Johnny Loved Baseball

     It was wooden-clickity-clack-la-la-la music all the way up and over the mountains of Woodside and La Honda on my way to that first gig at the old store in San Gregorio. Peter couldn’t do the gig so he recommended me to the boys in the band. I played their CDs in the car on the way there. Someone told me once “You fucking drummers wouldn’t learn any song without CD players in your car!” and he was right. It was all nice little love songs with mysterious lyrics and hushed singing and I thought this will be nice and easy on a beautiful day. The music was lilting and beautiful and perfect for the drive through redwood forests and down the mountain past expansive fields full of cows and sunflowers, but it was anything but wooden-clickity-clack-la-la-la music when I got there.

     There was Johnny, dressed in black pants, black boots, a black shirt and playing a black guitar and looking imposing like the side of a great dark mountain at night where you can’t really judge how high or long but you know it’s big, real big, but his smile gave him away; it projected an honest-to-goodness ray of warm light and you knew instantly he was OK and there was nothing to worry about.

     Johnny played his guitar as hard as he could on every song, taking huge mighty swings like a guide with a machete clearing a path in a jungle. He took one solo while shouting and grunting and making noises as if his guitar couldn't say everything he needed to say and I thought, “ Who is this guy?! I’m following him!”  His solos made the sound of solid doubles off the base of the wall and produced majestic home runs that made everyone gasp and hoot, even his strikeouts you had to admire for the sheer beauty of his swinging so hard on every pitch.

Johnny loved baseball.

     So with me all jacked up following Johnny and making bashes and splashes and blams right behind his every note, we brought the wooden-clickety-clack-la-la-la music to a different place, took it on a different road entirely, and I saw David smiling with a grin of pure joy that this giant of a man had found someone to run behind him and scream in his ear that it was OK to swing away as hard as he could because I’d be right there to play catch with his notes and if we dropped the ball every once and a while, who cares?

Charlie said “There’s a lot of DNA on that guitar.” Sure enough true. 

     We all followed Johnny, looked to him to see what he would do, where we should go, but we eventually lost him on the trail. He went on ahead and we couldn't follow, and we lost our spirit for adventure when we lost our guide. We rambled around for a while, but it was never the same, the path never looked as good and clear. We’ll all meet up with him again sooner or later. I’ll bet he is still swinging away, hard as ever.


Ken Owen   Van Niddy Press   October 2013