Friday, November 05, 2004

The Last Splash

After listening to two very good friends of mine descend into a winless, backbiting argument the other night during a spectacular dinner with other close friends, the precious balance and worth of true friendship has weighed heavily on my mind and heart in these dark days of a seeming pending apocalypse post the presidential election. And in doing so, a memory came to the fore.
I remembered the last note I performed with my late “singin’ his ass off” friend. As if it was yesterday. At that time we’d been embroiled offstage and on for the better part of 15 years, and the record we’d been feverishly working on came to a close, for my part at least, with the single tinkle of an eight inch cymbal. I distinctly remember a wave of emotions flooding me after the cymbal had decayed to silence. My friend pressed the talk back and said, “That’s a wrap”, and solemnity shrouded me, inexplicably feeling as if I’d played my very last note with him.
That night while at a Mexican restaurant in the land of wine, pasta, and artisans of the most high, that inescapable feeling overwhelmed me again, feeling like some great chapter in my life had come to a close, even though there wasn’t anything on the horizon to indicate such. But felt it I did, and midway through our festive repast I had to take leave from our table to let tears spill from the confines of my emotional cup.
Bizarre, really, on the face of it, as I said there wasn’t any indication that my feelings held portent. But now, looking back on it, that was indeed the very last time that me and my friend made recorded music together. That single, solitary cymbal splash was the final note of many we’d created over the years. From the world’s finest stages and studios scattered all over this globe, we’d made quite a rumble during our heyday, but on that day, our working chapter had come to a close.
And now he is gone. And I still feel him. I still miss him. And every musical mark I create in this world there is a piece of him in it.
I still remember the splash of that little cymbal as it decayed into nothingness. It was a beautiful sound.

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