Something I Thought of While Hurting Myself
“May you live long enough to look back on your regrets and see them as nothing more than what they really can be. Mistakes that can be turned into damaged and funny stories told amongst friends.”
I thought of the above bastardized, plagiarized, and paraphrased from somewhere unknown saying, while running the stairs behind the Brazilian jiu jitsu academy I train at. It’s a grueling run that usually fills me with instant regret and satisfaction for doing it. I was thinking of it more recently because thoughts of the past had been surfacing a lot lately. These were triggered by a project to document an era of time I lived through.
I participated in a book project not that long ago, two journalists interviewed me about the East Bay punk rock scene. They were interviewing everyone they could find from the various eras of the punk rock scene over the Bay Bridge from San Francisco. I don’t know what my era would be called or what defines when it started and when it ended. I’m really not sure of my so called place in it, but I know I was there and played a role in it.
I was involved with the East Bay punk rock scene for little over a decade. I started working at 924 Gilman Street when I was 18, in 1990. I worked there on and off for the next twelve years. I quit and came back so many times that my leaving just became a bad joke I was telling to a room full of half interested listeners. I was a recidivist criminal out on the loose for a while only to come trudging through those graffiti covered doors when there was a new problem, that supposedly only I could deal with. The last time I quit, I knew, even though no one believed me, that it was over. The biggest reason I knew I would not be back wasn’t that I had grown annoyed with hearing the same sounds come from so many bands, the same words spewed from so many dumb asses as they tried to explain why I shouldn't throw them out. It was that I no longer cared about all the problems that plagued these people. The things that worked them up so greatly, that made them tick, twitch, and continue to uphold the values of the club were just not my deal anymore. The microcosm of that place seemed so small it was strangling me. To quote Gene Hackman from Mississippi Burning, “The grits started leaving a bad taste in my mouth.” It was time to go, and go I did.
What a great time that was, even when it sucked, it was fantastic. I started touring with bands in around 1997. I went out every year for months at a time for the next six years. Once or twice a year I would climb into a van and drive a group of dudes around the country for a month or two. Every time I got into the driver's seat for the start of every tour, I loved it, it was amazing. The possibilities were endless, the wonderment at what adventures lie ahead was incredible. Day after day of just moving forward, no worries except what’s next. Nothing to connect me to anything except what was directly in front of me. Leaving all the bullshit of my “home life” for that moment when I had to walk back through the doors of my house when I got back.
The last days of tour were always the same: burned out, tired, struggling to finish those last drives knowing a full night's sleep was only a day or so away, knowing the post-tour crash was going to suck ass. The constant moving coming to a slamming halt, like hitting the brakes too hard at the first stoplight after spending the last four hours going 85 miles an hour on the freeway. Always made worse when sleep deprivation starts making 85 miles an hour seem like an average 35. I can’t count the number of times I stared at stoplights failing to grasp their meaning 'till I had to brake harder than needed.
Like working at the club, when the end came, it was very final. The band I had toured with the most consistently, Dead and Gone, finished a three month tour that took us all across Europe and the united states. It was fun, but stressful for the guys. When that tour was over I knew that was the last tour they would ever do. I decided I didn’t feel up to the challenge of getting to know another group of guys to share the cramped quarters of a van every summer. It was time to go, and I did.The last question in the interview that started my whole mind wandering back through the past punk rock exploits of my life was cool. It made me think about my answer, more than any of the others, as I answered it. The others were more about incidents and moments in time. Those answers I could just look back in my head and retell the moments without much thought.
The question they asked was, “What would you tell someone who was nineteen and just getting involved with the scene now?” The question kind of came out of left field but after a minute I had what I think was the perfect answer. I replied, “nothing,” and then I paused for a bit. Not for any sort of dramatic effect. More to refine the further explanation in my head before I said it out loud into a recorder. They came back with another question.
“No really, how would you tell someone who was just starting out to go about doing things. Doing things in a way that they wouldn’t make the same mistakes you made?”
