Sixty-seven.

"The Second Millenium"

The date is June 21st, 2001. I am seven years old, surrounded by rock stars.

We are walking through Mile High Stadium; the now defunct venue for Denver Broncos games, in its final year. In six months, it will be demolished, a fact that was mostly lost upon me at that age. What really matters to me is that right now, I am here, surrounded by my heroes.

We drove up here to the big city to see this. This was a very special occasion. Ozzfest 2001. Ozzy Osbourne is touring this year with Black Sabbath - one of the most legendary rock bands of all time.  Pioneers of metal music and as far as I was concerned, the reason so many other bands at this concert even exist. They were my dad’s 2nd favorite band (behind Led Zeppelin), so of course they were my favorite band for most of my youth. Clearly my father had a profound impact on my musical inclinations, but even from that age, I knew I had to separate myself from his tastes even if just a little. It is unclear if they entered that ranking in my mind before or after bearing witness to Tony Iommi, Bill Ward, Geezer Butler and Ozzy Osbourne at the climax of this special event.¹

Black Sabbath was in great company this year². Across a few stages, we were seeing a nu metal tour de force at its peak: Slipknot, Mudvayne, Linkin Park, Disturbed, Black Label Society, Papa Roach, Drowning Pool and second to the headlining act, Marilyn Manson. This was at a time when Marilyn Manson³ was weird in the right ways - performing onstage in a stilted dress, standing 20 feet tall. A killer lineup, surrounded by the real rock stars: my dad, my uncles Marty, Gary, Kenneth and Jeremy.

These were my heroes. My idols. My dad frequently visited this bar called the Lone Star - ran by Marty⁴, who lived in an apartment complex just a few doors down from ours. We’d see familiar faces there, including Gary, Kenneth, Jeremy, Sandy and of course Marty. In a town of less than 10,000 people, The Lone Star was a gathering place for a group of misfits that to this day, felt like family.

Marty, Clyde Sr. and Jeremy (Jarhead)

With hind sight, I know now that they weren’t role models in every way. In all honesty, my dad may have been the worst of them; getting in fights, a history of drug abuse and a variety of altercations with the cops. But what my dad did have was a trust in his fellow man and a lot of love to share. He surrounded himself with people that wanted to match that energy. It was a given that he’d tell me and my sister to refer to them as our aunts and uncles. Found family was a value that he taught us early. The fact that they all shared commonalities in musical taste? Sign me up.

Since I was only seven years old, my memory around the concert itself is hazy. The majority of recollections are snapshots of the people I adored singing, moshing and drinking in the crowds.

Uncle Jeremy (or Jarhead, as the family called him) is drenched in sweat, beer or both - without a shirt and covered in tattoos. Uncle Marty is in and out of the mosh pits, with a long pony tail and a trucker hat. I stick close to my dad, spending most of the concert sitting atop his shoulders. It isn’t easy being short and attending concerts. Luckily, I grew out of it. My condolences to those that never could.

I remember Sabbath coming on, being entranced and trying to sing along to the words like everyone else. I remember Marilyn Manson, suspended in the air on a stilted dress. I remember being in a mosh pit, atop my dad’s shoulders; we’re being knocked around by unsuspecting idiots in the crowd clueless about plunging a kid onto the pavement. I remember a group of massive tatted up dudes in biker leather surrounding us when they saw this, punching and shoving the crowd to get me and my dad to safety. I remember the many times my dad recollected this moment. He has a smile on his face, as it reinforces his faith in humanity; the unsung heroes in these smaller moments that require courage and risk.

I don’t remember the conversation this biker gang tried to have with me. They are members of the Aryan brotherhood - Neo-Nazis. They are encouraging me to get involved in some way. My dad steps in, pulls me away and shows some courage of his own. “Hey, don’t be filling my son’s head with that shit.” Sometimes, he would leave this part of the story out.⁵

Today marks the third birthday my father hasn’t been here for. He would’ve been 67. As I recall this story, I am reminded of how lucky I was to have known him. He had an interpretation of humanity that could appreciate the good without judging one’s flaws and mistakes. He asked others to treat him as he would treat you. This radical empathy he’d convey had its limits, but my god was he consistent with it. I can’t help but wonder if that came from a complicated relationship with his own decisions. In either case, it has helped me be a more empathetic person, maintaining skepticism about my own judgments before writing off an individual entirely.

I’m also just stoked that my dad had the audacity to drag his 7-year-old kid to a metal festival. How fucking rad is that?

Happy birthday, old man.

1. Further reflection tells me that it was after, but I was open minded to having a favorite band with a lack of refined musical taste at the time. I was star struck, sure - but it was also an incredible performance and easily the best I had ever seen.

2. ..And not so great, now that I’m older and have revisited some of these artists. There are a few that were forward thinking and worthy of a stream in 2023, but in all honesty, I can’t help leaving a lot of this in the past (even with the nostalgia blinders on).

3. Michael Moore was here, too, filming Manson’s interview for his documentary Bowling for Columbine - discussing the horrors of gun violence over 20 years ago. For those that remember, there was an eloquence to Manson’s answers that conveyed an emotional intelligence that really complicates recent controversy. Michael Moore asks him about what he would’ve said to the kids at Columbine, to which Mason responds, “I wouldn't say a single word to them; I would listen to what they have to say, and that's what no one did.”

4. His father, Pano, owned a pawn shop on main street minutes away from us. My dad would work construction jobs for him and he was like a grandpa to me and my sister. It’s where I got my first console - a Sega Genesis with a dozen games for $10. It became my most prized possession that is now a lifelong passion for an interactive art form.

5. Have you ever found yourself recalling a story to fit the narrative? This isn’t nefarious in a lot of cases, but instead a quality you’ll find in good storytelling. Stories with nebulous takeaways can be challenging for the audience, and oftentimes for the narrator themselves. While I found the neo-Nazi piece compelling context to the story, my dad seemed to deem it irrelevant sometimes. Sometimes, it was just about a group of courageous individuals standing up for a defenseless kid. Sometimes, that’s all that we want to believe about humanity.