Friday, January 09, 2004
This Stuff’ll Kill You
It started when I recently finished Blair Jackson’s biography of Jerry Garcia. A friend was moving and I think he wanted to lighten the number of things he’d have to pack, so he lent me this 500 page book and I read it. I really enjoyed the book. I have some issues with it, but that’s not my point. The thing it really made me think about was Robert Hunter’s lyrics, many of which I’d never seen written out before. Damn that man could paint pictures, the kind where you often weren’t sure what you were looking at, superficially simple but with complex depths. And of course I learned a lot more about the Dead than I’d known before. For what it’s worth I’d seen about 30 or so shows before the scene turned me off. And not the deadhead scene, but the burgeoning frat party scene of drunken brawling oglers. The stoners were fine; the boozers were the buzzkill. And in a similar vein, the first member of the band to die died of alcoholic cirrhosis; the longtime bass player was also an abuser, and underwent a liver transplant in the years since Jerry’s death. Brent died from a speedball; he was a hardcore smack user and that’s a pity. Jerry died of heart failure and coronary obstructive disease from years of sloth and malign neglect, but he sure didn’t die of an overdose.
I do not raise all this crap to suggest that Jerry was clean, or sober, or anything like that, but I do notice that alcohol played as destructive a role in the lives of these artists, and in so many others, as has any other form of intoxicant. Certainly, it’s very unusual for anyone to die from using hallucinogens, but I do know that those substances can lead to hospitalizations, whether for a calming-down or to address injuries suffered when high. Nobody dies from using pot. It’s just a medical chimera; those mortalities do not exist.
So: my point is that we are now getting the daily paper. (I guess this isn’t my point yet, but I assure you, it’s probably coming soon.) We didn’t ask for it but it’s being delivered, and since the landlady downstairs isn’t picking it up, I sometimes do, and when I do I sometimes read bits of it. Today I read a bit of the Opinion page, on which appeared a byline editorial regarding Jerry, the Dead, and the drug culture. The author’s gist is that, because of their promotion of drug use and a drug culture, liking the Dead is essentially immoral. And having read that, I had to sit up for a moment and recall what had actually been the most dangerous abused substance by the members of that band and its fans and the subjects of medical research and empirical statistical studies, and I found it ludicrous that alcohol was completely omitted from this article. That’ll kill you faster than heroin, and you’re more likely to take someone else with you, too. I found myself remembering Robert Hunter’s great lyrics from Wharf Rat and Jack Straw and so many ballads of lost drunkards… and thinking how long it had been since I’d tried a lyric… and suddenly I’d written one.
This one wrote itself so quickly that I was wondering what had happened. Typing it into the computer I realized I’d basically taken Ship of Fools and written new words and a different bridge to it, but I still like it and if you care to read it it’s in the expanded text below.
I’m sitting here alone at 10 pm with a bottle of Merlot that was full when I started this and will probably be empty by the time I shut this computer off tonight. I bought it legally, in a store dedicated solely for that purpose. I’m drinking from a glass tumbler that has a picture of a big cartoony fireplug on one side and a big yellow cartoony dog pacing about with shifty eyes on the other side. I’m no poster boy for self-control or responsibility. But at least I don’t go blaming hallucinogens and tetracannabanols for the harm done by perfectly legal alcohol. And remember: guns don’t kill people. Bullets kill people.
EPILOGUE: 12:35 am
That wine is now gone. Wait - now it’s gone. A Montpellier Merlot, 2001. Rotgut would be an uncalled-for aspersion. But I’ve had better. Loads better. Didn’t slow me down much. And with that, I bid ye goodnight.
KING OF FOOLS
He staggered to the oaken board
and leaned against it weak,
a mumbled murmur slipped his lips
as if it hurt to speak.
I couldn’t hear him for the din
of rowdy barroom boys
so I put away my dingy rag
strained to listen through the noise.
I came in here to have a drink,
he muttered to his hands,
The year was 1983;
I thought I was a man.
I drank the whiskey, wine and rum
I drank the golden beer
I drank until I lost my name
and filled its place with fear.
How I escaped I never learned
I woke up in the street
my lips all parched from needing drink
the shoes gone from my feet
And that was when I raised me up
confronting fiery trials
for I had never been a man
I barely was a child.
Floors full of sawdust and and drunken men
who can’t get off their stools
I wanted them to make me their king
but I was the King of Fools.
I listened to his sorry tale
and never said a word
until he stared up empty-like
with the eyes of the interred.
So did you then become a man?,
I asked him with a smile;
Did you discover hidden lands
or walk a mighty mile?
Did you create a work of art
that beggars words like “life?”
Or did you just get tired and old,
too weak to wield a knife?
I see you’re back where once you were,
your old familiar place;
I cannot say I know your name
but legion is your face.
I’ve poured a thousand thousand shots
for you, my friend, for you,
and you’ve forgot a thousand names
and none of them were true.
So how about I set you up
so you can paint the town
and if you spurn my baptism
then you deserve your crown.
He came for a lesson in being a man
and I called him to school
He started at the head of the class
for he was the King of Fools.
He stared down at that amber pool
He breathed its dark perfume
and then his voice was clear and strong
his words filled up the room:
You do not understand my plight,
he carefully pronounced,
You act as if I have a choice
like I could leave this house.
It’s past the point of yes or no;
the die’s been cast and broke;
I’m not a king, nor even knave -
I’m just a jester’s joke.
This body cannot drink your wine
nor sleep nor eat nor love;
there’s nothing here but plain regret,
a promise never proved.
He wrapped his fist around the drink
his fingers passed clean through
his empty eyes spoke volumes
no words could be so true.
I drank that shot I’d poured for him,
refilled, and rang the bell -
Let’s have a toast the the King of Fools
and then I’ll fare thee well.
I’ll take your money, watch and ring
but life’s a precious jewel
I cannot take what you don’t give
Are you a king or fool?
