>2. Eddie is known to be a recluse who stays locked away in his
>3. Wealthy rock stars have paid servants who do their shopping for them
>(like buying cigarettes by the carton, not by the pack - he's a notorious
>chain smoker)!
>4. Eddie drinks Schlitz Malt Liquor Bulls all day long and is probably to
>schnockered to drive most of the time.
>So, it's just my opinion but I don't believe it was Eddie that day...
>
>> Not With Eddie
>> By TED E. GRAU - LA Weekly
>> Wednesday, January 10, 2007
>>
>> On a recent morning, as I was driving my beloved to work in Century
>> City from North Hollywood, we stopped at a gas station on the corner of
>> Coldwater and Ventura to load up on supplies (coffee, smokes, Bratz
>> press-on tattoos, etc.) before heading up the canyon to parts better
>> known and vastly overpriced.
>>
>> Tapping my toe to the hottest of Hindi hits lilting softly through the
>> burnt-coffee-scented air, I noticed a small commotion at the front of
>> the line. What I saw was a frail, hunched man, with longish, stringy
>> hair and gnarled, shaky, "hard work" hands, wearing a loose-fitting
>> long-john shirt, faded jeans and expensive track shoes. While the
>> cashier waited, the man muttered to himself as he arranged six packs of
>> smokes into a stack on the countertop - three packs of American
>> Spirit heavies, three packs of Marlboro Light 100s (the chica smoke of
>> choice). He was too well dressed to be a bum, but also too unkempt and
>> "lived in" to be anything other than a burned-out roadie or an
>> out-of-work roofer. He'd obviously seen too many late nights, but he
>> also seemed like a scrappy sort who could mix it up, work with his
>> hands, create... Hmmm... What's this Hessian dude's deal? And
>> what's with the smoke stacking, you goddamn smoke stacker?
>>
>> As I watched him futz around with the cigs and thought to myself,
>> "This is one chain-smoking mother fucker," he turned his head to
>> the side, giving me a brief glimpse of his profile. All at once, I
>> realized that he looked very familiar, like an old friend who didn't
>> look the way I remembered but was still very recognizable based on a
>> strong memory deeply rooted in the lizard brain of my youth. Then it
>> hit me, like the first strains of "Runnin' With the Devil," the
>> midpoint of "Eruption," the last note of "Ice Cream Man."
>>
>> This was Eddie Van Halen.
>>
>> Muttering to himself. Stuffing change into his wallet with shaky,
>> gnarled, hard-work hands. Stacking six packs of smokes on a countertop.
>> Two brands. Three a piece.
>>
>> This was Eddie Van Halen, my first guitar hero, the blistering virtuoso
>> with the striped guitar, the fuel behind the first great American
>> arena-rock supergroup.
>>
>> Eddie Van Halen, the musical whiz who was described as "coming from a
>> planet where everyone plays guitar." The guy who taught us about the
>> "hammer on" move and the tremolo, and who took fretwork to a whole
>> new stratosphere - or maybe just back to the planet he came from. The
>> icon who invented the tennis-racket air guitarist. The effortless
>> genius who grinned that laconic, dopey grin while blowing the doors off
>> of guitar convention when not blowing the embryonic matter off of MTV.
>> The man who married childhood boner queen Valerie Bertinelli.
>>
>> The guy we all once knew as just "Eddie."
>>
>> And now here he was, at 9 a.m. in the Valley, gathering up his smokes
>> and shuffling past me, eyes down, smelling of three-day-old liquor, and
>> out the door to the dirty Toyota Land Cruiser, and the young,
>> moderately pretty woman (certainly no boner queen) who waited for him
>> behind the wheel, smoking her long, chica Marlboro Light 100 and
>> yammering into her cell phone. Didn't she know who this was? He's a
>> Guitar God, you jabbering skank! Pay some respect and at least open the
>> door for this faded titan.
>>
>> But she didn't pay respect, nor did she even notice as my boyhood
>> hero walked to the front of the Land Cruiser, banged his head a few
>> times on the thin metal hood, and then mock collapsed, before slogging
>> wearily to the passenger door, as if it was all too much effort. Like
>> he was exhausted from the smoke stacking, from the journey, from the
>> memories of what he once was and what he will never get to be again.
>>
>> By this time, I stopped looking, for maybe the same reason that
>> Eddie's female friend stopped looking, as we all want to remember our
>> Gods and Monsters the way we did as children, when all seemed possible,
>> and men could be made giants, and giants into the infinite.
>>
>> I didn't even look to see where he went, or in which direction,
>> because I already knew, and didn't need to know the truth. At least
>> not this time.
>>
>> Not with Eddie.
>>
>>
http://www.laweekly.com/general/a-considerable-town/not-with-eddie/15381/
>>
