(Me on the NY Subway in 2006 thinking about how the years rush by)
The Young Male and Same Sign Friendships
As I recall my early twenties in Boston, Massachusetts as remembered through my present day analysis sessions with my therapist, it becomes interesting to note that many of the memories go back to: 1. Playing music in bands and trying to get laid or 2. Remembering my male friendships from those years.
It is an intriguing bifurcation. As a forty-two-year-old male today in 2007, I am not sure why all of this stuff from the past is so important, yet there is something to be learned by remembering back pages. As I journey through those back pages, it becomes fascinating to note that many of my more solid friendships, especially with fellow band members, seemed to involve other males that were Librans. This particular piece of writing will concentrate, then, on unpacking those early connections.
Today in 2007, I consider myself to be an atheist Buddhist quasi-misanthrope of sorts, yet I still feel drawn to believe in astrology. I absolutely don’t believe that I can divine the future, nor can I use “trends” through planetary charts to make more money or have better sex. Nevertheless, there are elements of astrology that I find intriguing. One of them has to do with my own personality. I seem to self identify as a double Libran – and it doesn’t stop there – I also have lots of Libra all over my chart. As you read this you might as well know that my Mercury is also in Libra. Now be all that as it may – as I do my analysis work into my past, it seems again and again as I explore my guitar playing twenties that I remember many of my closest male friends as being Librans. And of course back then I didn’t even know what astrology was!
In looking back it is amazing that I can seemingly recall so many astrological facts (before I had a lens for them), let alone the garden variety obscure moments from the past. Nevertheless here I will begin my transmigration back twenty years ago.
Erik at twenty seemed comfortable with people who saw the world as he did. He was perhaps delusional about his abilities and stature, yet he knew when people were as frazzled and vibrational as he was. Vibrational refers to being all over the place all the time; read: unfocused!
Today I ask myself: Was I attracted to my own personality and therefore seemingly had all those Libran friendships? Well, this is of course possible, and perhaps developmentally appropriate in that I hung out with guys that “got me” as opposed to those who didn’t. In order for this theory to really hold water I must raise the case of my longest running musical project, the band called “Blue Harvest”.
During my twenties, the Blue Harvest band went through several incarnations, but the longest and best performing included me on guitar, AJ on bass and Dean on drums. All of us had the same birthday, October 5th, although we were of somewhat different ages. Coincidence? Well, sure, but we did play quite well together for a long period and I did room with Dean for a time. Yeah, he smoked cigarettes nonstop and never cleaned the apartment (unlike this Libran), yet he let me borrow his car to drive to an audition when I didn’t have a license, nor did I know how to even drive! AJ sold me my first car that “helped” me survive a terrible accident (it was a blue bomber of a station wagon) and he and I always drank the same vodka tonics during band practice. Now I am not fully sure about what this all means, or about the supposed strength within these connections, but these friendships seemed quite real and honest. I played in other bands with other guys that maybe also played with focus and with fire, but we certainly didn’t communicate as clearly as the club of Librans from Blue Harvest.
Interestingly, too, in the case of AJ, Dean and I was the fact that we came from different backgrounds. AJ was African American and an ex-Marine, Dean was a very Italian electrician and a favorite son and I was a melancholic alcoholic Finnish American type. Together, though, we really loved to play music and we did build up both some cover material and some catchy original songs. At times we barely rehearsed new material, but we would all consistently pile into separate cars, drive two hours, set up and along with our keyboard player, Jean, and our singer Rebecca, proceed to play a two-hour show with gusto if not complete precision.
In terms of leadership, the Librans all took turns leading the band if there ever was such a true job description as “leader” within our droopy-eyed quintet. One rehearsal night which I will always remember entailed AJ suddenly blowing up and berating all of us for not paying attention to dynamics; we slugged through verses and choruses exactly the same way. As the only African American in the group he had instant credibility. We were probably too stoned to take his tirade all in, yet his major point was well received. Soon we had all learned that you have to vary volume through each and every verse, bridge and chorus within a song. You had to want it and you had to make it happen and you had to listen! This was one lesson that stayed with the band to the bitter end. You have to be present and you have to concentrate in order to make good music!
On any other brisk night in Kenmore Square at our rehearsal studio behind Pizzeria Uno, Dean might suddenly comment from behind the drums in a very non-aggressive fashion that: “Wow. Something is not sounding right. Right now this song is not sounding like a song. This sucks.” And suddenly, we would all come to the same realization, that indeed, everyone’s playing was either hesitant or just plain wrong – and we would begin to work out the parts that needed desperate fixing. Suddenly, we would be on the way of having a song produced that would sound much better than before. Dean’s quiet comments would let us know that we were way off mark just as if a loud-mouthed tyrant producer had shouted at us.
As for myself, I tried to move the band forward by the seat of my pants. What did I know about the world of music production and representation? I would get promo kits together, arrange for pictures to be taken and make phone calls and inevitably talk to the club owner at the end of the night for feedback and / or money. Of course most gigs paid basically nothing. I would also try to keep the rehearsals running on schedule and to smooth out the damaged egos of some of our members.
