The Byrds: Gene Clark, Roger McGuinn, Chris Hillman, David Crosby, Mike Clarke
I have to tell you, ye faithful of the All John All The Time World Church, that I am still so excited I could pee myself, I mean, I am really...rats...back in a minute.
Okay, quick shower and a change of undergarments and I'm back in business.
I mean, we're talking MAJOR excitement here, which, for a guy my age, can sometimes be represented by a good poop, but this is WAY better than that, this is way better than a 15-minute erection even.
Okay, please let me explain, and please bear with me, dear followers, for this one may take awhile.
If you read my post from the 9th of February, you will recall that I was talking about how I had read an article in the L.A. Times a few days before, explaining how NASA scientists had recently discovered a bunch of planets in our galaxy that they thought would sustain life as we know it, and one of the things I mentioned in that post was the radio signal that was received from outer space back in the early '60s that was originally thought, due to it's nature, to be generated by an intelligent species from "out there" somewhere; scientists named this signal C.T.A.-102 (no idea what that actually means, other than being a designator). It turned out to be a "quasar", which is organic, and the whole thing became kind of a big ha-ha, oh well, I guess we blew that one.
I recalled the C.T.A.-102 signal when I was reading the Times report, and to get the info for the post, I Goggled the term, found a WikiPedia article and went from there. At the bottom of the article I found this esoteric remark, which I will quote here: "The naive view of C.T.A.-102 as a sign of extra terrestrial intelligence was captured in the Byrds' 1967 song, 'C.T.A.-102".
Now I have been a HUGE (excuse me, HUGE) Byrds fan since back in the early '60s, back when I was just a Popeette, when I heard for the first of what must be 10,000 times the song "Mr. Tambourine Man". The Bryds: that incredible 12-string guitar of Roger McGuinn's, those amazing harmonies, their look, David Crosby, "Turn, Turn, Turn", "Eight Miles High", "My Back Pages" and a shitload of great songs too numerous to list here. Yeah, I was, and still am today, a humongous fan of theirs and their music.
So I'm writing my post, and thinking of the Byrds, and all the great music for over, for me, forty years, and how much I enjoyed it all and yada-yada-yada, and one thing led to another and I decided, hey, I'm going to do something I've never done in my entire life: I'm going to write a fan letter. To Roger McGuinn. Of the Byrds. THE Roger McGuinn. (Okay, if you're not a fan of the band, this probably all sounds pretty lame, but for me, he was like, I don't know, my HERO.)
McGuinn has always been one of my rock guitar gods, along with Clapton, Page, Vaughn, Brian May of Queen, Steve Stills, Eddie Van Halen, et al. Nobody, NOBODY, ever played a 12-string guitar or sounded like that before, or since. This guy influenced George Harrison to use a 12-string Rickenbacker (McGuinn's main instrument) on a number of Beatle tunes and the Beatles, back in '66, named the Byrds their favorite American band and jammed with them on their final American tour that year, a guy who played with Bob Dylan, a guy who had David Crosby as his rhythm guitarist, a guy who, with the band, has been credited with launching the folk-rock genre with their seminal album "Sweetheart Of The Rodeo" in 1967, a guy who Tom Petty called his biggest influence, a guy who has his own signature model Rickenbacker 12-string; this, ladies and gentlemen, is a man who is truly, truly a rock and roll legend.
But I had never thanked him. Forty-seven years of pure joy from his and the band's music and I had never thanked him. Shame on me.
So I went back to Goggle, typed in his name, found his website (is there ANYONE out there today, other than myself, who doesn't have a website?), got an email address where he could be contacted and proceeded to write my fan letter. Fan email, to be precise.
I wrote him a six or seven paragraph email message, telling him how long I'd been a fan, mentioning many of the high points of his career, the article about C.T.A.-102 and the quote about his song, and how I laughed when I read it and realized that, once again, rock music had gone around full circle for me and how much I appreciated all the joy his music had brought to my life, and closed by quoting, badly, an old Irish saying (McGuinn is Irish) about how the world had been deprived of a great man when he hadn't been born twins. It wasn't "gushy" or insincere, but honest. I signed it and sent it off.
