{"id":7987,"date":"2022-08-24T06:52:59","date_gmt":"2022-08-24T13:52:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/?p=7987"},"modified":"2022-08-24T06:53:00","modified_gmt":"2022-08-24T13:53:00","slug":"metal-head","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/meditations\/metal-head\/","title":{"rendered":"Metal Head"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n <\/div>\n\n\n\n

A man held an acoustic guitar in the playing position while standing near a tent in my local homeless encampment. His back was turned to me as he talked to a man inside the tent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a gray May afternoon and I bicycled past him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I said to myself: You gotta turn around. You gotta go deeper. You want people to go deeper with you. Do the same with a homeless person if the opportunity presents itself.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here one was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was the guitar that made me do it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I turned around and bicycled to the man. I stopped my bicycle and straddled the top tube. I reached into my pocket, fished out my wallet and found a $20 bill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHello,\u201d I called out. \u201cI’d love to hear you perform and I’ll pay you for it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The man turned around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was young and lean with short black hair and a slight beard. His guitar was a black Yamaha electric\/acoustic. He wore a threadbare blue tank top, fatigue pants and a black paisley bandanna tied around his neck. Also strung around his neck were three necklaces, one of wood, one of stones, and an amulet of a satanic-looking lion. His wrists sported a dozen bracelets each.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSure,\u201d the man said, \u201cyou want a cover or an original?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAn original,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI play metal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

METAL!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe fucking shreds,\u201d said the man in the tent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The man fingered the frets, closed his eyes, waited a few seconds, then began to play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He strummed, picked and hammered a slow instrumental that lasted about three minutes and then stopped. Five seconds of silence elapsed and he started singing, eyes still closed, and he sang well, a song about someone emerging into a mystical kingdom after wandering in darkness and confusion. I was desperately trying to commit some of the lyrics to memory but I was so enthralled by the music that nothing stuck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As he was performing, I thought about recording him with my phone, but decided against killing a magical moment as so many people do with phones these days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The song ended. He opened his eyes. I clapped. The man in the tent clapped. I dug out the $20 bill, walked my bike over to him, and handed over the dough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThank you,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou’re welcome. The song was incredible,\u201d I said. \u201cI want to take some notes. Is that okay?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I whipped out a tiny notepad and scribbled some lines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat was the name of the song?\u201d I said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEuphoric Forest,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCan I take your picture?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He posed a rock pose. I took the picture. Rock lived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat’s your name?\u201d I said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBrendon,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I introduced myself and we shook hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In short order I learned Brendon was in a metal band called Apophis Theory and their music was available on Spotify and Apple Music. They were booked to play three Oregon metal festivals this summer, including one in Medford.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A MEDFORD METAL FESTIVAL!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I then asked, \u201cSo do you live here in one of the tents?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo,\u201d he said, \u201cI live over there.\u201d He pointed in the direction of several derelict RVs surrounded by a mountain range of inexplicable accumulations. \u201cI’m the one with all the wood, my art. You want to come over and see it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

THIS WAS THE WOOD MAN! This was the place where I had seen the weird display of writing on plywood that I had given up trying to interpret.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes, I do,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seconds later I stood in front of a sprawling junkyard\/domicile I had walked or bicycled past 150 times the last six months and watched as it grew into a small mountain range of mostly wooden in nature: pallets, chairs, tables, hutches, shelves, stumps, branches, rootwads, plywood, lumber and coat racks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brendon had also collected dozens of dolls and mannequins, some bicycles, a few lawnmowers, oil and watercolor paintings, Santa Clauses, barbecues, table lamps, a jet ski on a trailer and about a thousand other items.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Somewhere buried in the mountain range was a tent camper covered in tarps. The camper had several plywood annexes to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had seen many a strange domicile constructed by homeless people, but this one easily topped them all. I had always assumed it was assembled as a result of extreme mental illness and\/or a serious drug addiction. This was the same encampment where I had witnessed multiple scenes of deranged and inexplicable behavior.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And here Brendon was, standing in front of his ramshackle domicile after inviting me to see it and I had a thousand questions, but I slammed on the brakes and let him narrate as he saw fit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In due course, with a stray follow-up question here or there, I learned:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brendon was building a stage (I saw it) and would hold an acoustic metal festival in the summer.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He collected interesting natural woods from the park, creeks and roadsides for his art. He didn’t carve the wood, but rather saw animal shapes and faces in them and displayed the wooden objects as art. He showed me one branch from an oak that was a \u201cturtle turning into a clown.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was building a kennel to host a friend’s dog and a stripper pole for inside his tent camper.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He had taught three people in the encampment how to play guitar.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was a thought of rigging up an art gallery for the dozens of people who walk, run or bicycle through every day. He wanted to start selling some of his art.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He had grown up in Oregon, not far from here. He was 36 years old. He’d lived on the streets for years.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

His previous domicile had been a two-storey pallet shanty (with a dumbwaiter!) that had burned down six months ago in act of arson. Luckily no one was killed. (I had seen this fire the morning it occurred.)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A friend of his had been murdered in an encampment where he used to live. The murder had been solved. (I had read about this murder in several newspapers.)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The neighborhood sometimes treated him meanly.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had to ask him. I had to go there. You gotta go there<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIs your accumulation and art drug fueled?\u201d I said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I believed him because of the way he said no<\/em>. I also believed him because I had waited for him to explain his art and living space. Thus, the zany accumulations now made sense and the entire area resembled one big outdoor studio space for an eccentric, impassioned artist. I’ve seen similar such mismatched and messy art studios but of course, they weren’t situated on a public street.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brendon continued. \u201cI never had much going growing up. I guess I’m making up for it. There is such great stuff here that people gave away on the sidewalks and I took it and then people think I stole it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I asked about the writing displayed on the plywood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He told me his former girlfriend had written the words but he hadn’t read it yet. Now he didn’t know where the display was, but would find and read it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I said that was a good idea, there might be something there, although I couldn’t discern anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was at this moment I thought about asking if his presence degraded the quality of life for the residents of the two-storey apartment building directly behind him or visitors to the park directly in front of him, but I didn’t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAre you the mayor of this encampment?\u201d I said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo, the beekeeper,\u201d said Brendon, smiling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I laughed at that and said it was time for me to go. We said our goodbyes and I promised to attend the metal festival. He threw up a kind of rock salute and then vanished inside the mountain range.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A man held an acoustic guitar in the playing position while standing near a tent in my local homeless encampment. His back was turned to me as he talked to a man inside the tent. It was a gray May afternoon and I bicycled past him. I said to myself: You gotta turn around. You […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7986,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7987"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7987\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7988,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7987\/revisions\/7988"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}