by James Cassar, edited by Erik van Rheenen

It’s 2014 and there is a band parading around the world under the name Cerebral Ballzy. Their music is loud, brash and as punk-with-a-capital-P as can be whilst signed to a label owned by the frontman of The Strokes. If you’re unaware of their rise to semi-popularity, Adult Swim heavily promoted their self-titled record in between reruns of Technicolor lewdness, and I put off English homeworkto catch the campaign. Here I am, a few years later (setting aside academic obligations yet again), wondering when cerebral palsy will have the same groundswell as its snot-nosed musical counterpart.
 
I don’t know your familiarity with cerebral palsy, so I’ll give you a quick recount of what I like to refer to as a more-grotesque version of This is Spinal Tap. I say this because my spinal tap ironically didn’t announce its presence and close off when I was born, and therefore a spicy cocktail of blood and fluid flooded my brain. I was drowning in my own head twenty-six weeks after conception on the last day of September. It was a minute after midnight on a Friday. The next day, Toad the Wet Sprocket would enter the Billboard Top 100 charts with their single “Something’s Always Wrong.” A bystander would’ve gathered that this wasn’t a coincidence, given how loaded the dice were against any positive progress.
 
A team of doctors cloaked in ashen white, sporting hurried glances and sweat-slicked brows, told my parents their son wouldn’t walk or talk. To combat these storm clouds, my mom quit her job as a park ranger, and instead navigated the dense forests of in-home physical therapies, leg castings, and even mild Botox surgeries to help me trace new steps to recovery. In March 1996, Natalie Merchant released her single “Wonder,” which told the tale of a child, who despite great adversity, would make their way.
 
I found my way at age six. I stood in a backyard dressed in a bold show of irony as venerable Denver Bronco John Elway. My uncle was in a ragtag band that slopped out covers on my grandmother’s back porch an hour from Detroit. It was raining. I remember hearing blink-182’s “All the Small Things” played as the B-side to some Green Day rendition and feeling the bars of black face paint dismantle on my cheekbones as the tears rolled. I was probably crying for a different reason that probably underscores my love for emo music’s resuscitation of sorts, but I’ll humor myself and say that my first show, costumed and cloudy, shook me. Not a small thing at all.
 
Sure, I strode through a smattering of schools with a dragging right foot and a jerking, inconsistent right hand, but standing out was punk, or so I thought. If blink-182 could get away with writing songs about a character named Dysentery Gary, I could be anything I wanted. I planned out a make-believe radio show in fifth grade (I still have the flyer), made mix CDs for friends and girls blessed with freckles in middle school, and wrote enough lyrics to choke out a self-righteous Morrissey during the confusion that bundled in with eighth grade. My socialization with music was clear – having an older sister whose first show was part of New Found Glory’s album cycle tour for Sticks and Stones helped immensely – but one integral part to most fans’ experiences went unexplored. I longed for the exhilaration that comes packaged with live shows, but I felt the terrain was too dangerous, even as my physicality seemed to level off freshman year of high school.
 
I had a few rough patches in middle school where I entered a handicap-centric existential crisis where I wondered exactly why I was carrying this weight. My spine boasted a substantial crook, my knees rarely bent without a generous set of convulsions, and I was (and still am) years from a driver’s license.
Yet, I had music and a family who understood that obsession. Luckily, I’m chasing a degree while tackling several opportunities to maintain this first love.
 
My first standing-room show mirrored many POZ readers’ first experience in this vein: I broke my concert virginity at a festival stop. Warped Tour 2012 marked the end of my sheepishness and the beginning of a new chapter, as a deposit was mailed out to the University of Virginia earlier that summer. I wasn’t as active as many of my fellow concertgoers, simply because I didn’t know if I wanted to do anything but chase safety. I sat on a Monster cooler and finally got to see Title Fight play songs from Shed. I hung close to the barricade for Man Overboard and felt the pulse of the monitors rip crunchy tidal waves through my crooked frame. I watched as Transit told me to keep running, keep shining on. I did just that – albeit not fast enough – as a hefty crowdsurfer collapsed on me during Yellowcard’s set.
 
I remember that happening and wondering if I’d resurface without soiling my golden record of concert attendance thus far – but I also remember that everyone around me was willing to pick me back up. I know now that this is standard associated with nearly every genre that incorporates full use of a floorshow, but I found it revolutionary that day in Virginia Beach.
 
Since Warped Tour, I haven’t been to many shows, but every time, I’m reminded that inclusionary measures still exist. During Such Gold’s set during one Richmond venue’s last hurrah, I was pulled into the pit as the band ripped through “Two Year Plan,” and my two years free of minor battle scars didn’t stick to their plans. My glasses emerged scuffed and scratched, but I was helped up. I know this is a trivial detail to many, but for a person who knocked himself down mentally for the physical knockdown he couldn’t control, the gesture was indeed a grand one.
 
I’m reminded of my close contact with No Sleep Records artist Grey Gordon and how he told me that a crowd jamming to the late hardcore outfit Bane lifted up a fan in a wheelchair who was also dealing with cerebral palsy. I’m reminded of my best friend Becca Denius and her fight with Friedrich’s Ataxia, a form of muscular dystrophy, who can still be found at a Stick to Your Guns show or slinging merch for her brother in the pop-punk band Broadside. I’m reminded that venues are becoming more compliant with ADA policy and making the scene a more accepting place for handicapped friends to shout along to their favorite groups. I’m proud of Kevin Lyman and his similar policies during Warped Tour summers. I’m reminded that the scene can be a home when their head may not be at times.
 
I was fortunate enough to have someone take me into New York City to see one of my favorite bands, Modern Baseball, play a sold-out show at Webster Hall. I saw bodies in the air moving out-of-sync, arms shaking out some avant-garde acrobatics. I stood to the side and watched sweat drip down the faces of fans spewing spit as they screamed lyrics. I remember feeling the fire rise in my throat from side stage, shouting along even as my anxious legs threatened collapse. Yet, I remembered a goal: I was going to get to that point. I was going to be the one in the air.
 
I know one day all of us will get to fly in time, be it on our own terms or with the help of others. Here’s to hoping that there are more significant strides to enabling that opportunity for everyone.