The Death of a Rock Genius

Les Paul died today at the age of 94. I feel so strangely when my rock'n'roll heroes pass away. Should I be ashamed to say that I felt a deep personal loss after I heard of his passing? The same thing happened when I found out that George Harrison had died. I was in line at the buffet at Juan Dolio beach resort in the Dominican Republic. Since I was a missionary at the time, I had spent several months in a bubble, not knowing a thing about what was going on out in the world, especially the world of pop culture. When a sweet little old lady from England that I was chatting with broke the news to me that George had passed away a few weeks prior, I actually lost my appetite and went into a weird mental zone, as though he were a close personal friend of mine. The feeling only lasted like ten minutes, and I immediately resumed eating the American food I had been craving for the past several months, but I'm still surprised it affected me so deeply. It's a good thing I wasn't around on December 8th, 1980.
This has been a month full of the strangest coincidences, and Les Paul's death was no exception. Les Paul was born in Waukesha, Wisconsin, a city also famous for being the birthplace of my daughter, Zoe. It was in Waukesha that he invented the solid-bodied electric guitar, and learned the electrical engineering required to later invent multi-track recording. On top of becoming known as the Wizard from Waukesha due to his inventions, you should see him playing that guitar! Check out his jams on YouTube and you'll see what I mean. As I'm sure to explain in some upcoming blog, it was just yesterday that Sara and I hopped into our car to leave Wisconsin forever. How strange it is that Les Paul died as we left Wisconsin, it's history, and it's culture behind us. It sounds ridiculous, but its almost as though his death has helped me to officially close the Wisconsin chapter of my life and move onto the next one, and it happened to be as we were leaving the state that he passed away. Every Thursday night Les Paul played his guitar at a Jazz club in New York City, and I always wanted to go see the show. I'm now kicking myself that I didn't ever get there...but it's too late now. Perhaps this is why I go into my ten minutes of mourning after my rock'n'roll heroes die. I'll never be able to see George Harrison, Michael Jackson and Les Paul in concert, and when they died they took their genius with them, never to be shared again. So long Les Paul, you'll be missed by this former Wisconsinite. I'm totally getting "Chasing Sound" from the library and watching it again once this long road trip is over.