"Squeeze the fucking trigger!"
I am greeted by a chubby, hairy man in a cowboy hat as I walk into the bar. He points me in the direction of the beast sitting in a corner chair drawing trucks with colored pens and markers. "This is Wes."
"Suck my fucking dick." The line rings through the hall to laughter and applause.
We ramble for a moment, and I think maybe, for just an instant, that this might not be so painful; maybe, just maybe, he might be faking and this could go all right. But, alas, my fears and hopes are proved at once: This man shows that the problems I thought I had are really not that bad. Why do you play the music?
To escape the fucking demons.
Why do you draw the trucks?
To make my money.
What do you have to say to the world?
Rock music makes money.
Rock music makes money, indeed. I stumble outside, drunk on the insanity of a man for whom I am but a blip on a distorted screen of freaks and emotional torment. I choose to find my way among the freaks; at least I can see them, and I don't find much comfort in emotional torment - at least on my best days.
The questions to those outside, odd as they might otherwise sound, seem to be the most lucid of my existence by comparison to those spoken inside. Others emerge, those who are caught in the moment of the man, in his insanity, in the freak show. They admit without shame that they came here and waited in line "to see a crazy man go off." From hours away, they flocked to dole out cash to see a man whose music they can best describe as "all right in small doses."
So they too file past the large man in the corner chair. They yell to the semi-coherent beast as he grabs a hand and tells them to yell "rock" and to scream "roll." He stares through their eyes and dares them to butt his head. Some lean forth and bump heads and pose for pictures and stare deep into the crazed eyes. They walk away tranced, describing the mystic experience drawn from the passion and emotion of becoming one with the lunacy and a part of its image.
They say his music is pure and unbridled. "You can't find anything like this. The emotional experience, the purity," rambles the wiry Southern teenager who lists Wesley among his other favorites: Alice in Chains, the Pumpkins and the Velvets. He drove hours to see his idol perform, not to gawk at the absurdity or to see a freak in action. He came here for his love of the music, because he, like Wesley, loves to rock.
And rock he does. "Squeeze the fucking trigger!" He plays the same back-beat on his Casio and passes out as he plays repetitious chord progressions. He chants the profanity and the inaudible lyrics to an audience that is at once in shock and in awe of the beast, mighty as he is.
Wesley plays to escape his demons, not to spread a message or to tell a tale. He plays because that is what he needs to do to "keep out of trouble." And that is what he will continue to do, whether or not anyone is listening. But, for a show this absurd, and a man this disturbed, people always will.
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