ocean in search of Davey Jones having now materialized again right next to me. But there were thousands of stirring souls around us... tens of thousands... maybe close to a hundred. Should that not comfort me? Should that not make me believe in only the here and the now thereby alleviating any stray mystifying conundrum?

He turned to look at me and smiled.

“Relax. I’m not gonna bite you. Can’t speak for most of these folks though, some look a bit famished, but I’m not here for confrontation. Hell, I’m just like you. I’m here to enjoy a good show. And a fine doobie. In fact, what I really enjoy is a good show with a fine doobie. That’s when I like to just sit back and kinda float away in a river of stars.”

I laughed in spite of myself. Then shook my head and gave him that sideways look thang accented by a widening grin.

“Just who the hell are you anyway?” I finally inquired.

He chuckled.

“Remember when you were a kid and you lost a tooth so you hid it under your pillow?”

“Yeah, hopin’ for a shiny quarter from the tooth fairy.”

“That’s right. Well that aint me. I’m not the tooth fairy – I’m the truth fairy. I’m here to show you the truth. Because your reality is only a habit and habits are meant to be broken.”

I suppose I guffawed right there. I guess that’s what you would call what came rumbling from my mouth. An honest-to-God, fully doubting and somewhat disgusting guffaw.

“You mean records are meant to be broken... right?”

“Records, habits, meniscuses… whatever. Nothing in this world is set in stone.”

“Fossils are set in stone.”

“Yo, we got us a smartass here – and so what are stones set in, my man? Within other stones, big rocks, the side of that canyon wall over there which could come crumbling down here at any moment. Trust me, given enough time, nothing is ever set in stone.”

He turned away from me and gazed down at the stage that kept transforming itself under the mutating lighting.

“At least your shitcake of a day is not set in stone,” he slyly added, and although he didn’t look at me he smiled. “You could be grateful for that.”

Great. The guy is inside my head, exploring my mind, uncovering the secrets of my soul.

And now he reached inside a hidden pocket tucked within his vest and produced another one of his fine doobies.

“Time for a little magic, for a little sensory expansion – but the truth is that the magic resides inside our brains all along – it’s always there – it just needs a little proper prodding to bust loose. But keep one thing in mind tonight...”

He brandished a silver lighter and ignited the rocket.

“...yer gonna see and yer gonna hear who you need to see and hear. No one’s experience is ever the same.”

He took a hit and inhaled. Exhaled with mucho gusto and offered it to me.

“The guy next to you might be tapping his toes to Elvis while the guy next to him is grooving to Jerry Garcia. Or Johnny Cash, or Hendrix. The assembled spirits don’t really care – maybe they’re all up there together on stage together fading in and out or maybe they’re only in your head, singing directly to your soul. Whatever, mate – they simultaneously perform for one or perform for all. They’re here to please, to inform, to soothe and guide. And to groove. They may play the hits or give you some new stuff – and they can create jolly on the spot, they can improvise, give you what you need to hear at that moment. They can fill your heart up with a new kind of light that you aint ever even seen. So just sit back my man, release the shackles, open your mind... and you will see.... probably.”

I returned the flaring ember to him and attempted to heed his advice.

But he wasn’t done yet.

“People are fond of saying that heaven must have one hell of a band. Some popular ace guitarist down here on earth breaks that proverbial last string and then all of a sudden it’s Wow, God’s got ‘em another great soloist up there but the truth is it’s getting a little crowded. And then you got guys like Sinatra sitting out back in a dark corner booth telling everybody how they should act as if they’re the boss, what to play and please try to behave like gentlemen. Like what is he gonna do to another ghost, have somebody bust their kneecap? Ha! Anyway, from time to time it’s nice to break away for a spell, to come on down and play for some true believers. Try out some of the new material they’ve, that we’ve, been workin’ on, tunes that were only hazy and spinning in the back of our minds like interstellar pixie dust when we slid off the mortal coil.”

Who is this guy?

I attempted to dig deeper, to try to remember where I’d seen that face, heard that voice... maybe in another life?

Waiting for the crystal to clear…

Looking back down I saw that a dense fog had indeed rolled in from the ocean. A thin veil growing thick weaved its way across the stage amid changing color – a violet becoming baby blue and then orange. And then another color that I don’t believe I’d ever seen before. And then a pastel pink. It kept thickening, coalescing, smoldering – something righteous was manifesting down there.

