It had been a "mandatory attend" function like many others that I had missed, trading raucous stories, joking with my musician-friends' wives that "they could do beter than "old stupid" listening to the best the local "music scene" had to offer, with my best old buddy playing steel with a GREAT BAND.

The place was an old lodge or grange hall of some type, now run as a "weddings and other functions" place. Due to the cleaning fluids and a mixture of Mr Clean, Ajax, faintly of deviled eggs, do to the "bring your own dinner" theme, with the heavy overpinning of no so subtly donned Chanel #5 Diamonds™, Tabu™ Old Spice, and Polo, it had the overall olfactory setting of a coat room in a morgue.. The visual ambience added to this I suppose, as the average age was "old" even through these 50 year old eyes that have been open many times they should not have been, as in the Jackson Browne song...

Seeing a lot of my Old Friends sitting idly while the excellent music went for cheap, trying to narrow the number of "available good looking women" down from 5 or 6 to one or two in the crowd of 200, I reminisced on how any given Sunday, back in "the day" would find a dozen similar functions, and Jam Sessions.

I "caught up" with my best steel playing friends, helped one that's been recently injured badly, and is having a brush with "feebility" out to his car without rolling him for his wallet..

Got in my car packed with all my gear to head off to a painful "rehearsal" of a new band.. and headed out over the imaginary "cattle guard".

It was then that I realised I was not alone in the Car..

With a HUGE shocking start I looked over and saw a rather guant, but extremely good looking middle aged woman in the passenger seat.

"Jeezus!" I said. She started laughing.. I shook my head a little, and breathed a good amount of her Liz Taylor perfume in, realising that I might as well relax. " Who the heck are YOU?" I asked, trying to get "comfortable".

She Laughed.. "Velda, sweetie. I thought you'd recognize me."..

I didn't, and it was becoming clear how unclear it was.

"OK".. I said, as if answering the phone while half asleep and waiting for another "clue".

"Your Muse"..

" Oh Boy.." I'm thinking, and might have said.

It went on for a while, and since I had long believed in her, it wasn't that long before we were talking "matter of fact", like you would with a woman of questionable morals, once she's made it clear what here 'intentions' of carnality are..

The "Why" of her "appearance" was because she realised that I was about to "hang it up"..

She said she sensed my impression of the "event" was as I mentioned, and that it was time for her to "get more involved". That it was time for her to "take more of a part" in my "life"..

We passed the time until I rolled up to the rehearsal place. I parked.

She came closer to me, and though it was awkward, we kissed. I was surprised at how easily it happened. (Things aren't going all that well at home anyhow..)

I looked at her well worn and made up "Katherine Harris" like visage, and asked her if that was what she really looked like. She said that what I saw was "my conception of her".

We kissed again. This time while my eyes were closed. During this pleasantly long ten seconds or so, I was struck with the thought that at times I had imagined her a green skinned, long toothed monster... I became aware of the feel of her lips, and noticed that there was no immediate change to a "serpentine texture". Hey. A guy can't be to careful with a supra natural being...

About that time, the cel phone rang. It was the current band leader. He had good news, and bad. The main club is cutting back, but 'we' have dates in Feb and March. But, the guitar player demanded more money so he got fired, and they will probably just have me playing solo lead etc. Not all so good..

Then, on firming up our "Nashville Visit" in Feb. I'm thinking "no", but then I'm realising that it might be a great chance to "recharge" and be able to get caught shoplifting things out of Seymore's Store and embarrass the hell out of him when he realises "just who" Damir has in the handcuffs... Well, it went on for a while, and again, the prospect of NO day job in the next three months until trac hoes become haulable again, I'm TRYING to think of the "up side". Velda is smiling, and fixing her lipstick in the mirror..

Then, one of the guys in the "rehersal band" walks out and waves, and I realise I'm an hour late to go in and go over "Seminole Wind" "Hotel California" and 50 other "cover tunes" for this 60@ nite gig I've been rehearsing for for 4 sessions.....

I end up telling the bandleader that I'd "get back to him".

I fold the phone, and turn to look at Velda.

She's gone, though her cigarette, a Virginia Slim, is still burning in the ash tray.

