19 December, 2005
if you break my heart, i'll go, but i'll be back, again

iron sharpen iron

it's a reggae tune, by Culture.

"when you go to dig a pit, i tell you my brother,
don't dig one always dig two".

the first person i ever interviewed for my show was Joseph_Hill, the lead singer. he probably helped make it the best one i ever did, as nervous as i was... not requiring me to be as "cool" as i thought i had to be, or as "dreader-than-thou" as some white guys seem to have to pretend. volunteering information and humor, instead of righteous indignation, superiority and expecting the "kissing of the ring"... that's what makes a good interviewee.

if this were a perfect world, i would have liked to have spoken with John_Lennon, too... but i was always too young and never had such privileged access. but i think it would have been the same way, too.

it's a kindred-spirit thing.

everybody else and his brother were eulogizing him, last week, marking the day that he was assassinated. i don't like recognizing death days, though... it's too negative. it trivializes what art and power they created whilst living.

i do, however, have a fierce remembrance of that day.

my friend $Bill and i were commuting to the same workplace... this particular black day, i rode shotgun in his MGBGT (not the roadster, the kind of car that on rainy days, you'd be wetter inside than out). "somber" would be the best way to describe the atmosphere (my heroes include musicians, though i don't deify them... but anyone who can make legions of people happy with just a song have their place in heaven, too).

i'm getting too parenthetical, here.

during the course of the day, i'd talked to my brother--a bigger fan than even myself--and we'd all decided
to make the trip to NYC for the vigil, after work. totally impulsive, totally insane, totally impractical, but it didn't matter.

there were forces at work, though.

no sooner than we'd gotten back to town, attempting to climb Jailhouse Hill, an awful metallic spinning noise came from the rear: the splines that mate the axle to the wire wheels lost all of their grip, so that the axle spun impotently and immovably inside the hub. we weren't going in that.

finding our way to my place, where my equally impractical Jag sedan waited, we gathered ourselves to leave. my bother's wife was shrilly screeching about how stupid we were, my family seconding the emotion even as i pressed the starter button. but, leave, we did. and stereo blasting, made it all of two miles before the electrics gave up the ghost, too. the defeat was complete.

i thing of it wistfully, now. but, all of the records still languish behind me as i type... one of his numbered lithographs on the livingroom wall.

i don't surrender heroes, easily.

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