As we skirt across the webbed span of the Gerald Desmond bridge, an industrial glow emanates from below.
Terminal Island pulses with the churn of commerce, harsh sodium lighting showcasing an evershifting city of shipping containers.
I gaze down at those boxes stacked eight or nine tall for endless blocks.
They sit in purgatory, a moment of stillness between the churning black Pacific and the stinking miles of highways ahead.
Waiting to be plucked by the cranes hunting from above, fattened grubs helpless to the cruel whims of a hungry mantis.

I have to wonder what lies within those corrugated steel walls.
Worthless trinkets made by starving children?
Medicines delayed by customs, while a young man dies surrounded by family?
Perhaps huddled within are humans, ready to emerge blinking in the sunlight, the opportunity or destruction of the American ideal on their minds.

It’s a chilled Friday night in the South Bay, an area that has always held a mysterious shroud over its industrial bent.
The legendary Dancing Waters, sure.

But we recall earlier riotous nights on that side of the Vincent Thomas:
There we are after a drunken gig at the Minutemen’s private space in 1981, when we lost the keys to the van and were stranded at 3 am.
A vigilante troop of cholos sweep the darkened streets of punk trash, breaking my nose and tearing off a side view mirror for good measure.

The Cove in Hermosa 1982, when one industrious punk notices a working firehose coiled innocently against the wall.
And like Chekhov’s gun introduced in Act One, said hose was surely unfurled and unleashed by night’s end.
The geysers flooding the lobby a glorious fountain of crimson and azure, colored by the police cars surrounding the building.

But we hope no such water damage or bodily injury awaits us at the Sardine complex tonight.
It is a tight friendly crew, our boys in Spider once again joining us along with youthful ragers Love Equal Death from up yonder Ukiah way.

The Sardine, It’s a very cool space.
Neighborhood bar up front, decent sized gig space in back.
And a lovely little courtyard just beyond that, where people smoke and chat.
They sprawl along picnic tables like divorced dads waiting for the end of soccer practice, dreading the inevitable conversation with the ex through gritted teeth.

After Love=Death slays with their high energy melodic take, our Spider men take stage and do their thing.

The lads are energized tonight, Hector bounding about the stage, pointing out the targets of rage that only he sees hidden in the dark rafters of the club.

It is the finest set I’ve seen them play, though I dare not mention that when we pass them offloading the stage as we set up.
Can’t have them getting too high tone on us, yeh?
“That second song from the end,” I ask Karl while he packs up his pedal board. “Is it supposed to sound like that or was that a fuckup?”

I see Randy from the legendary Alley Cats slinking around the perimeter of the courtyard looking the world like a wizened spectral vision.
I say hello and we chat about band stuff for a bit, and I am relieved he doesn’t warn me of two more holiday spirits that shall me visit me on this night.

I notice my old pal Marcus standing by the stage, and I haul him up to do the band introduction.
A former Buddhist monk, he agrees with a serene nod when I ask him to start us out with a brief chant.
Om Mani Padme Hum, he sings, Om Mani Padme….
And then we climb upon the stage one more time, one more Friday night sending out our own mantra into the ether.

No lobbies are flooded tonight, no cartilage bruised.
We launch the music skyward, in hopes of transmission, contact, engagement.

A mile away, the port hums its own chant of concern.
A battle call of grinding gears, a song of its cargo, of the treasures and terrors that lay in wait.

55 minutes.
That’s all I’ve slept when I am awakened by voices.
I turn to see if it is Kimm, still awake, talking on his phone.
Or perhaps mumbling through a nightmare, the one where he fights off the night demon torching his balls with a blowtorch.
But he is snoring gently into his pillow in the bed next to mine.

Then another volley of conversation comes from the wall, from the room next door.
3:58 am, that’s what the clock says.

I get up to take a leak, navigating the anvil cases and 4 x 12 cabinets blocking my way.
On my return, I put my head up to the wall and listen, trying to decipher the late night conversation next door.

I can only make out the mumbling pattern of consonant and vowel, the muted trombone speak of grown ups talking to a Peanuts character.
I hear a clearing of throat, then the laughter of a woman-no, two women-and a man.
There is the flick of a Bic lighter, silence, then a cough.
Gah! I pull my head back from the wall with grim diagnosis:
Tweakers.

The night earlier was grand, the first night up North in a good goddamn while with the lads from Field Day.

It’s been years since we’ve taken this familiar route, but soon we are lulled into the old rhythms of Interstate 5.
The trip up the dustbowl spine of the state once more, the blasted landscape punctuated by the occasional signs accusing the governor of dumping almond grove water into the ocean.
Nothing much changes along the 5, save the startling appearance of another block of Amazon warehouses among the condemned cattle.
But soon the bay comes into view, and we roll down the windows to take in the salt perfumed breeze.

