"An actual Rastaman Vibration that was real....."

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I do deep dives. Music. Books. Movies. Something trips a trip wire, and all of a sudden I’m watching every Terence Malick movie in reverse order…..or my head is buried in a stack of Bruce Catton’s Civil War books….or my days are suddenly filled with the music of Bob Marley and the Wailers. This last bit was triggered by the recent Marley movie, which triggered my recent Marley column, which got me thinking about my late friend George Wesley, whom I’ve written about extensively in these pages. So goes the chain. George was a true disciple of Marley, and a brilliant musical innovator in his own right. In these parts, he was legendary. And for those of us fortunate to call him a friend, his passing still stings, all these years later. He had a vibe about him. An actual Rastaman Vibration that was real. He was irie, and I miss him.

As you get older, you realize how many you’ve loved and lost already. We don’t dwell on it, which is how we’re able to keep moving. But every once in a while those we’ve lost come back to us. In conversation or in dreams. The tears have long since dried, so the love is remembered with a twinkle now. A story. Or a song. But underneath it all, like an undertow, is that sadness. Because the world isn’t quite the place it was when they were in it. It’s been diminished, and we’ve had to struggle that much more to make up for this. George’s music and his friendship could heal you. Any hey, maybe that healing only lasted until the song was over, or until you had to go home, but it was unmistakable. It was real. For that brief moment, you were healed. How many can we say that about?

Age can induce cynicism that same way it brings on aches and pains. Most of our childhood dreams have gone unfulfilled, either due to naivete, or because we didn’t have the guts to chase them down in the first place. We live lives of quiet desperation tinged with regret. So we close ranks. We have family, and a few select friends. And then they start getting picked off, as if hunted by snipers. There’s nothing fair about this place. There is nobody in the sky directing traffic. It’s as random as a mid-field coin flip, which is why the bad will always run side by side with the good. The odds are the same for both.

We all wish to live good and long, and to die in our sleep after a good shag. No pain. No worry. But that’s Hollywood shit. Too often the ending is mean and ugly.

Cancer took George. It took my friend Joe last year (it took Marley too, of course). It took a wonderful little local superhero named Nathan. It has recently invaded the families of other close friends, and even my own siblings. It’s like a vulture in the sky. Someday it will be eradicated, but that day will never bee soon enough. It’s way too easy to grow conspiratorial about all this. The disease, after all, generates quite an income for quite an array of people. The money is in the treatment, and not the cure. Watergate whistle blower Deep Throat always suggested we “follow the money”. All too often doing so leads you to a sewer.

But even suggesting this makes me feel dirty, as if I’m besmirching humanity. Surely she’s been besmirched enough? So just hurry up and find the cure, so we can all spend more time with each other. And there can be less worry. The world is mean enough without having to worry about our cells dividing uncontrollably due to some manic, cosmic blunder.

It’s hard to think about George Wesley without considering all of this. Because I’m still mad about it. He should be here, and he’s not. I want to lash out. But what would be like climbing a mountain to punch an echo.

Hang onto the ones you love. Hang onto them like Rose clutched that floating door at the end of Titanic (There was plenty of room for Jack too, so don’t be selfish like she was). When I saw George for the last time, I didn’t know it was the last time. I thought we’d come together again and again, and make more music, and I’d learn from him the same way I always did, and he’d get to watch my girls, who called him “Uncle George”, grow. George made everybody in his orbit feel cherished. I don’t know if there’s a greater gift to possess than that.

If you feel love, but the word remains unsaid…..it’s time to utter it.

In a bit…

—tf