To Aircrafts That Crashed, Killing Famous Musicians in their Prime

Rarely was it your fault. It was the bad weather, poor judgement and pressing performance schedules.

 

Otis Redding flying into Madison. Had you been able to speak, through whatever mechanism possible, you may have said, “You sure about this? Because that’s a small northern town surrounded by a lot of freezing water and I know you want to make that gig and they will love you there, but maybe you want to call that one off. The fans will survive. They’ll still buy your records.”

Redding had just recorded “Dock of the Bay.” “Wasting time…”

You wish they would call them weather crashes and not plane crashes. Place the blame where it belongs. Stevie Ray, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, Big Bopper, Patsy Cline. These are not your fault. You can’t stop people when they insist. The fog is dense. The wind is mad. You know where this is headed.

If it’s not the weather, it’s pilot error. John Denver hits the wrong switch, thinking he’s fueling up, but he’s not.  Jim Croce’s pilot manages to clip your wing on a pecan tree in Louisiana on take off. Aaliyah's pilot is drunk and high; you can feel it as he fumbles with the controls. You’re helpless.

Your engines rarely fail. Your mechanics are sound. Sure, you’re small, lightweight, but in skilled, sober hands you’re a pleasure, a marvel, a well-earned luxury after years of hard work, playing in bars and then packing up all that equipment at 4 AM, writing hundreds of songs, playing thousands of hours. Maybe they dreamed about the day when they would have their own plane. You’re the good life.

But you can only do so much. If the snow swirls or the rain batters your wings, you have to go. Engines on. Lift. They’re praying they make it. You know, even now, prayers aren’t enough to overcome this bad judgement.

To “Who’s on First” by Abbott and Costello

Who’s on first, What’s on second, IDon’tKnow is on third. 

 Bud is the straight man. Serious. Clear. Doesn’t crack a smile or lose composure.

Lou is the real comedy here, never catching on, always befuddled and guessing. Always working to understand. He’s hearing the words and he knows they should make sense, but they don’t. How is he supposed to know?

Watching this, we start out on Bud’s side, with his point of view. That’s the role of the straight man, the Everyman. He’s the one we are supposed to see ourselves in: sensible, grounded, reasonable. We understand more quickly than Lou that "Who" is the guy’s name.

But we change perspecitives. We remember all the times in our life we were Lou, when we asked and asked again, only to make things more confusing rather than less. We reworded the question and the answer got worse. We painted whole scenarios in which surely, when the blanks are filled in, the situation will make sense, but no.

When it happened to us, we usually weren’t laughing. Something was at stake and figuring it out was urgent. The computer was broken. The map was wrong. The diagnosis just didn’t seem like it could match these symptoms. Say that again. Say that again. Say it one more time, please. Could you write that down for me? What am I supposed to do exactly?

We’ve all been swimming in that disorientation. We’ve had to dive deep and forced our way up for air. So we know. And when Lou bangs the bat and throws his hat, we remember and now, we can laugh. We are Lou.

Naturally.

To The Person Who Wrote “Hello World” on a Dead End Street

On a dead end street. 

In Akron, Ohio.

Perhaps you thought no one would ever see it.

Akron.

Before we moved here, I had never heard of this town. Cleveland, sure. Cincinnati from the 1970’s TV show. Columbus when I learned the capitols. But Ohio, even as a whole state, was just a place filler on a map puzzle.

Ohio doesn’t have the romance of the West. Think about the deserts of Utah, the Rocky Mountains. It doesn’t have the glamour of Nevada. Ohio doesn’t have the south’s taste in food or the politics of New England. It is the everystate, with the most generic accent and the worst weather.

We are not a destination state.

And this little love letter isn’t going to save us and I’m not going to attempt it. We know, living here, the hand we have been dealt. We get courted heavily during election season, but other than that, we go silently about our business. We make the news the way every state does: a crime here, a storm there. We are not the most fit but we are not the most fat. We’re affordable. Chevys are affordable. Honda Civics. Fords. We are the Ford Escorts of states.

But someone, at the end of this tiny block, was feeling optimistic one day, happy enough to write it in big block letters and address it to the whole entire world. It’s been there for years. My son delivered papers on that street and he walked over those letters for years. They never fade. He passed the paper route on to another kid the way it passed on to him. Every week they get their papers, snowstorms and heat waves.

HELLO WORLD.

It’s amateur irony, and I love it.