Nurse the Hate: The Necklace Part 3

I have rid myself of The Necklace.  This is a major relief, as I do not know if I could absorb many more attacks on my well being from this cursed piece of horrible costume jewelry.  This has been a rough ride the last few weeks.  I have been completely engulfed in major turmoil, a time period where everything I thought I knew was wrong and The Necklace was always one step ahead.  The Necklace worked itself into almost every corner of my happiness and snuffed out all that I held dear like you would casually blow out a candle.  But now The Necklace is gone.  Please note, by ridding myself of The Necklace, I do not believe I have outsmarted The Necklace in any way, as that would be impossible.  I have just played my part in what The Necklace had already determined would happen, a mere pawn being controlled by something much greater than myself.

I had considered dumping The Necklace on Barrence Whitfield on Thursday night.  As I have discussed earlier, I firmly believe that The Necklace can only be rid of in the same manner in which it was received.  In this case, I received The Necklace while performing from someone I later learned to be known only as “Grasshopper” with a murky background in government dealings in the Far East that had now become a drifter with no fixed permanent address.  (I’m not making this up by the way.)  I have a theory that “Grasshopper” might be ex-Byrd Gene Clark, but I can offer no proof beyond a pixilated photograph.  (OK, I made that up.)

When I met Barrence, he seemed like a nice enough fellow, but it seemed like he might be ill equipped to deal with a whirlwind of misfortune that would visit him if he were to mistreat The Necklace.  It seemed cruel.  Making matters worse was the fact that I had been completely thrown off my game by a mishap in our opening set.  One of the members of The Savages, Barrence Whitfield’s band, is a guy named Peter Greenberg.  Peter was in a number of bands that are a big deal to me like The Customs, DMZ and The Lyres.  While a member of those bands he helped come up with such great garage rock songs as “Help You Ann” and “Long Gone”, which we cover.  I thought it would be interesting to play “Long Gone” in front of Peter, as how often can you play a great rock song in front of the actual author?  I have probably sung that song 700 times, yet I blew the second verse.  It just vanished from my brain, which is especially odd as this song is almost part of muscle memory. As my piece de resistance, I also knocked out Gary’s guitar chord during the key moment in his closing solo.  I had essentially recited dialogue from “The Godfather” in front of Robert Duvall and farted in the middle of it.  Disaster.

I limped into Friday wearing The Necklace.  We had a gig in Pittsburgh at the 31^st Street Pub, and Artie from Cotton Jackson entered my mind as a potential Necklace recipient.  He seems like a guy with the sheer force of will to battle The Necklace and absorb punishment until he could pass it along to somebody in the Columbus OH music underground.  Granted, maybe some guy from the new Bomb Turks or Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments would be collateral damage, but at this point I was willing to take that chance.  That was when things took a fateful turn.

The first band on the bill on Friday was Boiled Denim, a side project from our friend Jerry Lyon.  Jerry can be best described as a guy that goes with the flow in a feel good haze of weed smoke and budget beer.  If there was anyone that could deal with the karmic upheaval of The Necklace it is a guy with dreadlocks that openly endorses psychedelics with the same enthusiasm that some people approach distance running or golf.  Jerry would understand.  He was perfect.  It hit me at the end of their set in what was probably a preordained decision from The Necklace.   On their last notes I was able to part the crowd and give it to him in the same manner in which I had received it in Athens OH.  Just as I had, he unconsciously placed The Necklace on himself, cementing his relationship with the taboo idol.  It was now his and his alone.  I was rid of it.

I cannot tell you how good I felt.  It was literally like a weight had been shed from my shoulders.  The fog had cleared.  The mists had lifted.  The worm had turned.  I felt like once again I had a chance.  At last I would be able to hold my own in The Daily Bitter Struggle of Life.  I would slowly step into the light and see if I could pick up the shattered pieces of my life.  Had damage been done?  Of course.  Everything is different now.  Who knows if I will ever be able to truly reclaim my life and seize the opportunities that fate had placed before me BN (Before Necklace).  All I can do is shake it off and hope…

The long nightmare is over.  I hope.

Good luck Jerry.