I'm post-phoning my Halloween pics in favor of talking about a moment I had tonight while enjoying the first song by the recently reunited Shudder to Think. They were a band I listened to a lot in high school and much of college. Their stuff still
holds up.
When the band started playing, I looked around the ballroom and saw it full of wide-smiling, thirty somethings. We were all feeling 10 years younger. Nostalgia was in the red. I entered the worm hole to the 90s! The days of Clinton. A pre-email-centric society that was more obsessed with politician's penises than fear of the bottom falling out. It was a glorious and insouciant time space. I don't what kind of circle was closed that night, but a biggish one.
It was very heart-warming, butthen heart-leadening. I was seeing things in the rear view mirror. Suddenly that Red Bull I drank shortly beforehand began to give me heart palpitations. My hands got kind of sweaty. I thought about death. But then Shudder started to play "Pebbles" and I forgot about death. Then death came back. I flittered between the two throughout the set. I realized, like being 32 wasn't enough, that I was headed FULL-SPEED into the prime of life. It kind of felt like a cheap version of the rapture with a 90s rock soundtrack.
On top of this, my old buddy Jesse Krakow was playing base for them, the very same friend who listened to this band with me in highschool. La dee frickin da you might say. But this overall experience hits everyone eventually.
Please note 5 year old girl at the bottom.
**Incidentally, Shudder to Think RULE!
