Inspiration, Or Something Like It

AlmostTheRealThing
NotQuiteHSTFriday

So, I meant to post a new HST story up today.

But life and work both got in the way.

And tonight we've gotta go see 'Jack Black in Tights' because both my kids, Bigger E. and Littler E., are suckers for the Manic Man's magic.

Not to mention my wife C., who even laughed her head off at Black showing Letterman how he 'trained' for his escape run in King Kong.

Thus, please accept my apologies for the re-play from February, but this, I think, is a good one.......

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What Else Could You Possibly Ask For?

AllMyBackPages
AreHersVille

I've talked a lot about my obsessions for the writings of Hunter Thompson before.

And I've told lots of people that the lark that made Thompson famous, writing about his fear and loathing, is not my favorite bit. On the other hand, I have also told the remaining few that will listen about the king-hell time I had reading 'The Lark' for the first time, all at once, purely for the adrenaline rush of the language, while holed up a tiny woodstove-heated cabin located high in the Sooke Hills in the early 1980's. But I don't think I've ever told anybody about my reaction to the dedication at the front end the thing in which Thompson thanked Bob Dylan. For Mr. Tambourine Man. Back then I was a much, much younger man but Dylan was already old, as were his best songs. And both were already washed up in my estimation.

That, of course, was the hubris of youth at work. Which, luckily, is a job I quit some time ago.

****

Anyway.

Tonight was a night like a thousand others at our house (which is one of those half-million dollar working-class bungalows in David Emerson's Vancouver-Kingsway riding). And it ended with me playing my very bad guitar for my youngest kid, who is now six, at bedtime.

She likes what she calls 'story songs' in which I make up a dumber-than-dumb, almost rhyming couplet-type lyric about the day gone by that is laid over a bit of two chord chicanery that sounds vaguely reminscent of the pseudo-talking blues line that runs under the verses of Lou Reed's 'Take A Walk On The Wild Side'.

Usually she fades fast, but tonight Little E. was still awake when I finished my drone, and as I got up to go she whispered, 'You're not leaving are you Dad?'

How could I possibly go?

So I stayed.

And I played Mr. Tambourine Man. She fell asleep half-way through the second verse; I could tell by her breathing.

But I kept going anyway.

Often as I move through it, and especially if I know nobody's listening, I'll try to switch from Zimmerman's nasal to McGuinn's falsetto in the last half. I honestly don't remember what voice I was affecting tonight. But I do remember the last few lines of the very last verse.

"Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free,
Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands,
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves,
Let me forget about today until tomorrow."

And so I ask you.

What else could a Dad possibly ask for his kid?

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OK?

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Photo credit: Little E. and me, taken by Bigger E. at last year's (2005) PNE. The original story, from February 2006 can be reached through the sidebar link titled 'TamborineMen'.

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