Everything I do today is for John Waite.
Before you say one word, before you utter "Missing Y..." Don't. D.o.n.t.
John, today when I shaved my head in the shower, I belted the shit out of Isn't It Time over rooftop and chimney in my hood. And I never approached the baffling mojo you summon on those pre-choruses. I think you ate a gang of Castratis. Sometimes I imagine myself as one of the back ground singers in your group. One of your Babys. I guess I'd be... the shy one. Until show time, and then all the things I don't know how to tell you in normal life (I get so flustered, I stutter, I stare at my feet and bite my lip), all those things come pouring out of me like throat-lava. Your back ground singers. Lucky girls. It was generous of you to give them so much of the spotlight on the chorus of Isn't It Time. They must love working with you. I would.
Freshly showered, wearing only a towel, I made a French Press of ultra strong finely ground Sumatra. I swayed, bounced, and shadow boxed my way through Change. John, something about the circulation in my body caused my towel to drop off. Suddenly I found another minor third at the top of my register. Until I heard that song, I never knew what Rick Springfield WASN'T. I never knew why Journey's lead singer lacked a certain MOXY. Because until I saw the sun I didn't know why candles made me sad. Uh! UH!!!! "we always wish for money, we always wish for change..." CHANGE!!!! The drum sound on that song knocked a filling out of my head. A little less Mercury poisoning with every listening. John.
Everything I do, it's for you. Today.
Because, remember in Back On My Feet Again at 0:42 into the song where you sing the chorus for the first time? That also happens to be the precise moment I let go of every wound and ache from all the women I'll never have sex with. Every vixen who spurned me, denied me, rebuked me, set me adrift in the sea of "no". Every woman out of my reach from the ages of 11 to... what time is it?
Thank you John. David Lee Roth couldn't do that for me. Billy Squire didn't manage it. Pat Benatar made it worse. Made what worse? Exactly. I don't even remember. You've purged it. Who was I before you opened your mouth and spit fire into the well of my soul?
When I drove to the post office to deliver three first class packages today, it wasn't 2:13pm, John. It was dead-ass Midnight, and I was on my way to meet a sexy special someone. I needed a Midnight Rendezvous. You darkened my sky to a soothing hue of velvet-Onyx. Yesterday I would have spelled Rendezvous with an "sv". That's how naive I was. I'm not that boy anymore. I'm full of expectant wonder. I feel like I gulped a fistful of neon butterflies and chased it with Nyquil. John, you know at the end of Midnight Redezvous (I think it's around 3:22 on the version that appears on The Complete John Waite Volume 1 -Falling Backwards) where you sing "All I really wanna do, I really wanna fuck you". Sometimes at that spot, instead of "you" I hear you sing "Stu". The power is so ...powerful. But it's also tender. The force is vulnerable. John, it's what we call 'soft belly' in Boulder. And that's a special kind of strength.
The answer is yes, John. Yes.
