A slow harmonica blues~~~
like you might have heard after midnight in the Desert Inn Lounge,1964: martini’s, perfume, smeared makeup, skinny ties, shiny dresses…
That’s what I was working on when I got the word that my most long-time friend was in the hospital, and not getting out alive. I’d known Ray since I was 9, playing trombones in the school band, and even then he showed signs of becoming the most complete curmudgeon I’ve ever known: a loyal, golden heart paired with the most crusty and irreverent manner imaginable. Banished by the good children at an early age, he maintained and cultivated that distance through self-exile and vocal contempt. His son, Jacob, called to tell me that if I had anything to say to him, Ray would be able to hear me, but wouldn’t be able to answer because of the ventilator tube. I felt completely unprepared and thought, “This is really it”. So I reminded him that he had been my friend for longer than anyone else on this earth. I told him I was going to name a blues song after him. I told him I loved him. I told him to relax, as much as he was able. Choked up, I told him “goodbye”.
In a minute, Jacob sent me a photo. It was Ray in the hospital bed: I.V. drip, tubes and meters everywhere, his hand outstretched toward me, middle finger….extended.
I made this video in Sunset Heights, the neighborhood where we lived in our college days, where we would stay up all night playing chess listening to the recording of the rock gig we’d just finished at The Silver Poodle bar, where you could hear him shouting expletives day or night if I managed a checkmate or took his queen, where he would always have extra food for me or some of the other single guys in the neighborhood, where Juárez, downtown El Paso and the mountains were always in sight.