We toured like no one else toured. Hard. Relentless. We had no direction. No suitcase full of stage clothes. No new records to promote. Sometimes we didn’t even have merch. We were just two sinners trying to make up for our crimes and all of the lost time. We drove thousands and thousands of miles, sometimes all at once. Austin to Boise. Manhattan to Madison. We drove dumb but determined, mostly in silence. We didn’t do small talk. We did Mingus. And Beefheart. And Mott the Hoople. And Leonard Cohen. When we did talk, we dove deep. Love. Hate. Religion. Resentments. We shared a lot of those.
We played wherever they would let us. Churches. Basements. Living rooms. We played a Thanksgiving dinner on the beach In Massachusetts in the spring. We played a theater where Houdini disappeared. When there was no venue, we’d make one up. Do you have ten chairs and ten friends with ten dollars? There were no guarantees or performance fees. Just a handshake at the end of the show and we’ll take whatever you can spare. I’d open and show everyone the world from a distance. He’d show you the world down to the smallest detail inside your soul. Everyone felt a little better when we left. No time for small talk. There were more miles to cover. Unless there’s pie, of course.
Sometimes in the green room or in the wings I was the willing apprentice. Other times I was the boss. The parent. The teacher. The therapist. The patient. Always the driver. Something about traveling with someone who is somewhat infamous for a car wreck makes you want to drive all the time. At some point I guess I used all my tread. Just like a worn tire. There were bigger fish in the river I guess. “This is the business we’ve chosen” he’d say. I hated that kind of cowardly bullshit.
It’s a strange thing to read all these eulogies. Few people knew the man inside the Bear suit that I knew. That’s good. The myth is always better. And hopeful. What’s that saying about false hope?
I still carry the scars with me everyday in my clenched fists, but they’re less now. There must be an appropriate cliche about time and wounds? Once again, I have been left to do the heavy lifting and explaining. The grunt work. I’m going to let him off the hook one more time, like I always seemed to do.
I got to watch him bring a lot of light to a lot of people. Sometimes one at a time. He did his job on this mortal coil. And I know he would really love reading all the amazing things people are saying about him. Except for that one line he hated:
The best songwriter you never heard of…
That’s getting a lot of play today.
It’s complicated. You know.
Carry on, Captain. Rest easy.
