ZEN & THE TRANQUIL PHILOSOPHY OF AN OLD SCHOOL MOSH PIT: The Importance of Space, Privacy, & Boundaries in the Batshit Information Age

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- Sometimes the world spins, the floor rushes up from the bottom of the mosh pit, the ceiling blurs into fleshy hands and arms all around you, and you realize that, in that perfect quixotic moment, where you stand on every issue in the universe.

Such a liberating experience, the old school mosh pit.

I was more of a philosopher when I played in punk bands, when I was still physically able to take the auditory strain of pogoing amongst sweaty bodies up near the amplifiers and the P.A. speakers, able to cockfight and breathe within the stifling irradiated heat of The People.

But, alas, I ended up "growing up," like everyone else, blowing out my knee, tearing ligaments in my shoulder, and being forced closer towards the entropy of eventual maturity and decay.

To this day, I believe watching the Ramones live, one of the last concert-goers in the States to see the legendary punk act during their final tour in 1996, changed my worldview forever.

Blame Johnny's right-wing militarism and Joey's New Left, wallflower idealism. Blame all the other punk and hardcore shows I've been to, the mohawks and the spiked collars and the post-show malt liquor and the straight-edge militant Vegan lectures at four in the fucking morning.

Wouldn't trade it for the world, really.

Kids today get a lot of slick marketing and corporate manipulation from so many bands, even a few decent songs to sing along to in the shower. But they will never see anything as beautiful as the simple absolute of the Ramones.

Every human being is an individual. And sometimes individuals get along, agree with one another, form communes, political parties, ideologies, movements, even governments and revolutions. All men and women are equal in their independence, in thoughts and of separate bodies, detached except in moments of conjoined birth defects and copulation.

And when we disagree, ideologically or through different conclusions, we fight or we are conquered.

We are alone, even when amongst many. And without time alone, private time outside of the pit, the beast that is humanity swallows you whole and leaves a bloody carcass on the floor for the stage hands to clean up.

That, my friends, you learned in the pit.

C'est la vie.

* * * *

For the past few weeks, my normally solitary Fortress of Motherfucking Solitude had become a home-away-from-chaos for several local students, siblings of exes, polite yet boundary-challenged blog readers from four different universities, a couple of friends of the Italian Backpacker Fling needing a place to crash on their own American trek, even random drunk girls who mistakenly blacked out in my pickup on subzero nights.

Finally had to institute a new set of rules - no "dropping in because you're in the neighborhood" or sending mobile emails from PDAs saying that you're in Oxford, looking to find The Zenformation Professional and to have a couple of beers.

It sucks to be a dick about it, but, well, sometimes a dude just needs a bit of privacy. It's nice to have company at times, even for loners such as myself. But, well, I have my limits.

I'm good at playing the extrovert online. My solitary self, however, needs time to recharge and recover.

* * * *

Don't get me wrong: I appreciate the fact that so many folks think I'm a decent guy, that I write interesting tales and make a rather ho-hum podunk American college town sound like a higher education pulp novel.

And I find meeting the people who read this - people other than friends or subjects of some posts - fascinating. I'm grateful that folks still read my rather random bullshit.

But we're not buddies or pals simply because you may read this site, and my home and certain private details concerning relationships are not open to you. I'm probably not the best person to rely on to spill your guts to about relationship problems or roommate issues, not some sort of online/offline hybrid confession booth.

Sure, we can hang out, maybe grab a beer or a cup of coffee - when our schedules sync. I'd love to meet you. And maybe we'll hang out again after that.

I'm not, however, Oxford Fucking Ohio's all-seeing guru of knowledge and wisdom, I probably won't like your friend's band's demo, don't respond to "media release" emails asking for endorsement of groups or causes, and I'm generally annoyed when people I don't know off this web site try to play motherfucking matchmaker.

(Friend's cute, chica, but, yeah, kinda creepy.)

I'm just a 30-year-old librarian with a slightly skewed take on life. And I blog in my spare time, earn no income off of this, and, well, when things get hectic offline or I need some space, that's my No. 1 priority.