“I wouldn’t dare. Even if I did, they wouldn’t listen to me anyways. I’d be some old dude trying to tell them what to do. That’s bullshit. Even if they would listen to me, they shouldn’t. Other than some really obvious bullshit, don’t do heroin, try to stay away from smoking crack, or selling your ass to pay for food. People need to make mistakes to see what they do and don’t want to do. Maybe it’s not the smartest thing, but maybe living in a broken down van, on a side street in Oakland so I didn’t have to work and I could do whatever, wasn’t smart. Maybe I needed to do that too so I could become the person I am today. Maybe some 21 year old kid needs to climb in and out a van all over the country for himself to see how he wants to live, or doesn’t want to live. Not everything you do today will be what you want to do tomorrow, but how are you going to know?”
My answer went on from there, but my point is made. Just like I can’t tell someone younger than me how they should do everything or how they shouldn’t make mistakes, I can’t look back at every one of mine with regret. Some of those burning embarrassing errors I made along the way are my best stories, while I’m sitting with my friends making them laugh and wonder about me at the same time.
I don’t regret those nights in the van sailing across the highway when I wanted to be anywhere but driving another three hundred miles. I don’t give a second thought to the nights sleeping in sheds, attics, basements, broken down vans, and park benches so I didn’t have to work a straight job and could keep doing whatever the fuck I wanted to do. The childhood I shunned as a young adult, trying to pretend it hadn’t been all that bad or weird doesn’t faze me now when I look back at it. The heartaches, soul crushing defeats and moments of depression were good for me in a way that I am not smart enough to verbalize, but that I know in my heart of hearts. The list of feelings and types of losses only become redundant and over played if I continue with them.
Mistakes will be made, it is inevitable. They will not always result in bad memories of time, money or emotions wasted. Even when they do maybe that’s for the best. The perfect way to learn not to touch a hot radiator, is to do it once. After that there is no question why you don’t do that. How could I possibly try and tell someone else not to try something for fear of making a mistake, those have been some of my best moments.
Jeremy Adkins
I thought of the above bastardized, plagiarized, and paraphrased from somewhere unknown saying, while running the stairs behind the Brazilian jiu jitsu academy I train at. It’s a grueling run that usually fills me with instant regret and satisfaction for doing it. I was thinking of it more recently because thoughts of the past had been surfacing a lot lately. These were triggered by a project to document an era of time I lived through.
I participated in a book project not that long ago, two journalists interviewed me about the East Bay punk rock scene. They were interviewing everyone they could find from the various eras of the punk rock scene over the Bay Bridge from San Francisco. I don’t know what my era would be called or what defines when it started and when it ended. I’m really not sure of my so called place in it, but I know I was there and played a role in it.
I was involved with the East Bay punk rock scene for little over a decade. I started working at 924 Gilman Street when I was 18, in 1990. I worked there on and off for the next twelve years. I quit and came back so many times that my leaving just became a bad joke I was telling to a room full of half interested listeners. I was a recidivist criminal out on the loose for a while only to come trudging through those graffiti covered doors when there was a new problem, that supposedly only I could deal with. The last time I quit, I knew, even though no one believed me, that it was over. The biggest reason I knew I would not be back wasn’t that I had grown annoyed with hearing the same sounds come from so many bands, the same words spewed from so many dumb asses as they tried to explain why I shouldn't throw them out. It was that I no longer cared about all the problems that plagued these people. The things that worked them up so greatly, that made them tick, twitch, and continue to uphold the values of the club were just not my deal anymore. The microcosm of that place seemed so small it was strangling me. To quote Gene Hackman from Mississippi Burning, “The grits started leaving a bad taste in my mouth.” It was time to go, and go I did.
What a great time that was, even when it sucked, it was fantastic. I started touring with bands in around 1997. I went out every year for months at a time for the next six years. Once or twice a year I would climb into a van and drive a group of dudes around the country for a month or two. Every time I got into the driver's seat for the start of every tour, I loved it, it was amazing. The possibilities were endless, the wonderment at what adventures lie ahead was incredible. Day after day of just moving forward, no worries except what’s next. Nothing to connect me to anything except what was directly in front of me. Leaving all the bullshit of my “home life” for that moment when I had to walk back through the doors of my house when I got back.
