Just posted tonight’s Substacker: Bits & pieces of dis and dat. This one’s a lengthy treatise on the incomparable Vince Guaraldi, with a leavening of nasty scumbag Saul Zaentz thrown in just for spice. A taste:
Guaraldi, see, was what I’ve for many years referred to as a Player—first, last, and always. And as it happens, that means something your everyday squarejohn type of person can never fully grasp.
See, over lo, these many years, as a Player my own self I’ve had quite a few conversations with friends, acquaintances, and even veritable strangers about this very distinction. Eventually, as I’d be boring all and sundry to tears with stories describing the travails of the Player’s life, one well-meaning soul or another would always say it: “Wow, you most really love it, huh?” To which close-but-not-quite assertion I would usually respond thusly: No, it isn’t that. I DO love it, of course, but really, it’s more that I’m incapable of NOT doing it. It’s just who I am, it’s what I do.
Same-same with Vince Guaraldi: he didn’t merely love doing it, he HAD to. His entire identity, his sense of self, was inextricably entwined with being up on that stage—playing before a live audience, spreading the joy as far and as wide as he possibly could, right up until his heart literally gave out.
Go ye and read the rest of it, gang. There’s even a lovely little musical interlude included with the rest of the bouillebaisse, one I’m sure you’re gonna enjoy.
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Those of us who race cars often say that adrenalin is the greatest addiction of all.
I would guess that the same is true for the lure of being on stage.