random_memory_resurfaced raze late summer, 2001. my head is a mess, for various different reasons. my friend christian invites me to join him and his father at the bluesfest, down by the river. never one to dress for summer, i tag along wearing a blue button-up shirt and a pair of jeans. christian talks up the headliner — a hulking bluesman he saw play a few years back in a small bar, coaxing diamond-edged lead lines from a blue fender strat. at this show, he plays a red hollow-body gibson in its place. the music is not "proper" blues; it's more of a smooth electric strut with the soul and rough edges sanded down. disappointment curls across christian's face. this isn't what he signed up for. he'll later go home and write a rambling manifesto on the subject of music and what it should and shouldn't be, so deeply does the lack of pathos and grit unsettle him. but for me, the evening provides one small perfect moment that crystallizes all of my teenage confusion and unease. the bluesman is playing a song with a shuffling lilt to it, the rhythm section locked in behind him. "woke up last night," he sings. "you know, i was cryin' in my sleep." and then he laughs. for christian, this is unforgivable. it breaks whatever spell the song might have been weaving. in a way, it's the axis around which his entire written tirade spins. for me, it's just right. and it makes me smile, because i know what it means. sometimes you have to laugh to keep from crying. 130102 ... log burning fire when i was 12,i climbed a ladder in a hay mow, missed my step, and fell 20' to the concrete ground. i broke my left arm, saving my head. smart kid. 130103 ... raze playing the tom petty and the heartbreakers song "breakdown" with uncle jimmy and uncle donnie during a christmas jam session, probably about twenty years ago. i wish it hadn't taken tom petty dying to bring that one back. 171002 what's it to you? who go blather from