As a strange jump into the future from this story from the distant past is the fact that from my near past, the very last band that I played with in the new millennium consisted of a trio of … you guessed it … 3 Librans. There was me on guitar, Jed on bass, and Miss Otis on flute and vocals. Obviously the name of the group was called “Miss Otis”. The idea in the group was for the flute to be the lead guitar soaring on top of Jed and me as we tried to create groove sans drummer. We played plenty of hard rock covers and a few originals through which to showcase this dynamic. I think that it worked much of the time. Probably our strongest song was by Deep Purple – it was “Smoke on the Water”. People chuckled at it as the gentle flute played the very well known introduction. Indeed, we didn’t have a drummer, but as the guitar and bass came in, people got it and were sold. Miss Otis also sang quite well and was able to talk to the crowd and to feed a show atmosphere; she dressed in some crazy outfits that enlivened the difficult crowds.
Our rehearsals progressed without problems and I believe that our playing jelled quickly. In true Libran style, we were too laidback about getting gigs to play and working up more material eventually became problematic. Foolishly, there was a romance between myself and Miss Otis and that eventually ended the whole project.
I do feel that I have played in other bands without other Librans, but it does seem that in the same sign configurations more music gets played more quickly.
In going back to my male friendships of my twenties spent in Boston, it would seem that outside of the music making there were several other friendships with Librans. In my mid-twenties I sold long distance phone service for businesses with a company that was called First Phone of New England. A fellow telemarketer by the name of Steve Scherbak became a close friend of mine and you guessed it – he was another Libran. Steve was into tennis and art and was three feet taller than I was and we began a steady friendship that involved swapping sales stories and copious amounts of drinking. Being the larger man, Steve could drink gallons of liquor and I remember many of our times together ending with some incredibly powerful headaches on my part; I was in constant recovery mode.
One vivid memory of chaotic Bostonian life recalls getting Steve to come see a great blues show with me at Harper’s Ferry in Allston, the local blues club. The artist was the famous blues guitarist Tinsley Ellis. Allston was the ultimate college kid ghetto in those days with endless bars and huge liquor stores on every block. Music and booze tended to fuel that rundown town’s fire. At that point in my life I was obsessed with the blues and Harper’s Ferry specialized in booking blues acts from all over the country. As a Libran, Steve was interested in books and music, so he tolerated my steady pushing towards “going out to Harper’s Ferry to hear yet more blues.”
On the particular night, I had gotten to the bar a bit early and had sampled any number of the available wares. Steve was to arrive only seconds before the show with his girlfriend in tow. At the door he couldn’t find the tickets and as he went back out to the car to get them, his car had already been towed! He had parked only ten minutes before! This was another infamy that Allston was known for. Tow trucks prowled the streets like hyenas searching for the first sign of weakness. I had known people to run after the tow truck drivers with baseball bats; it was urban warfare.
Steve bought more tickets and was in a foul mood as Tinsley Ellis played chorus upon chorus of angry licks. That night Harper’s Ferry had indeed turned into a juke joint from hell. And hell blues smoked everything in its path.
As I think back, Steve and I did all kinds of activities from clubbing, to fishing, to tennis, to planning future businesses that were never to materialize. Steve was most certainly a focus in my life; our friendship was kind of a nexus. I attended his wedding with my much older girlfriend. As we danced with Steve and Pam as they did their first steps on the dance floor, my girlfriend had just received her biopsy results that she was positive for breast cancer. As you can see from this brief passage, for a time Steve and I had a defining friendship to be sure. With our large number of hobby pursuits and furious existential discussions as we tried to sell telecommunication products, it was clear how significant that twenty-something friendship was to both of us.
Eventually Steve became more involved in the business world and I headed off to graduate school while continuing to play music in bands. Blue Harvest seemed to end around the same time that I moved out of town and eventually my fiancée succumbed to breast cancer. It would seem that the forces of life’s realities eventually KO:d any early adult fantasies about how life should enfold. Those experiences tend to still feed my interest in Buddhism, psychoanalysis and fatalism. It was ironically my girlfriend Susan who also ushered me into an astrological perspective that somehow has held together even after all of the changes that have taken place through the last twenty years.
As I think back to those old male friendships I like to theorize that developmentally that was indeed a period of time when I was often feeling most comfortable with my own astrological sign. Perhaps I needed to be around guys who seemed to possess the same outlook on life. And I now put forth the theory ( though I haven’t backed it up with any research) that perhaps in our twenties we simply gravitate towards same sign friendships because they are the least vexing, the least problematic as we begin the road toward adulthood and further responsibilities and commitments. As we take steps forward into the unknown, I believe that the stars illuminate our paths, but only with a flickering light that is erratic and needy of much creative interpretation. And you can throw out any notion that you are in the driver’s seat.