Ivy Room in Albany tonight, this side of the bay, saving us the humiliation of trying to cross that goddamned bridge on a Friday evening.
It’s out first meeting with the Field Day crew, though Doug and I have been email tagging for months to plan out these gigs. We hug it up, one of those virtual friendships borne of social media that somehow become real.
And though I am still confused by the Wikipedia entries of the comings and goings of Dag Nasty I recognize Peter as the chap perusing the menu of the Himalayan restaurant next door.
I approach, say hello, then we compare notes on the indignities of air travel and the departed Daghouse forum.

We get up and roll out the Fear of Life set out once again.
On the intro to Catholic Boy I try to match the muted downstrokes of the recording, but I simply cannot play that fast any more.
I surrender to a lazy up and down strumming, as if fanning a cowboy hat over a glowing ember, willing it into flame.

Field Day get up then, Peter and Doug joined by a couple of ferocious musicians in Shay and Kevin on guitar and drums.
They blast through the Dag hits, barely stopping to acknowledge breath or thirst, the earth’s very gravity.
It is fierce and tuneful, the crowd responds in kind, the show is over in a blink.
We are all talking and laughing then, jazzed on being out playing once again.
The bar lights are suddenly switched on , shooing us all into the night.

But now the town is shut up tight, not even a 7-11 to grab some regret laden treats.
We pull into the third rate motel off the 580, one of those Expedia picks that are succinctly reviewed with triple exclamation points (Nope!!!) and it all comes back to me.
We accept that this is no place to leave stuff in the truck, and grimly start the last bonus load in of the night, stacking the gear into our cramped rooms.
As we pass the lit and darkened windows, their curtains part slightly, inmates checking out the fresh fish.
At one open door an old gent sits on an office chair, plucking at a worn acoustic between drags off the sativa packed corncob pipe lodged between his gums.
I dare a peek over his shoulder and look into his room, and see he is in for the long haul: the room is piled with WalMart groceries, stacks of black garbage bags bulging with the detritus of a previous life either failed or escaped.
A grey tabby rests upon the garbage bags shamelessly licking at her crotch, a goddess upon her throne of cumulonimbus clouds.

We load in, finally, then meet at a bank of vending machines for a late night snack.
There is microwave popcorn and honey buns, cup noodles and Doritos.
After briefly considering making a county jail style spread, we come to our senses and grab a sensible Kit Kat, head to our racks for a night of sleep.

For 55 minutes.
**********

4:30 am now, and returning to sleep is impossible.
For now I have become attuned to the rhythms of their drug addled conversation next door.
I have come to believe the two women are newly acquainted, the man older than either of them.
The ladies’ rapid fire dialogue is only occasionally interrupted by the basso profondo interjection of the man.
Then a beat of silence, then a coughing fit of laughter.
I fall into a trance, then, and it is not the talking but the rare lulls in their conversations that kill me.
It is the torture of waiting for the next whoo! to break the silence.

Around 5 am I surrender and switch on the TV.
The local PBS is rolling out old cooking shows, those late 80’s gems before the Food Network turned chefs into fucking Country music stars.
Good old Jacques Pepin demonstrates how to debone and entire chicken through its asshole.

Yan Can Cook comes on next.
Yan smiles and mugs for the cameras, shows the rotting insides of the Durian fruit before returning to the studio kitchen to slice up some stuff.
This is what we are here for, and he knows it.
Fuck the chef knife, Yan wields his trusty cleaver, and decimates all that he surveys.
He chops with ferocious downstrokes, smiling up at the camera, mugging at us-it’s so easy, dummy!-his hand a blur.
Old Yan, he juliennes everything before him save his calloused fingers.

As Yan chops away, I become aware of another sound, a matching beat to his chopping.
I mute the sound on the TV.
It is next door I am hearing, but not the rumbling dialogue that has haunted me thus far.
The drug fueled discourse has been replaced with a more urgent human expression.
There is a grunt, a singing hum, a single expression clear as a bell through the drywall: oh!
Then it is a rhythmic pulse, the tick of bedspring and and tock headboard, the panting exhalations: the unmistakable sound of fucking.
On the screen, Yan now flattens a clove of garlic with the flat of his blade.
From next door comes the answer:
Aye papi, papi! Now…now!

The fellas finally rouse me at checkout time, shaking me out of a fitful sleep that came only after daylight.
Twisted dreams where Yan had chopped down a forest of broccoli, only after the people next door ingested the last of their treasures and spent the last of their bodily fluids.

