V

So Chef is dead. Isaac Hayes. Age 65.
I saw him once. He played the Jazz Festival in my home town. The only reason why I volunteered to work at that yuppie-infested-destroyer-of-real-jazz festival was because that way I could see him live for free.
I sat in the back with two friends I don't talk to anymore and the one thing that really stuck with me was his banter before one song. Which song? I don't even know anymore. I do remember him repeatedly and slowly closing his hand in a fist & saying, "Phalanges..squeeze- phalanges...squeeze. Say it with me now, 'phalanges squeeze,'" as my friends and I cracked up in the back.
That was a strange weekend of 2005.