Inpiration, Part 1: While Our Guitar Gently Weeps
During my one and only visit to New Orleans in March 1988, I saw more street performers than you could shake a voodoo stick at. There was the older bald guy with a shaved head who stuck his tongue out and swiveled his hips. The mime who moved only when someone put money in his bucket. But my favorite was The Songwriter From Outer Space.
He was young like my friends and I were, but much hipper. He solicited song ideas from the crowd and then made up songs on the spot that revolved around that theme. I used to remember what he sang about, but it was so long ago, and so many more important thoughts, like, "Hmm...do I want paper or plastic?", have entered into my mind in the ensuing years, that I can no longer recall.
I don't really remember what he looked like, either. But I knew that I wanted him in my book, (C)rock Stories: Million-Dollar Tales of Music, Mayhem and Immaturity.
For the sake of fiction, though, it was better that I didn't remember, and just went ahead and made up his shtick. I gave him a Morris the Cat t-shirt, Buddy Holly glasses and bell bottoms. I had him make up a song about donuts.
And for his dramatic foil in the story, I gave him a father named Johnny Wallet. For this character I borrowed a misheard name from a New Hampshire auto mechanic who fixed the van that I eventually drove down to New Orleans (his name was actually Johnny Warwick, but because he was missing a LOT of teeth, I didn't suss out his name until about the 5th or 6th telling).
Johnny Wallet's character, well, that I stole from a street magician I saw in New Orleans, and, again, a few years later in Harvard Square. Mean, dirty and thieving, he has no respect for his son.
I got really into these characters, and toyed with the idea of blowing them out into a novel. In the short story, the Songwriter and Johnny Wallet fight over an heirloom guitar, and we get some sense of why. But I wanted to explore their family history, and circus sideshows, and revival meetings and 19th century snake oil salesmen. I started expanding the story, and may some day get back to it.
But for now, their story is short. And, I think, pretty funny, and crazy and fun to read.
He was young like my friends and I were, but much hipper. He solicited song ideas from the crowd and then made up songs on the spot that revolved around that theme. I used to remember what he sang about, but it was so long ago, and so many more important thoughts, like, "Hmm...do I want paper or plastic?", have entered into my mind in the ensuing years, that I can no longer recall.
I don't really remember what he looked like, either. But I knew that I wanted him in my book, (C)rock Stories: Million-Dollar Tales of Music, Mayhem and Immaturity.
For the sake of fiction, though, it was better that I didn't remember, and just went ahead and made up his shtick. I gave him a Morris the Cat t-shirt, Buddy Holly glasses and bell bottoms. I had him make up a song about donuts.
And for his dramatic foil in the story, I gave him a father named Johnny Wallet. For this character I borrowed a misheard name from a New Hampshire auto mechanic who fixed the van that I eventually drove down to New Orleans (his name was actually Johnny Warwick, but because he was missing a LOT of teeth, I didn't suss out his name until about the 5th or 6th telling).
Johnny Wallet's character, well, that I stole from a street magician I saw in New Orleans, and, again, a few years later in Harvard Square. Mean, dirty and thieving, he has no respect for his son.
I got really into these characters, and toyed with the idea of blowing them out into a novel. In the short story, the Songwriter and Johnny Wallet fight over an heirloom guitar, and we get some sense of why. But I wanted to explore their family history, and circus sideshows, and revival meetings and 19th century snake oil salesmen. I started expanding the story, and may some day get back to it.
But for now, their story is short. And, I think, pretty funny, and crazy and fun to read.
No comments have been added yet.
