Writing for a music blog like The Hard Times has opened up a lot of opportunities over the years, leading to experiences I’ll never forget. In short, it’s been a dream, and just two weeks ago that dream bloomed into full fruition as I was given the chance to interview my favorite living artist: Talking Heads founder David Byrne. I had been wanting to pick this man’s brain for my entire life, and in fact, doing so was the last remaining item on my personal bucket list.
Now that I’m complete, there’s nothing left to do but welcome death as an old friend and shuffle off this mortal coil. Yes, it’s time to die.
David was delightful. We had this instant connection. I’ve seen just about every interview he’s given, and I can say he had never been this candid before. What started as a paint by numbers interview about the history of The Talking Heads quickly expanded into one of the most interesting conversations I’ve ever had about life, the universe, and everything, a conversation that made “My Dinner with Andre” look like “Freddy Got Fingered” by comparison. It’s a shame I didn’t write or record a word of it.
If you did have a way to access my talk with David Byrne, you would know that nothing is more important than being present in the moment. Nowadays with cell phones and social media everyone is so obsessed with chronicling their lives, they never truly live them. David and I touched on this and many other societal woes in our talk, and not in the stale way they’ve been discussed for decades. Byrnsy (as I now call him) really got to the heart of these issues in a way no one has done before, and we reached important insights together. Hopefully David writes a song about it all or something, because I’m gleefully taking every word to my grave as soon as I turn in this draft.
Understand that I am not depressed — there is simply no need to continue. I’ve traveled the world, I’ve gotten a Cheez-It that was actually four Cheez-Its stuck together, and now I’ve interviewed the greatest artist of our age. Do not mourn me, celebrate me. It is my time to go.
Tomorrow morning I will put on my finest suit, find a nice shady tree in the park, and just sit there until my essence returns to the source. Do not attempt to give me food or water should I ask for them, as these will merely be the knee jerk reactions of the flesh and not the desires of my soul. If you do see David Byrne, please tell him that our time together was the most important 5-minute phone call of my entire life.