Black and White

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I suppose it's often one of the big pursuits in life. To be remembered when you are gone. To permeate the fabric of culture at any given level. To create something that might be thought of from time to time whether someone is driving or dreaming; something that will outlast you.

Last night I sang a Roy Orbison song to a packed bar in the hometown. Imagine where that song was written. In a basement? On a cabana chair by a swimming pool under the blazing sun! Or maybe on a rainy morning, in a hotel room somewhere near Wink, Texas, after 15 cigarettes and three cups of black coffee. Whatever the case, that single moment was paid tribute to last night, and resurrected. I am sure it happens a thousand times a day, and will continue to do so for some time. Now that, is immortality.

After the show, I left the room with three girls, got into a cab and raced north to a restaurant which was closed, but was still hosting a private party for staff and their friends. Despite nearly getting into a car crash on the way there, the chance to sit in one of my favorite dining rooms drinking free beer was well worth the near death experience on the way there. Seeing all the tables empty made me think about the many times that I had been there in the past. I looked at every chair I ever sat in, and thought about each person I was with when I sat there, what I ate and drank, and what was said. I used to go there with Vernice mostly. Always hung over, we would drink strong coffee and while away the sunny spring sundays. But now, the place was empty, and the room quiet, except for the chatter of our small party. I felt like I was seeing ghosts of myself all around the restaurant, invisible, entirely cerebral, yet terrifying all the same. I guess I felt like I was dead, and the moments that I spent in those chairs were only moments, indistinguishable amongst the hundred or so other people that must sit there everyday, saying the same things, sharing essentially the same experience.

We turned out the lights, locked the door, and smoked a joint out front. I didn't want to go home and face the coming day alone, so I phoned Dragica who was with Remington and Leroy on their way back to her place, only a few blocks from where I was standing. Within a half hour we were all together again, at Dragica's. We frantically talked about how the night unfolded while Boogie Nights played on the TV in the background and drank tea. Eventually the sun started to come up, and we all went out for a huge Dim Sum breakfast. Most of the people that were with us the night before had joined us again. Eventually we wound up with a party of 12 sleep depraved friends, eating congee with hot and sour soup while spinning a tea pot to each other with a lazy suzan, so each of us could fill their cups, and eventually nurse themselves back to wellness. It was what I had been waiting for all night.

Exhausted I could put coming home off no longer, and while it was a wonderful night, it wasn't the stuff of legends, just a beautiful frame of time that will be remembered fondly by a few. And maybe that's better, more real, and more intimate than someone singing something you wrote into a straw. But wouldn't it be lovely to have both? To have private moments remembered forever? Recreated, emulated, thought of, talked about, even analysed, until they finally climb their way into the cannon of pop culture. Perhaps it would be horrific, but I still chase the dream despite its obvious evils. Which must have been why I picked up the guitar when I got home, and made another hopeless attempt to live forever.