Why is it when life imitates art, it invariably leaves all the cool shit behind that made it art in the first place?

I am talking about an honest-to-god Footloose scenario in a small community in the middle of the desert that mercilessly cuts out Kevin Bacon anger-dancing over the nearest sand dune and replaces the irascible-but-redeemable preacher with a parking lot full of cops determined to stamp out that heathen whore music. Not that Footloose would (or should) ever be confused for high art, but the “Open Mic Night After the Apocalypse” festival planned for the Range in Slab City had all the ingredients for a night of regretful decisions — and regret, as most of you know, directly precedes art — and good old-fashioned hedonism: youth, booze, emergent L.A.-based bands and an unholy entourage of Silver Lake “scenesters, travelers, mystics, and music-lovers” somehow convinced that their gripping stories of surviving Occupy raids would impress a community that’s been harvesting dirt in triple-digit temperatures for forty fucking years.

Still, it had been a few weeks since I last heard some live music, and I was looking forward to something besides the standard white noise at East Jesus: a Pandora shuffle piped through a car stereo bolted to the wall. And Pandora is terrible. It plays Peter Gabriel constantly and keeps suggesting that I would enjoy the smooth, scrotumless stylings of Phil Collins. I haven’t seen an artificial intelligence hate music and joy this much since Skynet sent a fat man back in time to murder John Lennon. Imagine then my disappointment the day of the festival on hearing that the Imperial County Sheriff’s Office oath to uphold the law was so egregiously offended by the event organizers’ failure to secure a $10.00 permit to perform — which, considering the whole point of Slab City is that nobody owns the land they are living on, would have been impossible to obtain in the first place — that a dozen SUVs were immediately dispatched to the Range to cite and/or arrest any malnourished and maladjusted city-slicker who dared plug in an amp.

Thankfully, life, even and especially here, does find the decency to imitate the good bits of art from time to time; in this case, it’s the old cliche which dictates that, in any situation, under any circumstance, some plucky and well-intentioned bastard (or more accurately, a group of them) will find a way to let the music play. Despite the festival’s cancellation and the scattering of the great unwashed and unloved to the four winds, a small and impromptu show in the East Jesus music room promptly underwent The Thing-esque levels of abyssal mutation, shitting itself and howling curses at God as it transformed into a scene worthy of CBGB’s halcyon when two of the bands, Manhattan Murder Mystery and Seasons — congratulations by the way, Seasons, on having a band name that makes finding you guys online incredibly difficult for anyone who doesn’t have a saving throw to add to their Google-fu — showed up with their entourages and fans in tow to knock the tits off anyone within hearing range with their walls of sound AND JESUS CHRIST do you have any idea how many people you need to have standing room only in the middle of the desert?

Because I don’t. Truth be told I was sauced to the hilt and too busy trying to hit on a lovely pair of Israeli girls who may or may not have been sisters to pay much attention to the show. Because life isn’t that exciting or cinematic or loud, and it sure as hell isn’t that concerned with art. Life isn’t just waiting around for the next big concert out of nowhere. Life is spending the night too worried about your Marine friend getting deployed for the fourth fucking time in a few days to really be in the mood for seismic vocals and drugged-up bass lines, and deeply missing your hitchhiker buddy who up and leaves in the middle of the night for god knows where without saying goodbye. Life is wandering in a daze around the aftermath of the party post-police, trying and failing to find those two girls. It’s waking up the next morning to find that some alkie Slabber wanker severely damaged the art installation you had been working on for the past ten days because he had been thrown out. It’s for Jake, who’s got a long way to go, and Zack, who’s got a lot to come home to.

And sure, fine, whatever: sometimes it’s about the music also.