It Feels Just The Same whether it be thirty or sixty years... Picture me walkn around by myself in the downtown of a big city, on a crisp October day. Its 1935. Im in a relatively reflective mood this day as I would expect to be, ya see... because it happens to be my birthday. And I always do alot of private reflectn on my birthdays. Nothin wrong with takin stock, I say. Then it occurs to me, on this particular day in this big far away city... that nobody loves me and nobody seems to care. I dont know a soul here. Well, with this being about the size of it, I decide what the heck... this is how Im gonna to spend my day. Im gonna wander into unchartered territory here; the old downtown street corridors... and Im gonna scope out some fanciful architectural ornaments and details, you know, pretty things; cool design elements on buildings that most people walkn on these sidewalks never even see or notice in the first place, much less pay any attention to. Yeh, thats right... the good stuff hiding in plain sight. Did I ever tell ya that one time I was gonna be a promising young architect? Sure enough. I was in Architecture School for a year, but it didnt end up panning out the way I had figured in the beginning. Just having fun became my pre-eminent endeavor, and due to some assorted consequences of my change of focus, architecture, well, you might say it kinda fell by the wayside. But I still like it... so that may explain why I chose to spend my day in the above described way. Ok, so after a bit, I notice Im movin at a might slower gait than everybody else, staren up into the heavens and into store window displays; alluring doorways with engraved keyplates and shiney worn metal thresholds, beautifully carved and painted wood facings and ornate goblin cornices. Fancy gold leaf lettering and numbers in golden era styles abound and numerous striped canvas awnings are wagn in the breeze. Storefront flexsteel bars and gates with padlocks on em to keep out the burglars and thieves... theyre pushed back now, opened wide, ready for business. And I study the sidewalks; the old rusty diamondplate cellardoors, flat to the ground and round cast-iron smoking manhole covers and balding spectacled tailors with measuren tapes hangn from their chalk stained necks, hawking and motioning me on how good lookin Id be in a new set of fine handmade clothes. Then I become aware of a faint piano melody driftn over my right shoulder. As I adjust to change my course, I turn the corner follown my ear, and this air music leads me to a dark open door a couple blocks down on the right. Its a hole in the wall juke joint of sorts; red neon; drab peeln paint, unswept and smelln of stale drink and smoke. Remnants of stapled music gig posters long past cling to a telephone pole while my melodic curiosity still draws me inward like ghostspells cast by sirens on a foggy Mississippi riverbank plantation. I quickly see random and whispy shafts of white smoke, curling and piercing an otherwise dark and deep narrow cave inside. I ease on in but can only make out the silhouette of an old humpbacked bartender, a lone, thin-bodied woman talkn to him and a mysterious black piano player way back in the farthest corner. I buy a beer and a shot and begin to slowly walk my way back in his direction. I stop short, pull out a chair and straddle it backwards as he bangs out his blue notes and shouts his lament. Waitn a minute after he finishes, I ask him his name and where hes from. Hes a wiry old slender man; shabby light colored suit and well worn hat with a ruby red iridescent feather stuck in it. He takes his time on a long swig, wipes his lips with the back of his vein covered hand, then he looks up at me with seering gray eyes and says Im Pinetop Sparks, son... I hail from St. Louee. I wrote that song just this last spring 1935... and yes, son... everyday I have the blues. Then he picks up his bottle again, extends his arm out full length and swings it around straight to his right; cocks his head at me and grins real toothylike shown me a mouthful of gaps and gold, then he snaps his long bony fingers wide open in a flash. Well, Im watchn him like a hawk so I done seen what hes done. His bottle... it seems to drop in slowmotion to the floor, but when it finally shatters, Lord, I hear the greatest explosion in all my life and in a split-second later Im blinded by a powerful flash of the purest of white light... Well, when I come to and open my eyes, it is sixty years later to the day... and Im sittin in a striped canvas wooden lawnchair in the middle of a huge throng of people, smack dab in the middle of Hyde Park in London, England. Theres two giant wheels of pure white light flashn off in front of me and clouds of whispy white smoke driftn through the air, wafting in and out through the human wall of people standn around me. I rise to my feet and look in the direction of the two giant circles of white flashn light... and the very first thing he says to me is this.... It Feels Just The Same. Then he begins playing the song... that same old blue note song that I had heard over my shoulder sixty years before... when nobody loved me and nobody seemed to care. Think about that, now. Thats about a eighty year flashback, friends, at least thats the way I got it figured it in my head, anyway. It takes some pretty good sheeat or a wallop of imagination to accomplish that now... believe me. So, if you happen to have the blues... my recommendation to you is to play some blues real loud; do it when you can. Theres a very good chance youll be smiling in a few minutes, if not sooner. After that... just play the blues as you need em or you want em. They wont hurt ya... and theyll surely do you some good. You got to embrace the blues, my friends... you just got to.Theyll make you feel good and stop you from worryn now, ya hear? You can thank me later... youtube/watch?v=xMP--vtIkhc
Posted on: Thu, 27 Mar 2014 03:09:32 +0000
Trending Topics
© 2015