A great writer and musician has left us. The tribute on "Fresh Air" was quite moving; with my old school chum Jem Cohen, Guy Piciotto and Michael Stipe offering their thoughts on Vic's idiosyncratic, autodidact genius. They mentioned some of their favorite quotes from Vic's songs -
"I settled down on hurt as big as Robert Mitchum, and listened to Lucinda Williams. / Convenient lies, rubber knives, I'm a dastardly villain doing belly dives..."
"Feathers are floating down, and I can't dodge them, the tar is oozing from my little noggin'"
Chesnutt was also the subject of a moving documentary film "Speed Racer" by Peter Sillen. Documentaries on artists and the artistic process are common, and tend to be hagiography. This memorable film highlights Vic's demons - his breathtaking rage at the world. Not something you see very often. The documentary "Whatever Happened to Kerouac?" is a more typical, elegic - and I thought of a line from it when I heard about Chesnutt's suicide - I believe Gregory Corso was talking about how people grade writers - first the critics say that "the kid's got talent, then they say 'genius'. The only level that goes beyond that is 'divine'." Corso suggested that only Shelley qualified in the highest category.
I think Chesnutt approached divinity - particularly in performance. He was one of the few performers I've ever seen who could make time stand still. When he sang, the audience was always captive. He had an incredible sense of dynamics - as quiet as a whisper and as loud as a avalanche. At the same time, he was both microscopic and filling my entire field of vision. I'd watched him perform many times, and was a cameraman at one of his shows in St. Ann's in Brooklyn for Jem, and mumbled my heartfelt appreciation of his work to him in Seattle. I probably could have bought him a beer and done the shmooze, but felt, truth be told, unworthy.
I don't begrudge him in the slightest for his decision to end his own life. He gave his all for a very long time, against absurd obstacles. He was the real deal, an artist. The kind who made me glad to have been alive at the same time on the planet.
He could turn a little club into hallowed ground.
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