And then there came a blast of bright light and it rang out.

A musical chord that was somehow familiar, somehow enthralling – and it dawned on us all, every last one of us. It was a singular sound that had been deeply impressed way down inside into our last neural corpuscles – it was from A Day in the Life, those last bunched notes, the final resonating chord.

It had always felt like the undeniable end.

But then came the next chord. The one that we’d always dreamed about. Could it truly be out there somewhere? Could it exists? Yes! It could! It is! And it was a revelation, the one obvious response – it amounted to a beautiful new beginning, to the idea that indeed, there’s always more.

It had begun.

The show lasted thirty minutes, an hour, or maybe two. Time seemed to bend under the gravity of unworldly light and sound and linear thought waves curved. Like a strange dream, abstract and nonsensical, and yet it made perfect sense. It was magnificent. I saw and heard Hendrix and Jim Morrison and Tommy Bolin and so many of our other lost brothers and sisters and they all sweet-jammed and they mystically merged and collaborated and it all became one big symphonic mind-fuck. A purple mist spun and collapsed and there emerged the eternal prince from Minneapolis… a ray of light squeezed through the rocks revealing the strumming silhouette of the reluctant king of Gainesville, and it felt like a crazy dream had run me down. The music veered off into soulful balladry and then into trippy instrumentals, segueing with an organic whimsy. There were snippets of familiar classics and all those known-by-rote guitar solos but then from out of nowhere the music would jettison off into an entirely new direction, music never heard before, a new kind of harmony and undiscovered melodies and hidden insights revealed.

It brought tears to my eyes to finally hear what could have been.

Of what still might be.

Of what is forever to be reverberating within our own seeking minds.

Time certainly passed, of that I have no doubt, and yet in a way it felt like only an instant, one moment frozen in time, the epiphany, and the impact was deep and permanent.

Now maybe you are waiting for me to go into detail regarding more specifics of what I heard or better yet, present you with an audience recording rendered for your own perusal. If I were you then I’d be hoping for the same thing. But I am not you, I am me, and I can only say that what I heard and saw was too indescribable to even attempt a rational explanation. Besides, no manmade recording machine could ever hope to accurately capture the fleetingly visceral. Maybe that’s because of my lack of vocabulary skill, or maybe because such intangible emotion and exhilaration cannot be translated by the learned application of human tongue and lips through physical air. I will just say this. It was spiritual, it was God singing, and it opened my mind in a way that can never possibly be shut back again.

Twas no dream.

I was fucking there.

I was the creator of and sole audience to my very own sonic utopia.

Sorry, I forgot to mention that my new friend, my mate, had at some point vanished once again only to reappear way down there to the side of the stage. His axe was plugged in, his toe a-tappin’.

Of course – hand slap to forehead – he was only the dependable yet forever anonymous bass player keeping it all together.

Touche’!

*****

This is the part of the tale where I could look back up and smile and tell you what really happened, that after tripping I awoke on that original beach while gulls screeched circling high above watching their breakfast bubbling in the seaweed foam. Or maybe that I regained my senses after a rather extravagant daydream while zoning out in my workplace cubicle. Or I could admit that none of this really happened at all, that it was mere fantasy, a mid-day escape, a fantastical fib.

The fact is I could say a lot of things.

Such as when it’s over, it’s over.

No truer words have ever been spoken, writ, or their essence absorbed into the sober yet wistful mind.

Or I could say that darkness only exists in the absence of light, that our existence goes by so quickly, too quickly, and that you should be careful mixing hot weenies with dry martinis.

But forget all of that (if you can and as I must). I am just going to say that it was real, I actually experienced Ghost Amphitheater, and I did hear the lost music and now understand that there is a next chord.

*****

Today I’m walking down that same sandy beach on a bright Sunday afternoon and it is sparkle warm-white and the sky is crystal blue and out on the water there is a ship. Inside my head there is unspoken wonder in not knowing if that vessel is coming home seeking safe harbor or if it is only now forever sailing away.

Only its captain knows the answer to that question with any certainty.

All I know is that these waves keep rolling on and on and on.

posted September 17th, 2022