Through a Latin-Rock Haze
THROUGH A LATIN ROCK HAZE!
Grupo Pagan
gave a Latin/Rock clinic: driving rhythms,
complex melodies, sweaty adrenaline, and
earthy vibrations that plowed through the
crowd at the Greenwood Winery on a perfect
summer evening like a long-haul, fast freight
thundering through the night!
No! No! I mean like three god-damned diesels
and a hundred forty-four ing fully loaded
freight cars doing seventy miles per hour
through the middle of your town, through
the middle of your soul!
Among the diners and dancers and the closest
of friends, were two serious distractions,
which, like merlot and dark chocolate, served
as further proof that God really exists: Out on
the dance floor, a full-bodied, middle-age
woman with light brown skin, thick white hair,
a long black dress, thin-soled flat black sandals,
and very red lips; and sitting at my side, the
silver-white moon that looked like my wife,
a woman succeeding on the impossible
journeys of looking better every year and
somehow transforming more of me every
moment, every day!
There were volcanic eruptions in the back
of my mind but through the syncopated
throbbing of the Latin percussion, the screaming
guitarist, the sexy lead singer, the seductive
waa-waa of the keyboard and bass, and the
provocative experience of the music of life,
I said to myself: “Now settle down, Jack!
These rhythmic vibrations stay with you for days:
the white hair / black dress for a minute or an hour;
but the orbiting moon, waxing and waning and the
light of your night, the shadow of your days, and
the whispering subtext of your spirit and soul,
is a life-giving force and forever
with you!”
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