The day out there is spectacular, though, and the bay breeze is delicious after the insane So Ca heat we’ve been sucking down for 2 weeks.
We load all the gear back out to the truck, and after my final sweep of the room I purposely linger outside the room next door.
I wonder if they might open the door then, if their faces can possibly match the hideous and wonderful features I have spent the night projecting upon those distant voices.
I put an ear to the door but hear nothing, and I console myself that it is better this way.
What is it they say? We should never really meet our heroes.

*******************

It is a straight shot to Sacramento for the next show, but we cannot resist the urge to visit the city.
I mean, it’s right there!

Of course, there is the pesky thing called the Bay Bridge to navigate first, and the quick jaunt into the city takes most of the day.
But really, who cares? What are we going to do with the day anyway- Sleep?
Debone a chicken? Reproduce with diseased strangers?
Lunch is at our old beloved Parkside, being the only place we figure we can grab a bite and still keep an eye on the gear.
Our pal James meets up with us and we are soon stuffing our mouths with those famous tater tots.

We drive through North Beach then, and look longingly up at the top story of Vesuvios.
There’s no way we can leave the gear out here on the streets of San Francisco though, so we drive on.
We pass City Lights and I make a small discrete sign of the cross over my chest.

After dropping gear at the Colonial in Sacramento, we check into a Motel 6.
Cheap but corporate, a couple steps up from last night’s circus.
This one has a gate around it, parking passes to be displayed on the dash, not two but three warnings not to hang around outside the rooms late night smoking: The cops will be called,
The room is sparse but clean and we have the luxury of an hour and a half before doors.
I try to nap, but now I am maddened once again, for the room is too quiet.
On the TV England is saying farewell to the Queen on every station, but I can find no one destroying vegetables.
I put my head to the drywall and listen.
I hear only the hum of water coursing through plumbing and suddenly I’ve never felt so alone.
I cup my hands to my mouth and whisper into the wall then, hoping someone-anyone– will hear:
Aye? Papi?

****************************

It’s a jolly crew at the Colonial Cafe tonight, and we are humbled to run into old and new fans.
These people who have waited out these last few insane years to come on back out to the clubs.
Third song up is You Make Me Feel Cheap, and our old mate Chris Shary jumps up on stage to sing it with me.
He does his wild Saint Vitus dance then, stomping the stage with raised knees , reaching wildly above his head as if gathering the last fireflies of the summer.

It is Saturday night, and I get to stand on a stage with a guitar in hand once again.
We play Catholic Boy, and I urge my wrist down upon the strings, harder and faster, conjuring the carefree downstrokes of my past.
My wrist blurs, as if holding an 8 inch cleaver and making it sing upon the cutting board.

And when I turn to the microphone, it is not verse or chorus that comes from my mouth, but a more primal sound.
Ugh, I sing. Aye.
Wordlessly pleading, as if urging an amphetemined lover to climax, at last, so we can finally go to sleep.

We let the final chord of I Wanna Know Why ring out, vamping it out with a storm of crash cymbals and dissonant guitar leads.
We turn to each other, shrug, then bring it to a dead stop.
Like putting down a wounded animal with a merciful bullet to the skull.

Time! I call out as Kimm checks the timer on his cell.
“Thirty three and ten,” Kimm says, holding up his Iphone.
Fuck.

Anthony opens the studio door, and even this humid heatwave night tastes delicious compared to the County Jail stank of the rehearsal room.
We stumble into the parking lot, gasping for air like stranded mudskippers, our clothes soaked as if we’d just been rescued from a shipwreck.

We’ve been trying to relearn the Fear of Life album, both sides in order: no stops, two and half seconds between songs.
23 minutes, 35 seconds, that’s what they tell us the original playing time is of this record, yet we still can’t get it under thirty minutes.
Perhaps it is our constant goof ups, or the wheezing I do between songs, hands on knees, cursing that nineteen year old dick who had to write so many fucking words, and shouted them way too fast.

The record is 41 years old.
But of course that pesky little worldwide pandemic put a damper on a proper 40th anniversary, so the plan is to commemorate it now, asterisked by Covid like a home run record smudged by steroid use.
We find ourselves in a race against our younger selves now.
Trying to compete with those determined and beer drunk children.
Them; They: they wrote those first ten songs on the shag carpet of their bedroom floors, innocent of every thrill and heartbreak that lay ahead of them.

