Absurdity Still Within Reach

I knew something was wrong when I walked into the room and the booking manager and one of the secretaries recognized me as Chuck Berry.  It dawned on me that I was not.  The show would be this evening.  A few thousand people would attend.  Everyone was pretty nonchalant about the proceedings.  But I began to wonder if I could really play any Chuck Berry songs.  I also wondered how it was I would make myself look like Chuck Berry.  I’m not lanky.  I’m not black.  Could I do that swinging knee thing he did?

It occurred to me that I would need to practice.  A lot.  And I only had a few hours to learn 'Mableyne' and 'Johnny Be Goode' and so many other songs.  I considered the way that I’d once seen Eric Clapton describe Chuck Berry as having “laid down the law," for Rock and Roll with his rhythmic bending of two and three strings at a time.  Would I be able to do that?

I reached out to my friend in San Francisco.  I imagined him there in a version of the house he hasn’t lived in for years.  I explained a bit of my inexplicable predicament.  He’s an excellent guitarist you see.  He doesn’t look any more like Chuck Berry than I do but he’d have mature thoughts on how to approximate his strum, if not his voice.  He listened.  Agreed it would be tough and then, I was no longer speaking with him.  I began to worry once again. 

The crowd would know.  They would definitely know I wasn’t Chuck Berry.  I don’t know how I got passed the club management or indeed what compelled me to even try.  But surely, I reckoned, once the lights dimmed and someone announced the King of Rock and Roll and out walked me, they’d know something was wrong.  I’d probably not even get through one song before my playing would be exposed as a poor facsimile. 

I was more relieved than one usually is, waking from strange anxiety dreams, realizing that no, I would not have to perform 'Hail, Hail, Rock and Roll' this evening.  Perhaps this had to do with the way I woke and the gentle access to the prolonged absurdity still within reach.  So many critical survival factors are suppressed in the dream world, like the ability to ask: “Why would I even want to pretend I’m Chuck Berry?”

Saturday, 09/07/19