THBBM - Oubliette

Oubliette
..the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings.
2-6

I have this fear, this irrational terror inside me. I don't really know where it comes from, because it's not like I have any direct experience with it or anything. It's just one of those things that races up my spine and gets into my skull like the sudden pain of a leg cramp.
The kind of thing that will visits my dreams when night is at it's darkest.
: Whenever I see a scene in a movie where someone is trapped in a room that fills up with water, it terrifies me.
: Reading about it, envisioning it in my mind. It's unnerving.
: I remember the first time -- watching Gray Lady Down with my father, Charlton Heston closing the hatch, men still inside the bulkhead. Watching as the water enveloped them, no way to escape. I remember my dad's assurances, "It's only a movie, son..."
: The submarine crash in The Abyss. The scene in Leviathan where the diver's helmet cracks and starts to fill with water. The death scene in The Perfect Storm; that one guy trying in vain to open the door, tears in his eyes, the water quickly rising towards his waist.
: God, it scares the piss out of me.
It's that heebie-jeebies running up your back sort of fear. The kind of thing where you feel your breath change just a moment, even if you're just thinking about it.
: that's me in the corner, losing my religion.
: The funny thing about it, though is that I love water. I can't stand to be very far away from the ocean for extended lengths of time. I was that kid who thought that the whole point of taking cross-country vacations was to swim in the various hotel pools. I wash dishes, I take long showers, I play in the rain, I chew ice constantly...
: But don't let me see a room fill up with the stuff when there's no way out. Don't let me see someone being buried alive by the elements.
I don't really know how you react to this, reading these words.
: What is fear?
: Do you think less of me? Do you not suffer from the same terrors? Do you find it hard to identify with the feeling that comes over me when I think about it?
: I can't say that I blame you. Heights don't bug me. Insects only freak me out when I'm not expecting to see them (I once fell asleep while working at a radio station; I was awoken by the sensation that something was crawling on my skin - it turned out to be a wolf spider that had crawled up my arm. When I opened my eyes it was sitting on my cheek. I'm not afraid of spiders in any primal sense, but don't think I didn't shriek like a bitch when I woke up and saw that fucker staring me in the eye 50 stories tall). When it comes right down to it -- I guess that I can really only acknowledge the things that frighten you, especially if they don't have the same sort of affect on me.
: Perhaps that's why fear is often regarded as a weakness. It's hard to feel any empathy for someone who's frightened by something that doesn't scare you at all.
: I mean, who in their right mind could actually be afraid of snakes?

or roaches?
or bungie jumping?
or swimming?
or commitment?

or Fred Durst?
: All my life I've dreamed of playing guitar. I've been air-jamming along with guitar players since I was two years old. All my life, the sound of this instrument, the dream of playing in it in front of people has been with me. It's in my veins.
: On Monday morning, there was an open audition seeking a new guitar player for Limp Bizkit.
: I didn't go.