I got a feeling that she's gonna be back, and maybe quite a lot in the next couple months.

Looks like I'll have to use the old "gasoline trick" to hide the perfume when I get home..

I go in and rehearse, sounding amazingly good to them.

Out of the Corner of my eye I think I see Velda leaning against the wall by the door. I look at her, she yawns, and walks out..

The next hour sounded like hell, and I left with 3 CDs to "listen to"...

No Velda.. but it looks like she's gonna be back....

Just Like Old times...

Hmm.....

EJL

©2004 ARR EWP

[This message was edited by Eric West on 19 January 2004 at 11:35 PM.]

My Muse.

I'll tell you right up front, this one didn't work out so well for Velda, my Muse.

I woke up to my cel phone ringing about 8:31am. I knew it would NOT be a "musician", and so I answered it like I'd been awake for hours. You know the shtick..

"Hi, Eric?" the voice said,"This is Jeff from Moore Excavation." "Yes sir", I said, waking up at miles a second. Says Jeff. "We'd like you to come down and talk to the Owner and Truck Boss this morning if you would." "Sure, 10oohrs be OK?". " Great then." "Yeah I have a DMV readout. OK fine then..."

I get all ready, coffeed up suitably, shaved, put in my newest Harley Hat, grab my SPOTLESS DMV readout, and head out to the car. Damn. 5 months out of work and I'm climbing the WALLS..

It's a nice day out, traffic's moving great.

Then out of the corner of my right eye, THUMP!... Like a curtain ballast bag I see her sitting there..

Velda..

Not quite as nice looking as yesterday in the harsh morning light, not that I'm any pillar of youth... three cups of coffee tend to shrink my eye bags, and I realise she's probably not use to getting up that early... I give her a cigarette. she inhales about a quarter inch of it, and breathing out hoarsley,she says " That's better".

"So, what're you up so early for?" " Another fight?" breathing smoke out her nose as she spoke..

" Nope." I said half smiling, " Day Job."

"......Oh......", she haltingly says...

Then things changed. Her eyes took on the appearance more of a horned toad, with holes instead of pupils, and I could see it building gradually.... A DAY JOB..??!!?

"Yup". You know, " M O N E Y" spelling it out. I said, steeling my visage perceptably.

"Oh.. well I suppose you DO need to get that Marrs Rebuild, and a couple pair of new boots...." kind of pointedly....

"Yeah" I say, trying to make it lighter for us... "That's it"...

Her Muse-Mind wasn't working any sharper than mine, and before you know it, we were at the Company Shop/Yard. I left the radio on, and left her a few cigarettes, and showed her the half rack of pop under the passenger seat. She likes sugar.

Well, the Meeting with Mr Moore goes GREAT. 2 out of six Semi Dumps, Low boys and Transfers sitting empty after trying out some freeway truck drivers that didn't work out. They decided to bring the wages back up and go for "Experience". We talk about how I remember who owned the trucks before, and how I worked with several of their employees in other jobs. Seldom have I worked for an employer less then 5 years, No accidents, and NO tickets.

I mention my "music" and my 25 year non drinking, hand in hand, and they tell me theres no reason I'd have to work later than 6 pm on ANY day, Saturdays are "optional" as well as Sundays, and OT after 40. No "free driving" and NO pressure to push speed limits. Health care and matching 401k after 90 days.

I thank them, and set up the DOT drug test and 'test drive" for tomorrow.

When I am leaving, I realise that it might not please Velda all that much, though as before, I usually play full time when working full time jobs as long as it's available to just work "days" as in this case.

She shouldn't have any "issues" with that..

SO.... I get back in, after all the smoke pours out of the door, and while turning down the radio and the heater, (BOTH of which are up full blast) I realise that she's been "thinking".

(Thinking is NOT a good thing for a Muse, especially with a sugar buzz..)

As I pull out, I don't say anything, and neither does she. I say finally... " Well, ( ahem..) "That went OK..".

"OK?".. he says quizically.. "SOO. YOU GOT A DAY JOB?". ( Then it starts to come unhinged in the little Toyota...)

"A FRIGGING DAY JOB??!?!!?".

"Hey Hey" I say in a forcefull calming effort. It's JUST DAYS, Alright?".

