I wish it could always be late in April. It is today and it's cold outside and we're waiting in a huge line of skinny hippies before the Blue Note opens its doors. This venue sucks. Its walls are falling apart in a way that points out that decay is sometimes charming, and that this is not one of those times. It's a cheap drink ticket for frat-boys and their female counterparts, which brings all the douchery you'd expect from a spirited game of “pitchers” to whatever show you've payed $12 to see. It's fine if it's Nashville Pussy, but it's not always Nashville pussy. I'm bored so I'm smoking a cigarette while trying to convince myself that all I have in common with these hippies is that I bought this album, and that I kind of like it. And then what looks to be a group of super-hippies swaggers by with way more confidence than should be granted to anyone in this crowd. He's in the front and wearing his beard like a shield. He's scared but still carrying himself like a giraffe. Lumbering and slow. What gives him away is his trying to fit in with a crowd of people all trying to stand out. He's like a quiet (and very polite) bull-dozer. Nobody recognizes him, or nobody has the hippie guts to point out to him who he is, and how much they love him for it. He goes through the front door and takes, I imagine, a deep breath of relief. I imagine, also, that he said something smart about being able to make your own music, but unable to choose your fans.
She must be ninety by now. She's come down with all the things old people come down with and goes to the hospital like most people go to the grocery store. But nothing has killed her, and maybe it won't. Her sister was a nun and used to visit me in my dreams. And this is something that doesn't seem fair. Once she's done with her body, it's no big deal to hunt somebody down in the city, in their sleep, and after she's dead. No problem. What is a problem, tho, is recognizing me as her grand nephew (who's been around 25 years or so) as she walks into my parents' kitchen where I'm stealing a match and thinking now's as good a time as any to step outside. “And who are you,” asks this insanely educated nun, who years ago gave up god-fearing and has since grown to consider herself an equal. Thing is, if you're really talkin' to god, like on the phone and stuff, who cares who believes you? And who cares if you can't remember everyone around you? Even if they've been around for the most recent quarter of your long (long) life. Sister Baptista went out with a bang, and left behind her (literal) sister. She must be ninety. It's her turn now, and you can see her settling into the role nicely. She's not about to ask me who I am, but she'll stare at me for five seconds (again, as she's walking into the kitchen on mother's day) following my face like a slot machine, till all the tumblers look the same. So much energy to put into every face you come across. As if there's not enough for an old lady to do.
There will probably be a time when I hate this song. And it won't be because the song is no good, but because it was all I could listen to for awhile, and in that while all sort of beautiful things were going on around me. Or I perceived my world to be full of beautiful things revolving around me, like I was something special. Like I had stumbled upon something better than what I deserve. A real analysis might reveal that I'm surrounded by coke-heads and people who have chosen a life that society has deemed irreproachable because inexplicable, when the real case is that it's just easier to get attention by doing this thing rather than that thing. Here's where it comes in handy to tell the truth slant, and to put oneself in a swoon, and use that swoon as a cloud upon which one can cross the abyss, whose bottom is covered with all those sharp and foul things we've let fall down its edge rather than really banish. Like they say, shit adds up at the bottom. And there it is. It hasn't gone anywhere. I'll hate this song when a month or a year I go back to listen to it and it doesn't do for me then what it does for me today. In the same way that a song only provides temporary and illusory (albeit useful) rest from our sometimes unsavory lives, the very nature of the rest it provides is fraught with all those things you've talked yourself into forgetting. You'll find them one by one, like little razor blades pushed into an apple.
