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Entry date: 10-8-2024 – Gray Days – Letters to My Friends

Dear Friends,

 

A wonderful and happy birthday to my Aunt Julie. I hope she is doing something fun today and feeling great. She deserves it. I picked today’s record for her, too.

 

***** 

 

Gray days shine a bit

If you squint, you might just see

The brightness you missed.

 

*****

 

Yesterday was cold and wet. It rained off and on and when I last looked at the outside temperature, it was 48 degrees. This is very different than what my Phoenix folks were having, I know.

 

I worked on Doug’s eulogy and made myself cry off and on. I also called different businesses that he had accounts with and shut them down. This is terrible work. I don’t recommend it to anyone.

 

***** 

 

Today we will meet with the lawyer and run a few errands out and about. I’m not feeling great about it, but I’m hopeful that this guy was someone that Doug liked and trusted. We will find out soon enough, I suppose.

 

There is an endless list of things to do and they all cost money. I think the dead are the lucky ones. No more worry about any of this nonsense. Not ever.

 

***** 

 

I should probably tell a story about my aunt.

 

When I worked at Easy Street, there was one stretch of time where I worked full-time and my mom and aunt would work only a few days a week. Mom was in massage school and Aunt Julie was supposed to be taking it easy and enjoying life.

 

I really enjoyed my job there, but the days where I would be with Aunt Julie were just easier in a lot of ways. Our relationship was just easier and there was never any underlying tension. My mom and I typically got along great, but there were times when she or I would get under each other’s skin.

 

Aunt Julie was often way less critical, too, and would show me a better way of doing things. I learned how to make the soups, for example, and I got pretty good at the cold ones we would sell in the summertime. Gazpacho was something I really liked making. I haven’t thought of that for years. I wonder if I could still pull it off.

 

There was also a cold cantaloupe soup that was great, too, but I’ve lost that recipe. If only there was a way to find such a thing.

 

*****

 

My aunt Julie told me a story once about how Jimi Hendrix experienced sounds as colors. This was shared with her by a friend who gave my aunt something that Hendrix had supposedly written about his synesthesia. Whether this friend was being honest with my aunt or not, I have always kind of associated Hendrix with her, so I’m happy about that.

 

I’m also jealous that my mother got to see Hendrix live in the years before I was born. I’m glad she went and go to see him play live, don’t get me wrong, but I’m still jealous. She also said she was on LSD at the show. Perhaps that explains my affinity for that drug. (no, it doesn’t)

 

For as long as I can remember, I have loved Are You Experienced by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. I don’t recall when I got my first copy, but it’s been part of my collection since high school. It’s pretty much a perfect record. It also seems to be the perfect record for many different moods.

 

Over the years, I have thrown this one on when I needed to be mellow and when I needed a lift to my spirits. The thing that it boils down to, at least for me, is that the record is beautiful. It is beauty that has come to life through sound.

 

There is a little something for almost every mood. There are songs that just straight up rock like “Purple Haze,” of course, but there is also a song like “Third Rock from the Sun” that just sort of oozes the feelings of grace, wonder, and joy. I am in awe every time I listen to it.

 

“Hey Joe” is a song that I have loved since I first heard it as a boy. I mean, I was a boy when I first heard it, probably in one of my parents’ cars, and this version is so damn good. Where are you going with that gun in your hand, Joe?

 

As I write this, I have to consider that this record has literally been there for me during every difficult moment of my life. It is one that I have gone to on many occasions because I needed to be distracted or lifted up or calmed down. I wonder how many other people have felt the same way about it over the fifty-seven years it has existed.

 

It would be nearly impossible, too, to try and pick a favorite song from it. Some days, it would be the majesty of “The Wind Cries Mary.” I was just laying on my hammock under the trees in the yard in Rangeley and I couldn’t have picked a better song to be listening to while I lay there. There was even a nice breeze that was sprinkling leaves on me while I laid there.

 

“Foxey Lady” is another one that could be my favorite. I’ve certainly sang it at the top of my lungs on enough occasions to make it so. It reminds me of being a teenager and partying with Michael, Brian, and Cassie. I will just leave it there, too.

 

The riff on “Manic Depression” is on that turns my knees to jelly, too. That song could be my favorite and I would never have to look back, but then another song would come on and my internal debate would rage on. This is why I love this record. It is a gift that continues to give. Thank you, Jimi.

 

Man, I wish there was a lot more of your music to enjoy. What else is there to say? Experience this record today, please. It won’t disappoint you.

 

***** 

 

See you tomorrow.



Happy birthday from Jimi AI.

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