America and a broad...learning to grow through Rock and Roll

I've been swearing for years that I would write this evil screed and promising myself even longer that I never would. For good or for ill, here it goes...To put it to print gives it life of another kind...here there be tigers...

I didn't like the United States or Americans and I made no bones about it. I felt, as many of my generation did, that American considered itself the police force of the world and the big brother to poor, peace loving, misguided Canada. I had no interest in seeing the polluted, venal streets more than I already had. So when a job offer came over the phone to join a band from New York, I was floored and hesitated, if only for a moment.
I am a writer. A dyed in the wool wordsmith for as long as I can remeber but there are times when even I, one who knows what it is he was meant to do, have held my nuts in my hand and jumped from complacent bluffs. The water is fine if you can take the fall. To that end, I picked up my first bass when I was seventeen. Casting off the sins of my fathers for sins of my very own.
And music has a way of twisting you, getting inside you, like a drug but like no other. If you have the guts enough to splay yourself , on stage, with nothing more to hide behind than a thin piece of wood and a couple of string, then you will be rewarded. Your reward is a lifetime of want and second guessing but those who know it wouldn't have it any other way. I wanted to tour with a professional band and for my sins I was given the chance.

A love song for the bungled and botched...

They tell you, "never get off the boat, never get off the boat. Fuckin' tigers, never get off the boat." And there are tigers but what they don't tell you is that the tigers are half fun...

There are a few out there who got off the boat and achieved something. Something real and substantial that will have an impact on the way a lifetime is seen. For good or ill, the results are clear and their deeds are sung from mountaintops and bar stools across the world. Jesus was such a man. So was Sonny Barger and the NASA scientist who invented the internet fuck machine. If you claim to be the son of god and have yourself nailed to a roof support, what is it to me? Maybe you want to wear a patch on your back and go war whooping around the bay area scaring the shit out draft dodgers and stomping Harvey Milk supporters, who am I to tell you that you can't. Or maybe you want to invent something that will twist us into completely asocial gobs of flesh that writhe and twist in the dark with pieces of skylab strapped onto our balls and fuck pornstars on a glowing electric fantasy. But who am I to deny your vision?
Because there remains us, the rest of us. Ordinary folks who take poisoned aspirin and fall down stairwells at four in the afternoon. People who drive fast down late night roads in the middle of a snowstorm with nothing more to worry about than getting caught and not falling in love.
I got off the boat once, briefly. Maybe I never did get back on it. And the tiger was right there, waiting for me, mouth agape. And I danced, oh how I danced in it's mouth. But it's not for everybody. Some will never know the pleasures and deformities a life of depravity has afforded me. Some prefer to stay in their state rooms and watch the coast go by, swearing they saw a tiger just off the shore line, never smelling it's hot gin soaked on a Saturday night breath or feeling it's teeth inching ever closer to their throats, not knowing whether to run or surrender to the feeling of it all.
Funny thing is, once I realized I would never be eaten, wouldn't be ripped to shreds, I began to look for something else, some new kind of fear and it brought me right back to where I began. Waiting in line to fall down my own flight of stairs and feeling alright with it. After all, wasn't there somebody already at the bottom of the stairs before me? Maybe not waiting for me but waiting nonetheless?
If there's one thing I have figured out it's that fate has a way of stepping in and pushing you where you are meant to go. Whether you are aware of it or not. And then fate disappears until you slip off the rails again. It's a hell of a ride but worth the price of admission if you can get a good seat...