Now let me say something here about this whole "fan letter" business: a) I never thought it would get there, you know, the old "Your message was returned 'Undeliverable' because, you dumb shit, you typed in the address wrong, there is no such address, you're a weasel", whatever; b) I never thought, that if by some miracle it did get there, that McGuinn himself would see it, thinking, c) that most probably if it did arrive at the intended destination, the best I could hope for was that some publicist or assistant of his might read it and that d) at best, maybe the publicist who read it might respond with some form letter and mostly that e) there was about an ice-cube's chance in hell that Roger McGuinn would actually see it and respond personally.
Got all that?
I sent the email on Friday, in fact, the Friday before Super Bowl MKHXXY2KABC in Dallas; I awoke on Super Bowl Sunday, took the Harley Dog out (Harley being the "official" canine of the AJATTWC), ate some breakfast, fed Harley his breakfast, read the paper, etc.
After all that mundane activity, I logged on to the 'Net, opened my email and, Holy Correspondence, Batman, there it was: an email with the name of the sender in caps, ROGER MCGUINN. Okay, now I'm excited, but I'm still thinking it's some form thing from his publicist, so I open it up and, SON-OF-A-BITCH, it's from Roger McGuinn himself. At this point, I am beyond excited, I'm double secret probation excited.
I read the message; it was short but very friendly, thanking me, genuinely and, to my surprise, a little effusively for a mere response to a fan letter, for my kind words, expressing his belief that while C.T.A.-102 had maybe been a little naive, it was still optimistic, and then wishing me all the best in his closing.
Roger fucking McGuinn. (Please excuse my language; although, like most people these days, I use that word all the time, I don't use in my posts, because some people are offended by it, and it's not my intent to ever offend anyone. So please forgive me this once. I mean, Roger fucking McGuinn.)
I was so excited I almost peed myself, which is where I began this post, about a millennia ago.
So now I get the whole fan mail, groupie, giggling, excited thirteen-year old screaming kid waiting for an autograph gig. I mean, on the surface of it, its pretty dumb. But a Celebrity, and not of these manufactured celebs like Kim, or Paris or Lindsay or one of those idiots, an honest to God, big name, (at least to me) Celebrity had taken the time to notice me, and acknowledge my existence.
I wonder if these people that we place in the spotlight so readily, up on a pedestal as it were, really comprehend what an impact they have on our lives. If you would have told me before this happened how I would react to receiving a fan letter response from one of my heroes, I would have laughed. Hell, I live in LA (pronounced LAH), celebrities are as thick as paparazzi at a Britney Spears sighting on Rodeo Drive out here, I mean, I've seen celebs, shit, I met George Carlin in the Whole Foods store in Brentwood a couple of years before he died, told how much I liked his worked, talked a bit, have a nice day, whatever. It's always been for me, yawn, okay, another celeb, big deal. Talked to Louis Black after a concert of his I attended a few years ago, hey, enjoyed the show, nice job, he was very nice, thanked me politely and so forth. So yeah, I've been exposed to celebs and it was never a matter of any consequence.
But for me, it was, ROGER MCGUINN. I hate to get this silly, but if I would have opened my inbox that Sunday morning and an email from GOD had been in there, I'm not sure I could have been more excited.
Of course, as Pope of the AJATTWC, I get emails from God all the time. It's just the ones I receive from rock stars that make me lose control of my bodily functions.
Roger Effing McGuinn. Thank you, Roger, for everything, and you know what, I don't care what Crosby says, I think you're a great guy, and a hell of a guitar player.
"C.T.A.-102, we're over here, receiving you, signals tell us that you're there, we can hear them loud and clear..."
Love and guitar amps, and Happy Valentine's Day, everybody,
PJTT
copyright 2011 Krissongs, Inc.
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