Funny thing about this Internet, you end up hearing from everybody you’ve ever known.  Long after the people in your life have faded from three dimensions into two, you see their names in your inbox.  Like they ambled down the hall and stopped in your dorm room to ask you a question.  I used to think only the records followed me through this life.  But I’ve learned the people you listened to them with are still there, waiting to come back to life, to tell you the way it was.  Stunningly, they haven’t changed, and neither have you.  And the records, they’re literally the same.

In the last five days I’ve heard from two friends from college.  One of whom was hanging in the ether for fifteen years, our relationship having lapsed for that long.  He read my piece about the Stevie Winwood track somewhere online, he wanted to give me his take on the show at Madison Square Garden.  He’d traveled down from Boston to see it.  You see, that’s what we have in common, the music.  That’s what I have in common with you.

We broke the shrinkwrap and dropped the needle on fragile black records.  But what came out of the speakers was full-bodied.  The sound blew into the room and enveloped us.  We had to go to the show to get closer to these people.  They didn’t wear head-set mics, they didn’t dance, they were positively human.  They displayed anxiety, self-consciousness and bravura.  We felt if only we could know them, our lives would work.  Admit it, that’s why you got into this business.  Sure, there was the supposed glamour and financial reward, but you wanted to get closer to the artists, you wanted to know them, you wanted to be there when the spark caught fire.

Unfortunately, the reality doesn’t square with the fantasy.  Most artists are poorly adjusted.  It’s this square peg in a round hole identity that causes them to lay down their truth.  About as close as we can get is the tunes themselves, we always go back to the tunes.

I won’t go hear your unsigned band.  I don’t even want to go if you’ve got a deal and/or traction if I’ve never heard of you.  Because without knowing the music, I can’t get it.  All I hear is a cacophony of sound.  And I debate whether I can slip out the side door, or if there’s no escape, how I’m going to tell you what you’ve invested in doesn’t float my boat.  Which is why I stay home, it’s just too difficult.

But every once in a while, you’re astounded by the opening act.  By the act no one hyped you on, that you didn’t come to see.  That’s what happened when Jackson Browne opened for Laura Nyro at the Fillmore East.  The audience didn’t whisper, there was no din, everybody paid attention to the slight fellow on stage playing the acoustic guitar.  Telling stories that you could catch the first time through.

Over a year later, Jackson’s first album was released.  The jaunty "Doctor My Eyes" eventually got airplay.  "Jamaica Say You Will", "Under The Falling Sky", "Rock Me On The Water" and "My Opening Farewell" got major covers.  But the track that stuck with me was Jackson’s alone.  Listening to "Something Fine" open side two was like coming back from the bathroom and finding your date sitting on your bed, slowly telling you her life story.  Wistfully.  About her little victories and larger slights.

There’s an intimacy in records that’s absent from movies.  A record can get up close to you like no other entertainment medium.  That’s it’s power…  If you choose to exercise it.

It’s hard not to bang the listener over the head.  Urge the audience to pay attention.  But if somehow you can get someone to buy your record and play it alone, you’ve got a chance to reach them.  Via your sheer honesty.

I was planning on a late night hike in the mountains.  I still might make it.  But, before I got up to do my back exercises, I decided to rip Jackson Browne’s new album, "Solo Acoustic Vol. 2", so I could listen to it on my iPod.  Waiting for the CD to transfer, I started entering the titles, the album being too new for them to come down automatically, and when I got to "Something Fine", I decided to play it.

And then I couldn’t move.

This guy sent me these speakers.  I’d never spend a grand on a computer system, but I must admit if a CD is mastered properly, if the engineer hasn’t compressed the shit out of it, the sound that emanates is shocking.  It’s just like the seventies.  When the warmth drew you into the acoustic music.  (http://www.auxout.com)

The future hides and the past just slides
England lies between
Floating in a silver mist so cold and so clean
California’s shaking like an angry child will
Who has asked for love and is unanswered still

If only we could predict the future.  Our hopes, are they justified?  Or is disaster going to strike.  Meanwhile, the past fades away.  We often become paralyzed, unable to go back or forth.  And the older you get, the harder it is to risk.  But the day you stop taking chances is the day you die.

I’ve been to England.  But my real home is on the east coast, in Connecticut.  My mother still lives there.  I go to the Websites of Bromley and Mad River Glen every day, even during the summer.  The east coast is asking for attention, but I’m sticking with my new love, California.  I didn’t come here to reinvent myself, but I like the freedom, I escaped my past.

Until the Net hit.

And you know that I’m looking back carefully
‘Cause I know that there’s still something there for me

I looked up every old girlfriend back in ’95, when I first got Web access.  But I never e-mailed them.  But one e-mailed me.  She told me her husband wouldn’t like it.  I’d waited for years for her to contact me, now it was too late.  But this proved she was out there, she was still thinking of me.

They’re all still out there.  Except for those we’ve lost along the way.  And now even Jackson Browne has got lines in his face.  The years pass by, but our memories never fade away.  How do we make peace with them?

I don’t know.

Would I fall back into conversation with these old buddies?  Or after the pleasantries, the recitation of decades of history, would we have nothing to say.

But they’re right next to me on the Net.  And today people pick up and fly cross-country on a whim.

The dreams are rolling down across the places in my mind
And I’ve just had a taste of something fine

I didn’t smoke a doobie.  I gave up the herb decades ago.  Maybe that’s why my memories are so clear.  And when I fire up these records, my mind goes back to who I used to be.