In lieu of fiction

Am reading a (quietly surprising) book now… see if you can figure out who’s narrating without Google-ing. Sorry, no prizes, I’m still broke 😀 (And yes, I wasted my time typing it all instead of, say, writing something interesting and original.)

One night, Bono, the singer from U2, was over for dinner with some other friends, Spending time with Bono was like eating dinner on a train — feels like you’re moving, going somewhere. Bono’s got the soul of an ancient poet and you have to be careful around him. He can roar ’til the earth shakes. He’s also a closet philosopher. He brought a case of Guinness with him. We were talking about things that you talk about when you’re spending the winter with somebody — talked about Jack Kerouac. Bono knows Kerouac’s stuff pretty good. Kerouac, who celebrated American towns like Truckee, Fargo, Butte and Madora — towns that most Americans never heard of. It seems funny that Bono would know more about Kerouac more than most Americans. Bono says things that can sway anybody. He’s like that guy in the old movie, the one who beats up a rat with his bare hands and wrings a confession out of him. If Bono had come to America in the early part of the century he would have been a cop. He seems to know a lot about America and what he doesn’t, he’s curious about.

We talked about fame and both agreed that the funny thing about fame is that nobody believes it’s you. Warhol’s name got batted around, too. Warhol, the king of pop. One art critic in Warhol’s time had said that he’d give you a million dollars if you could find one ounce of hope or love in any of his work, as if that was important. Names appear in conversation and slip away. Names that have a certain feel to them. Idi Amin, Lenny Bruce, Roman Polanski, Herman Melville, Mose Allison, Soutine the painter, the Jimmy Reed of the art world. When Bono or me aren’t exactly sure about somebody, we just make it up. We can strengthen any argument by expanding on something either real or not real. Neither of us are nostalgic, and nostalgia doesn’t enter into anything and we’re gonna make damn sure about that. Bono says something about the English coming here and settling Jamestown and that the Irish built New York City — talks about the rightness, the richness, glory, beauty, wonder and magnificence of America. I told him that if he wants to see the birthplace of America, he should go to Alexandria, Minnesota.

It was just me and Bono sitting around the table. Everyone else was scattered about. My wife came by and said she was going up to bed. “Go on up,” I said, “I’m going up in a minute.” It took me a while to get there, though, and the case of Guinness was almost gone. “Where’s Alexandria?” Bono asked. I tell him that’s where the Vikings came and settled in the 1300s, said that there’s a wooden statue of a Viking in Alexandria and it doesn’t look anything like a dignified founding father of America. He’s bearded, wears a helmet, strapped knee-high boots, long dagger in a sheath, holding a spear at his side, wearing a kilt — holding a shield that says, “The birthplace of America.” Bono asks me how to get there and I tell him to follow the river up through Winona, Lake City, Frontenae and get onto Highway 10 all the way to Wadena, make a left on 29 and you’ll run right into it. You shouldn’t have any trouble getting there. Bono asked me where I was originally from and I told him the Iron Trail, the Mesabi Iron Range. “What does Mesabi mean?” he asked. I told him it was an Ojibwa word, means Land of Giants.

The night wore on. Out at sea, the lights of a freighter moved by every so often. Bono asked me if I’d had any new songs, any unrecorded ones. It just so happened that I did. I went into the other room and pulled them out of the drawer, brought them back and showed it to him. He looked them over, said I should record them. I said that I wasn’t so sure about that, thought that maybe I should pour lighter fluid over them — said that I had been having a hard time making records, making that work out. He said, “No, no,” and he brought up the name of Daniel Lanois… said that U2 had worked with him and he had been a great partner — that he’d be perfect for me to work with — would have much to scramble into the mix. Lanois had musical ideas that were compatible to mine. Bono picked up the phone and dialed the man, put him on the phone with me and we spoke for a moment. Basically, what Lanois said was that he was working out of New Orleans and told me that if I was ever there, I should look him up. I said that I would do that. To be sure, I was in no hurry to record. Performing was what was on my mind first and foremost. If I ever did make another record, it would have to have something in common with that purpose. I had a clear road ahead and didn’t want to blow the chance to regain my musical freedom. I needed to let things straightened out and not get mixed up anymore.

That concludes my spamming for today. Good byte.

Photo by Todd Poirier on Unsplash