Sorry, again, if that makes me sound like an asshole.

We all need our personal space in order to survive, establish boundaries to keep ourselves sane, and generally like some privacy for ourselves.

Including me.

Okay? Okay.

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ILL COMMUNICATION DEPT.: Madame Influenza Makes Me Her Bitch

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- I can't remember last Wednesday.

Or much of Thursday, for that matter.

Friday? Kinda fuzzy - and not in a good way.

* * * *

It began last Monday. I was sitting in a local coffee shop, and I started to feel funny.

It started with a strange, sudden sensation, a burning sensation, just inside my left nostril. I'd noticed the dry cough earlier in the afternoon; I'd written that off as nothing more than dust from cleaning my desk at work. I was tired, downright physically exhausted.

At first, I thought I was just getting another cold. I can handle colds.

And then I remembered what the sensation meant.

For fuck's sake. I think I'm getting the goddamned flu.

I never get the goddamned flu...

* * * *

I spent most of last week bedridden, feverish, coughing and shivering, courtesy of Madame Influenza.

It's been years since I've been so ill that I couldn't get out of bed, more than 10 years since I last ran a fever above 103 F, 15 years since I last ran a temperature that high for more than a day.

I was teetering between hallucination and slight incoherence for 72 hours straight, with nothing more than acetaminophen / ibuprofen cocktails, cranberry juice, and ice cold yogurt to keep me sane.

At some point my brain went completely haywire - unable to focus or concentrate on anything. For three days, phantoms of long-forgotten memories blended with bits of movies and fragments of books.

My second grade teacher appeared out of the haze, then morphed into that creepy rabbit from Donnie Darko. I flashed back to being 15 and shooting myself in the foot with a nail gun, only in this fevered version I'd shot off my entire foot and flesh-eating zombies, a la George Romero, gnawed on the stump.

I felt seasick and dizzy as passages from Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" played over and over again inside my head. Trust me. There is no worse poem for one to have stuck in a fevered brain than the Rime of the goddamned Ancient Mariner. (HTML version courtesy of the Samuel Taylor Coleridge Archive, Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia.)

At one point, my poor sick brain chose to obsess over the mathematical perfection of the Fibonacci Sequence, for some reason...

And I'd swear that Johnny Ramone rose from the grave just long enough to accuse me of being a communist-- and to make out with the mirage of a psycho ex that I haven't seen in years...

That's all I remember. Three days' worth of life gone, never to return.

I'm not even sure which day was which, actually.

* * * *

Thank goodness I have a decent enough immune system and that I'm in relatively good health most of the time.

The obscure math and literature I can handle. The obscure bits of film imagery melding with memories I can handle. But I don't think I could stomach watching one of my dead guitar heroes making out with T___ again.

Watching it in Fevervision, in vivid widescreen Technicolor, almost made me vomit.

She really did kiss like a bulldog sucks on a porkchop.

* * * *

By the time the fever and the visions had subsided, I started to realize that, well, you know, the whole thing could've (possibly) been avoided with just one trip to the doctor for a flu shot.

Not that I'd actually get one, but I could've gotten one.

Saturday, I celebrated St. Patrick's Day by shaving for the first time in a week, getting dressed, and leaving my apartment for the first time in four days.

The sun was shining, the air crisp and untainted by Madame Influenza. I went grocery shopping, replenished my supply of over-the-counter meds, and bought cigarettes.

And then I returned to my tiny apartment, crawled back into bed, and went to sleep.

In bed by six on a Saturday night. The sun was still shining as I let the nighttime flu medicine carry me away to Sleepyland.

* * * *

It's been one whole week since Madame Influenza decided that she wanted to dance.

We're still dancin', but I'm the one filling out the dance card. I should be back to full strength in the next few days.

I guess I was due for a good reminder that, well, it's the smallest of things in the world, things like viruses and bacteria, protons and neutrons, that truly control the universe.

And those small things, those microscopic titans, can make all of Mankind their bitch whenever they want.

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