It went on for a while, and I explained the way I'd keep playing, and maybe just have to can Nevada spots and the "trip to Nashville". I'd still have plenty to keep her busy..

All of a sudden she doesn't look like Katherine Harris, anymore.. or at least she looks like the Katherine Harris that Democrats see.. You know, the Cruella DeVille model.... Her skin starts scaling and turning green. I'd be a bit more shocked, but I'd seen it before. That's why I had hesitated while kissing her yesterday...

To paraphrase her "barrage", she reminded me How Much "I Owed Her", and "Without Her I'd be a pathetic Hack on my way to Nothingness".

It went on, and on. " Whe reminded me how she "spiffed me up" in front of Gary Morse at the Dierks Bentley Concert, and made Collin Raye REALLY like the Steel Guitar the time shortly after that when we were his "backup band". And on and on, with her reminding me that SHE makes those bags under my 50 year old eyeballs shrink up, and hides my ripped suitcoat sleeves on my left wrist.

I let it go on for a while longer..

All of a sudden, I looked at her as she lit another of my cigarettes.

I asked her with steely reserve.

"So you DO want to "help me"? "Of Course Dear". she said, looking a little less scaly..

You mean like you've helped ALL the GREAT ARTISTS?" "Yes". "Like Roger Miller, Ernest Tubb, Johnnie Paycheck, Johnny Cash, Jimmy Day, Don West, Dottie West, Tammy Wynette, Danny Shields?" I asked..

"Of Course Honey."

Well, about that time, I excused my reach, and reached over her like I was gonna grab another can of pop on the passenger floorboard.

I reached up, flicked the door latch, and in almost one smooth motion...

Pushed her out of the car, moving 70+mph on Interstate 84.... "See ya at the gig Friday.." I said as she haplessly left the door towards the fast moving pavement...

I looked back after straightening up, and was not surprised to see the traffic behind me not disturbed at all...

Oh Well....

To those sensitive among us, or pore old b0b, the kindhearted moderator, or Ms Brooks,equally as sensitive, I must calm and assuage your fears. I harmed NO ONE. In ANY way.

Muses have that sort of thing happen ALL THE TIME..

She'll be back, unharmed, and looking just as pretty the next time I plug in my guitar. Possibly this time she won't feel as much of a need to "personally interact" with me.

There is a saying and a "Theorum" I feel the need to impart to those only "moderately initiated" in "our craft":

quote:

---

You Can't kill a Muse. However, all things considered, the Reverse is not necessarily true. -Eric West-

---

Thanks for your forbearance in this appearantly fast moving, unpredictable, and ongoing saga.

I'm sure I'll see Velda again soon.... I'll keep cigarettes and pop handy.

In the meantime... Rehearsal tonite, drug test tomorrow, and a Day Job.... again.

More music and musings to follow as time allows.

EJL

©2004 ARR EWP

[This message was edited by Eric West on 08 February 2004 at 07:08 PM.]

------------------
JUST 'CAUSE I STEEL, DON'T MAKE ME A THIEF

It will ALL be "Musical" though. Not to worry.

We'll see. I haven't even cranked up the old panhead yet this year. That usually draws all kinds of intensity.

Thanks for your forebearance.

In advance, if that is the case..

EJL

Well, a couple weeks since my last meeting with Velda.

I had a week of driving a 75 foot transfer dump in inner city traffic, on a new job, working with a sewer line crew. Their first impression of me, the first week, might have been one of a guy showing up with 0 hrs sleep the first day, one, the second, and so on until friday, but I've put in years doing just that, and they couldn't tell.

I was playing a 9 night run and getting in at 1am. It's an unexpected "overlap" that has one more 9 nite period before I disappear back into "weekender status".

When she does show up, It's sitting disheveled in the passenger seat of a 91 Mack. There's plenty of sugared coffee and cigarette smoke, which keeps her at a mild roar, besides her memory of hitting the pavement in the last installment.

To keep her busy, and from nagging at me, I've put a tape of my teacher, playing with a band in a moose lodge in the tape player in the truck. His Muse flawessly helping him navigate fluctuating rythym, and unsure chord changes. I remind her what her Job actually is.

