Life as it is rarely suits us. You keep wanting to substitute what you would like to believe for reality and either view it through rose-tinted spectacles or give it horns and a tail, depending on your personal inclinations. In Sacramento I might have had my blinders on during the day until my lofty convictions actually came true in the evening. But certainly I Love Teriyaki was not worth the declared adoration. It might have warmed the heart but only in the way that requires “Tums,” not sweet-nothings and valentines. However, we refused to believe our bellies ill because the sun was shining and we were certain that the world was smiling on us, despite being looked at warily by fellow diners for reasons that became apparent only much much later. I refused, even then, to believe that life was giving me the “stink eye.” And the Townhouse Lounge certainly didn’t smell right but not a one of us put up a fuss. We climbed the stairs and pretended everything was rainbows. And when the sound engineer arrived late and gruffly vented his frustrations with this venue’s particular system, we didn’t listen. We laughed instead. “Sounds golden,” we assured him during sound check. And our optimistic eardrums really meant it. Dan and I sharing equally an ear for notes of positivity and well-meaning on this particular afternoon. We were lending a sympathetic ear, if you will, despite the actual racket.
And when Jessica Collins arrived, bearing a gift for me, I thought she must be seeing through the same foggy lenses. As I started peeling things forth from their plastic bags, I blushed with shock. She had beautifully abridged a copy of “Phenomenal Woman” for me with her own penned words eliminating most of the pre-existing text, save the poignant words she spared. And certainly I cannot expect to live up to her expectations or pretend to understand how her expectations of me got so high in the first place, but, honey, please keep on drinking the Kool-Aid if it means you’ll continue to craft such tremendous things. (I can never thank you enough.) So when Talk Demonic took stage amidst a psychedelic light show that was psychedelically confusing, we didn’t have to look past the lasers and colours to really see their beauty: it was beaming at us. And they were, as always, utterly arresting. They are the type of band that stops your heart before making it pump faster. And when Suuns careened themselves into feedback-heavy fulsomeness, not one of them winced at the squeals. Instead they all acted as if it were a new form of echolocation, finding their way through sound to the very homes of every heart in the room. The crew that had eyed us up and down over at Teriyaki Hates Your Stomach milled into the room, already in full swing of themselves, and proved themselves devoted fans. (Ahhhh, that’s why you’d been looking at us, boys? I thought my mini-skirt had a hoison sauce flop.) And a fan in a shark hat came too. And Jessica stood right up front. And it really became an amazing time. No lie. Not even an exaggeration.
That’s what I love about life so much: If you’re wearing the wrong prescription, everything can look right despite the conditions. Put on a pair of colour-correcting spectacles and you might just see clearly what matters – and then the mirage becomes the reality. It’s the greatest thing about reality: it really is what you make it.