In a summer swelter yesterday, I opened my sliding glass door wide and let a fan-pressed breeze run through my apartment. I scanned through my CDs and picked Eric Lindell's newest Alligator release -- a slow, bluesy thing called "Low on Cash, Rich in Love" -- and sat looking out over my balcony, smoking and sipping an iced rum and Coke.
The music was calming in the face of a crazy world. Bills piling and imprisonment threatening, the world was collapsing in Iran, in North Korea, and on Wall Street. Guantanamo seems closer every day.
But the music was there, soft acoustic guitar a walking easy funk like bare feet in sand by the water, and I lit a cigarette.
I thought about Michael and the media craze his death created.
"The world's slipping through our fingers, falling apart and going straight to hell," someone told me the day after he died. "And all anybody cares about is a pop star's death! When are people going to get serious?"
I sipped on my drink and looked out to where the sun was starting to fall behind another apartment building. I see my friend's point; I wish people would read up on current events once in awhile and try to get involved.
But I believe like fire in the power of music to change the world, to save a life. Lindell's soft-whisper love song was breaking down all the weight of the world and giving me a chance to see clearer, think sharper, feel more at-ease and confident. A quick shot of music like this chased with a political injection of "Street-Fighting Man" by The Rolling Stones and I could go out and get involved.
People like Michael impact the world the same as any great revolutionary. And so, sipping softly, here's to hoping someone as influential will come along and write a good song that wakes up the young people and makes them want to get their hands dirty.
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