Kindle Notes & Highlights
Metal Matt says, Did you know thirty-seven is the exact number of seconds of recorded bells and thunderstorms during the opening of the song “Black Sabbath” on the album Black Sabbath by the band Black Sabbath, which as you know marks the birth of metal, a holy moment. How’s that for a trifecta? You and Black Sabbath.
This older guy wearing a red baseball hat proclaiming MAKE AMERICA MEXICO AGAIN looks back at us from his seat and says, How can you not like the Beats?
At 5 p.m., I bike through the campus to BART. I jostle for position after making people move from the bike area. They stare at me all irritated, like I’m a nuisance. I just smile at them. I choose to extend my arm to the side and grab the bar. I feel the heat from the two bodies on either side of me. Through the window at the end of the train, I can see another group of young people dancing. At the Sixteenth Street station, I get off and roll my bike to the exit. The escalator crowds with people, and there’s a sign that explicitly states NO BIKES. I step to the stairs and look up at what
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I let myself get lost in it all: the smell of excitement, not sexual but animal, the bodies bumping and jumping. The pit: So much more than violence, than aggression, all rage and anger and fuck. A solid connection to being human, being together, a prayer in action, supplication to motion, the bouncing bellies, the swinging arms, the sweaty shoulders. And when the lights come on, an exodus: Metal Matt and I and everyone else all walk out, and I’m hurt and sweaty and my ears ring because I forgot my plugs, but I feel full and alive.
She sits up on her elbows and says, I don’t know why everybody wants to leave their baggage behind. I don’t want to leave anything behind. I want to take everything with me.
They’d moved into a two-sided duplex with a yard, because they didn’t want to be trapped in their one-room apartment in Richmond, with its ever-present cold and gray skies.
The Richmond!
I STARTED TAKING long strolls around my neighborhood, always aimless, just walking away from my place on Thirty-Fifth and Paxton. Pre-pandemic, I never walked anywhere if I didn’t have to. I loved my beat-up truck and would even drive the half mile to the Mexican markets
I explored side streets and neighborhood parks. I appreciated the city-sponsored Slow Streets, which were off-limits to cars. Every time I discovered one, I saw kids biking and playing, elders walking leisurely. People even set up chairs to sit outside and safely gather with neighbors.
I did have to push back on a couple instrumental metal ones that started off perfectly fine. Yes, they never end that way. No, they don’t.
