People, places, and places.

J. Roddy Walston & the Business opened for the Drive By Truckers the other evening.

Walston & the Business sounds like; Eddie Vedder covering Jerry Lee Lewis' catalogue.  Walston claims friendship with Little Richard, and his influence shows.   I'm not a fan of Eddie Vedder, but I am a fan of Lewis, that whole sound, and Walston's hair.  It was a quality performance.  And it reminded me of Nashville.

Which is the real subject matter here.  Not Nashville so much, but the idea of being taken away by a song, a smell, a photo; to a place.  And not just fondly remembering a vacation, but being pressed with an aching.  An aching that most people feel for a lover, a best friend, a sibling; when they move away, or simply on.

I was working, monitoring the crowd, and grooving ever so slightly in the most professional manner I could muster under such rocking circumstances.  When all the sudden I was overcome with grief.  Perhaps that isn't the right word.  A longing, a mild depression.  I wanted to go to Nashville.  I wanted to spend a Sunday morning, wandering the streets, popping into to bar after saloon, sipping whiskey and watching some talented, silver haired man play the ballads that made country, rockabilly, and rock famous.

It was like, someone had just told me that a long lost friend had just died, and we'd never been able to catch up.  Now of course, Nashville is still there, but thats the feeling.

And while I was feeling this, I realized that I've never felt this way for a person.  I've never really been capable of missing people.  Yes, after a bad breakup, I miss having that person around, I may cry for days, beside myself.  But the missing of people when you go away, or they go away, I don't experience that.

I get pangs of longing for Nashville; I yearn for New Orleans; I pine for Cambodia.  Little corner shops and food carts hold more emotional weight for me than my best of friends.

Freud would blame my mother...so would I.