It Might Get Messy

Ornette Coleman died. While he dabbled in other instruments, Coleman was, in his heart and in his brain, an absolute giant of the saxophone. Only 2 bands played at Coltrane’s funeral—one was Albert Ayler’s, the other was Coleman’s. Shit, if you take those 3 men, add in Charles Gayle, Eric Dolphy, and Peter Brotzman, you’ve got yourself the foundations for all the abstract expressionist saxophone there’s ever been. And Ayler, Coltrane, and Dolphy were taken from us way too soon. Ayler was found floating in the East River under mysterious, and never sorted out, circumstances. Coltrane had cleaned up his act, going cold turkey in the face of his heroin and alcohol addictions and quit using other drugs (primarily marijuana). He did continue to smoke tobacco. The shining gleam of his brand spanking new (I’ve used the phrase “brand spanking new” for my entire adult life. Looking at it now, written out on the digital “page”, it occurs to me that I have absolutely no smegging idea what it means and what its origins might be) lifestyle proved to be too little too late. Coltrane died in July 1967, 41 years old. His liver, overworked and under appreciated, came apart at the seams. Coltrane died of hepatitis and aggressive liver malignancy. 

Coleman soldiered on, leaving in his wake (that’s gotta be a soupy, sloppy mixed metaphor, no? “Soldiers” implies, at least to me, terrestrial gendarmerie, as in “army” vs. “navy”. And “wake” is an artifact of motion disturbing the surface of a body of water. So my usage of the idiom would seem, at least to me, to indicate dry-land military operating boats on the open ocean, a conceptual non-starter in this context) such fabulous musicians as Roscoe Mitchell, Anthony Braxton, Wayne Shorter, Steve Coleman (no relation), Greg Osby, David Murray, Joshua Redman, et al. His recorded legacy is enormous, includes several well-recorded live dates, and can serve all by itself as a master class in jazz evolution.

So, anyway, for all the obvious reasons, death is on my mind…a lot…these days. In fact, it’s been on my mind since my local general practitioner first peered into my mouth and realized the chronic pain in my mouth and throat was due to cancer. An interesting aspect of having a terminal illness turns out to be the psychological fluctuations that accompany and magnify the good and the bad of the physical condition I find myself in at any particular moment.

For example. On a recent weekend day a few weeks ago the house was completely empty (except, of course, for me and the dog) as everybody else had places to and people to meet. So here I was, with my solid-body Yamaha Pacifica and an industrial strength amplifier with an 8 inch speaker. Music technology has reached an awesome pinnacle, where “small and convenient” amplifiers can pump out serious volume and very high-quality sound production. So, for a couple hours I treated the neighbors to my technically marginal but technologically marvelous guitar improvisations. 

Then things went suddenly south. Remember that when the doctors administered the second round of radiation and surgery, the plastic surgeon had to improvise a way to replace my dysfunctional epiglottis. You may recall the photo posted here of the poor little valve’s misshapen condition. It looked distinctly like a squashed and wrinkled piece of dried fruit, perhaps an apricot that was dehydrated without the sulfur treatment that preserves color. Anyway, the best he could come up with was to borrow a chunk of muscle from my chest and insert it between my GIT and my airway. Given that my lungs are full of malignancies, keeping them free of aspirated gut acid seemed like a good idea. 

And, of course, while the rest of the family was engaged in various errands, I managed to aspirate a big slurp of gut acid. So here I am, alone in the house, unable to breathe, unable to speak, so thinking I had to make it a neighbor’s place to get somebody to call 911. But of course, since I’m not breathing, I can’t really get across the 40 or 50 feet to the nearest neighbor’s place (Cathy later berated me—she long ago arranged with the 911 people to send an ambulance if my home number calls and nobody talks). So I suppressed my panic, sat down, calmed down, worked to get my breathing back to at least a survivable minimum. And just as I’m finally recovering after sitting zazen for half an hour, Lucy the dog runs downstairs and demands to go out (she ordinarily is loathe to let me take her out, so she was probably rather desperate). All I could do was look at her sympathetically until she went back upstairs. 

The meditation eventually worked. I could breathe, and avoided a nasty ride in an ambulance followed by getting slapped around in the emergency room for hours and hours while waiting for a room to open up. Over time, such acute failures of my improvised thoracic infrastructure have become blessedly rare. Of course, I still struggle to pump in sufficient U.N. emergency ration liquid “food”. Otherwise, I’m able to breathe surprisingly normally. Oh, and I now have a couple of guitars and an amp, along with the fantastic effects box Tim was kind enough to lend me right here in my sick bed corner of the living room.

Anyway. In general, I continue to be surprisingly well and functional these days. Yesterday, in fact, we hosted a low-key get-together of old friends. The grilled pork shoulder was delicious (of course I’m forced to go with second-hand reports regarding food quality). We sat on the patio in the comfortably (if a little overly-so) warm afternoon and laughed the day away. I’m now physically exhausted but psychologically pumped. I thank everybody for the wonderful party. Such events make me feel like a normal, functional human being. For a few hours I forget that I’m dying. I feel the life and the strength of the friendship and the humor. The outcome is far more therapeutic than any of the vast array of medications I am forced to take. 

My thanks to everyone who reads this weblog, and to those who think of me once in a while, and especially to the wonderful crew who schlepped their way here to spend their Saturday afternoon. Some experimental flower photos follow below. Thanks again, everyone. I’m still alive, and I’m still strong, because of your love and friendship!