Most of the songs come back easily enough.
Hell, we’ve played Catholic Boy and Manzanar almost every set for fucking four decades.
But we take a moment to listen to the original tracks, Nick holding his YouTube loaded phone up to prove we are playing one too fast, the other too slow.
I try to match the impossible downstrokes, only to awaken insidious roots of arthritis climbing through my wrist.

We get to Double Standard Boys, and realize we have never played this track live.
After failing to identify a proper key we resort once again to the internet.
Sure enough, there is a tutorial on how to play the song.
That our teacher is wearing a Duck head means nothing; I am just grateful he keeps his pants on and the clip doesn’t dissolve into some bizarre furry Only Fans episode.

When I pull up to Alex’s it is packing.
Surprising, as we are in the middle of a suffocating tropical heat wave.
Hot, that’s all anyone can yap about the past week, the news anchors giving us handy little tips on How to Stay Cool:
Stay indoors, hydrate, save electricity by masturbating to old Penthouse magazines.
Fuck that brother, these people are here to drink beer and howl along to punk rock.
Dance while the wounded planet tries to shake us loose by turning up the heat.

It’s a matinee show, my favorite thing lately.
We can play and be done before the sun surrenders to the horizon, be home and showered before the first dragon appears on the latest awful Game of Thrones prequel.

The big top tent remains outside of Alex’s, one sweet benefit of those virus years.
Everyone is smiling, damn glad to be out among friends, even in the thick heat.
Tacos grilling, ukulele music going, Decry heating things up inside.

When I pull the Rickenbacker out of its case the neck already feels gummed, the strings corroded with dried sweat from the practice sessions.
As I tune up I try to remember the lyrics, those words four decades old.
Verses all mixed up in my head, along with the grocery list for the week and passwords for a dozen websites, my locker combination from Faye Ross Junior High.
I consider the limited capacity under my graying hair, the countless motocross crashes and drunken stunts that resulted in only head injury and skinned palms.
I ask you: a teleprompter in a punk rock band–would it really be so bad?

Out of Control, that’s an easy enough opener, though a song we’ve relegated to the minors for the past few years.
A pedestrian rocker in a standard 12 bar costume, it’s a song that we’ve played with an eyeroll and a groan, nobody’s favorite

But this time it seems different–we play it with a renewed focus, in context of the whole.
Kimm and Ant bark the answer lines, Nick pounds out the backbeat with urgency.
We finish it and roll into Accident, and now people in the room come forward.
It seems to call to some past memory, of being a teenager and sitting on a couch while vinyl spins on a turntable across the room. Friends and music, together.
A lyric sheet is held on lap, an album sleeve is covered with seeds and stems on a cluttered coffee table.

We roll into Make Me Feel Cheap then, and I can see people smiling, nodding their silver and balding heads.
Household pets, all of us, yet aware of our wild ancestors who howled at the moon and feasted on sweet human flesh: it’s still there.

Fear of Life follows Wetspots, that pesky little ode to precum.
We’ve finished side one, and we’re ahead of schedule.
We’ve been playing the songs too fast perhaps, driven on by adrenaline and sheer momentum.
Breathe, I remind myself.
Hydrate.
Enjoy this fucking thing.

I squint down at the setlist at my feet, then have to crouch down to make out the blurred print.
Life Goes On, that’s the song that starts Side Two.
I am back at Brian Elliot’s studio, a teen in OP shorts, listening to the playbacks and witnessing the lost art that was called song sequencing.
Jay Lansford sliding the candy colored faders, Robbie Fields pinching the bridge of his nose as he listens.
Posh turns back from the board and grins at me, cleverly answering the previous track’s cocking gun and final tragic denouement with this hopeful pop song.

Manzanar next, and we kill it: we’ve found a pocket that’s been lost for years.
Strength in Numbers then, a song that has got astonishing online plays due solely to an eight second background play on Netflix’ Stranger Things.
And though I have to question that doomed hesher Billy having the good taste to blast the track between his Scorpions mixtapes, we’ll take it.

And now it’s time to play Double Standard, and before we count off I turn back to Nick and nod.
He clocks my pleading eyes: play it slow please.

We get through it alright, all the lyrics remembered if not slurred and blurred.
But before I can catch a breath we are into You Lie, and the whole thing is almost done.

Only I Wanna Know Why is left to play.
And the room is on our side, all of us in another day, of phone numbers known by heart, clove cigarettes shared in the alley, black beauties sniffed out of the pocket betwixt forefinger and thumb.

We finish, ten songs done, an album of our youth revisited.
I turn to Kimm, raise an eyebrow and point to his wristwatch, but it doesn’t matter.
We are no longer in a race with the past, but have somehow conjured it up in a thirty minute visit.
Like a brief conversation with the ghost of friend gone too soon.