Rob Seablue and the Eye of Tantalus by Russell Hasan

Author:Russell Hasan [Hasan, Russell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Russell Hasan
Published: 2014-01-04T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine: Snide Snail

People are always surprised when I tell them what kind of music I like, when I say that I’m a heavy metal fanatic. You would think that I would hate heavy metal, because it’s so violent. You would think that I would like happy music like pop, or something sophisticated like classical symphonies. But I love metal, I live metal, my whole life is metal. And you want to know why? Because metal is a catharsis. It is a rebirth of the soul. Metal is angry, and consumed by rage, and it is aggressive, and it is loud, but it is also bittersweet, and sad, and mournful, and hauntingly beautiful, and painfully human.

It’s as if the band on stage says to us: “yes, I’m sad and I hate my life, I’m fragile and awkward, I’m young and full of anger, but I’m up here anyway, because I’m not going to give up no matter what kind of poop this life throws at me. I’m going to rock out instead. I am locked in a duel and the music is my arsenal, the guitar is my sword, the drums are my armor and my vocal cords are a spear, and I am going to slay this dragon by making its eardrums bleed with the noise of my heavy metal. And I know that you out there in the audience all share my pain, because we’re all in this together, we’re all freaks but let’s be weird together, we’re locked out of the tent but let’s have fun in the rain anyway. And it’s going to get better in the end, so let’s just cry and get all the tears out, and then once we’ve screamed until our throats are raw and once we’ve cried until our cheeks are red we’ll dry our eyes, smile a cute little smile, and be able to be happy again.”

Because, you know, rock music is like taking a shower: you have to get naked in order to be cleansed. Once you’ve been hurt by life you have to be mad and sad for a little while before you can get calm and sane and rational and cheerful again. It isn’t about being angry—it is for some metal kids, for many in fact, but they miss the point—it’s about the catharsis, it’s about the cleaning of the emotions. It’s about the drink of water to cleanse the taste buds after the shrimp appetizer but before you eat the lobster.

Which is why I am now on my knees on the living room carpet, with my arms outstretched, begging my parents to let me go to the metal show tonight at my favorite venue, a little hole in the wall along the shore called Safe Harbor. All the cool local metal bands play there, and I am so looking forward to seeing two of my favorite bands, Imperial Library and The Doom Zone, play there tonight that I’m practically drooling. But my father, as always, has a cold, stone-solid look in his cloudy gray eyes.

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