Hombre de Agua

He couldn't play the guitar.                                                                

Neither could I. 

But we were smitten with the art of music and strived to understand the craft of it. 

We spent countless hours in his single-wide practicing our shared disciplines. 

Drinking ourselves stupid while trying to play our guitars. Smoking illogical amounts of weed while attempting to decipher music theory. 

Ingesting questionable drugs while striving to understand the music of 'YES.' 

But it didn't matter how many hours we jammed or how many pints we drank. Jerry couldn't play the guitar. 

He could play any scale or chord...just not on the beat. It was the weirdest thing. Playing on the beat was impossible for him because he had no rhythm.  

"Hey! Shut the fuck up! Geezus! You've made your point! Give the guy a break, for Gawd'z Sake!" 

Yeah. Give Jerry a break.  

"Hey, Jerr...I want you to know I love you, Brother. But it's not about love. Your guitar playing does now, always has, and will in the future suck. 

So I'm joining a band without you in it. And I'm not going to tell you because I'm a coward. 

 So now I'm going to jam with them instead of you. 

And when you write me the letter asking why, I will ignore it because I don't have the balls to face you face to face. 

But despite my bad behavior, you kinda suck... 

You don't got the beat, Dude! 

Jerry's awakening came during the 1976 Winter Olympics. I was there to witness it. I felt his frequency dial-in. 

On the downbeat. 

We were watching the final run in what was perhaps the greatest race in men's downhill history. 

Of course! Franz Klammer for the gold! His name etched forever in Alpine lore. A permanent resident in the Hall of Downhill Heroes...and it's a disgrace. 

Because the guy who came in 2^nd, the loser, was the one who executed the flawless run. 

Bernhard Russi spun the perfect web that day, like the Garden Spider on acid. 

And that's what got Jerry's attention. Bernhard was the one who flipped his switch. 

Apparently, Franz Klammer was also paying attention. He understood the only way to beat Bernhard Russi, the current World Champion, was to jump off the cliff and free-fall down the mountain, so he did just that. 

He didn't push from the starting gate. He fell from it, sky-diving to the finish line. 

His run was a clown show. Riding on the edge of his skis at 100 MPH, teetering on the brink of an epic limb-snapping crash, flapping his arms like a shot-gunned duck, falling, flailing all the way to the podium, beating Bernhard by a third of a second! 

The next day, Jerry rigged up a slack rope in the backyard. It was sagging like an old swayback, impossible to stand, let alone walk on, as far as I could tell. 

I was there when he stepped up and fell off for the first time...and the second and a hundred more after that. 

It could have been difficult watching him flail and fall over and over a thousand times if it weren't for the look of determined bliss on his face. 

I had never seen serenity like it before. Certainly not the confused persistence he displayed when attempting to play the guitar. 

He stayed up a bit longer each time he got on the line. It was imperceptible to the observer, but his body felt it, and his face reflected it. 

Time marched on. I played in the band Jerry wasn't in until it broke up. Jerry fell off the rope again and again...until he didn't. 

"Honey! Hurry up...Uber is here, Dearest! We mustn't 

miss our flight!" 

"I'm coming, my Darling! Oh, I'm so excited! I've waited my whole life for this! 

 Skiing Mt. Baldy!"   

It is a conversation you will never hear. 

Yeah, 'Center of the Universe Los Angeles,' you've got some cool stuff. Griffith Park Observatory, Grumman's Chinese Theater. Surfer Girls. 

And if Jerry was a surfer, he was in heaven—a thirty-minute drive to the Santa Monica Pier. From there, take your pick: north, south, 200 miles of waves. 

But Jerry wasn't a surfer. Jerry was a skier. 

So he moved to Taos, New Mexico. 

There were several advantages for him in Taos. 

One was the 'Vinella Connection,' which, several years earlier, triggered a small migration from our LA suburb to Taos. 

The group, filled with Jerry's friends and family, gave him that 'Welcome Home!' vibe when he arrived. 

And there was the Taos Ski Valley. 

So he started skiing. 

I lost touch with him. I was busy counting to four, being a west coast bar band douche bag. But I knew what he was being. 

He was being a skier, flying down the mountain, reading the snow. Feeling the shadows and light, the textures, angles. Every bump, every frozen ripple. No two runs alike. 

Powder. Ice. Gelid. Vision. 

Riding the frozen waterfall. 

Balance. Legs. Love. Speed. 

His body, the orchestra. His music: The Snow.                                           

Composing his symphony run by run. 

Beethovean syncopation. 

It turns out Jerry got the beat, after all. 

So that's it... he's found his instrument. He's a skier...wait...what? 

Where does the snow go when it melts? 

Well, of course, it pours down the Rio Grande Gorge, ripping through the Box.  

A glorious release, as if aware of its languid future meandering to the Gulf. 

No rhyme, no rhythm. No logical beat. 

A cacophony of dissonance and madness. 

Experimental free form poly rhythmic jazz. 

And there you'll find Jerry, year after year, guiding countless Texans safely through the rapids in a glorified inner tube.                                                                                                             Never missing a beat...or Texan. 

I never skied with Jerry. I couldn't keep up. 

And I never ran the river with him. Too scary , jazzy. 

So when you wake up to an ice-blue mountain draped in a Payne's November sky that stings your cheeks, that's Jerry's friendly ghost. 

"Did Frank wax your skis? It's supposed to snow tonight. 

C'mon! I'll race ya!" 

My gratitude for you runs as deep as the Rio Grande. 

Ski In Peace, Jerry.