"Michelle loves Willie"
"Our little Sarah"
"Daughters of the American Revolution"
"Stryper loves Jesus" and I love a girl
Against my better judgment
'Cause I feel like a squirrel...
This song rings in my mind. "Bug" by Vic Chesnutt. I have no idea why these particular lyrics at this moment have hit my synapses, but they have. When I think of Vic I smile. Not an entirely happy smile. A complicated smile as the man he was. Still...a smile. The world was bettered when he was here.
It's funny. Sitting here in front of the keyboard looking at the blinking cursor I have no idea what I'm gonna tip and tap about. Just exhaling. Letting go some of what the world put into me.
I met Vic once a long, long time ago in the early nineties. My old band Blacksmith Union opened for him at a now defunct coffee/record shop Disc Cafe in La Jolla, California. I loved that shop. I was an exciting time. Live music was strong and pulsing. The salad days of the old ways of music and people.
I was pissed at Vic.
Never having met him, he was late for the show. The place was packed. People literally out in the streets looking in, they were not going to be denied a show. Finally, he pulls up. Drunk. Drunk from going to Tijuana, Mexico. "Fucker" I thought... I was young. The Now me, would smile and laugh. The Then me...well...he was a lot more uptight. *laughing*
We did the show and Vic came on. In his wheel chair, still drunk and he started rattling his beat up classical acoustic guitar. His voice warbled up in the air like a far off stammer. Stronger and stronger it rose and the words spoke truth. Honey-filled truth. A Southern truth that I understood. A truth so unvarnished and naked it seemed to cut you as it licked you.
I stood silent and took it.
Afterwards, I came up to him and told him what a wonderful set it was. His eyes shown a real gratitude and humbleness that few show. "Why thank yo...." Then a fan interjected for an autograph and I let him be.
I drove home listening his new release at the time "West of Rome". He struck a chord with me that still is vibrating within me. It was that truth. That damned truth.
Whatever a man or woman does or doesn't do in their lives...it is the truths that they reveal is what matters. When I say truth, I do not care about lies. Most of our lives are lies. Our perceptions, the facade we show to the world, even ourselves. When we can summon the truth about ourselves and freely show it to the world. Those are the glimmers of essence of our true selves. It is then that we have achieved something. I'd like to think of heaven like that. Not a clouded and winged heaven glistening with gold, but a swirling glow of glistening truth.
I think Vic shown us a lot of truth. I hope I can. I hope I can let myself.