Quarantine The Past

Middle fingers down, index up, thumb out, pinky up. When I am five, the motion makes me feel like Spiderman. My fingers mold into place, and I feel shiny milky webs cast out of the pale folds of my wrist. White with black seams, the web flows in my imagination like the stream I play in every Sunday morning. The one in Drexel Woods, behind the Varsity Pizza; deep enough that all of my toes curl from the cool water, but clear enough that I can see each toe. 

I want to be Spiderman, and playing with the Lego Minifigure from the set with Doc Ock isn’t enough. Every day I practice the gesture until crackly gray calluses form, and my flimsy pinky always flutters on extension like one of those inflatable balloon guys at a car dealership. Now that the motion is fluid, I’m realizing it’s too late for me to be Spiderman. The gesture is all about Rock 'n' Roll.

When I am seven, the Ramones and The Beatles pave my way from collecting wrinkly Marvel Comics to crispy-aged LPs. “Baby It’s You,” a forgotten early single of The Beatles, is the first song I hear on vinyl. On the 45 with “I’ll Follow The Sun” as the B side. The Dubble Bubble gum pop babble of “Sha la la la la la la la” is enough for me to go gaga. I creep around the green-walled dining room imitating Spiderman, firing webs at Dad who is busy lifting the needle with his left, and mimicking the Spiderman web motion with his right. Why is he doing that? “It’s the Rock 'n' Roll salute,” Dad tells me. I don’t understand it–how can slinging webs resemble rock? Dad tries to tell me how at every Dead show, he would throw it up every time Garcia sprung into a 20-minute shred sesh. But still, why?

The turntable Dad has used since the 90s is diagonal to me, the needle kissing the black wax. A weird semi-symmetric album cover with ringed hands, red lines, and tilted text rests on the receiver. Pavement’s best album (I now know). The cover is weird and funky, too much for my seven-year-old brain. Not a Herbie Hancock or Sly and The Family Stone type of funk, the funk I feel in my stomach after eating haggis for the first time. I don’t understand the title. What is "Crooked Rain" anyway? It’s always spinning during nighttime dominoes (as long as I finish my sheet of mindless addition or subtraction). The “trust the process” era 76ers on the TV in the living room, Dad and I processing the best way to find multiples of 10, and our dog Nicky prancing around the floor like Snoopy, all scored by Stephen Malkmus riffing out of the boxy speakers.

The needle dribbles over to “Cut Your Hair,” track 4 on Side A. Right after the lingering guitar solo on “Stop Breathin,” that sends me to the windy cliffed drive to my great aunt's house in Pittsburgh. I giggle like I’m at the circle lunch table with Pre-K friends as the bird-call intro takes the album to a whole different place, along with my perception of the band. I’m not well-versed, but I know this awkward roaring from Malkmus is not grunge or rock. Quickly my questions disappear, and my knuckles tap the table like I’m Ringo keeping pace with Paul. By the time the intro repeats itself after the first verse, my chest is over the table, and I’m strumming on imaginary chords. Dad nonchalantly thumps his foot–he's sick of Pavement's one big hit–yet he can't help finding himself back at the El Ray in LA where he first saw the band, back when he was trying to seize his inner punk rocker and wearing a light green flannel tucked into a pair of tattered Levis. Around the 90-second mark of the song, a shot goes up my back, scratching at my neck, and my fingers float to shoot webs like Spider-Man. However, no webs discharge, and my dirt-filled fingertips point up not out. Dad says, “Nice, that’s what Rock 'n' Roll is all about!” He mimics the sign back at me as the song comes to a clamorous conclusion. In unison, we bob our heads, wiggle our toes, snarl our lips in salute to the rock gods.

