Three Ways to Look at The World

Plot has a big brother but for awhile he felt like he had a little brother too. Jon was Plottie's bass player, band mate and confidant for quite a few years, but most of all he was a buddy. When he died in 2006 it left a hole. The hole is sealed up pretty well now.

That is, until Bobby comes to town. Bobby was Jon's uncle. His wife Janet was Ducknik's friend -- she introduced them and Plottie was the official who married them in upstate New York. How long ago? Two weeks later, Plot, Duck and two year old P-Dunk packed up the farmhouse, left the east and moved back to California.

Bob's sister Claire, who was Jon's mom, has come to town with Bobby too. They have a convention downtown and Bob will stay at World Headquarters while his sister, who finds it hard to get up and down stairs now, will stay in a hotel downtown.

So last night, Bob and Plottie stayed up talking for a long time. It all comes back in waves: hurt, and guilt, and betrayal, and sadness, all mixed with such happy memories about being young and in New York and having the world spread out for the taking. Jon is always in the middle of this.

Cancer and drugs. The kid who was all about fun died hard.

Bob was a real songwriter in those days, somebody who got PAID a SALARY to go to an office and WRITE SONGS. He wrote a song with Hoagie Carmichael, for God's sake. Then one day, while walking up Sixth Avenue, he announced to Plot and Duck that he wasn't going to do it any more. He didn't love it anymore. He was done. And he was.

Plot didn't believe him. He still doesn't believe him because great songs are not hatched or spawned. Songwriters create them. It's hard to do. If you are able to do it, why wouldn't you want to keep doing it?

A lot of talk. Seeing Bobby reminds The Great Plotnik that we always have three ways to look at the world. One way is remorse about the stuff we didn't do or haven't done. Plottie's brother Schmeckl is like that, but he's wrong.

Another is to figure that you've screwed up enough already so how much worse can you do? Jonny was like that. He was wrong too.

Plottie is on path three: you realize that shit happens and you hope it doesn't happen to you. In the meantime, you do what Bill T. Jones wrote in an interview in the Bird Wrap this morning:

Question: "Where in the world would you like to go?"

Answer: "You name the place and I'll pack my bag."