ATLANTA — Local punk Rodney Tobleson reportedly stood completely still with arms crossed in the middle of the pit during a recent Wailing Anus show like a wisened old sequoia, profoundly impressed sources confirmed.
“The show was going pretty good and the pit was stirred up like I haven’t seen in a while. We were about twenty minutes into our set when I noticed [Tobleson] standing out there. At first I thought he was some kind of avant-garde art installation the venue put in,” explained Wailing Anus singer Kurdt “Brown Eye” Sobechekski. “It took like two or three more songs before I finally realized it was a human guy and, honestly, it was one of the most impressive things I’ve ever seen. I know for a goddamn fact that at least three other people lost teeth in the pit that night, so just him being out there totally unfazed… man, I still can’t wrap my head around it.”
Showgoer Allison Mendle gave her account of Tobleson’s apparent mid-pit nirvana.
“I never even saw him walk up. It’s like he just materialized there from out of nothing,” said Mendle. “And then he didn’t move an inch for the whole rest of the show. I can’t even imagine what he could have been thinking. But that look on his face, he was like some grandfatherly spirit tree or something. Like he just understood. I might need to look into becoming Buddhist or something, because that looked like pure serenity.”
Tobleson’s experience as a pit-centric obelisk was detailed during the show by his own internal monologue.
“I just had to keep telling myself to stay cool. I ate way too many shrooms before that show and I had to self-soothe myself until I believed it was gonna be okay,” he recalled. “The best thing to do in a situation like that is to just stay completely, still like a tree, and no one will notice. No one can see you if you stand totally still. Even though all the other trees by you are moving around a lot, you just stay still. The pit is actually one of the best places to practice something like that, unlike the airport, which I learned the hard way can and will get you in a lot of trouble.”
At press time, a woodpecker that had accidentally flown into the pit landed on Tobleson and began meticulously drilling into the side of his skull.