Subtleties of Culture Shock
Date Friday, March 29, 2024 - 07:42 AM PST
Topic Experiences


The coolest thing almost just happened. I was driving home from work, and when I drove by the park, there was some people playing music. I instantly flashed back to when I was in high school in Hawaii. We used to have no place to play music, so we'd just go set up at the park and see who showed up, and play until the cops kicked us out. I was thinking "Yay! Home!" as I turned around and parked and went to sit on the grass and listen.
About this point I looked around at all of the people that were there (who you couldn't see from the road). Everyone there was either (much) older than 40, or younger than 10 - other than the high school kids playing music. This seemed kind of odd, since when we used to do it, it was usually people our age, or in their 20's that congregated. There was probably about 200 people there though. It seemed cool that some kids could just set up next to the main road (everyone has to drive by there to get home from anywhere), and have this many people stop to listen.

The band was 3 girls with acoustic guitars (singing) and one boy with a telecaster. They were damm good, so I ignored the odd looks from the middle aged and enjoyed the music.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed someone taking a picture, so I leaned back to get out of his way assuming he was taking a pic of the throngs of aging hippies. A few minutes later he comes up to me and says he's a reporter and asks if he can print my picture in the paper and since I'm the only person there that would really be identifiable, if I wanted to be identified in the picture.

Sure whatever, I gave him my name and since he was chatty, we chatted. He was very nice, but mostly his questions were questions one might ask an alien. Where did I come from - why am I here - and of course he slipped in 'Do you plan to move on?' Somewhere in our conversation about music I mentioned something about Grace Slick and he got this shocked look and told me I was too young to know anything about Grace Slick. I smiled and nodded - yes I suppose I am....

Anyway, I was a little suspicious at this point why there would be a reporter there, so I asked him what was going on. He told me that this was an anual thing put on by the parks department, and that the kids got put on the schedule to open for the band that was really supposed to play.

Suddenly it all made sense. The lack of this band's high school friends - all of the old people - the kids... This band didn't just set up and attract an audience. Suddenly, everything familliar and magical about the event disappeared. I had just assumed that this was a spontanious accumulation of vibe because if I was still in Hawaii, that's what it would have been. Instead it was a city sponsored 'Family Event', with the token 'Cute Kids' entertaining the early crowd until the 'Respectable' band was ready to play. I picked my ass up and finished my drive home disillusioned once again by my own misguided expectations that things are inherrantly cool unless proven otherwise. I really need to finish getting over that or move someplace where it's true.

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