Delineated

If there is any single person to thank for the existence of this journal, it would be Tom Gabriel Fischer (or as I and countless thousands still know him, Tom G. Warrior). His writings can be found under the mantle, “Delineation”, and it has served as an impetus for me to take the time to properly document the occurrences and wanderings of the AVRS triumvirate.

With this in mind, I find myself reflecting on my first proper encounter with Herr Warrior a few months prior when we performed in Illinois. I mentioned this in a previous entry, but upon retrospect it is remarkable that our brief meeting left such a lasting impression upon me. Tom has a disarmingly gracious manner that seems directly proportional to his near-mythological status. When I escorted him and his fiancé to the backstage of the venue, he was (naturally) accosted by fans about every ten steps. He would shake hands and greet all who approached and then apologize repeatedly for making me wait. It was all I could do to not react with slack-jawed disbelief. A friend of mine commented that meeting Tom Warrior is the Metal equivalent of meeting Thomas Jefferson, and I heartily agree. Celtic Frost is effectively the flash point for this genre as we know it, and yet here was the man before me who remained unaffected by his own persona and was offering apologies on account of it no less!

More striking, however, was the way in which he quietly broadcasted his deeper presence. Certain people have minds that, when a receptive person is engaged, function like windows to the observer in question. I have seen this before, but the intriguing nature of Tom is that I felt as if I was peering through the window and into an unnavigable realm. There were several visible pieces that overlapped and seemed too confounding to identify or describe. I could also sense many tiers within him but they mostly obscured one another (which also lent a personal significance to the song “Obscured”). The most remarkable aspect was that I could practically see the thin dark shroud over him that manifests as kind humility and secludes his deeper greatness from the world outside. It was not unlike glimpsing the edge of the sun before it is swallowed by an eclipse. It also seems like he prefers it this way. I think to truly know such a person means to gain access to a vast hold of genius and poetry, though more likely it is telegraphed through words and gestures that are nearly invisible to anyone unequipped to receive them. Ultimately this encounter further justified my long-standing admiration of Celtic Frost, and it galvanized my outlook that people who are quick to judge Tom and his work based on perceived missteps are ingrates who do not see that his contributions far outweigh any transgressions. In the meantime, I am anxious to cross paths with him again as I would like to have another chance to talk and perhaps gain further insight into what drives the entity we have all long revered as Warrior. Perhaps he would read this and chuckle, and then tell me that I’ve got him all wrong. I look forward to stand corrected.