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| An old American Indian chief is talking to his grandson about the events of 9/11. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| "I feel like there are two wolves fighting for my heart," the old chief says. "One is an angry, vengeful wolf. The other is a kind, loving, forgiving wolf." | ||||||||||||||||||||
| "Which wolf will win the struggle in your heart?" asks the young brave. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| The old chief looks at him and says, "The one I feed." | ||||||||||||||||||||
| I'm sitting in the 3rd floor turret of Therese's bedroom, and I feel just fine. Therese is this fifty-something hippy who lives just off campus, in this enormous Victorian monstrosity, in this dying industrial swamp of a town. We're in her house to see this band from Nashville that's playing in her living room. We're in her bedroom to get high. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| "Oooo, I smell opium!!" It's Shirley. The life of the party, the girl everyone wants to be with. Shirley MacLaine, Shirley Jones. Shirley Temple, if that's your thing. Every guy in here is a little in love with Shirley, in one way or another. The girl across from me panics and says what's in this stuff, isn't this just dope? Someone else says there's a little opium mixed in too, just to relax you, take the edge off a little. This guy's got the stoner look, the dirty blonde hair and the goatee, the worn out t-shirt. This guy tells you to relax and take the edge off, and somehow you can picture your whole life spiraling away from one drug to the next. And you wonder if that's really such a bad thing. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Normally I'd be freaking out a little too, something about slippery slopes. I'm a little old to be broadening my horizons. But at the moment, I'm just relaxed and listening. I'm part of the wall, part of the world. Shirley's husband passes me the bong, and says keep it flowing. I wonder if this is the normal shit, or the opium shit. But it seems really important to keep it going, stoke that fire. I put my thumb on the carb and pull. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| This band. This band is fucking incredible. And in Therese's living room, everyone knows all the words. Between songs someone says I don't know any of you people, but I love all of you! There's a flash of a hippy feeling about that thought, and we all laugh about it for a minute, but then the band is going again, and Holmes' lyrics swallow us up. Sure, we're all a little baked and more than a little drunk, and everyone's digging the groove. But you could be stone cold sober, and these words would still knock you on your ass. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Holmes sings, "I'm doing battle with the Herculean shadow of another man's sins." Holmes sings, "I'll haunt these hallways impaled on a dagger of daylight for you." Shakespeare was a fucking hack. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| The thing about the Indian and the wolves is taped to the mirror in one of Therese's bathrooms. From the looks of this place, having forty or fifty strangers over for a night of music isn't a particularly rare event. The house looks like an antique shop, without the antiques. Everything appears to have gotten really old and worn a long time ago, and then stopped getting any older. The corner posts on the grand staircase are each carved into a Mexican figure, capped by a little wooden sombrero that used to be attached with a screw or something, but isn't anymore. About every fifth person that goes by knocks a sombrero off one of the corners. The whole house is like that. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| The band finishes off an acoustic set and leaves the stage, but since the stage is just someone's living room, there's nowhere really to go, so they stand outside on the front porch for a minute, then come back inside and do their encore. A few of the girls in the crowd stick around and let Holmes sign their left tit, and then Scot gets word of it, and signs the right. But it's all about Holmes, and his beautiful goddamn lyrics. They let the drummer sign their asses, but they want Holmes to write something on their hearts. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| As if Jeff Holmes needs a Sharpie to do that. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| 8/24/02 by SmoothP | ||||||||||||||||||||
| the band | ||||||||||||||||||||