Helpless

They say that smell is the most visceral trigger for memory. For me it's music. A song can take me back to exactly where I was when it was played. Usually not the first time I heard it, but a pivotal moment when it was played. That's why this blog was named after two songs - Verdi Cries by 10,000 Maniacs and Gypsy by Suzanne Vega. I have a ton of memories wrapped up in those songs.

So Neil Young just took me back to last year. It was fall, or maybe spring. It was warm enough to sit outside, but cool enough to have sleeves on, which in North Carolina narrows it down to about 4 months, or random days in January. Irrelevant.

Matty was in town for work, and we had just finished dinner at Lone Star. Me, Matty, Suzy and a buddy of Matty's from work. The SoCo was flowing, and the dial-a-shots were dialing. We caught Wes in his office, and in a John Grisham moment if I've ever seen one, he pulled down a bottle of 18-year-old scotch that a client had given him in trade for attorney's fees to do a sot with us. We caught Maudie at the computer, and she said "oh, sure. I keep a bottle of Cuervo by the monitor for dial-a-shots."

Yeah, my friends and I drink a little. My street cred with Matty went through the roof last week when he called me for a dial-a-shot and my response was "alright, lemme grab the moonshine my dad gave me last time I visited." I grabbed a quart jar of corn likker (and yes, dammit, that is how you spell it) and did a shot with Matty and Garth as the were partying in DC.

But this particular evening was colored not just with the amber haze of SoCo and Yuengling (which Speaker still can't pronounce), but the setting sun as we sat on the porch telling stories about growing up in the boonies, talking about music and telling the infamous donkey-fucking story. At some point I think we may have mentioned poker, but only for about a minute anda half. Matty got off on telling me about The Last Waltz, Scorsese's documentary of The Band's farewell concert (which I still have to rent at some point), and we got to talking about Neil Young.

Then we got to the next joint, a pool hall, and as we pulled up, Neil's "Helpless" comes on the iPod and me and Matty sing (if you could really call it that) along to my car stereo in the parking lot before we go inside to continue getting bachelor party drunk. It was a great night in a rough year for both Matty and me, and points out the true depth of some of these formerly invisible internet friendships that I've developed over the last two years. We're tied together with far more than poker and blogging. We're music lovers, artists, writers, philosophers, drunks, partiers and true friends.

Tags: The Last Waltz, Neil Young