It woulda been in the late 1970’s.
A late weekday afternoon phone call at work.
“Hey! I got tickets for John Prine tonight. Wanna go?”
In the realm of stupid questions…
I know. I know. There are no stupid questions.
But Jesus!
“While out sailin’ on the ocean, while out sailin’ on the sea, I bumped into the Saviour and he said ‘Pardon me.’ I said, ‘Jesus, you look tired.’ And he said ‘Jesus, so do you.’” – John Prine.
It had been one of those livin’-too-near-the-abyss days. I had been berated by my customers (“This was cheaper last week”), berated by my employees (“I need the next three Saturdays off–I have a date/Why don’t you schedule more cashiers/The beer cooler is too cold to stock now”), and berated by my boss (Why is your payroll so high?). It had been a sweaty bike ride to work that morning, and promised to be a steamier ride home.
“He’s playin’ at the Idaho Round-Up tonight. First set’s at eight.”
The Idaho Round-Up was a local Lexington bar. It was about as far from Idaho as any place in Kentucky could be and the only “round-up” I could recall was when I was singing in a band a few years before in a bar in a nearby college town. The bar owner received a heads-up call from the local gendarmes to clear the room before the week-end patrol descended to check ID’s. As expected, they found none, and soon the crowd returned from the sidewalk across the street and no one was arrested. I, being the whitest and worst soul-singer in history probably shoulda been arrested, but there were still two hours to go in the gig and the bar owner still had drinks to sell. Pretty lame for a round-up…
Still, Idaho Round-Up sounded cowboyish and was easy to pronounce, even for the well-lubricated, and they managed to book some nice acts. Mr. Prine had played there with some regularity.
“The night club was burnin’ from the torch singer’s song and sweat was a’floodin’ her eyes. The catwalk creaked ‘neath the bartender’s feet and smoke was too heavy to rise.” – Prine.
The offer of tickets came from Richie Giallo, a wine salesman. I liked Richie. He was gaunt, red-headed, tightly-strung and…okay…if you watched yourself. When dealing with Richie, you needed to keep your store’s needs firmly fixed in mind before he babbled his blandishments. Then, give him half what he asked for, chat a bit about family matters, industry gossip, and the Reds’ chances. Then pull a reverse Columbo as he left; “Oh, by the way, here’s a few other things I need.”
I knew the dance.
He knew I knew the dance.
I knew he knew I knew…
All God’s children got music.
Of course I jumped at the chance to see Mr. Prine again.
“…I feel a storm all wet and warm not ten miles away…approaching…” – Prine.
It was an evening of many unknowns.
It turned out that Richie actually had several tickets. He was sitting at a table near the stage with a couple unknown to me and a date I’d never met, all drinking undetermined quantities of something unidentifiable from which emanated slowly spinning bits of spark and tabletop-searing ash…yes…probably unhealthy.
I was sitting a couple of rows back at a table with another couple I didn’t know and a date I’d met the day before. It was a different time then.
Then Mr. Prine hit the stage and I was basking in a glow of being home with a one-man family for Thanksgiving.
“Grandpa was a carpenter, built houses, cars, and banks, chained-smoked Camel cigarettes and hammered nails in planks. He was level on the level.” – Prine.
I first “met” John Prine on the floor of a barren, hippie-and-flea-infested house near the University of Kentucky campus. There was little furniture, but there was a turntable and four long-playing vinyl discs (that’s what “lp” means for you whippersnappers out there). Three of the records were by Prine, the fourth was disc one (of four) of Wagner’s “Gotterdammerung” (one of the current residents was beginning to take German). I was not taking German. I spun the Prine discs, first heard “Muhlenberg County” and was instantly hooked on Prine’s vocabulary.
“Onomatopoeia. I don’t wanna see ya speakin’ in a foreign tongue.” – Prine.
Then I saw him on stage for the first time in Centre College’s concert hall in Danville. It was a big, dark space. I was sitting in the upper level of the audience. Prine walked out with his guitar and a cigarette. It was just him, and a mike, and a wooden stool with a glass of water. He bobbed and weaved and shuffled his leg in a puzzling way. He drawled and sang and giggled for over two hours about a life I never lived…and made it mine.
“…and the sky is black and still now on the hill where the angels sing. Ain’t it funny how an old broken bottle looks just like a diamond ring?” – Prine.
No dammit, it wasn’t funny. And no, I’ve never been on that particular hill. But Mr. Prine put me there…forever…and I thank him for it.
After that concert in Danville, I followed him through his records and local appearances. I saw him in concert venues and night clubs about a dozen times.
Tonight he was jes’ fine as usual, but I was distracted.
My friend and host was in apparent distress. His head was drooping and his eyes were closed. His tablemates were laughing and pushing his floppiness around as if he were a Muppet until he was left sitting back in his seat, eyes still closed, and his head fully extended back with his Adam’s Apple pointing to the sky. It didn’t auger well for my friend’s well-being and I was, as usual, over-thinking the situation as to what, if anything, to do about it. Not so the other male component of our table. He swiftly and calmly moved and knelt behind my friend’s chair, straightened his head to a normal concert-watching position by cradling it in his arms. I followed him and assumed a similar posture on the other side of my friend’s chair. The other jolly’s at the table were at first dismayed by our intrusion, but still barely coherent enough to figure the odds of resisting. They ultimately sat subdued and the six of us finished the performance in our new positions.
“That’s the way that the world goes ‘round. Yer up one day and then yer down. It’s a happy enchilada and you think yer gonna drown…” – Prine…interpreted by a well-lubricated fan.
When the show was finished, I learned that my tablemate was an EMT. Under his instruction, we fastened my friend to his chair and conveyed him to the car. We drove him home, jimmied a large window on his porch, secured him to one of his own kitchen chairs and achieved putting him safely to bed. The EMT stayed with him through the night.
My friend was OK.
I never saw the EMT, his date, my date, or any of the other participants again…and that’s OK too, I guess. It was a different time then.
“I been brought down to zero, brought up and put back there. I sat on the park bench, kissed the girl with the black hair and my head hollered out to my heart; ‘Better look out below!’” –Prine.
I woulda liked to have helped more.
I woulda liked to have helped better.
But I lacked the knowledge and the skill.
“Before I took on anything too big, I’d wanna be sure I had a purty good cut man in my corner.” – John Steinbeck.
“I have always relied on the kindness of strangers” – Tennessee Williams.
Me too.
June's Boy 