On What Should Have Been John Prine's 74th Birthday

Today would have been John Prine’s 74^th birthday, but he died in April from complications of the coronavirus. Folk Alley is celebrating the day by playing his music all day—from midnight until midnight. I have been listening to his music continuously since awakening this morning at 6:15 am. Yes, various disc jockeys play the same songs, but I don’t care about the repetition at all. I have been listening to some of these songs for almost fifty years. At some point not long into the morning, I made a conscious decision to spend this entire day with John Prine, and now at 4:15p I know that I chose the best way to live my day in celebration with this wonderful man and his work. Over the course of today, I was enveloped in the music of  John Prine that revealed a remarkably constant and coherent display of one the kindest, socially conscious, humble, empathetic public performer I have ever experienced. Indeed, I can’t compare him with anyone else with whom I have known and even enjoyed. Within Prine’s songs rests an ironic acknowledgement of a sometimes chaotic and difficult world in which frail and often befuddled humans negotiate with more and less skill seeking some satisfaction and even happiness, and in which they achieve mostly marginal and imperfect result; of love surprisingly hard to find and often too soon lost, but that once realized changes everything about life; of a world in which those in power would ban all independence and sense of fun but in which protest is imperative; of a world that doesn’t always make sense and that can be sometimes cruel and cold but in which consideration of others and opportunities to offer for solace and comfort are always possible; and of a world in which dreams remain  too often unrealized but in which dreaming does not cease. 

 

The consistency of this world view throughout John Prine’s entire corpus has been rarely, well, if ever on view even among my heroes of the folk and rock world. Despite 50 years in the cut-throat environment of the record/recording industry a life of touring and hotel rooms and diner foods; of war and corruption, Prine’s work never capitulated to cynicism, despair or fear. Come on home, you don’t have to be alone, come on home. I wish I’d felt that. I wish I’d said that, and now I have. 

 

Today would have been John Prine’s 74^th birthday, but he died in April from complications of the coronavirus. Maybe it didn’t have to be this way and maybe the wrong people died from this iteration of the plague. But my day has been ennobled through my participation in this celebration of what should have been John Prine’s 74^th birthday. But that’s the way that the world goes round, one day you’re up, the next you’re down . . . 

 

 

Kryptonite

 I watched Superman every week on the family television and followed the adventures of Clark Kent (who in phone booths and back alleys transformed himself into Superman from a meek mild-mannered reporter for the Daily Planet newspaper); Lois Lane, who loved Superman and looked derisively at weak-kneed Clark who always managed to vanish when Superman would appear to the rescue; Jimmy Olsen, innocent and oblivious cub reporter; and the blustering and oblivious editor of the paper, Perry White. Superman could leap tall buildings in a single bound and was more powerful than a locomotive. He could fly faster than a speeding bullet and bend steel in his bare hands. Now that was a man! Ah, except for Superman’s vulnerability to kryptonite. That deadly ore from Superman’s planet of origin could lay the Man of Steel very, very low. This is not the place to address psychoanalytical theories concerning the dangers of pieces of home. The time is out of joint.

     But most of the time the Man of Steel seemed invincible. His x-ray vision could peer through walls to discover criminals at work or discover Lois or Jimmy tied to an explosive that would blow them, well, back to where Krypton used to be. Superman would catch bullets in his hand before they hit a body and he could lay himself down atop a bomb and absorb its destructive power saving the city once again. Ah, but there was that kryptonite.

     So I’m thinking of Superman today while I watched that fool Trump rip off his face mask and declared that though he had contracted the corona virus he had to go back to work because he is our leader. (I wanted so much to use the past tense of the verb!!) He said don’t be afraid of the corona virus but there are 210,000 people who will not be able to attend to his cheerleading cry. Despite the fact that he knew in March that coronavirus was more deadly than any flu, he did nothing. Without his mask Trump has risked and continues to risk infecting anyone who comes in contact with him—the White House has been decimated—though admittedly, whoever has already come in contact with that extremely dangerous man has risked serious loss of intelligence and any semblance of an awareness of ethics and honest behaviors.

     Actually, unlike Superman, I don’t think Trump would ever risk anything in  the precious maintenance of the invincible image he would project: he is a narcissistically disordered individual and is dangerous. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. I am the great and powerful Oz! At 250 pounds Trump is certainly never going to leap tall buildings in a single bound. Like Superman he is susceptible to kryptonite, but unlike Superman, Trump isn’t wise enough to keep away from it or to protect the others for whom this iteration of kryptonite is deadly.