Nuclear Tuesday
From the dentist's chair to the mosh pit in fourteen hours or less
I am in what I hope is only the beginning of my third act, and I intend to frolic for many more years in the light of the indifferent sun. But I have definitely begun seeing transient things in a more philosophical, old-man kind of way these days.
I’m no longer concerned with high scores or track records, in much of anything. Be it a laborious chore, a brisk walk, a good meal cooked, or a pleasant encounter in the sack, I’m content to notch a B+ in the rankings, and acknowledge that I won’t put in that level of effort forever – perhaps not ever again – but that this time, today, was a good one to be proud of.
Nobody could have blamed me for bailing on the metal show tonight. I was in a dentist’s chair at 7:30 this morning, getting a big portion of that decades-in-the-making fix-everything project done. It wasn’t bad, as those sorts of visits go, but I didn’t sleep much the night before, and once I got home, my day consisted of Doctor Who episodes and a substantive nap. By dinnertime I was pretty sure I was cashed for the day.
But Nuclear Tomb was playing, a self-proclaimed “weird thrash” band that checks all the boxes of the kind of technical brain-teaser metal I’ve loved since high school. If they could post up in a van and drive from Baltimore to Detroit, the least I could do is hit the road to Hamtramck, a mere hour away, to a venue I’ve been meaning to check out anyway.
(I think sometimes I have residual trepidation about going to shows like I have to play them, as if the hardest part of the “gig” for me isn’t getting into the car in my own driveway.)
