Sometimes I forget the fact that the majority of the world has nothing to do with a music "scene". Most of the America is made up of grandfather farmers, little talkative sisters that don't know the names of the songs they hear on the radio, and fathers that sold their stereo in college and never found the need to buy another one. Most of the world is made up of people whose music taste isn't even taste, it's what was passed down from their families as cultural tradition. This thing...this thing that my life revolves around, it's not common.

There is some music, it makes me free. Let me tell you about it.

I rode in a car with 4 other people for 5 hours to see someone else play music this weekend. The only reason for doing this is because the experience will affect you and give you more of a reason to continue living. This is the only reason for doing anything worthwhile.

Last night, specifically.
I stood up in the corner, leaning on the guitarist's old speaker cabinet with the vinyl peeling off. The band had money, I wondered if they kept the peeling cabinet because it worked and they didn't need a new one, or because subconsciosly they thought it matched their image of down to earth guys just having fun playing music. I didn't think they would have that thought consciously. True or not, their nice guy image works on me.

I put my camera on that peeling cabinet. I've had a lot of cameras, some of them real expensive models which make pretty things. They all broke. What I had left was the camera I got in third grade. Anything that could break off of the camera but still allow it to function has. It is missing about 25 percent of it's plastic shell. There are only 4 possibilities to this camera. Flash on, Flash off, and taking picture, not taking picture. The simplicity of this camera makes me to focus on the fact that I started taking pictures so that I would have a record of things I've seen, not so I could impress my professor. If I am taking a picture of something, it should be only because I want to be able to show it to someone and say "Look at this thing I saw. See? Do you see why I feel the way I do?". If I have a simple camera, I will concentrate more on being where I am than on taking a picture of it. My camera is the way I detatch. I don't want that anymore.

So I leaned on that peeling cabinet with my simple camera, and I put my earplugs in my ears. The "stage" was only 6 inches tall, and next to it were some of those green metal WWII ammo boxes with stickers on them denoting what band they belonged to. I stood on the boxes and the stage so I could see at a normal height. The room, not much bigger than my family's living room, was solid with bodies. No one was breathing if they didn't turn their face skyward. Everyone knew what was going to happen. They were completely sure of the fact that when this band started playing, they were going to have to move towards the band and towards the ceiling and back. The band started playing, everyone moved. These people love this band because they have lyrics that are things you have said before. "I saw familiar faces, far from those I knew so well. Couldn't think of much to say, didn't know how I felt." Simple, and that's why it's real. So, when everyone is singing along to this song, they are really singing about what happened to them. Everyone in the entire room is reliving their personal dramas at once. When I get tired of taking pictures of the band, I take pictures of peoples faces singing along. The songs have become as much a part of these people as they are of the band.

Did I mention that the temperature outside the building is 20, but 95 inside? Body heat, man, that's something. The show is over. A few hundred kids stripped to their wringing wet undies run outside and kiss the ice. Look out the front door. There are 20 kids in white tshirts with steam streaming off their bodies making a huge foggy cloud drift through the parking lot. Cars start pulling away. You can pick out kids from the show at the Hardees you stop at to rehydrate, or at the gas station down the road. You exchange the "I know where you've been" glance. You'll go back to your little life, and everything will be exactly the same.