punk rock blues

Monday, March 06, 2006

Interview w/the Most High: And Still No Sign of Lester

When things get tough here at punk rock blues, I've been known to try to drown my sorrows in a dead man; a pattern not so strange when one considers the world's religions. This trip into the ether was unintentional, or at least less planned than usual. I was walking Buster the other night when Iraqi Squirrel, his old nemesis from Denver, scutterred across a nearby roof, across the phone lines that traverse my back yard, down the phonepole and ran like the wind towards the alley behind my place. Buster, being the intrepid superhero he believes himself to be, took off after the vermin post haste running me full speed into the phonepole, post-face.

( CAVEAT: I feel as weird about writing this as you'll probably feel after reading it, but something's gotta be done and, so far, this is it).

My head cleared to the transistional segue music of chimes and what sounds like a glass harmonica being played in the shallow end of a pool. Spots danced before my eyes and I wondered who would be there when they cleared, telling me that Lester didn't want to speak to me. The haze morphed into a room I'd seen before. It was the 'dayroom' at Greystone Hospital in Morristown NJ, where I'd spent some time in the '80s recuperating from a failed suicide attempt. Across from me sat an angry young black man, 23, maybe 24, years old wearing a black sweatshirt w/the word 'no' emblazoned on the front in white felt. His eyes, red rimmed and backlit glared at me. I knew instinctively that this young black man was Jesus Christ. He looked like he wanted to kick my ass and I really couldn't blame him

"Yo", he said "You got some mouth, bitch, you know that?"

I wasn't surprised or scared. It wasn't the first time I'd heard that, not even the first time in those exact words.

'Yeah", I replied, 'Some mouth, no heart."

"No", Jesus said,"You got heart, just that it's broken, though you'd prefer to call it black, wouldn't you?"

I turned that one over a time or two, trying to turn this into a racial debate but couldn't really find a hook. "So," I ventured," You've come into my unconscious to do what exactly? Show me the light? Or am I finally dead and yr gonna laugh me on to Hell or something?"

'Number one", he said, "I haven't come anywhere, this is yr dream or fantasy or whatever and you brought me here, made me a stereotype street punk and had me jump bad w/ya upfront so you could dazzle me w/Byrnespeak and, oh I don't know, prove I don't exist or something. But the truth of the matter" he put his hand up to stop me from talking, "I know, I know 'there is no truth, only perception..' yadda yadda yadda, fact is you do have a big mouth and you like to use it to mock the likes of me and my believers. All well and good, that's what makes a horserace and all, but you seem to be stuck in the one gear anymore. It's like the same thing you bitch about regarding punk rock (remember when this page was about punk rock? Me neither.), wallowing in the obvious and never moving on. Number 2, I don't think there's any hell I could hand you blacker than the one you've built for yrself"

"And now I suppose yr gonna tell me how to move on?"

"No, I can't tell you that, nobody can. You just gotta move, son."

"Wow", I said, slapping my forehead, "wished I'd though of that! So the secret to happiness is, what, be happy?"

"Yeah, kind of, kind of."

"That's the biggest load of crap I've typed all day. You've said yr the Truth. THE truth, right?"

"It's been said I said that."

"Ther you go, all cryptic and mystical. What, if anything, concrete do you have to offer me? I keep hearing stuff like 'look into his eyes', 'personal relationship' and 'get washed in the blood of the lamb'. That mumbojumbo might have worked great on 1st century shepherds and sheeple throughout the ages but if I'm gonna see you as anything more than some kinda benign (and sometimes not-so-benign) boogeyman invented by States trying to get the rabble to eat their vegetables, than I want a clear answer to one question."

"And that question is?"

"What...", I stopped, thought hard about how to phrase this now that I'd finally gotten the chance. "What... what the fuck is wrong with me?"

Jesus laughed and said "Well, for one thing, you keep conjuring up authority figures to rag on you in this blog. Why don't you morph this hospital into a hot tub, morph me into Courtney Love and just enjoy yr imagination for a while?"

Which is exactly what I did and that didn't help either.