Derik’s Intro
by Derik Moore
I found the portal to catharsis behind a “Ferrari Red” Pearl Export. I remember deliberating over the color as it was the key to decoding the only language that would allow me passage. If I could only Voltron my 14-year-old brain and body to channel the anarchic bombast of Mitch Mitchell, Philly Joe Jones, Bill Ward, and Keith Moon, I’d find a way out and a way in. There had to be another world where I could be my own alchemist. 35 years in, I started to feel like I was close to perfecting the formula. Then, my left arm stormed into the lab and quit.
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Yes, I exploited every sinew in my body, blinded by a rapacious dopaminergic hunger. Yes, I treated brass, steel and mylar with more care than my only two ulnar nerves, but it would have all been worth it if I could get there. I’ve had brushes with death in my life; illnesses and injuries that could have easily black-holed me. To live without the ability to play drums anymore, though… far more frightening.
Several exams, nerve conduction tests, and physical therapy appointments later and I’m still playing, but I know I’m on borrowed time. All life is, of course, but counterculture youth run at such molten temps that even the most precocious radicals can burn through their underdeveloped frontal lobes and still spend decades brawling with impermanence. Saul Williams recently referred to musicians and poets as having “the potential to separate what we do from what capitalism would have us see it as.” Punk and all rebel music, poetry, art, and dance have a history of being intentional about this defection. Fawning, fleeing, and freezing in the face of the exploiters are out. Fight mode for life.
So, who will we be when our bodies no longer allow us to play the instruments we took up as pens and swords? I’ve tried to comfort myself by responding truthfully: We’ll be even fuller versions of ourselves, fortified by our accomplishments, growth, and battle-tempered wisdom. This is not just any retirement, though. Us lifers are too young for that… even when we’re not.
