Get ready for a merciless slam-dunk--SORRY. As has happened a couple of times before in this memorial blog, I find a tape and get listening to it. Before long, come to look for the next day’s musical entry, and I find myself thinking, I want more. I want more of what I had yesterday.
Today’s track, “Ode to Dr. Kervorkian,” comes from the amazing master I mentioned yesterday. The track is one I could have saved for some bleak anniversary—like the day we learned about the tumor. What’s weird is that the song speaks so much to me now about an aspect of what Scot’s life was like for the (almost) last five years of his life. The song was actually written in the late 1980’s and recorded in 1991. It is actually possible that by this point Scot had sustained the injury to his head that we believe formed the scar tissue that became the basis of his brain tumor.
Here’s what Scot told me was the story behind this song. Good old Dr. Kervorkian was in the news a lot in those days. He was loudly touching on a nerve that has become re-aggravated in our current health care debate. How do we die? For a lot of people, any mention of this subject raises the hair on the back their necks. Scot was a fan of Dr. Kervorkian. He thought it was right to help someone who was in pain—which comes in oh so many forms—right to help let them consider a shorter journey on the above mentioned train--fewer clicks of the rail. I'm pretty sure Scot was intending the music to flow from the point of view of someone on board that train, maybe even someone in a coma or on life support.
If you listen for it, there's even more of that antenna thing going on in the track.
Today’s drawing is a simple black and white. The drawing seemed to speak of the outer front people put forward while at the same time there is this inner self that is wounded, kind of bandaged up, hoping to heal. More art by the ream, this is a ball point pen drawing done on 'buff', for a change, typing paper in 2005.
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