Ziggy, Neil, Tweedy, and Lou bleed out of my Mom’s Kia, my family's first and last mini-van. Just like the silver “Best of Wilco” disc swallowed by the CD player, this car is on its last legs. In the front, Soph is complaining about some friend who talked over her in English, but I am preoccupied after hearing, “Unlock my body and move myself to dance.” What a line! I’m seeing Tweedy solo in a few weeks with Mom as an 11th birthday present and he needs to play “Heavy Metal Drummer.” The track, along with Soph and Mom's conversation, ends, both crushed by the strung-out and layered guitar solo on “Impossible Germany.” Best solo ever. My head wobbles, and the bumpy back roads leading to school have nothing to do with it; it’s the solo, jolting my fingers to an invisible guitar, even if I wouldn't know a D major from an A flat? My left-hand looks like I’m scratching a bug bite, while my right is delicately plucking at the air. On the final chord, my fingers are up, in unison with my feet, pointed to the dome light like TV antennas. I wiggle my dark curls and the Rock ‘n’ Roll motion is contagious as Mom joins in. It's a family affair I guess.                                                           

When I saw Dan Auerbach, at age eight, and Tweedy, at age eleven, I was unfazed. It was not a Rock ‘n’ Roll moment. It was simply live music: half the reason I went was to please my parents’ wishes to rear a Rock 'n' Roll child. But now, at seventeen, and a self-proclaimed rocker myself, I understand. Oh, yes, I understand. It’s that moment of realization. Like Hank from Breaking Bad finding out Walter cooks meth, or when Adriana from The Sopranos comes clean to Chrissy. The Rock ‘n’ Roll moments freeze time like the time you saw your first girlfriend in the crowd at the Wallows concert. There is no desire to go back. The concrete venue walls feel soft, and fast-paced songs morph into slow George Harrison-type love ballads. Your silly dance moves feel like swaying a hula-hoop around your hips on the sands of Hawaii. The first concert with the comprehension of what rock embodies elevates the raw, scandalous, and dirty nature of a rock star.

I look up at the radiant zizz on the Met Philly building. Tonight is Philly’s stop on Pavements' second reunion tour which makes Dad feel like an old man. We haven’t been to a show together, just us, in years. Dad thinks he’s dragging me along, but there’s nowhere else I would want to be. He grabs my forearm, shakes it like he’s rolling a die in backgammon, and offers a father/friend smile. He is just happy to be at a show with his kid, and I am psyched, ready to scream ‘No big hair!’ with a posse of Pavement addicts who can’t escape the past. 

In a damp hurdle of rock lovers, I swing my head in the air, skipping and bouncing, no care for the two five-foot brunette girls behind me. They probably can’t see a thing! Looking back, I feel bad, but Rock ‘n’ Roll! Strumming on my make-believe Fender like I’m Jimi Hendrix at the Monterey Pop Festival, I jostle my body back and forth, trying to keep up with the drummer’s pace. The closing riff to the intro goes numb. He’s taller than I thought. Straight grey-infused brown hair resting on the edges of his neck, and a Gibson strapped around his lanky frame, Stephen Malkmus welcomes the crowd. Draped in a blueish button-down, flowing over a pair of dark brown khakis. “That last one is an oldie, from our first album, but now let's get into the new stuff,” Malkmus chuckles as he yanks the chains of a crowd of punk rockers. 

I look down at my swampy green Converse, knees rattling. Malkmus is tuning his guitar on stage, while Bob Nastanovich (the screamer) grabs a cowbell like it’s SNL. A pestering yelp, and suddenly it’s 1994: my hands whoosh up as if I’m reaching for the stars, and my fingers glide into the Rock 'n' Roll salute. Dad rattles my shoulders, knowing this is my favorite song. A shot snakes up my back, scratching at my neck, and I let my hands and feet do the rest of the work as if I am a stringed puppet. I look back at Dad, sharing a smile the same way Paul and John did in ‘64.

I am John Lennon shooting two fingers up in the raucous drugged-up 70s, shouting for peace when I sign the Rock 'n' Roll signal. There’s a purpose to it. Finding the moment, and fighting the outside noise. Like when you’re taking a math test, and the buzzing fluorescent lights gleam into your retinas, yet, you can still stop the headache banging at your brain’s door. The motion comes naturally. An iffy crowd—no gesture. Ear-bleeding bass–no gesture. Mastering the Rock 'n' Roll salute embodies the dances, the snarls, the hugs, and fist-bumps of a concert. Everything is free. Just remember: middle fingers down, index up, thumb out, pinky up.