Ready to Rock

A few months ago I went to a concert and the lead singer asked, "Are you ready to rock?" I left immediately, fingers plugged into my ears so I couldn't hear any more.

In those few months, I took a kodo drum class instead. I herded goats, I apprenticed on a high steel construction company, and I learned how to work an aluminum mill. I moved from my apartment into a cave, all powered with extension cords. I souped up my car, I stole and read two hundred contemporary communications thesis papers, and I volunteered at a halfway house for paroled violent felons. I ate only things I'd hunted or foraged myself. I shaved my head and replaced it with warpaint. I went outside with a conductor rod in a storm and deliberately got struck by lightning, and then I spent two days without speaking a single word, and then I went out with the conductor rod and got struck by lightning again. I brought a bullhorn to a riot and recited Norse epics. I rode on the top of a car like it was a surfboard and I took a lion-taming class and I climbed the remains of the Berlin Wall barehanded. I built a flamethrower-and-blade battle robot and then fought and destroyed it with a chainsaw.

Here's the funny thing:

Now that I'm ready to rock, I don't need to.