dear reader,
familiar with the title? it’s a pretty knock-out line from a slightly forgettable band.
there are some visuals that will probably never cease to call to mind the rise and urgency of that phrase; it could be taken as a proud proof or an arrogant justification. in my case, it’s probably both.
this is my beloved rav4 yesterday at the impound yard. the adjuster had just declared it totalled (in fact, he said it wasn’t reparable at all), since the floor and frame of the car are significantly bent. they’re so bent i was unable to open the opposite passenger door, or the trunk. the driver’s seat in which i was sitting was alone unspoiled (albeit covered in glass).
the background, for those of you who care, is that my last car was totalled less than a year ago in a four-car pileup at 65 mph on route 80. i was driving home from a show, of course, and it was dark. my little geo prizm was rear-ended by a blazer, and i was happy to be alive. even happier was the realization that i had inexplicably decided to put all my gear in the backseat rather than the trunk, since it looked like this:
on friday, the conditions were certainly more mundane, but i still had a little deja vu. it’s hard not to feel shaken up emotionally–one is generally shaken up physically–and i’m not someone accustomed to destroying things that otherwise would’ve had a long life ahead of them. when the geo was totalled, i had to face up to the fact that my lifestyle of living on the road, in my car, for 3,000+ miles a month was the culprit, and with a minimum of soul-searching i re-committed myself to that very lifestyle. i love music. i love it. i’ll never stop connecting with my world and the people in it through songwriting, through loading whatever car i’m blessed with to the gills with gear and hauling to some club where i can inhale cigarette smoke that undoubtedly accelerates the inevitable destruction of my voice in the hope that the truth is louder than the beer. now that the rav is totalled, i stare that choice in the face again, realize again that i am lucky to be alive, and can’t help knowing that my response is just going to be taking the same risks, only more. i’m not going to play it safer. i can’t; it’s too late now.
so after i cleaned out the innumerable cdrs, pens, mic stands & clips, and scraps of paper from the wreckage, it occurred to me that there was probably still a cd in the cd player. reconnecting with whatever i was listening to at the moment of the crash seemed like a good way to make some peace with the whole thing, so i ejected the disc (not without some surprise that it came right out!). one of my show-weekend mixes, “misc. for another friday,” was the cd that escaped happily from the deck.
another friday, indeed; these wrecks are just part of it all. sing it, wheat!–they’re things i did for my love.
