<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A year ago, I had a study hall of sophomores and a similar situation \u2014 new foreign student enrolled in February \u2014 Joel, a quiet, small kid with jet-black, rock ‘n roll hair, from South America, my guess.\u00a0 His country I\u2019d guessed wrong, not realizing I\u2019d accepted it as truth, until recently.\u00a0 I had allowed Joel to practice with my guitar in study hall.\u00a0 His idol, Dave Mustaine.\u00a0 Our tastes overlapped at metal: Metallica, Priest, Megadeth.\u00a0 Joel loved thrash, all-thrash, all the time, but he played it haltingly, a mind-numbing repetition, barely musical.\u00a0 Joel was teaching himself how to make mistake-filled noise.\u00a0 He practiced faster than the song, faster than Mustaine, a guitar virtuouso in a genre known for its lightning-quick attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Joel would pause, and if I guessed the song right, he\u2019d say, \u201cI think I\u2019m getting it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Joel surprised me one day asking \u201cDo you know Warrant?\u201d Far from thrash and its aggressive menace, its gritty, dirty jean image, Warrant barely cling to the label hard rock. Warrant is less angry and bitter, more happy and tart; less grime, more white leather pant and jacket to match. I keep Warrant under wraps from students and adults when asked for favorites. It\u2019s critically cool to like AC-DC and Zeppelin, but Warrant and Winger, Slaughter and Ratt, not so much. I used to blare Warrant\u2019s album, Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinkin\u2019 Rich<\/em> in my custom cassette player personally installed in my \u201993 Ford Probe. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Just for the record, let’s get the story straight<\/p> Me and Uncle Tom were fishin’, it was gettin’ pretty late<\/p> Out on a cypress limb above the wishin’ well<\/p> Where they say it got no bottom, say it take you down to Hell<\/p>Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Warrant, 1990<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n The bluesy acoustic intro to Uncle Tom\u2019s Cabin<\/em> is beyond me, but I can strum the chord progression to their song, Heaven<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Heaven isn\u2019t too far away, closer to it everyday. <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n The melody recognizable, anthemic vocals easy to sing. Joel didn\u2019t quite smile, but offered a nod as I played, impressed I think, not by my prowess, but that I knew the song. Joel never played Warrant. He never strummed chords. “I’m a lead guy,” he’d say. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Joel would practice for a minute, snippets of metal melody briefly emerging only to vanish, fragile notes desperate for an ear, like the urgent chirps from a nest built too close to the house compressor, right before the compressor clangs and rattles on, overwhelming the delicate chirps cast for grub.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He plucked single notes: fast, faster, fastest, left-hand flying up and down the neck, excruciating, every single minute, all study hall long. One day last year, I couldn\u2019t take it anymore. In an act of self-care, I suppose, I took my phone and recorded myself, a video closeup of my face\u2019s contortions as Joel played Megadeth\u2019s \u201cDeath Sells But Whose Buying?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n The searing of the sinew<\/p> My body fights for air<\/p> The ripping of the tissue<\/p> My lungs begin to tear<\/p> Gravity’s got my bones<\/p> It pulls my flesh away<\/p> The steam finally dissipates<\/p> I make out my sweaty face<\/p> Angry again, angry again, angry again<\/p>Angry Again, Megadeth, 1993<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Joel finally put down his pick \u2014 a glorious, drifting silence, an angel on wing reprieve \u2014 only to shake the blood back into his fingertips and say, \u201cI think I\u2019m getting it,\u201d then returned to his instrument of torture to flay some more. Last spring, after months of my tentative affirmations, I interrupted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cJoel. Stop.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHuh?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHas anyone ever told you, slow the hell down<\/em>, when you practice?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYeah,\u201d he laughed, a rare look of thoughtfulness passed his face, \u201cmy dad.\u201d He held out his phone, a video of three dudes backlit in an attic playroom covering a Guns \u2019N Roses song. It sounded amateurish, the kind of band I\u2019d be a perfect fit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMy dad playing bass.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Joel foraged into his pocket and produced a quarter. He drug the quarter slow and hard across the strings, an excruciating arpeggio, cupronickel on steel, a louder, brassier, even more abrasive sound.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A year ago, I had a study hall of sophomores and a similar situation \u2014 new foreign student enrolled in February \u2014 Joel, a quiet, small kid with jet-black, rock ‘n roll hair, from South America, my guess.\u00a0 His country I\u2019d guessed wrong, not realizing I\u2019d accepted it as truth, until recently.\u00a0 I had allowed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hojnotes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hojnotes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hojnotes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hojnotes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hojnotes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=752"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/hojnotes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":777,"href":"https:\/\/hojnotes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752\/revisions\/777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hojnotes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hojnotes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hojnotes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}