All the Right Notes

The Great Plotnik’s old friend Brother Streetnik called today. Brother Streetnik plays saxophone just the way Plotnik’s ears like to hear it. In the days when The Great Plotnik and Brother Streetnik were hitting the road playing as a duo, Plotnik always amazed at how effortlessly his partner could make a melody sing, as if he not only knew all the right notes, but also the wrong notes, that he could toy with to make the right ones sound that much sweeter. The Great Plotnik was never a great piano player, but he knew real from phony. A phony note never lived that could worm its way out of Brother Streetnik’s horn.

The two men talked about music in Africa, and about their kids and wives, and about Deep Fried Twinkies and all the sad, never-to-be-eaten doughnuts Brother Streetnik’s doctor won’t let him eat any more. They talked about heart attacks (Brother Streetnik had one recently) and about being on stage worrying about the next one. They talked about four hour gigs that last ten hours if you include driving to the gig, setting up, playing, breaking down and driving home. They talked about bad old gigs, and had a laugh remembering the wedding where the bride heaved the wedding cake in the groom’s face.

What good are traveling, or music, or food or families, or bad gigs, if you don’t have a best friend with whom to talk about it all afterwards? Friendship is the prize in the Crackerjack box, the cream in the Deep Fried Twinkie. Friends help to make life make sense. Otherwise, it’s all just greasy crust and a badly printed warning label that you may as well ignore.