The mutants gathered at his grave
to burn the flame and light the cave. Jello was served at his request
before the world heard of his punk rock fest.
He took the rejects and gave them all names, sent their critics to the astral planes.
An uncle, a brother a father, a friend --
how many of us did he raise in the end?
And if not for him our din would not be known.
He gave us a stage, a place to call home --
without his wry smile and discerning eye
we'd have been aimless
with nowhere to fly .
He gave us purpose in a purposeless world,
chaperoned a generation, put his money
where his mouth was
in the punk vocation,
challenged my reasons for playing guitar
and encouraged the madness in his theater bizarre.
If you could see you as he did, you might get your eyes back
or really get lucky and blow up like Isaak.
He had the ability to turn you on to yourself, a hard core ringleader, a magic little elf.
He could make you or break you, but he wasn't that mean:
anyone who wanted could be in his scene; you just had to be there to know that he did care.
He cared about each and every nut ball, in fact, he enjoyed them all.
He applauded your success and rescued us from boredom.
When all of us were poor and no one could afford him, he would still let you in
with a crooked grin and a strange remark, always tongue in cheek.
"I provide music seven nights a week," he used to tell me.
Nobody did that then or now. He knew every con, every trick in the book,
but he'd let you go on sinker, line and hook, and hang your self publicly if that's what it took,
to get the attention that you think you needed.
Alll the fruits of your glory come from plant that we seeded,
one by one by one by minus one.
--D. C. Alberts
November, 2006
photo credit: http://www.mulleian.com
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