I’ve been working a lot lately, which is good for distracting an unquiet mind and (eventually) doesn’t hurt the wallet too much either, but it hasn’t been enough to hold off some of the feelings I suspect more than a few of you out there are also feeling. I don’t want to get into specifics and bum anyone out further but, well, yeah. It’s depressing, from the world at large to the domestic front — and it really does seem like a “front” more and more — I see horizons of cruelty, avarice and bad faith greasing the skids for some truly monstrous policies. Regular readers know me more as the “fired up” type when it comes to writing about barbaric injustices, but that’s a style choice at the end of the day. I am no more immune to the deep, crushing sadness brought on by barbed tophi growths clustering all over the nerves and joints of our body politic than anyone else inhabiting that same big, dysfunctional corpus we all call home. There’s a softness to anyone, no matter how they’ve trained themselves otherwise, and mine feels raw and ragged. I think of it as circumstantial depression, and when circumstance brings you to see so much suffering everywhere, with a preview of more coming in greater amounts, it creates a feedback loop with a frequency sharp enough to cut through almost anything. Or anyone. Nietzsche set himself up to be one of the most quoted and misquoted thinkers on the wet birth edge of the previous century, and his quote about the void also staring into you when you stare into it is in his top three classics. But what if it isn’t a void, but another human face, distorted by a rictus of pain and unspeakable loss? What if it’s a crowd of those faces, each a distinct part of a greater whole, a glare of suffering from atoms to the whole of the sun and beyond? For some people, the sheer amount of pain transforms everything from tragedy to statistics, but I am not one of those people. I wish I was, to be honest. I might have had a shot at a career in politics and investment capital. But here we are.
Still, we’re not alone in this. A beautiful friend recently sent me an interview with Ocean Vuong, an author who I’d never heard of and might never read, but who, while talking about the working poor folks he grew up and worked with, said something that hit: “People are kind even when they know it won’t matter.” It’s such an imperfect quote that its precision lies in the instances and exceptions surrounding its meaning. Because that’s what we are like and who we are, dear reader. Imperfect creatures ratified by the contours of our failures, our love for each other, the sunken geography of ancestral devotion to the dignity of living and the beauty of our desire for the impossible to become real by the brutal magic of our grief. We are the ones who look into another face and, rather than seeing a void, see pain in somebody — maybe a stranger — that we would prefer to repair for no other reason than that love compels us to do so, forever.
Thursday, the Buck Moon
How about a Metal Thursday? If that sounds interesting, Savage Henry Comedy Club has you covered, although this one is going to be a little more punk than metal, to be honest. Bay Area band Skin and Bonez joins locals Kolonizer, Brain Dead Rejects and Spayr for a night of punk and heavy alt rock. 7 p.m. is the time, $10 bucks gets you in and this all-ages gig requires an ID to purchase alcohol.
Friday
So many options tonight, I have whittled it down to two in Arcata that each kick off around 7 p.m. Over at the Veterans Hall, you will find a free one — with donations welcome — offered by devil-rustling fiddle stompers Bow-Legged Buzzards along with Baby W33k3nd. Meanwhile, Moss Oak Commons has a payment optional/$5-$10 welcome gig with Los Angeles indie rock band Codys Program joined by locals Jackspydersparks, Mold and Petiole. Choose wisely and enjoy.
Saturday
Options abound tonight, but I’m going to steer you toward a tried-and-true summer jam that, from venue to performers, is a guaranteed good time for a warm night just off the Mad River. At 9 p.m., the Logger Bar will be hosting country-tinged strummers, pickers, singers and songwriters Turtle Goodwater and Jerome Stinsprig. These fellas know what they’re doing, and with no cover at the door, you will be left with more money to reward them for their efforts and enjoy some refreshments, too.
Sunday
Speaking of free concerts with donations welcome, there’s a fine matinee going down at the Eureka Women’s Club at 2 p.m., where you will find the All Seasons Orchestra performing its summer program. In the songbook today will be selections from John Williams’ Star Wars score, Richard Meyer’s “American Rhapsody,” a Duke Ellington medley arranged by Calvin Custer, highlights from the musical Wicked, and a lesser-known Beethoven piece that is a vigorous dance number called “The Turkish March” from his Ruins of Athens work. Enjoy.
Monday
Moss Oak Commons is hosting a lineup of some bands on the louder and heavier end of the live music spectrum tonight at 7 p.m. Sacramento digital hardcore band An Apparition joins Reno, Nevada’s electro-rock band Lav Andula and local heavies Image Pit and Spayr for a stomp and grinding good time. As ever, the door price is negotiable to nonexistent for anyone who can’t swing it, no shame there. But if you have some cash, $5-$20 will be very much appreciated.
Tuesday
The Miniplex has a good one going on tonight at 8 p.m. for all you lovers of keys and electronic flourishes buttressing tropical beats and kinetic sonic paintings. Headliner Kolumbo is an electro-tropicalia quartet centered around the impressive keyboard mastery of Frank LoCrasto, also known for his work with Cass McCombs and Fruit Bats. On the undercard is musician and storytelling poet Miller Carr, who tells his tales with music and words, creating an immersive soundtrack landscape of mysterious celluloid dreams. Rounding things out is the return of Fek and the Future Friends of Sound, a moving feast of friends built around aural flavors which combine to create hither unknown pleasures. It’s a very good show for a Tuesday night, and with advance tickets going for $10 and $12 at the door, quite a bargain, too.
Wednesday
How about another free movie night at the new(ish) Arcata venue, Froth? Tonight’s 7 p.m. showing is The Goonies, that bizarre, coming-of-age adventure filmed on the north left coast, mostly in Astoria, Oregon, but with some Sonoma flavor in there, too. In other words, it’s sort of a local flick, at least in terms of the outdoor ambience in the scenes that weren’t shot in a soundstage with wet subterranean evocations. I haven’t seen this one recently, so I can’t say whether its charm holds up or not, but I suspect there’s something good here, if only the Cyndi Lauper theme song.
Collin Yeo (he/him) lives on the sunset side of the continent.
This article appears in The Disappearing Registrants.