mind warp

He is often hitch-hiking at the side of the road when I pass him. He has long greying hair and a long grey beard. He sometimes wears a black headband. Over a thin white t-shirt, he wears a black leather jacket with long fringes hanging from the whole length of each sleeve. Blue jeans and white running shoes complete the outfit. He always carries a big black quitar case.

He is only doing what the judge told him. He has a complete case against the cops. They are not working for honest people. He doesn't do drugs. He is on his way up and as soon as this business is done, he's out of here. He's going to Hollywood. He has invented all sorts of new chords and scales. Some of the top people in the business have seen what he has come up with. Major and minor and again major chords on top of each other, flip-flopped, like. Scales that fit in between, on every fret of the guitar. Like the major and minor, the Hungarian, augmented. See, there are people that have just decided to get Andy. He knows people in the Hell's Angels and they told him. But he has all the facts. The cops are going to go down. He is doing what the judge said, exactly what the judge told him to do. but they want to tax this, and fine that. They are always after him. They all want a piece of Andy. He plays, sometimes he get $5 while he is still tuning up. He wanted breakfast, and he got the money for it.

I have great difficulty in trying to follow his line of thought. I mention that I play the piano and did try many years ago to learn to play the guitar. I ask him how he remembers his inventions, does he write them down, chart them?

Did I know Mike Oldfield? A lot of people play one instrument. Tubular Bells? He played every instrument and recorded it track by track. He listens to the taperecorder and plays along and once, once he hit a wrong note and thought, hey it fits, like in between. So he started experimenting. He has invented scales too. They can go in opposite directions (his hands are flying in front of him as he gestures scales going up and down towards each other and away).

I mention that I know the major and minor (melodic and harmonic) scales very well and that I'm aware that there are such things as a Blues scale (with the flat 5), and the modes of the major scale used in a lot of jazz music. What's the Hungarian, you mentioned so many times?

He whips out his guitar, sits on the curb and starts to play. Unlike his speech, his playing does not stutter. His fingers fly. Chords and scales pour out into the air. Sure, solid, ripping out of the guitar.

You know Led Zeppelin? Like I invented, ah-I took his augmented chord and invented a totally new one.

He plays. I'm tired out by trying to understand his mind. I thank him for playing his guitar, showing me what his invented chords and scales sound like. I try to express how impressive his playing is. (But I cannot understand 50% of what he has said.)

He puts his guitar into the big, black case and walks away into the night, white t-shirted belly protruding over the top of his jeans. I feel very sad as I watch him walk away, the long greying curls of his hair and beard lifted by a wandering breeze.

The only thing that remains is a mild lingering odour of unwashed body and clothes.