The last days of tour were always the same: burned out, tired, struggling to finish those last drives knowing a full night's sleep was only a day or so away, knowing the post-tour crash was going to suck ass. The constant moving coming to a slamming halt, like hitting the brakes too hard at the first stoplight after spending the last four hours going 85 miles an hour on the freeway. Always made worse when sleep deprivation starts making 85 miles an hour seem like an average 35. I can’t count the number of times I stared at stoplights failing to grasp their meaning 'till I had to brake harder than needed.
Like working at the club, when the end came, it was very final. The band I had toured with the most consistently, Dead and Gone, finished a three month tour that took us all across Europe and the united states. It was fun, but stressful for the guys. When that tour was over I knew that was the last tour they would ever do. I decided I didn’t feel up to the challenge of getting to know another group of guys to share the cramped quarters of a van every summer. It was time to go, and I did.The last question in the interview that started my whole mind wandering back through the past punk rock exploits of my life was cool. It made me think about my answer, more than any of the others, as I answered it. The others were more about incidents and moments in time. Those answers I could just look back in my head and retell the moments without much thought.
The question they asked was, “What would you tell someone who was nineteen and just getting involved with the scene now?” The question kind of came out of left field but after a minute I had what I think was the perfect answer. I replied, “nothing,” and then I paused for a bit. Not for any sort of dramatic effect. More to refine the further explanation in my head before I said it out loud into a recorder. They came back with another question.
“No really, how would you tell someone who was just starting out to go about doing things. Doing things in a way that they wouldn’t make the same mistakes you made?”
“I wouldn’t dare. Even if I did, they wouldn’t listen to me anyways. I’d be some old dude trying to tell them what to do. That’s bullshit. Even if they would listen to me, they shouldn’t. Other than some really obvious bullshit, don’t do heroin, try to stay away from smoking crack, or selling your ass to pay for food. People need to make mistakes to see what they do and don’t want to do. Maybe it’s not the smartest thing, but maybe living in a broken down van, on a side street in Oakland so I didn’t have to work and I could do whatever, wasn’t smart. Maybe I needed to do that too so I could become the person I am today. Maybe some 21 year old kid needs to climb in and out a van all over the country for himself to see how he wants to live, or doesn’t want to live. Not everything you do today will be what you want to do tomorrow, but how are you going to know?”
My answer went on from there, but my point is made. Just like I can’t tell someone younger than me how they should do everything or how they shouldn’t make mistakes, I can’t look back at every one of mine with regret. Some of those burning embarrassing errors I made along the way are my best stories, while I’m sitting with my friends making them laugh and wonder about me at the same time.
I don’t regret those nights in the van sailing across the highway when I wanted to be anywhere but driving another three hundred miles. I don’t give a second thought to the nights sleeping in sheds, attics, basements, broken down vans, and park benches so I didn’t have to work a straight job and could keep doing whatever the fuck I wanted to do. The childhood I shunned as a young adult, trying to pretend it hadn’t been all that bad or weird doesn’t faze me now when I look back at it. The heartaches, soul crushing defeats and moments of depression were good for me in a way that I am not smart enough to verbalize, but that I know in my heart of hearts. The list of feelings and types of losses only become redundant and over played if I continue with them.
Mistakes will be made, it is inevitable. They will not always result in bad memories of time, money or emotions wasted. Even when they do maybe that’s for the best. The perfect way to learn not to touch a hot radiator, is to do it once. After that there is no question why you don’t do that. How could I possibly try and tell someone else not to try something for fear of making a mistake, those have been some of my best moments.
Jeremy Adkins
2 Comments:
The only thing more annoying than adults as a teen, is teens as an adult. And, the only good thing about aging is not having to do it again.
Okay, enough with the witticisms...
Thanks for your post. I like the different views that have popped up in this column these last several weeks.
Yes. Thank you Mr. Adkins.
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