I made a mistake. Several, really. One, but not the first, was to answer my phone this morning. It was Tennessee. It was a drive time call, about forty minutes from start to finish. I was already behind schedule. I rewatched "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" last night for some reason. It wasn't worth the second viewing. Still, it was late and I wasn't tired despite the scotch, so I took a Tylenol PM. You know you are not supposed to take those when you are drinking, right? So I read this morning in the Times, an article about how bad alcohol is for older people. Worse than it was before. But of course older people take more meds, and the interactions. . . blah blah blah blah blah. "No amount alcohol is good for you." I like that statement for you can read it two ways simultaneously and it makes the same sense each way. Both ways. I'll quit drinking. I swear. But I am to meet C.C. for lunch today. He's been in Scotland this past month. He says he brought me back a present. Hmm. What could you possibly get someone in Scotland? Right? But because of the PM, I didn't get out of bed at the usual time. Now it is after nine and my mind is still foggy. My voice was froggy when I was on the phone, too.
So either buckle up or exit now. God knows what is coming out of this drugged bucket of snakes this morning.
Here, now, I have just deleted a large chunk of writing connected to yesterday's post about the women I know. Yea. . . not making the best decisions this morning.
Some people say that Diddy "got off." I don't think so. His next freak off will be with his prison mates, I think.
I'm not even sure how Elvis got away with this. Really? Gay Elvis?
I've continued my journey through the old pictures. The one above is a scan of a glossy print from a photo lab. I can't find the negatives. I took that picture at Q's apartment long, long ago. There was a pair of ballet slippers on the window ledge. It must have been the '90s. No, maybe the early oughts. Q was in his heyday. Q was having fun.
I cooked a spaghetti dinner for my mother on Tuesday night. I made a steak and potatoes dinner for myself last night. I'm hungry, I think. Tomorrow it will be hotdogs with mom. There is a brand new George Foreman grill sitting on my porch right now, delivered at 7:01 this morning. My mother asked me to order it for her. I'll probably cook the hot dogs on it tomorrow.
This is my heyday. I'm just having fun.
Oh, heck. . . I just remembered what I was going to write about this morning. Gillian Welch and David Rawlings. Their first three albums thrilled me. Nothing in the late nineties sounded like that. They were all under Welch's name then. Rawlings was considered her "musical partner." I used to fall asleep to "Revelator" every night. I would be asleep before the song was over. I was married then. Hard to believe.
Later, after the divorce, after everything, I was driving my by then piece of shit Volvo home from work. It was raining, the first rain of the summer. The roads were slick with built up oil. I was listening to Welch's "My Morphine" when something seemed to take hold of the rear end of the car. It just started sliding sideways. I cut the wheel in what I would later learn was the wrong direction, and the car went into a spin through an intersection with ten lanes. The light was red. Round and round I spun, slowly, as the CD player bled the slow motion hillbilly tune. Miraculously, every car avoided me, and I spun until I hit the large roadside curb. The car bounced up and then came down and buried itself in the very soggy sod stopping mere inches from the huge silver electrical box standing before the giant concrete power pole. I sat there for awhile, windshield wipers thumping counterpoint to the music.
"My morphine. . . why are you so mean?"
The curb being so high, I couldn't go over it, and I had to drive the sidewalk for a block until I could get back to the highway. The car wobbled. The wheel rims were bent. I see-sawed my way back home.
When I got there, a tee limb had been blown down on top of the apartment roof. It had penetrated it all the way through.
Some days are like that.
I went to see Welch and Rawlings play at a medium sized venue in the "downtown" portion of the famous theme park here in my part of the world . They were opening for Nora Jones weirdly enough. After their set, David Rawlings came out to get a drink at the bar, so I went over to talk to him. Usually, and Q can attest to this having seen it with his own eyes, famous men don't like me. Rawlings, however, was swell, and we talked together for quite awhile, right up until Jones came on for her set.
They have gotten old now, like the rest of you. Welch and Rawlings are now married, and their music is published under both their names. If you watch this Tiny Desk Concert I am posting, you will see they are still good. Rawlings guitar work is still amazing, but it is still the same, too. He changed the way a lot of people play, not as much as someone like Mark Knopfler did, but still. . . . Welch would have been as big without him, I'm sure, but Rawlings. . . we'd probably not know his name. The third song of this set will tell you why. He sings great backup, but solo, his phrasing is not good. The words just don't come out right. Welch's phrasings carry their songs and rights their harmonies.
I still like them here. The first song is new. The second two songs are not so good. The last is from the '90s.
Probably, though, not so many of you are as interested in them as I am. Such is life.
It is too late now to do anything but shower and get ready for lunch with C.C. I will make no more sense there than I have here, I'd wager.
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