“You don’t see no city when you look at me
’cause country is all I am.
I love a-runnin’ bare-footed through them old
corn fields,
and I love that country ham. “
-Loretta Lynn
“And if California slides into the ocean
Like the mystics and statistics say it will
I predict this motel will still be standing
until I pay my bill.”
-Warren Zevon
_______________
My friend Donna used to love to sit and listen to me sing
Lynyrd Skynyrd songs (about 700,000 cigarettes ago)
with an acoustic guitar. She would sing along in a whisper
and watch my fingers do the endless G C D dance so
prevalent in pop music (thank God and Chuck Berry), and
it was good for the callouses on my fingertips (which are a
little soft these days) to pick up a box geetar now and then.
Strings come in widths, and as a rule I use electric 8’s,
which means their width is .008, about as skinny as you
can get. Nobody plays 8’s- I’m surprised they still make ’em-
because they are easy to break and hard to keep in tune for
the first hour or so after restringing, but also because most
players seem to have big fingers that make gripping thinner
strings problematic. Everybody I’ve ever played with used 9’s
or 10’s. When your fingers are tiny like mine, a 10 gauge is
like trying to press a pencil into a coffee table with your finger
tip. I had to kind of invent a way to learn to play, which utilized
a lotta cheating and a blatant disregard for theory. They don’t
say ‘it’s only rock n roll’ for nothing.
I’ve never known many songwriters, but I wish I could ask the
ones I do know what they think of modern country music.
I’ve heard more of it in the last four years than I ever wanted
to, and the process seems pretty simple. Make a list.
When you break it down, a country hit is usually a list of
things that make country living different than… well, other
kinds, I guess. By the time you get to the chorus, you get
the synopsis: My favorite truck, my favorite girl, my favorite
bar, my favorite beer and I go to work on Monday even though
I have a terrible hangover.
I like barbecue stains on my white t-shirt and dig messin’ up
my boots by dancin’ in the dirt. I like my mommas home cook-
in’ and deep fried pie and an ice cold beer under stars in the
sky. And so on.
The most prolific songwriter I ever knew was my dear friend Parker,
a young kid that got my attention with the records he bought at a
music shop I worked in.
Parker was a very sweet kid, straight as an arrow and safe as milk.
He always came in on Sunday, after church, where his father was
a minister of some sort. He was clean cut, short back ‘n’ sides, and
always wore a suit and tie. That boy loved the blues, and I mean the
old porch steps black blues like Robert Johnson and Elmore James.
His interest in it was truly impressive in a person his age. He seemed
to have no investment in the usual guitar hero trappings that come
with wanting to play when you’re young and male.
I found most of his favorites a little boring, and started giving him
records by Rory Gallagher and B.B. King. I think he found a lotta
my stuff a little boring too (try as I might, he never got The Good
Rats, and I think his gratitude when I gave him a copy of Little
River Band Live was obligatory) when I started trying to steer
him away from his steady diet of black cat moan.
The last time I saw Parker was the middle of my last few days
in California. I was in an apartment with a couch, a landline that
still worked for reasons unknown, a Fender Bullet and nothing
else. I was broke, surely hungry and very sick. He had no idea
I was in such a state when he called to see if I felt like playing.
He asked me if I needed anything, and I said yes, a hamburger
and a fifth of Jim Beam. With Fred dead and gone, I was running
out of cocaine too quickly for comfort, and my last bottle of bad
bourbon had been my dinner. Parker showed up in half an hour
with my booty and an instrument and was taken aback by my
appearance. I was skinny, sallow and beaten. After assuring him
I was fine, I took a long swallow of Beam, and we began to play.
A few hours are missing from my recollection of that night, but
I remember him leaving. I knew I was going to hit the road for a
while, so I handed him my Fender and said “You keep this to
remember me by.” He didn’t wanna take it, but I wouldn’t take
no for an answer. I had quite a collection of instruments at the
other house, but he knew the Fender was my favorite instrument
for blues. What neither of us knew was that my guitars were all
about to be stolen. When he walked away, the instrument in his
hand was the last look I would have at any of my gear, including
a guitar I had purchased from a friend who killed himself the same
day at the end of the ’70’s. I will never be able to replace it.
When Parker came around, I couldn’t even get him to have a beer.
About a year after I left he called me once when I was in Durham
to tell me about his first acid trip, for which I lightly scolded him.
And rock n roll gains a new survivor.
These days, he has hair down his back (I have pictures), has
abandoned his fathers church, and has become a full time
starving musician, doing the California couch surf and collecting
awards for ‘Best Local Blues Artist’, which generally means you
get your picture in the O.C. Weekly and it becomes a little easier
to get a Thursday night in San Juan Capistrano for a stipend of
burgers and beer.
He’s done two records of original material (except for a couple of
blues standards so old they are in the public domain)- stripped
to the bone acoustic blues that are right up almost nobody’s
2013 alley. His first one is the only album around that thanks me
by name in the credits (though it shouldn’t be), and that made me
cry. Parker believed in me, he loved me, and he wanted to save
me. I know I scared him the last time he saw me, and I’m sorry
about that.
The last time I spoke to him, which has been quite a while now
(and the only time since I left Durham), I learned he had purchased
the rights to the name Licorice Pizza, a once famous California
record chain, and was planning on opening a record shop.
Don’t know how that went, but he was happy, and I’ll bet he still is.
I imagine the life I built has ended up on ebay and in other collectors
hands from coast to coast. I imagine it all made some pretty poison
money. As powerful and occasionally crippling as it is, the grief has
to be correctly measured and justified. I just have to wait.
With everything by now long gone, the human being in me looks
every day for the things to hang on to, though by nightfall it often
feels like swinging above a buncha bear traps on a wet paper rope.
I’m afraid the unfortunate truth is that I haven’t come close to
moving past my loss, so usually I aim for a bigger picture and miss.
One day, maybe I’ll hit the bulls eye, and come to terms with what’s
left. Promises kept but altered, the folly of faith, the fragility of
trust, and the formidable demon of righteous anger.
I made peace with my father, try hard to keep my mother company,
gave in to the burial of too many friends, and tell myself “I told you
so” about the brittle and fickle nature of love.
Among all that, I’ve found the music is still there, and always there,
and it has waited for me to come back. It’s a slow process with a lot
of tears. I can listen again with less pain. I can pass it around. I’ve
found I still believe in the music, and that is something I’ve never
had to bother choosing and am powerless to govern.
That’s bound to be a good thing.
If I can keep hoping there’s still something about me that’s worth
people’s time, and do what feels most like the right thing in the
moment in spite of the cost, I may just be alright. The music, I’ve
learned, will take care of itself.
Thanks, Parker. I’ve missed you.