Ry Cooder is playing some slow mournful slide guitar in the background. There are some types of music that seem to agitate some section of my brain. I'm thinking of times gone and the friends that occupied those moments and those places. Times that are no more and can never be. Not much I can really say about them because I know that all we have is the present moment and the allure of the future.
Sitting in a dorm room and knowing the answers to all of the world's problems. The right thing to do seems so obvious. And instead, I'm learning guitar lick from a friend and knowing I should be reading the assignment for my next class. Things don't work that way. Wearing a pair of jeans that saw better days too many years ago and a belt buckle that resembles a saddle hitch. And I'm wearing some type of shoes that are non-descript because my arches are too high to wear Fry boots comfortably. I was probably wearing the consumate hiking boot. I never knew when I might tackle a mountain trail or head to the highway for a quick hitchhiking lark.
And the words of Wordsworth and Byron seemed so important and Milton was rumbling in the background like a thunderstorm. And cafeteria food that was as tastey as tree bark and we'd sit there and pontificate on the world and how we'd save it when we got older. Damn we learned to lie early. And then after the brain police had tried to inject us with a modicum of intelligence the winds scattered us to the corners of the universe. Darned if I know where the others really went. I made a chance not to stay that close. Oh, there are a few, a very few, and I'm not sure whether my life bothers them more than they bother me. Wives, children, jobs, dreams, divorces, homes, and skills fractured our lives. The stuff life is made of. No slick guitar riff to give great significance.
Where are the blues players? Where are the rich guitars? Where are the shared bottles of cheap wine? My hand seizes into an imaginary E chord on a mental guitar next and I wonder, "what is the next chord?"
You'd think this woud have me bordering on the edge of depression so that I can feel the blues. No way! I just turn to my computer and search for another tune. I know, why not listen to Cream do "I'm so Glad" and pretend that I'm younger than I am?
G
