I was given the scarab when I was seven by a man named Jeremiah Boyle, a pianist from Los Angeles of great talent who, later in life turned to the path of architectural acoustics instead of concerts, opening up a successful firm based out of downtown L.A.

When I met him my mother, also a pianist, was playing a concert in the ballroom of a place called the Millennium Biltmore Hotel, also in downtown L.A. Jeremiah had just made adjustments to the hotel's soundsystem. He was friend's with the publisher of my mother's piano books and had gone to Juilliard with my mother so we all went out to dinner at a place that served "Latin American Influenced Neo-Japanese Gourmet Cuisine," which, in hindsight, looks like yuppie hell on wheels.

In fact, it was. The thousand dollar meal was mediocre at best. However, I sat by this Jeremiah character and my father. I spoke with my father about Spider-Man, Dungeons and Dragons, The Phantom Tollbooth, and so on while Jeremiah hobnobbed with a woman across the table about his experiences that led him to want to become an acoustics engineer. He talked about his time in Egypt, how he had entered one of the great pyramids and how the sounds of the place, the intense whispering that he heard saturated the air, and then of the silence that appeared when he and his friend ceased speaking. It was this silence, this absence of noise, he said, that caused him to want to study sound outside of the realm of art. This science of noise became something obsessive with him, from what I could tell.

He had just returned again from Egypt, having installed an extremely delicate soundboard in one of the government meeting halls. This rather lucrative job proved to be routine, and during his time in the capital he perused the streets of the city. He found a little shop, a tourist trap of sorts, that sold falsified antiquities. This is where he found the scarab, among plastic Selkets, Akhenaten's hollow bust, Fools Gold Tutankhamon...

He finished his talk of Egypt, and turned to me. "I knew I'd have some sort of use for this when I came back to the states," he said, reached into his pinstripe jacket's inside pocket, and took out the scarab, dropping it into my hand. It was made of an animals horn, about three inches across and heavy. I looked to my father to see if it was alright to take it. He smiled. It was fine. My father had known Jeremiah for years.

I kept it with me on and off for years. It was something that added an extra half pound in my backpack as I forgot to take it out time after time. It resurfaced this year. I kept it in the pocket of a gaudy striped vest that I wear nearly every day. The pocket was very shallow, but I was, and am, unathletic to the point of nearly being on par with someone physically disabled. Aside from the occasional adventure somewhere like the bulb, I'd stick to leisurely walks. (Even if they lasted 30 miles, as per The Long March, which will eventually be posted) Subconsciously it became some symbol of protection, like I was a pharaoh waiting for the next life.

However, I was loitering at the Monster Drawing Rally at the Verdi Club in the outer Mission district, looking at the many artists working away in hour long shifts when Curious George Foreman gave me a call saying that Leftöver Crack was playing at some hipster bar for ten bucks. Being a lover of crust punk, I accepted his invitation and took the trip to Potrero Hill. We waited in line with a bunch of honest, entertaining punks for about half an hour until the concert was, unlike any punk show should be, sold out because some bastards bought tickets online. We abdicated from our surroundings, walking a few blocks down to see an act called Nobunny.

Nobunny's a weird band. The lead singer dresses up in a somewhat psychotic rabbit mask and little else and plays real Rock 'n' Roll. This was my first real show . The bunny took to the stage with his band and let loose a series of tunes better than anything I would expect. This is when I discovered the joys of music.

There's a way that, when you are thrown about in a crowd by dozens of people jumping up and down, your best friends, total strangers, that you are in a most Dionysian fashion, purged of all frustration, of all anger. I got into it. I didn't give a shit about my asthma ridden lungs, I didn't give a shit that a few months previous I'd messed them up to no end by smoking a few packs of cigarettes found on the street. I jumped up and down, I threw myself into the crowd and back out, twirling with my comrades, slamming into strangers and so on and so fourth and damn, was it glorious. Something felt right. The music became more important than the self. The crowd became more important than that music and everything was in service of everything else for a few minutes. The set ended with a cover of Michael Jackson's "Beat It" with the lyrics changed, and for the life of me I couldn't remember what those lyrics were. It didn't matter. I still got more out of that night than almost any other. I lost control. I stopped caring. I stopped paying attention to the scarab and began to pay attention to the movement of me feet, the flailing of my arms, the bobbing of my head, and all of this in relation to the people around me. No more was I protected.

I remember stepping on the scarab a few times when I hopped up and down, not realizing what it was, assuming that it was a cable or someone's lost purse. I didn't try to grab it. I didn't try to do anything. Nothing mattered but the music.

On another note, I don't remember the cut on my thumb that has since scarred over. That came about, as far as I'm concerned, because I lost the scarab, but the price that I paid was certainly worth what I got in exchange.