I tell her that if she want's the gig, that she's going to look forward to misc, critter club gigs that make the "tape loop" look like a "cakewalk". "Chicken Shack" played as a driving "straight eight" from 60bpm to 85bpm and back again in the same song. "Driving My Life Away" the same way. Waltzes where every beat is accented with a bass drum, bass and semi-closed hi hat...

About that time, I point my spray bottle of diesel at her, and tell her it's time to shut up while I do my paperwork. (Diesel is the Red Kryptonite of Muses.)

She rides home with me listening to a "work CD" of a band for the upcoming 9 niter that's having trouble with the chords to "Amarillo By Morning".

I tell her that I am well aware how many of my friends and mentors she's killed and ruined, and that my "use for her" is minimal at best, and she's lucky to get the gig. She could be swapped at any time to a non playing player that ratted me out to a girl we both know. It'd serve both of them right. He'd lose his marraige, house, and she'd lose a lot of "quality music" until his "career takes off"....

I hit the CD control to skip to "What was I thinkin'" and "I Love this Bar", and make sure she gets the modulations and tags.

She seems happier all of a sudden, and asks me if I'm headed over to the Guitar Center to grab a Fender Strat this weekend, now that I've made 2 grand in two weeks driving and laboring. I remind her that I have a perfectly good copy, and that an economy pickup is my next purchase.

I leave her a cup of coffee and a couple cigarettes in the pickup and get out after I get home. I tell her to come on down to the basement about 9 o'clock, and we'll talk. I'll have on Bobbe Seymore's CDs and I'll be playing along with "I Let My Mind Wander", and copping his licks to "Thanks A Lot".

She doesn't know what's next for "us". I'm leaving it that way for now. That'll keep her wheels turning, and her out of my life for long enough for me to strategize.

Of course I'll be picking gigs that are not going to be as "hard for her" as the last couple years of playing every local dogfight in my reach. I don't tell her that though, as she'd start getting "ahead of herself".

I'm having her focus on a possible " secret weekend away" in the next month.

For now, she's happy, and I haven't had to spray her with diesel.

Yet..

EJL

©2004 ARR EWP

[This message was edited by Eric West on 08 February 2004 at 10:52 PM.]

Covered the coffee can of #2 Diesel that guarded it, and watched the cobwebbed figure stir in the shaft of light.

"Wake Up Velda. We're going to Nashville."

Boy was that the wrong way to do it.

It was like being in a car wreck caused by a passing tornado.. Like a lit christmas tree exploding and throwing tinsel, bubbling lights, presents, lipstick, sequins, and fir splinters EVERYWHERE.

In the melee, I'm afraid Velda knocked over the #2 Diesel (The Red Kryptonite of Muses) splashing it all over the place, including her body, and she collapsed in a heap, groaning, losing conciousness.

I'll have to wash her off tomorrow night with some of that Big Orange.

Til then she'll be dormant.

Jeez...

I should have thought a little more..

Having two rear molar root canals at lunch today kind of muddied my judgement..

We'll try a different approach tomorrow..

EJL

© 2005 ARR EWP

[This message was edited by Eric West on 07 February 2005 at 10:16 PM.]

My meds make me feel like I'm in a plastic bag.

Thorazine and Lithium aren't the answer.

I can deal with the lows after all these years, and the highs?

Well, they're GREAT!

(smirking smiley)

I hope you are pursuing writing a novel, you have an absolute talent. Especially in speaking for this old "road bum steel player.

------------------
Howard, 'Les Paul Recording, Zum S12U, Vegas 400, Boss ME-5, Boss DM-3
http://www.Charmedmusic.com

"Hhuummm... umm... OH!... " she said, waking up.

"HOLD ON", I said, holding the can of Diesel in a threatening manner...

"Now LISTEN TO ME.." I said firmly, " We're going to Nashville in the morning", swirling the can around menacingly, ( #2 Diesel being the Red Kryptonite of Muses..) "and you're gonna SLOW DOWN.." I said, stepping over the wreckage or her explosion when I told her first..

Picking her up and fluffing her blouse out, I said "Now I could have just as easily have left you here, but I'm going to pick up my Marrs, and you might as well come along."

"How long have I been 'out'?", she asked.

"Well, since Xmas..", I said..

