| September'99 | . |
This Journal |
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We might as well begin with our old friend Guilt. I write this out of guilt because as I type I am deciding not to jog tonight. And I've got the excuses, it's kind of chilly out there; I've got these sniffles; I've got a pile of response notebooks to grade; I'm too tired. So here I sit tapping my miserable do-nothingness out into space. I was going to jog after school and then bounce over to watch a bit of the soccer game and then come home for a hearty meal and then sit down to an evening of inspired notebook reading, but I didn't. Maybe I can blame Muddy Waters. I saw Muddy Waters in person once in Washington. I was possibly with Andy Skotnicki at The Cellar Door in Georgetown. (I say possibly because I can't remember Andy doing or saying anything memorable, which he almost always did; he must have been on his best behavior. But if it wasn't Andy it should have been, because he'd pointed me toward the blues in the first place. An excellent gift.) This would have been in '74 or '75. We had a table right up front, and Muddy Waters stood on the low stage not more than ten feet away. That was it: not-so-big old Muddy Waters, a guitar attached to a small portable amp at his feet, a stool behind him for his harp case. Some people probably got to see Muddy Waters every day of their lives. Some people probably got to pal around with him whenever they felt like it. But on this one and only evening of my single life I got to sit ten feet away and listen to this old guy wail for maybe 80 minutes. Was it a landmark performance, the best of his life here in this little club? I don't know; I doubt it, don't have the credentials to say. Here was Muddy Waters in the flesh, the same fellow who had wandered off Stovall's plantation down in Mississippi to land in Chicago and make a new music as old as America. It was a Big Moment for me, but it's funny and sad how little I remember. Maybe it was just a dream I had. Me and Muddy. What about the set list? You know, I couldn't swear that he had played any particular song; it was long ago, I suppose. But I should have taken steps to remember. I guess I was trying so hard to be cool and not look like a crazy musical tourist that at the time I couldn't let myself be too knocked out by it all. But I knew I was there.
And then
Which gets me back to guilt. And it's all Muddy's fault. He stopped at my front door today in the form of The Chess Box, a three-disc set of 72 songs from 1947-1972, which comes to me at a very good price via my affiliation with a not-to-be-named multinational media monster. Fear not, I ain't gonna launch any purplish prose reflections on the significance of the blues. I suppose The South needs a rest. I started this piece with a moan about procrastination, all the things I was going to do this afternoon and evening. But I ended up thinking about and listening to some perennially inspiring music - and that's not such a terrible outcome. If nothing else comes of this quickly shrinking day, I will have done something for my soul. |
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Qur'an. The Night-Star, 86:5-7 |
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Chronic
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