018: May 28th

I don’t want to spend this Friday night

Like I had to spend last Friday night

I don’t want to spend this Friday night

Dying by the record machine 

“Friday Night” by House of Heroes

[Let’s all pretend I posted this on May 28th and not in September, after a summer of nothingness filled by everything unimaginably bad in the world. I wrote it back in May, but ya know, 2020.] 

Well yikes. Today marks ten years since my final day in my previous career. I walked away from a promising career in retail management, an incredibly toxic and unhealthy lifestyle, but one that gives an appearance of material good satisfaction. The general understanding is that retail is built on the backs of low wage earners, and while that is true,  the first true backbone of the brick and mortar exploitation business is the field managers, who are groomed with promises of big salaries and even bigger bonuses. Not like hedge fund bonus lifestyles, but for a lot of middle America, staring down 6 figures buys a lot of pseudo self worth. A lot of people have shitty retail or service jobs growing up, so when you dangle the idea that you can affect change in the building while being paid a handsome salary, you tend to buy into their ideas. Basically you are sold a bill of goods stating that if you work hard enough, you can make retail less shitty, and you’ll get double or triple minimum wage for your 80 hour a week stresses.

I certainly bought into that idea. “Everything sucks, but it will suck LESS if I am in charge, and I can make more money” was one of my mantras in my early 20s. It worked. I moved up from minimum wage to being the point person for a 4 million dollar business in a few years. And that was satisfying, for a moment. I successfully navigated every store I touched through the retail crash of 08, beating numbers and projections in ways no one else was doing at the time. I was the only leader in my company’s Eastern territory that earned a performance bonus through the disaster that was the business world in 2008. 

Then there was that day in Philadelphia. I finally got into the room with a group of peers, and the rose colored glasses shattered. They were all twice my age, and they all despised everything. The job. Their bosses, their employees. I spent a lot of time speaking with these folks, and the true existential depression of their situations was clearly evident. This was not water cooler commissary about circumstantial grievances. This was being 50, 60, 70 years old, and having regret pump through every vein in your body. This was the evidence of a life led via poor choices and not taking chances. 

A week later I gave my notice. I had no real idea what I was going to do for money, I just knew I couldn’t live my life in a 20,000 square foot box for a few decades. 

A few weeks later I walked out of that job, ate lunch at Random Shopping Center Steak Joint #67, toasted some pals who had been in the trenches for the last few years with me, and then drove two hours north to shoot an amateur MMA show. 

There are few things more intoxicating than the pavement with yellow lines down the center. Maybe man is drawn to that pattern because in a way it matches a woman’s long legs leading to the motherland we men search for every day after puberty. A hint at what lies beyond the reach, just down the pathway? A reason must exist why the road is as much a comfortable home as a woman’s bosom. 

The road and the experience of existing on it is one of the most romantic, and truly lustful, vices I think I am willing to admit to. A pure joy of the entire experience of travel. The chaos of walking up to the car in a parking lot, tossing my accoutrements in the passenger seat, collapsing my body into the command post. A proper driver’s seat holds you like your favorite mistress. Tightness right on your hips, freedom for your legs to move and give power to the dance. The window down to allow air to kiss your face. The thrill of turning the key and hearing the machine roar to life. 

Many a word has been written about the sound of engine in front you at this time. For me, besides the breath of life that creates the slight wobble of the arm letting you know it’s awake, the sound that brings the closure of the first act of the road play, is the radio. 

Every car radio has its own personality. Again we return to the relationship metaphor, the best car rides are with a radio you have gotten to know over many hours. You have shared multiple emotions with, from shouting for joy at an enthusiastic chorus to hitting that one line that needs to be screamed (“SPACE LORD MOTHER FUCKER!”) To crying at a song that hits low and hard. A proper radio has your fingerprints all over it, as you have touched every inch, and you know how to get it to do what you want. If a lover’s body knows your touch as well as your car radio, they are truly a blessed partner. There are buttons that bring back memories if you look at them too long. If you are reading this now, and can’t think of that one button that one time that brings a smile to your face, I am afraid to say you may have never experienced the truest Americana. 

In a perfect road engagement, your fingers know the spot on the radio, and finds its home quickly. The roar of the engine is overpowered by the airwaves of that song that breathes life into your vehicle. A few moments later, and your tires touch the highway pavement. The large breath of air you breath out is a satisfied sigh, you are home, you are free, you are on your way. 

And on that morning, driving to Hamburg with my camera in my back seat, a final check about to be deposited two weeks later, and an idea and dream of paying next month’s bills with the results of my fingers pressing down on a shutter, I felt the romance of the road like I had never before. The highway was wider, the tires rode smoother, the air tasted crisper, and a handful of other overly used cliche freedom metaphors would be appropriately placed on that road trip’s itinerary. 

I can taste that road trip still. The images from that day were nothing special graphically, but they were infused with hope and emotion. I tried harder on those than I had tried anything in my life up to that point. They were fueled by a desire to tell the world of those punches under the bright lights, in an old agricultural hall, in a depleted coal town. 

I may have returned home at 4am that night, but I have never finished the journey. The car still roaming, camera upgraded to the passenger side, as it has fully engrained itself into my life. The radio still blaring, coating my ear drums with artistry and clever hooks. Staring out the window, looking for another story to tell, another picture to make.      

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