" YOU LEFT ME IN HERE FOR NEW YEARS EVE?"... "HEY! I said, again swirling the diesel in the can like a fine CB brandy. "All you missed was little Artie blowing up at Mike the drummer and breaking his arm in two places, a couple gigs til he got better, and the gig at Jubitz to see if he was going to make the night with his cast sawed off.."

"OK". she says. " Now. How long are we going to be there?".

Five days. Pick up the Marrs, see some sights, visit Bobbe, Mr Knight, and about four or five old friends, and inlaws, and back before the Spurs gig."

"Thats IT?" she says.

"Yup". That's it. I said with my eye cocked at the diesel. "Then it's back to work hauling equipment and weekend gigs..

"Now you're going to behave now?" I asked.

"Yesss..." she said shaking her head, "but..". "NO BUTS" I say firmly.

Well, in a way I start to feel sorry for her, in her natty scuffed up muse outfit, I give here a cigarette, and point her to the fridge, where the Presidents Choice Cola is..

I start feeling like a guy would after winning the heart of the most beautiful girl in town, and then years later realising that the years hit her way too fast, and that putting up with her temper and moods is about to outweigh all the former "beauty", if it hasn't already..

"You've got it wrong, you know..", she says, startling me.. " WHat?" I say innocently.

"I'm what you Imagine me to be." she says, "No more, no less.".

"..B..but you can't..." I started, "Yes, I can read it all right there in your pea brain." she says, chortling with smoke shooting out her nostrils.

"Well, Velda, here's the deal" I start. "You're just an ordinary muse, that god knows who you used to belong to, and I've LONG ago passed on the 'circuit' thing..".

"Oh", then you really don't like those carbon arc spotlights, the feeling of being "on top of the world", and the not being able to see if there are some "cuties" waiting after the show, before you go grab an elephant ear, corn dog, and curly fries, and head back to the room." she says sarcastically..

I forget for a moment, that she was there, and those eight balls and thousands of miles of driving made me older than they made her and she was right. I LOVED it.....

"No Velda, I'm just telling you not to get your hopes up, you being a little older and all..". Instead of the expected blow-up, and I was getting ready to duck for it, she very calmly looks at me and says,

"You're the one that imagines me this way.."

This sets me to thinking, and I shoot down the rest of my PC, put out a cigarette, and ask her, "So who did you belong to before you found me"?

"Can't tell you" she says, looking at her teeth in the mirror, "Muses Code".

I act like she has me going....

"Some Folk Singer?", I coyly ask..

"Nope. Higher"

"Top Star?" I say feigning stars in my eyes..

"You're getting WARM.."

"Well. I deadpan.."Are they alive?"

"No, you know that's not how it works.." she says with a smirking frown..

"So, they ended up with a lot of MONEY?" I ask, getting a little closer to the point..

"Well...".. "And YOU helped them get that way?"

I reminded her of her trip to the moving freeway.

I also reminded here that my leaving her there in the basement room in DISA (Diesel Induced Suspended Animation) while I woke up every morning at 6 and went to jobs that I didn't know I'd make it through in one piece, working around traffic, snapping binders all day, pulling shoring, and ripping stop signs off intersections with a truck about 50 feet too long for the corners and dodging enough traffic tickets every day to put me in jail for fourty years... was what has made it possible for me to GET my Marrs, PLAY the weekend jobs, BUY the new hundred dollar shirts, and GO to Nashville for a week.

" SO, Velda.. you got ONE choice."..

"Look the way I tell you to look, don't do ANYTHING for me that I don't ask you to do, and whatever you do DON'T make Bobbe's healthy looking Office Staff fall in love with me."

OR..

I go in and grab the diesel can, walk back in the room and...

SHE'S GONE!!..

(So is a newly opened pack of Winstons, and all the PC Cola in the fridge...)

About then I realise that I'm not totally in control of her for the next week.

Man's control of The Muse is tenuous at best..

Besides, I can't bring a can of #2 Diesel on the airplane..

I guess I'll see her in that Rental Lincoln while I'm jammin' down Highway 40 tomorrow nite..

EJL

C EWP 2005.

[This message was edited by Eric West on 12 February 2005 at 08:50 PM.]