Death Metal

Last night I went to my first ever Death Metal concert (it very well might have been my last). How did this come about, you ask? Well, it all started with a phone call on Thursday afternoon from my supervisor, Meredith. She left me a voicemail telling me that R.D. (a guy that works at The Arc) had left a note for me on my desk. She read me the note when I returned her call-it was an invitation to R.D.'s concert. Before I go any further, let me give some background. My friend Meghan works at St. Anthony's foundation, which is a homeless service provider in the city. R.D. leads a group from The Arc in volunteering there every week, so he knows Meghan through that. We never crossed paths until about the third week of my internship when I was at USF's computer lab with a group from The Arc. I was there taking pictures and interviewing clients. R.D. was there with another group and asked if I was from The Arc. I told him that I was interning there with Meredith. He immediately made the connection and goes "Are you from some program that is from a college in Santa Barbara?" "Yeah, how did you know?" I replied. "Do you know Meghan? Red hair, works at St. Anthony's." I obviously did and then we began chatting about other things, like the city and how he plays in two bands. He told me that he would let me know when they played if I wanted to come. So, he actually did end up inviting me and Meghan to come out to West Oakland and hear his Death Metal band play. He was considerate and told us it was totally fine if that wasn't our cup of tea and that he would let us know when the Neo Classical band was playing. Random combination, I know. Of course we couldn't pass up an invitation like that and decided to make our way to West Oakland. We rode BART in and found the venue, Church of the Buzzard (not kidding; it was called that), by the loud sound coming from it. We walked into what was a very death rock setting: heads and skulls, funky lighting, ravens lining the walls and ceiling. After adjusting to our surroundings and the incredibly loud sound coming from the band, I spotted R.D. on the drums and immediately pointed him out to Meghan. Both of us were shocked. He is this very calm, quite, sweet guy, about 40, really long hair, which is always up in a pony tail. It was so out of character to see him with his hair down, eyeliner on and completely rocking out on the drums. After his band was done playing, I went up to say hello, Meghan and Amy (who came along too) followed. "Hi, R.D." I said. He did a double take, clearly shocked that we had come. He was immediately back to the R.D. we know: a very calm and sweet, shy soul. He was obviously really excited we had come out, but he didn't expect it at all. We chatted for a bit about music and such and he gave me a cassette tape of his band's music. We stuck around for a few more songs by another band and R.D. took off to go unload all the band equipment, still very obviously baffled that we had showed up. Getting back was almost more intense than the music we heard, and that's saying something haha. Something that I found very interesting was the plethora of people that attended this event. When you hear the genre death metal, most likely you think of a bunch of hard core, black leather clad rockers with eyeliner and metal studs. And, yes, there were some of those stereotypical death metal fans there, but beside that, there was such a variety--broad range of style, age, personality. I mean, take R.D. for example: you'd think he was airing on the side of hippie and he has this hard-core death metal side, but then also a soft, neo-classical side. Truly a display in not judging a book by it's cover. Also, it's good to remember that people have many different likes. Just because they like one thing, doesn't mean they can't like something that would seem pretty opposite. Anyway, it was really nice to be invited and really experience this "being integrated" into my workplace. I love the fact that there isn't a lot of ageism here. San Francisco seems like a place that is totally accepting of any age being friends and hanging out-you can meet a lot of pretty cool people when you open your eyes to the possibilities.