As
I got reacquainted with my short lost cousins it became evident that
we were living in very different realities. The cousin closest in age
to me had an odd and time consuming hobby which was hilarious. He was
keeping an imaginary journal in the persona of one of his goofy
neighbors. He would write comical musings that he imagined that kid
would have and as I remember the project was quite extensive
stretching over several notebooks. That was some insane dedication to
a joke. The next difference was that my cousin was very tall and was
actually on the basketball team for his high school which contrasted
with my perpetually being cut from the tryout process. On a team of
mostly black kids my cousin joked that he was the token white guy.
The most dramatic difference in our lives and culture was probably
that instead of mocking the band a venerable and cherished tradition
in my school, they actually thought it was cool. Whoa. They talked
about band in practical terms, they told stories about band and had
friends over to jam a little bit on band instruments. I am not
talking about the universally cool jamming instruments, such as the
guitar, lute, lyre, bass and drums. I am talking about horns. I am
absolutely not musically talented and this strange and wondrous
paradigm shift was creating internal conflict as a struggled to not
try and give into my culture imperative to make fun of the band and
what just about everyone called 'band fags'. I just had to accept
that we were just a little more advanced as a culture out west and
like an anthropologist visiting the deepest jungles of Brazil and
encountering the isolated and backwards natives living at one with
nature - I needed to pity them not mock them. I think I was polite
and didn't make fun of anyone's band related skill, desires, or
aspirations and chalked up the behavior to a certain deep swamp
delirium brought on by the heat, humidity and the incessant drone of
insects.
