Alex Chilton R.I.P.

"Every night I tell myself,
I am the cosmos,
I am the wind
But that don't get you back again
Just when I was starting to feel okay
You're on the phone" I Am The Cosmos - Big Star

When I heard Alex Chilton died today, I genuinely cried, then fell asleep and missed all of the St. Patrick's festivities I had planned, but I really didn't care.

I'll raise a glass with friends later this evening to the memory of this legendary and inspiring man.

To most he's the teenage phenomenon from "The Boxtops" (duh "The Letter") or the dude who sang "That'70's Show's" theme song "In The Street", but to musicians he's on Bowie levels aside from the fact that he was not WELL known. A fact in which he reveled.

"Big Star" live was awesome, and I miss the days of being able to catch them in small, out of the way places after they reunited in the 90's. I miss who I was at that time as well. I believed in love, I wasn't yet broken or used. I felt invincible and vulnerability was never given a thought. I thought the people that were my friends would be in my life forever (some are yeay!), but some have died, and some I wish were dead (the bitch part of me is still VERY intact). I believed in a higher percentage of goodness in people than the sad reality I've witnessed in the years since.

That was a time where there were "passwords", if you will. Naming the right influences was the deciding factor in your status and ranks amongst your peers in the overly snotty music world. "Alex Chilton" or "Big Star" were the right answers to 90% of the questions that were never asked. I can't tell you how many doors were opened for me when I ignorantly mentioned my admiration of them. Eyebrows raised, interest sparked, opportunities were relinquished to me just because I mentioned them first. Knowledge was power, but now it's more accessible and I'm beginning to think knowledge has become simply random.

Sometimes when I'm lost in "For You" or "I'm In Love With a Girl", I feel like that person who still believes in love for a minute, but then I think and she's gone.