Saturday 26 December 2009

Page to donate money for Vic Chesnutt's family set up by the very wonderful Kristen Hersh

What this man was capable of was superhuman. Vic was brilliant, hilarious and necessary; his songs messages from the ether, uncensored. He developed a guitar style that allowed him to play bass, rhythm and lead in the same song — this with the movement of only two fingers. His fluid timing was inimitable, his poetry untainted by influences. He was my best friend. I never saw the wheelchair—it was invisible to me—but he did. When our dressing room was up a flight of stairs, he'd casually tell me that he'd meet me in the bar. When we both contracted the same illness, I told him it was the worst pain I'd ever felt. "I don't feel pain," he said. Of course. I'd forgotten. When I asked him to take a walk down the rain spattered sidewalk with me, he said his hands would get wet. Sitting on stage with him, I would request a song and he'd flip me off, which meant, "This finger won't work today." I saw him as unassailable—huge and wonderful, but I think Vic saw Vic as small, broken. And sad.
I don't know if I'll ever be able to listen to his music again, but I know how vital it is that others hear it. When I got the phone call I'd been dreading for the last fifteen years, I lost my balance. My whole being shifted to the left; I couldn't stand up without careening into the wall and I was freezing cold. I don't think I like this planet without Vic; I swore I would never live here without him. But what he left here is the sound of a life that pushed against its constraints, as all lives should. It's the sound of someone on fire. It makes this planet better.
And if I'm honest with myself, I admit that I still feel like he's here, but free of his constraints. Maybe now he really is huge. Unbroken. And happy.
Love,
Kristin

2 comments:

  1. I'd like to read a bit more concerning. Thank you for sharing this material.

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  2. 2Ira/
    All I can give you is the link above, but Kristen tweeted poignantly (and obviously from the heart) about Vic these last few days...
    His being sued by the hospital (which I quoted in a previous post) seems it could have been the final straw and a lot of people on Twitter were asking about donating money to his wife, Tina...maybe we need a FB campaign to get him #1 posthumously to raise money!
    Regards/

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