“the life you think I have”

In the past couple weeks in which I’ve been without my blog, life has been routinely surreal, I suppose. I’ve walked out the front door of my apartment building to find everything from a guy in an Iron Man costume putting money in a parking meter, to two different guys dressed up as Jesus in the same week. But this evening I decide to head out for dinner, and perhaps owing to the fact that it’s a Sunday evening, the street is largely empty (absurdities or otherwise). I end up at a restaurant one block over, sit down at a table in the corner, and as I’m finishing consuming my meal I notice that the guy two tables over from me happens to look an awful lot like Dave Navarro from Jane’s Addiction. And then as the proverbial lightbulb slowly turns on inside my head, I realize that it is Dave Navarro, no doubt about it (the tattoos alone kind of give him away).

The guy’s just trying to have dinner with some friends so I’m not about to go over and bug him, but it does get me thinking. The prevailing wisdom is that if Dave Navarro and I are eating in the same restaurant, then at least one of us must be in the wrong restaurant. But here we are, chowing down about ten feet from each other. After all, guitar legends have to eat too, I suppose. Suddenly I think back to that song I really liked from Dave’s solo album about eight years ago, and the lyric “I want the life you think I have.” Back then it didn’t strike me as anything more than a clever throwaway line, but this evening it’s finally got some context: he can be the guitarist for Jane’s Addiction, he can be the co-founder of Lollapalooza, he can be the ex-husband of Carmen Electra, but none of it matters – he’s still eating in the same restaurant as a schmuck like me, and whatever life he’s living it’s still in the same plane of existence as the rest of us.

As I’m getting ready to leave, Dave walks past my table on the way to the restroom and I can’t help myself so I say “hey Dave” and so he reaches his tattooed knuckles out to fist-bump me, and that’s that. Now I’ve met Dave Navarro, I guess. I’ve found that conversations with celebrities, whether through scheduled interview or random encounter, tends to change my perception of their work thereafter in one way or another. During an interview a musician will tell me about the meaning behind a certain song, which the next time I hear it will overwrite whatever I might have thought the song was about. But in this instance I think I may have gained greater insight into the meaning behind one of Dave Navarro’s songs, without him having said a word to me, simply due to the realization that he was sitting there eating in the same restaurant I was.

Just another oddball day in Hollywood I guess. This week I’ve got a scheduled sit-down interview with one of the most famous musicians in the history of music (I’m not saying who until after it’s been completed). Can’t wait to see how much that conversation ends up affecting my perceptions of his music. We shall see.