It Might Get Messy

Django Reinhardt lived to play guitar. He was born in 1890  Belgium, but grew up Roma (Gypsy) in France. The discrimination against gypsies, which persists to this day, was severe in the Europe where Reinhardt grew up. Reinhardt learned to play guitar making music for Roma social gatherings. As his skills grew, he began to reinvent guitar music. His blisteringly fast runs, creative and sometimes exotic melodies, and ability to fit in with instrumental combos and singers made him a premier guitar player of his time. His intense workouts with jazz violinist Stephan Grappelli remain fresh and unique in the world of jazz. Reinhardt was like Coltrane, in that he spent his free time practicing, practicing, practicing. He loved the guitar, and he loved making music. And he made his living as musician. He played with many of the giants of U.S. jazz when they toured Europe, and he made a tour of the U.S. in his later career. 

One night in a Gypsy camp in the Paris suburbs, Reinhardt’s caravan wagon in which his family lived as they moved from settlement to settlement, caught fire in a kitchen accident. Reinhardt was with neighbors at the time, but burst into the flaming caravan to rescue his wife and young child.

And in the process, his left hand (the one needed for forming chords and moving notes on the keyboard) was pretty much destroyed—burned such that only two fingers were even marginally functional. He must have figured his life in music was over. Without a fully functional left hand, it’s impossible to play guitar. In the hospital, a family member brought Reinhardt his instrument. No doubt with a deep sigh, he started re-forging his awesome musical technique. After a year of incredible hard work, he had invented methods for working around his injury. And his musical sense was undimmed. Much of his most famous music, and most of his recordings, were made with only two fingers!

The message I take from this is that even when your primary ax is destroyed by fate (I’m thinking of my voice, on which I built my career, teaching, and public speaking), you can recover via hard work, creativity, and most of all avoiding the deep depression that such a loss is likely to cause. I have spent the past year and more finding ways to work around my lost voice. It’s not pretty, and it’s a real slog, but I’m getting there. Django is the idol, patron saint and primary god I invoke in my struggle to make a silent life work. I’m no Django Reinhardt, but he’s inspired me to follow his example and work my way out of the hole. 

But these aren’t the droids we’re looking for.

Oh wait. Yes they are. But while pursuing these droids in the depths of Mos Eisley pub culture, I’m afraid we have to deal with a divergence. 

I have all of a sudden regressed in what looks to me like dangerous ways. The last few days, I’ve been waking up in the morning with my chest tight and congested. These are symptoms associated with pneumonia. For somebody in my condition, pneumonia is life-threatening. On top of the chest issues, I also cough up bloody sputum in the morning, often supplemented by thick mucous with dark streaks and blobs embedded. Blood from my pulmonary system? Potential for acute problems to pile up. 

Odd thing is, I’m still on massive doses of Augmentin, working to suppress my chronic throat infection. This may be a bad sign. If the throat infection has moved into and is prospering in my bronchi, it may be a virus with the attendant difficulties in treatment. 

Along with the lung problems, I’ve started vomiting rather violently again. This could be related to the airway issues, or maybe not. I’ve been feeling so good during the day that I’ve been able to skip my daytime dose of dry-out medications, to which I add Reglan and Zofran, both intended to maintain gastrointestinal health. The latter is a powerful anti-nauseal.

It may be that the new vomiting fits are an artifact of skipping these drugs. I’ve already started the experiment to find out. Today I talk both Zofran and Reglan after my stomach settled enough to hold dissolved meds and their carrier fluid (water or coke) down. With residual nausea today, I haven’t eaten anything (got all my calories today from a couple of full-sugar decaffeinated Coke) yet. Tomorrow, I’ll pour in my full four cartons of liquid food, and see what happens.

My failure to get caught up on email is due to these couple of days of illness. My apologies, and I beg your patience. I’ll get back to as soon as I can. With a little luck, my lungs are a temporary problem and I can stem the vomiting without too much trouble. We’ll see. In the meantime, I send my love to you all. And attach a few recent photos for your delectation. Thanks all!!

Notes

[1] A definitive and lively survey of music and culture of Roma in Europe is Gypsy Jazz: In Search of Django Reinhardt and the Soul of Gypsy Swing. By Michael Dregni, published by Oxford University Press in 2008. The focus of the book is on Reinhardt’s life and times, but it paints a poignant picture of Gypsy life between the World Wars and immediately after.