Just North of Something Important

unsustainable:

Dismemberment Plan — “What Do You Want Me to Say?”

When I was 25 (in 2000), events in my life conspired to the point that I packed up my life in SF, quit my job, and said goodbye to all of my friends. I went home to my parents’ place for a couple of months, with the plan to leave in early September for Asia, traveling with my best friend with the goal of moving to China semi-permanently. That in itself is a long, complicated story that I’ll finish (read: start) writing someday, but it’s a novel that’s not quite ready to come out of me. This is just about a song. 

My friend James made me a fantastic mixtape that had this song on it, which I played incessantly. It was a relief because all of “my” music had become hazardous to listen to, if you know what I mean. Every song in my life was associated with something else, something painful and nostalgic, but this tape from James was fresh and new to me; it was safe. (Other selections on tape included Beck’s “Nicotine & Gravy,” Elvis Costello’s “Sulky Girl,” and IBOPA’s “When You Write.”) So, I borrowed my parents’ car a lot, and just drove around to be alone. And of all the songs to blast out of the speakers, frightening deer late at night, confounding the local rednecks, this song by the D-plan was my favorite. I screamed along with it like an anthem and felt stronger. I was about to make this huge change in my life. I was on the precipice of something. I didn’t plan to ever come back here.

Fast-forward several months. I’d been traveling by myself in Southeast Asia, as the best friend and I had had a falling out and I’d canceled my ticket to China. I had James’ mixtape still, and a bunch of others (a lot of Modest Mouse!), and my soundtrack had become entirely familiar and meditative. In another month or two, I’d buy a discman and start buying a bunch of bootlegged CDs. This new Radiohead album had come out (Kid A) and I really wanted to hear it. 

So, anyway, I found myself in Chiang Mai, in Northern Thailand. I was just sort of wandering around, checking out things that sounded interesting. My mother had an Internet friend in Chiang Mai, that she’d met via on of her online support groups for Vietnam vets. She asked if I’d be willing to meet him for lunch, because he wanted some help editing his website, which was for a non-profit to support some of the mountain tribes in the north. I agreed, even though the tranny “mommy” of my guest house in Chiang Mai was nervous about me meeting some old guy on my own. She’d just seen me get a ride home on the back of a scooter, after midnight, from a girl with seven-inch liberty spikes, so I guess I can understand her concern. And this guy, my mother’s online friend, was extra suspicious because he was half-falang (white), but spoke perfect Thai, and had worked for the government all of his life. The guest house mommy insisted on interviewing him first, and she warned him that if anything happened to me, she’d know it was his fault.

It turned out that I went to his family home for lunch, out of town. His wife had made us lunch, gave me the evil eye while we ate, and then yelled at him in Thai when he left the table to take me to his computer room so I could see his website. It was a little creepy, but he was harmless in the end. He used to be a diplomat and had played a small hand in the opening of Cambodia, only a few years before. I looked at framed pictures of him with presidents and monarchs, Stevie Wonder (??), and a bunch of people I’d seen on the news. I was impressed, even though I’d never really taken much of an interest in politics.

And now, he was working on this non-profit. Would I like to listen to some music while I worked on editing the English of the site?, he asked. I laughed nervously, because for the most part, Thai music was just so crappy: cheesy ballads, bubblegum pop, bad electronica. And this was ten years ago, eleven even, and good streaming stations, not to mention MP3s, weren’t so easy to come by on the Internet yet. But, nonetheless, I said sure and he opened up WinAmp and started scrolling through it. I didn’t recognize anything; it was all Thai and most of it was actually IN Thai script. So that made a song in English really stand out.

When I saw it, when I saw that he had the Dismemberment Plan’s “What Do You Want Me to Say?” in his WinAmp playlist, I couldn’t breathe. I almost fell out of the chair, I jolted so hard. It was a weird flight/fight response, as my brain was trying to reason through the unlikeliness of the one English song he had being this particular one. It was so hot, both in Northern Thailand, and everywhere in SE Asia, that my brain was sluggish and muddled. What was this? Was this an omen or a portent? Was this a bad sign, or a good one? Why THAT song? Why not “Smells Like Teen Spirit” or “No Rain” … something that could have believably filtered into this old diplomat’s music playlist?

Had my mother told him that this song had been my anthem all summer? Had I? And … the Dismemberment Plan!? Aside from James, none of my friends back in SF even listened to the D-plan.

He didn’t have an explanation for me as to why he had that song, or where he’d gotten it. He just heard it and liked it, he said. Why, do you know this song?

Last night, when the song came on, I filmed part of it, unsure if it would be all blown out like the time I filmed Blonde Redhead. But then I realized that I didn’t want to watch the song through my iPhone. I wanted to sing along! My heart felt like it was about to burst. I was 25! I was driving too fast and singing and crying in my parents’ 4-Runner! I was in Thailand, falling out of a chair, laughing on a scooter! I was never coming home! I was on the precipice of something! Everything would be different!

I wanted to scream along: What do you want me to say, what do you want me to do, to let you know that I do mean it?  

So I did.

(HEY! HEY!)

(via unsustainable2-deactivated20111)