We will fight with all we have against every single enemy of our country or Constitution, be they foreign or domestic.Beck On Rock & Roll
I was making the rounds of the usual suspects not long ago, when I came across a little blurb that Billy Beck had posted.
Now, some people think that Billy is an acquired taste and I could agree with that to a point. He does subscribe to a very ‘trench warfare’ style and no-holds-barred rationalism, but while he’s talking the talk he actually walks the walk, unlike 99.999% of the people out there spewing their opinions on Das UnterWebz. He has been that way for as long as I’ve known him, which has been a pretty long time.
While I have never agreed with every single thing he’s said, I always have respect for what he’s saying…and above that I’ve always admired the way Billy has with words. The man has a way with the English language that isn’t particularly common, and he always relates even the most complicated concepts into something understandable.
Here was the bit that got me:
“Rock & roll is about pressing on, through the last song, to the last fan, to that last piece of gear in the load-out in the dark, to that last step into the house when you can lay down that carry and sit down where your bones will rest.”
Now, I happen to literal knowledge of what he means, however the whole thing could be about anything, any occupation or any activity…that’s how good a turn it is.
And to me it’s something that seems to be getting more and more atypical. People who are willing to press on to the very end, no matter how difficult the conditions, the time, or the state of personal exhaustion. It’s easy to give up and just let it go, subscribe to the slacker mentality or simply throw up your hands and walk away when the going gets tough.
That’s what you see so much of these days, little or no work ethic, a lack of grit and pride…and growing numbers of people who simply don’t care. It’s a trend I find very disturbing. This is America, we are supposed to get it done, no matter what.
Alas, things change. People’s values change, their ethics change. Society changes and ultimately the world changes.
That doesn’t mean that I have to like the way it’s changing. I haven’t asked, but I imagine Billy and quite a number of other people out there don’t.
PS: Yes, he is wearing clothes in the above picture. He’s also wedged about 50 feet in the air between a rather small I-beam and a steel roof with the tempurature of a frying pan trying to hang two trucks of gear for me while I’m razzing him from the relative comfort of the ground. Pressing on, indeed.
{hah} I remember that.
You & me in Corpus Christi, 1998.
“A boy and his tape-measure.” (Bob Looney @ Lakewood, same tour.)
Thank, Scoots. You get it, and you’re right. This theme is much bigger than just rock shows.
(And I haven’t seen that image in a long time.)
At first I thought he was sitting up there playing that red LP til I took a closer look. LOL
Getting back to your original topic.
I am a person that has spent the better part of my adult life on my own making unique things happen with my mind and hands and all along I have been shocked at the numbers of people around that simply do not give one damn about what they are doing, on the job and other things. This fact is so stunning it is marveling (is that a word?).
Now, due to rude circumstances I am (temporarily) regularly thrust into an environment where volumes of people are paid meager sums to not do much of anything at all and most of them are very good at it. 2 hours from now I have to co-mingle with these people again and its the equivalent to putting my brain on autopilot full sleep mode while still keeping my eyes open and aware of my surroundings.
You can jail my body but you’ll never cage my mind and as long as I don’t mind it doesn’t matter but it matters and I do mind and it takes all I can muster to endure.
But like I said, this is temporary and again I will do as I must for that is my lot in this life.
Onward….
That black thing is a three-foot SpanSet sling made from my Troll Mk. VII harness to a lighter mountaineering sling made to a weld on top of the beam. Steel carabiner at the harness anchor-loop, for falling the line to the deck. Don’t remember exactly what that was about, but that one was odd that day.
And don’t let the bastages crank on you, Don. Maybe I’m just getting tired and my sense of humor is becoming truly sick, but I myself can find considerable satisfaction in cultivating a magnificent garden of contempt, these years.