The American Spectator

The Nation's Pulse

(Page 2 of 2)

His band played the first mixer of my freshman year. When I saw him onstage, I asked, as everyone did, seeing him for the first time, "Who's that?"

The band sounded great. He played a white Jazzmaster, he was tall, he had a Beatle shag cut (indeed, he managed to look like all four Beatles at the same time), he sang, he was brilliant, he was utterly magnetic.

In the following years -- and in the beginning, it was the 1960s -- he participated as fully as any of us (let me be delicate) in the preposterosities of the decade, he always had the best guitars and the most beautiful girls and the hottest bands. He graduated without difficulty when many of the rest of us blew up and dropped out. Where some of the rest of us fell to disaster, he skated, escaped, and succeeded, at ever more brilliant heights. His thick black hair turned first salt and pepper gray, then brilliant white. He grew more beautiful with the years.

IF HE HAD NEVER PLAYED WITH ANYONE FAMOUS (and he did), if he had never made records of his own with his own bands (and he did), we would still remember him for the utter genius of his guitar playing. He did things with an electric guitar that scarcely seemed physically possible.

He married one of the world's most beautiful women (ask anyone who has met the couple), he has a lovely son, he has an enviable life. I spoke to him and saw him only at very long intervals. He remained sweet natured, accessible, unpretentious, and thoroughly nice.

Other than Christmas cards, this most recent letter is the first I've heard from him in more years than I can count.

And now this, which astonishes me. Something I wrote for a general audience, in general, a mere bagatelle on contemporary media, offended him. And he took the trouble, for the first time in years, to write me a note. And to aim very specifically to hurt me as sharply as possible.

I do care, as everyone does, whether people like me or not. I know my work cannot please everyone. When I got the letter, I immediately re-read "The Making of an Icon," trying to figure out what could have tripped off such a reaction. I could find nothing, and maybe there is no answer.

Suppose I were in a similar position. I don't have to suppose; I am. I do have friends who send me political articles with which I disagree. Sometimes I reply; sometimes I don't.

I could imagine writing to such a friend, "Look, we disagree so much on politics, why don't you just leave me off your mailing list and drop me a personal note from time to time. I do like hearing from you."

I could imagine that. But not this. Tell me, do conservatives ever anathematize old friends? Or does it only happen the other way around?