A Total Eclipse of the Don

Don McCloskey played his guitar in a little bar in the East Village tonight.

Don, for those of you who don't know him, is a freak. In his own words. On his own terms. He's a sincerely weird individual. And as such, he plays sincere, weird songs. Songs about love, loss, midgets and whores, and midget whores. And Bonnie Tyler covers. Don does an a cappella version of "Total Eclipse of the Heart" with enough heart to light Milwaukee for a week. In winter.

Let me interject at this point: I Love music. Music, at its best, has an ability to inspire and incite emotion like nothing else. Picasso's great and all, but Blue Nude on an easel won't get a stadium of thirty thousand on their feet, screaming. Kerouac's no Beatles.

Call me biased, whatever. I fucking DIG music.

Back to the point.

Don ends his near-two-hour set with a quiet, simple song about a young man who decides he doesn't want to fight this war he's in anymore, because he no longer sees the point, if he ever did in the first place, and who needs war anyway?

As I said, it's a quiet song, easily lost in the bustle of a New York bar. Except this bar isn't bustling anymore. Because by the time Don gets to the last verse, this bar is still with a silence that's all too rare in this city, and people are hanging in the doorway to join it. Because Don's little song about a little guy looking for some peace has everyone who hears it moved beyond words.

That's why I love music, kids.