Manu, Part 2

The following is a journal excerpt from June 27. I post this with 3 new cyber-friends in mind. Piggytat, Nubiasol, and Bixo Chango, if this shit doesn't scare you away, you may be brave enough to check out Manu, Part 1, titled Cruising on Martinis and Exhaustion.

I'm chillin' at the Goddess K-belle's Sunshine Coast cottage. It’s just about 10:30 pm, and still barely darker than twilight. K-belle is on the deck having what seems to be a fairly intense conversation with someone on her mobile. I imagine it must be one of the people unwittingly rocking the boat that is her tumultuous life right now. Wow, I don’t envy any of them, that’s for sure.

So, yeah, I was going to start writing about Manu (or more to the point, what it is that Manu symbolizes for me), but then K-belle and I had more beer, and I smoked more weed, and then we clearly had to go to the beach. We both had our inaugural swim of the season, and other than the rocks (which were no match for my mighty Keen sandals), it was pretty effin’ great. Much warmer than I’d expected – not balmy by any means, but pretty damn doable considering we’ve had no real hot weather so far.

Anyway… glass of merlot within arm’s reach, Gogol Bordello serenading me on the stereo, I’m at least going to say this much: Manu Chao symbolizes my passion. And since I’ve yet to figure out what my source (and outlet) for passion might be, it only makes sense that this issue (and its symbol) have been on my mind (and in my heart) a lot. I can say with some conviction and clarity that… what? Oh shit, after K-belle finished her call and came back in, we got to talking and I totally forgot my train of thought! Now she’s checking her email so I have a chance to think, but noooh! I’m still having a brain fart.

I can say with some conviction and clarity that… hah! I remember! I can say with some conviction and clarity, looking back now, that I was not completely bat-shit last summer in identifying Manu as my muse. He really is that. When K-belle and I were sitting around on the deck this afternoon, I told her that seeing Manu perform live for the first time literally changed my life, as I’d never seen anyone perform with such passion.

So no, it doesn’t really matter that Manu and I don’t have an art form in common, that he’s probably a considerably bigger leftie than I am (or at least so his PR team would have us believe), and that he grew up in a (for me) phenomenally enviable bohemian environment, whereas I grew up in a repressive, redneck, Catholic soul vortex. It’s about the fucking PASSION. As I’ve said to Little Miss once (or more), and as I reiterated to K-belle today, it’s not so much a case of wanting to do Manu as wanting to be Manu. Does a person have to cultivate that kind of passion from childhood, or can we start any time? Please tell me it’s not too late.