“Death Is Real”

Yesterday was a New Moon in Scorpio. You astrology enthusiasts know, the new moon signifies new beginnings, and the sign the moon phase occurs in determines the cosmic tone, if you will, for the cycle until the next moon.

For me, new moon in Scorpio is usually a headbanger. I tend to experience something visceral or spiritual at an extreme level. I thought the all-nighter was the visceral extreme, since I did so well through it and the next day I recovered well. But no, at 10pm last night, was ready to wind down, so I logged into The Red Channel, scrolled through my queue, a found a documentary titled:

Now this, I surmised, shall be interesting.

Boy, oh boy. Ohhhhh man, talk about a story. A chronicle of the life of Bobby, Dannis, and David Hackney, brothers who created a group called Death, a proto-punk band, during the 70s. Three Black American men in Detroit, Michigan creating a sound before its time. I can’t really do music critique on it, here’s the New York Times article referenced in the documentary.

The music is…PERFECT. But the story itself was what moved me. Bobby and Dannis Hackney spoke about David’s vision for their music, and the consequence David was to incur in order for the music to be heard. It wasn’t that the trials of getting record companies and radio stations to accept their music brought him down. It was the fact that no one could get past the name, Death. Obviously now, not an issue. It was a name, a concept, way before its time.

I love the part when Dannis and Bobby describe the day they came home to David’s announcement of the name. “The name is…DEATH.” And they reacted accordingly, “Oh mann…” But David said, the name had shock value. They wondered why? And David told them, “Because death is REAL.”  The documentary then continues with playing an audio of David’s reverbed voice, “The ultimate trip, trip, trip…DEATH, death, death…”

I was floored. How is this cat in my head?? He saw death as I see death, not a finality, but a station, a spiritual temporary station, and you move on to the next station. David was about the Three – Mind, Body, Spirit as the components of life/death. Death, like Life, is to be celebrated. He had a positive view of death, just as I have a positive view.

I tell you, I was shook. And as the documentary continued and the story unfolded, and David’s death and how it impacted his brothers happened, I was a mess. Just bawling, crying my face off, I hadn’t cried like that at any point in 2013. The more the music played in the background, the more I related to the man on lead guitar.

I Blew Up Juarez. The title is deliberate shock value. The story is about family, particularly brotherly love, and the lamentations that come from losing someone who’s such a force in your life, who’s finality makes one question faith and humanity. Talk about the parallels the Universe provides. Proof we’re all one, we’re all experiencing the same events, while in the same plane of existence. And while I do adopt a fatalist view more often than not (it does help with the dark stories, after all) I am not as prophetic as David. David knew he needed to move on in order for Death to reach the masses, ‘for the whole world to see.’ I want to see I Blew Up Juarez get some audience, and I do desire publishing the rest of Johnny’s story, and I want to be in this plane of existence at least for these four novels. But my writing partner also knows, if I am not to continue on in this vessel while Johnny’s story exists, she’s put to task to make sure that shit happens. We’re not gonna have a Stieg Larsson happen to Johnny Saucedo. The story must live on.

Today I loaded Death’s album in my Slacker app and played the station while on the treadmill. Guys, I’m not a good runner. My blown out right hip and knee will validate. But I’m listening to Freakin’ Out, Politicians In My Eye, Keep On Knockin’, and I have no quit in me. I’m FLYING. Got back to the Treehouse, laid down 2,453 words for NaNo, and started visualizing the story map to fix the fishtail. Baby girl’s got a plan. 

Thanks be to Death.