Paying Tribute, Paying Attention

EDITOR'S NOTE: I'm re-upping this piece with additional notes to be found here. The notes address precisely the kinds of issues on which David examined me. No Christian could have had a better bat mitzvah.

I knew David Berman in a different context than just about anyone else on this planet knew him -- outside and completely ignorant of his music.

David played a fiduciary role for another, dearer, friend and myself as we entered into the process of making one of the most important decisions you can possibly make.

My interactions with David were not those of musically-literate fan and indie rock god, but of teacher and student (We swapped those roles so seamlessly we lost track of who was who). They were the interactions of watchman and thirsty pilgrim approaching the gates.

David Berman didn't give a damn whether I liked him. He was more interested in why I liked ... anything else. He didn't care whether we shared the same taste. He searched to know how I had developed mine.  He especially didn't give a rat's ass whether I knew what his values were but, like the angel wrestling Jacob, David wasn't going to let me go until he knew for certain what my values were.

That's what our introduction was about: whether we shared a sufficient number of core values to share space in a community, to protect one mutual friend in particular, and to protect the planet in general.

Some of those answers he knew without knowing: In conversation we discovered that he and a group of friends had been following my blogs on various platforms going back to 2007 -- FM and Uncouth Utterance on Blogger; Gospel Bluegrass Blog, Bluegrass Bohemian, Bluegrass Universe, and Sunday Is For Sounds on Tumblr; as well as Davis Mae Music and Uncouth Utterance on Twitter.

The things he didn't know, he asked for; the list of books that changed my life is here only because of him. One day into starting a new blog on Tumblr, I woke to the news that David Berman had passed.

And so, I lost one of the few friends I've ever had who wanted to make friends for the same desperate reason I did -- because it would matter. To our tiny, insignificant community, to the planet, it. would. matter.

I knew David Berman as someone who believed that social justice began within one's own walls. He tried to live those values, and all he got were random rules.

Here, in tribute, is First Aid Kit, singing that very song with every drop of the midnight sun melancholy it deserves.

Before I go, thank you for everything, David. I believe, as you do, that we will meet again.

To the rest of you, may his memory be a blessing.

Here's First Aid Kit with Silver Jews' "Random Rules".