Lu Watters: Blues Over Bodega
Louis Armstrong called him the greatest cornet player in the history of Dixieland, but he’d retired by the time I met him. Lu and I drank cheap sherry out of gallon bottles and talked about literature. He was a Henry Miller fan. Lu drove north to Anderson the year I taught there. He was having an affair with a red-head who claimed she was descended from the Lost Continent of Mu. I remember Lu standing in a fine rain, practicing, preparing for a comeback in a canyon west of Anderson, the notes echoing around us. He wanted to raise money to stop the construction of a nuclear power plant at...
Read MoreThe Music Snob Concept
In 1993 I worked at a summer camp. I was only 15 and one of the youngest guys on staff, so I took a fair amount of abuse. One night a few of us were gathered around a radio and someone slipped in a CD not worth remembering. Possibly by Pantera. I casually turned to the guy next to me — a bloated dude with a pony tail who was way too old to be hanging around teenagers — and asked if he knew the song. The guy proceeded to turn red in the face and launch into an angry tirade, listing off obscure bands with whom I was not familiar. The apparent point...
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