The Night of the Trolls

I drew The Fool card twice last week, which is pretty unusual for me. Once made sense, but twice?! I was like "What else could it be?!" Well, the Universe had a good laugh for me, because it made me confront one of my two regrets in life.

A friend I met for drinks last night suggested we go to karaoke with his GF at his favorite dive bar. (One of my regrets is not singing the one karaoke song I know by heart at an Irish pub crawl in Dublin fifteen years ago.) I love karaoke but haven't sang in public since a more recent, ill-fated evening when I tried a new song and failed miserably.

Last night, the dive bar was smaller than the tiny house I'm staying in, and the evening was joyously and accurately labeled as the Best Worst Karaoke in town, so I signed up almost immediately with my go-to song. There were old men in Carhartts crooning love songs, a trans woman perfectly singing "I Am Not a Woman, I am a God," my friend (his ethos is basically skater/cycle-boy-carpenter) rocking some excellent Taylor Swift, and me cracking out my best Elvis.

Against the back wall of this tiny bar, two brothers buzzed with an aura of shortness about them. They were possibly twins, who wore matching hoodies and tight quilted flannel shirts buttoned up over their stout torsos, shoulders hunched so they could be closer to the earth, giving them the appearance of ska mosh experts in this realm. Each had a mess of black wavy hair and black, combed beards down to their belly buttons. They could have simply been Asheville hipsters with a slight lumberjack vibe, but something I couldn't place about them suggested otherwise. Their eyes were bright, and they had random hoots and claps and cheers-by-name for every person who sang ("Way to go, Cheryl!"), regardless of vocal ability. These brothers stood out while also disappearing into the darkness of the bar, like friendly trolls who rolled out of the forest for one night of karaoke.

I used to hate trolls. All I could think of was the plastic troll dolls that always seemed sticky with age and with gross, unkempt hair (my lifelong distaste for long hair included dolls). When I moved to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in the early 2000s, trolls were those living "below the bridge"—that is, folx from the Lower Peninsula who lived on the other side of the Mighty Mac bridge—and it was definitely said with derision. Years later, when I moved to Norway for a year, I grew a more nuanced understanding of trolls; after all, trolls are a large part of Norse mythology, and at their most fundamental are simply pagan forest folk who don't follow Christian traditions. I am OK with that!

Recently, trolls have been coming for me. This is how I describe signs the universe is sending me, when something (a person, phrase, image, being, object, etc.) comes into my consciousness twice, it's a sign to pay attention. The trolls first came in through Thomas Dambo's exhibit at the Virginia Aquarium, close by to where I'd been staying for two months with family in eastern Virginia. Yes, one can blame the algorithms of social media for why these trolls showed up in my feed, which is why I ignored them at first.

The second time in a few weeks that the trolls came to me was right after I got to Asheville again, and a variation of those danged ugly plastic dolls I hated as a child showed up in the most magical of forms through my gem show friends' newsletter. This time, Marilyn and Tohmas wrote in the Ahhhmuse newsletter:

Trolls with Quartz HAIR!!!!-
These are some of our finest guardians, laugh-partners and keen manifestors. We recommend their Spirit with all our hearts. 

Rethinking trolls as laugh-partners, guardians, and manifestors is a huge shift from the ugliness we humans have historically bestowed upon them. And with quartz hair?! I was tempted to buy one immediately, but still needed to overcome some of my plastic doll weirdness from my youth.

The third time a sign shows up, it's a wake-up call from the Universe. Here were the troll brothers, in real life, at this dive bar karaoke night in Asheville.

They were the kind of fellas one didn't expect would want to sing, just dance a little and holler and have some fun before rolling back to the forest. Joyful elves, but with a bit of mischief behind those beards. For, yes, they shared a secret. The secret of their voices.

When the first brother began, I was captivated. I don't even remember the song he sang. It was a fast-paced jig, maybe some Green Day, which could have been correct but could have also just been my intuition connecting them with the Green Man, whom they must personally know. He was perfect as he sang it: the vocals, the expression, the physicality, the moshy interlude. He knew how to work a mic. The excitement at sharing his gift that night reverberated through the growing crowd, who went WILD when he finished. There were high-fives, and the room was up and moving as a whole for the first time all night.

Immediately after him—through who knows what technological magic, since the karaoke sign-up app worked on a first-come, first-sing basis—his twin stepped to the mic next. His beard couldn't hide the tiny grin he made before the music started, and when it did, we were regaled with a classic crooner. Out came the most melodious, beautiful, siren song; a complete musical reversal from his brother, to show both of their strengths, their range, and the ways song can bring about a wild complexity of emotions in humans and other beings alike. The audience suspected none of it, but was having ALL of it. When the second brother finished, the audience erupted again into a cacophony of claughter (clapping and laughter), total joy brought to this small local group, in a city that's still devastated from floods, on the coldest of nights near the darkest of winter. Laugh-partners. Manifestors of musical and moonlit magic!

We left shortly thereafter. It was only 10pm but felt like we had time-jumped many more hours. We were satisfied with a full evening that only cost $10 for 3 beers across the lot of us and a bag of Sun Chips (What?! Money magic!).

As I drove back into the dark of the night, I realized that maybe I had been playing the ugly troll who only rolled out one in a great while to have fun among my fellow beings, and it was time to rewrite that story. More karaoke FOR SURE, lol.

Then I remembered the Fool, who is also the Joker—the person who reminds us to do the things that bring us joy, lest we fall into stagnancy and dominating power structures; to step through the fear and doubt and do it anyways, because love and happiness can come in the most unexpected ways; and to face our follies head-on so we can recognize and move with them in changed forms into our brighter futures. The Fool can also be the Troll with Quartz Hair (four exclamation points), who is the keen manifestor, the laugh-partner, the one ready to show you the beautiful white rose under the full sun, on this cliff with a spectacular view. What is it that you desire and that brings you joy? This fool says, "Let's make it happen!"

Post-Script [Update 12/9/24]

Y'all are not gonna believe this. 😜 I sent this post to my karaoke friend, and he wrote back to tell me that the song the first brother sang was Fall Out Boy's "Sugar, We're Goin' Down." I don't know if I've ever heard before, but there it was. My friend sends me the video, which could not be more perfect to coincide with this post, to be honest: Ya know, just a boy with deer antlers trying to fit into typical society 🤷. The punk song starts with these lyrics:

Am I more than you bargained for yet?

Um, yes?! Yes, beautiful troll brother, you are! The lyrics continue:

I've been dyin' to tell you
Anything you want to hear
'Cause that's just who I am this week
Lie in the grass next to the mausoleum
I'm just a notch in your bedpost, but you're
just a line in a song.

Ummmm, I'm sorry, troll brother. You're not just a line in my blog, I promise. So much more!

It also turns out, in full-circle effect, that Taylor Swift cites Fall Out Boy's line from this song, "Loaded God complex, cock it and pull it" as one of her favorites, having influenced her own writing. Here's a link to the video of "Sugar, We're Goin' Down," in case you haven't seen this masterpiece.