I am, at best, a casual fan of Limp Bizkit's music. I cannot deny the fact that some of the hooks that hide in a lot of their songs get into my head. Former guitarist Wes Borland had a real knack for bringing a sense of urgent energy into what at times were painfully simple musical ideas. Or to put it another way - the chorus to "Rollin" is incredible
: ... it's just the rest of it that gets on my nerves.
: Sometimes I find Durst's singing annoying, especially when he relies on certain rap-metal clichés in places where I don't feel like they belong. That being said, I really don't think that the group would be any kind of success at all if anyone else was fronting them. Fred Durst isn't what I personally look for in a singer, but he makes that band what it is.
: Now, the image that Limp Bizkit projects to the public is a different subject entirely --- but the fact remains - 10 miles away from my house there was an open call to go do what I've wanted to do with my life since I was a little boy, and even though it was my day off work and no one would have objected to me going, I basically ducked it.
: When the word got out a few months back that Wes Borland had left the band over feelings that he had "sold out," it was followed almost immediately by the buzz that the band would be holding nationwide auditions to replace him.
: I joked around about it with a couple of friends, but the truth of the matter was that I did take some time to consider throwing my hat in the ring. Limp Bizkit is from Jacksonville, they were sure to hold auditions here.
I mean, it couldn't be laid out more clearly..
: Here I am, experiencing all this frustration over being stuck behind a desk, wondering if the chances at the things I wanted to have in my life to had all slipped by, and then this comes along -- I mean.. you can't write a script like that!
: So I considered it -- and during those quick speculative moments I shed any and all thoughts related to the fact that I wasn't all that fond of limp bizkit's music; I ignored my sensibilities telling me that the music Fred Durst wanted to make (lord knows where their sound is headed now that Borland is gone) and the music that was inside of me were two different things; I glossed over the fact that it's entirely possible that the band might have issues hiring a 30 year-old to be a main cog in the wheel of a group that appeals mainly to 16 year olds.
I wasn't thinking of those things.: I was thinking about the fact that for reasons largely my own, I haven't touched an electric guitar in almost two years... I still have an acoustic that I bang around on here and there, but really, when you get down to it, my music has been sitting in cases in the closet for a long time now.
: Somewhere along the line, I had made a subconscious choice to put it away. To dedicate my life elsewhere. It wasn't something I wrote in stone, not something I stood up and announced in official proceedings. It was something I just did to myself. I put the instruments away, let little obstacles become huge hindrances, and began to look for other people to blame.
: But even though letting this water slip through my fingers was my own doing, not a day would go by where I don't somehow punish myself (and the people around me) for it.
What is fear?
: Not everyone looks at things the same way. Not everyone sees a bedsheet with eyeholes poked out of it as something to worry about. Not everyone that gets married and has children puts their guitars in a closet and decides arbitrarily that there is only enough room for so many things in their lives.
: I can't tell you why I feel these things, where they come from. It's something I'm having to work on, something I'm not fully able to communicate right now, not even to myself.
: So, with no clear answer in sight, I came upon a simple excuse for a compromise.
: I'm not going to audition for Limp Bizkit because I don't want to be in Limp Bizkit.
: Not because I'm Prufrock with the peach.. Not because of any paralyzing insecurities, or worries over the unknown. Because I didn't want to be in the band.
: It was the emotional equivalent of saying
I don't want to be Ruler of the Universe
because I assume the paperwork
would be a real pain in the ass.
: It was a bullshit answer and I knew it, but it allowed me to consider the issue dealt with, which enabled me to sort of move on with my life.
Yeah, right.
: A week or so ago during the course of an argument, Kim raised the question about the Limp Bizkit audition, why I wasn't going, why I continually complained about not being able to do the things I wanted while continually ignoring the opportunities that were right in front of me.
: "I don't want to be in Limp Biskit."
: Hoo boy.. wrong answer.
: She wasn't the only one who asked, she wasn't the only one who didn't buy the excuse, either.
: Eventually I told Kim that I'd consider doing it. What's the harm, right? Even if I don't make it, at least I'm taking a stab at it, right? How many guitar players would be there? How many connections could be made?
: I checked some things out on the web, looked around for more info. I even pulled the acoustic out to see where my fingers were at. There were a lot of stories and rumors floating about regarding the auditions themselves, suggestions that the whole thing was sort of a publicity ploy or something, that the band wasn't as involved in the process as we were all led to think. It's hard to know how true any of the allegations were, but more and more it seemed like something that (regardless of my own feelings about it) wasn't really going to do a lot for getting the demons off my shoulders.
: The more accounts that rolled in, the more it seemed like my own preconceptions about the band were coming to light ("No guitar Solos" being a particular annoyance) and that there was more dog and pony show to this "audition" than there was a chance of actually getting the gig.
: I was rationalizing, of course -- building a case full of reasons not to try out, reasons why it was all a bad idea.
But underneath it all, a rising tide of water began to rise around my feet.
: Regardless of what is to blame, I haven't played guitar with any serious intent in ages. My calluses have faded, my equipment was scattered and un-cared for. I still feel the pull of music in my life every day, but I've treated it like the memory of an old lover; continually revising and idealizing the memories --- all the while losing grip of the actual memories of what the touches were like; forgetting what sparked the desire in the first place.
The answer became slowly clearer as the water rose closer and closer to my chest.
: What if I suck?
: I've spent a large part of my life believing that I am good at this. A belief that I think comes from the fact that when I do dedicate myself to playing, I am pretty good at it. But this isn't like making a jump shot from half court. Not to me at least.
: This was me, on the line.

Me, in the lights.

Me, not ready.
Me, unprepared.
Me - taking my gifts for granted.
: Me, not ready.
Me, unprepared.
Me - taking my gifts for granted.
: Me, standing helpless in the rising tide.
: That's me in the corner...
I didn't audition for Limp Biskit because I was afraid that I wouldn't win
: Even if I didn't want to be in the band, I didn't believe that I could live with losing. Because when it comes to certain things in my life, I need to believe that I can't do anything but win.

So what I've got to do now is make sure that none of this is in my mind before I go to pick up my last one.