It’s over, it’s done
I
didn’t expect it to end this way; ‘The day the music died’. It
happened just like that, a clean cut, both swift and silent like our
transition to ‘online’ from ‘in-school’.
I
expected our 93 year old band leader to die, then it would be over,
so I treasured every week when Thursdays came around. I even shaved
and made myself presentable. This has been my routine for over 20
years. About 10 years earlier, I was sitting at the bar listening
when the band leader while playing the keyboard, leaned to his right
to tell the trumpet to “keep playing, I feel funny”. In slow
motion I watched as he went down, smoothly winding up on the floor,
curled into a fetal position with a sweet look of peacefulness on his
face. I thought to myself, “what a perfect way to go out for him
doing what he loved, literally going ‘gentle into that good night’
But
he did not die that evening. He came to, and would not leave by
ambulance with the parameds who arrived in the lounge to attend to
him. You see, this happened once before at the Wharf House 20 years
previously due to dehydration and low blood sugar. So after our
bandleader came to, he drank some water and ate a cookie given to him
from a fan I called ‘the Cookie Momster’, who would bake and
distribute them to the band faithfully each Thursday. Oh by the way.
He finished the gig that night, like the ‘Spartan’ he has always
been, and is to this day.
Our
last date together was March 12, 2020. We got the call after that
informing us the music was suspended for the time being. Of course we
all understood so, what we didn’t understand, was that was
probably it on the live music scene, on the jams, on the concerts, on
the lively social scene around them, the community becoming a ghost
town, ‘ghosted’, and gone baby gone.
And
so are the activities and identities, and orientation of my week, and
what was my personal normal. Gone are the musical gatherings, the
friendships, the hanging out and hanging in with the band and with
that which is no longer, but a dream of days gone by. Along with
that, my canvas on which I paint metaphorically in song, my musical
chops, the loss for many of my musical friends of gigs, venues
booked, now closed, and festivals cancelled. Of life cancelled, of
love cancelled.
“Life is but a dream…
A dream we had of our life.
The people we’ve known and loved, and who’ve known and loved us.
Ephemeral and transient; in and out of time and space.
In my dream, I heard myself.
In my dream, I saw myself.
In my dream, I saw my life.
And in my life, I lived my dream.
And in my dream, I lived my life.” …Ronald Kaplan
And
when the music’s over, turn out the lights. …The Doors