With the Replacements “Here Comes a Regular” playing loudly in the background and working “up a mean, mean thirst after a hard day of nothin’ much at all”, I stared at a stack of CDs among many others.

It is a song about loneliness and despair …
“Here comes a regular, call out your name
Here comes a regular, Am I the only one here today
…
everybody wants to be someone’s here”

The song’s setting is some dank bar probably in middle America, but I suppose it could be any dank bar in the world. I have often thought it quite ironic that you can feel so alone in a place with a 100,000 people that all have something in common. Or 100 people. Or someplace “in back with the loudmouths” in some dank bar. Or 10. Or 2.

… and alcoholism.
“I’ll take a great big whiskey to anyway
…
here comes a regular, am I the only one who feels ashamed”

They weren’t my CDs, but it was my music playing.

Desperate for something like a hug or a pat on the back from Dylan, I pulled one of his CDs out of the stack. It was by a band that had three members that were previously from a band I thought just might be radical enough to really change the world. I am not sure whether they burned out or just faded away, but one thing is for certain, they are not nearly as relevant or powerful apart as they were together. Hhmm.

Dylan really liked Audioslave. We talked about them quite a bit. He liked them more than I did. Rage Against the Machine was much more interesting to me. It felt like there was going to be a revolution when those guys were on stage. I probably told Dylan more than once about the first time I saw Rage Against the Machine on stage. They opened for Social Distortion. It was one the most incredible rock experiences I have ever had. It ranks very close to the top of many, many live experiences I have had. An opening band. Amazing.

I opened that Audioslave CD and stuck my nose in it and smelled. I was hoping for something. Anything that reminded me of what it was like having Dylan in our lives. Or our house. Or music collection. Just anything other than what we have. There was nothing. Not the faint scent of that Axe body spray he would wear. Nothing.

Despair.

I thought of pulling out another one. Instead, I gave up and left the room with nothing.

“First the grass, then leaves at last, here comes the snow
Ain’t much to rake anyway in the fall”