Page 31 of Echoes of a Muted Song

Unlike some bands we knew, who only spent time together in the studio and up on stage, these guys were my family as much as the people back home. Hanging out was just something that came naturally to us. We picked a theme and took turns picking the movies, giving each other shit along the way and often producing some stunning lyrics written to the light from the screen.

Every one of us had come prepared with something to jot down notes in, and it never came as a shock to any of us to be passed something to read and even add to in the middle of a movie, it was just the way we worked. When Rebel started playing with my hair, there was nothing intimate about it. The soft strands were a touchstone for him. He did it to all of us. It had become soothing for me, too. There were times when I put his hand on my head, knowing he’d take the hint and start playing with my hair the moment he touched it.

Oh holy shit, this movie was going to be a long one. The colors were everything that I’d come to expect from a movie of that era. Everything seventies had a muted, almost washed-out aesthetic, even in the disco movies that Ozzy tended to slip in whenever one remotely fit our movie night themes. It was his favorite era, for reasons I couldn’t fathom, because we’d all been born in the nineties.

“This chase scene better be amazing,” Dashgrumbled, startling me.

Flailing, I blinked and sat up a little, brushed the hair from my eyes and nudged Rebel in the ribs with my elbow when he snored in my ear.

“I don’t care if there is a canyon jump and a flaming twenty-seven car crash,” I declared because holy shit, this movie was boring and outdated as well. “His name stays in the book for this one.”

“Seriously,” Rebel grumbled. “Is it over yet?”

“We haven’t even gotten to this so-called amazing car race,” Dash complained.

“Wake me when we do,” Rebel groaned and draped his forearm over his eyes.

“You guys have no appreciation for the classics,” Ozzy huffed.

“Not when classic is just the socially acceptable term for old,” Dash said. “And let’s face it, Ozzy, not everything old ages with the grace and sophistication to categorize it as classic.”

“More like classless, at least for a lot of it,” Rebel grumbled. “I hear the term Hollywood classic and my brain immediately starts thinking Hollywood fails.”

“What do you mean, fails?” Ozzy protested. “Explosions and seventy-two car crashes are awesome, but do you really think they’ll stand the test of time?”

“If by stand the test of time you mean will we look back at them and see diverse castsand better representation in feature films, yeah, sure, I guess. We’ve still got a ways to go, but maybe we’d be further if old Hollywood hadn’t kickstarted the tradition of either whitewashing everything or filling their films with some of the most offensive, stereotypical characters the world will ever have the misfortune of watching.”

Oh yeah, movie marathons got serious, too. Lots of healthy discourse to go along with those movies, the conversations fueling some of those lyrics the same as the images on the screen.

“I don’t care who stars in what as long as it’s good and original,” Ozzy declared. “I get that today’s movies have amazing CGI and special effects, but there is something to be said for realism and that’s what those old movies gave us when it comes to how they pulled off their stunts.”

“It’s not just about the effects or the CGI,” Rebel said. “I love old school animatronics, and I wish they used more of them in movies today, especially the live action pictures, that would be the perfect place to continue furthering that art. I just wish they’d explored a more diverse array of stories and characters back then, so we’d have an even greater array now, rather than directors who still claim that they had to hire Joe Shmo Hollywood A-lister who’s been in everything, rather than an actor who fit the character the way it was originally written. That’s kind ofimportant when you take something, especially a character from another country, and decide that their origin and heritage doesn’t matter.”

“It’s just a movie.”

“If movies were just movies they wouldn’t be scrambling to make seventy-five remakes a year rather than tackling new stories,” Rebel pointed out. “The movie industry picks and chooses whose stories and experiences to share with the world and what spin to put on them. They are as much propaganda as they are entertainment, or have you forgotten the explosion of shark fishing that followedJawsand how one movie almost ended a species?”

Cinema propaganda.

The words found a rhythm in my mind and I immediately reached for my notebook and jotted them down.

What’s the span between truth and reality?

Is the world they show the one we see?

Or do they just skew the views until it’s what they want it to be?

When your only view of different places

Comes from opposite the screen

What do you assume you know

Based on the chaos you’ve seen

With Rebel still stroking my hair, I jotted the words as they came to me, the rough, rambling collection of thoughts a literal word vomit asthey spilled out onto the page. By the time the chase scene finally began to unfold, I’d run out of words, and passed my notebook to Rebel, who nodded and leaned forward, the same as me, to take in this amazing chase Ozzy had promised us.

“Let me see that if you’re not going to look at it right now,” Ozzy said, holding his hand out for the notebook.

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