Under The Bridge Downtown

Anthony Kedis, My Teenage Angst, and The Fragility of Life

Recently Anthony Kedis went on Joe Rogan for a nearly 3 hour conversation, and I found it to be fascinating.

Now at 60, Kedis comes off a LOT different to me than when I watched Under The Bridge on repeat on MTV in the early 90s. And of course he does, because he IS a lot different. We all are. So naturally, after watching the Rogan interview, I had to go back and watch Under The Bridge in some subconscious effort to remind myself “I’m not that old, am I?”

Back in the early 90’s, I was just beginning my descent into sex and drugs and rock n’ roll. At 15, I got drunk off Milwaukee’s Best at a friend’s house while we watched the 1993 MTV Music Awards, getting my face melted off by Pearl Jam and Neil Young destroying Keep On Rockin’ In The Free World while Eddie Vedder prowled the stage like a caged lion drinking a bottle of scotch. This was my first true coming of age moment.

Also at 15, I smoked pot for the first time behind the Showcase East Cinema in Monroeville. It was crappy weed with lots of seeds, smoked out of a corncob pipe. We then wobbled into the theater and watched Brandon Lee’s The Crow, a film on which he actually died tragically during production.

All of this got me thinking about what a blessing it is to be RIGHT NOW, IN THIS MOMENT. For me personally, but also for each of us.

I’ve had many brushes with death since then, some during these years, others more recent.

Not too long after that MTV Music Award moment, I spent a night partying and ingesting some nearly toxic brew of drugs and alcohol which left me in the hospital with my resting heart beat at nearly 200 bpm. I remember lying on the bed literally watching it beat against my shirt, my skin gray and clammy. I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to make it, that I was going watch my heart explode in real time.

A few years later, I found myself again in a bed, in a dark room, with far too much acid in my brain, too much Jack Daniels in my blood, and too little food in my stomach. I remember listening to Primus playing from somewhere else in my little college apartment, and the music was rolling over me like hot molasses, burning my skin off. I remember watching the digits on my red alarm clock read 1:11 AM, then fly away and evaporate, and then I felt my own molecules fly away and evaporate. I was sure I was going to just disintegrate into oblivion.

Later that next morning as my hometown Steelers prepared to play the Cowboys in Super Bowl XXX, I found myself in the back of a car heading down PA-76 towards Philadelphia with two people I kind of called friends, trying to piece together what was happening. Apparently I’d agreed to go pick up a huge bag of pot with them for some reason. That afternoon, I found myself again living in perplexity as the three of us walked into this slum apartment building.

After hours of waiting for this giant bag of weed, and fighting one of the worst hangovers in my life, I began to fear I’d never leave. Everything was just so wrong, so shady. There were guns and drugs and legit gangsters who were laughing at me as I turned different shades of green. I still was tripping, and I was beyond exhaustion. This giant garbage back finally came, there were some negotiating shenanigans, tempers started to flair, but then everything worked out and we were allowed to leave.

As the three of us finally walked out the front of this decrepit building somewhere in Philly, holding this giant trash bag full of pot, and we were greeted by several police officers leaning against their cruisers. I was sure we were toast, that we’d been set up. I wasn’t even needed or supposed to be there, but I was pretty sure I was going to jail. They simply nodded at us, we nodded at them, we got in our car, and drove all the way back to the mountains of western PA, completely fine, if not a little worse for the wear mentally.

A few years later, I had started a bartending gig at a hotel, working in banquet. This meant that rather than be at the hotel bar, I worked all of the different events that came through the hotel in all of the various ballrooms, conference rooms, and the inhouse club. It was my favorite job I’ve ever had, because I met all kinds of people and did all kinds of events - concerts, weddings, political events, sporting events, even a stripper convention (that’s a WHOLE separate post.) I even got to meet Beyoncé and the other forgotten Destiny’s Children. (They all got orange juice.)

One night, about two weeks into my new job, there was a rap concert. Except, the promoter never actually booked Scarface. He simply set up the event, took everyone’s money ($35/person in 1997 money plus VIP tix at $75), and left early. By midnight, the crowd started to get really rowdy - more than they’d already been most of the night. By 1 AM, everyone seemed to realize at the same time they’d been duped, and all hell broke loose. The first thing I noticed was a glass Bud bottle go flying by my head, then a bunch of fights breaking out all over the place. People started running behind the bar, then shots started being fired into the crowd.

For some reason, my first clear thought was “I have to save the alcohol!”, and then “oh shit, I might get shot.” Eventually the police came, fired tear gas into the crowd, and things dispersed, but five people ended up in the hospital with gunshots after that night. When I came in the next day to do a wedding, there were bullet holes everywhere, and the true reality of what I experienced hit me.

Since then, I’ve had my appendix nearly rupture; my colon actually rupture sending me on the verge of sepsis; and a massive blood clot blow out my vena cava in my left leg (see my doctor’s wonderful drawing below). Also, note my unique vein system in general.

Your vein system

My vein system, including the blowout from the clot

I would imagine that many of you have experience that, although maybe much different than mine, have left you shaken and changed. Whether self-inflicted or hoisted upon you by forces outside of your control, you’ve gone through some things that left you knowing with no uncertainty that you’ve rubbed shoulders with the Grim Reaper.

In fact, I’d love to hear your stories. When have you rubbed elbows with The Grim Reaper? What’s happened in your life that’s completely shifted your perspective? Leave me a comment.

Life is very fragile. We see it all the time. One minute you’re great, the next, you’ve lost a light in your life. You see a tragedy. Something spirals out of control. It can happen to anyone, anywhere, at any time.

To bring this whole post around, these moments have left me with a very real appreciation for right now. I’m alive, right now. Mostly healthy. My family is mostly healthy and safe. I have good friends, and for the most part, my life is pretty great.

We talk a lot of doom and gloom here in these parts, but we can’t just focus on that. We can’t simply live in fear or terror of what the future holds. We have to acknowledge that future, those realities, of course. The Controlled Decline Of Western Civilization IS still happening, and we can’t stick our heads in the sand.

The Controlled Decline Of Western Civilization

However, I would wager that most of us still have it much better than almost every other human who’s ever lived across the timeline of this planet, including people in much more downtrodden countries today. Just on medical intervention alone, I would be dead three times if I was on the Oregon Trail. A friend of mine is fond of saying:

Every time we wake up in the USA today (or much of Western civilization), we win the lottery

There’s so much truth to that, and it would do us well to remember that when things seem to be spiraling out or we become weary in doing the right things.

This moment is a gift to be appreciated and taken with great gratitude.

Now, I’ll leave you with some Natural Born Killers. You know, so I can remind myself I’m not that old.