> 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/
>