I learned to take famous and successful people off the pedestal I had them on (or if you prefer, elevate myself and everyone else, to their level) in part from a fellow writer, one who’s work I have admired and love for years. His name is Jonny Lang and he is better known for his bluesie voice than his writing, but he writes at least most of his own songs.

I love music by artists. It seems like most music on the radio is by performers who’s primary interest is selling you something. The words are bland and cliché. They sound as if a computer working off Gallup Polls wrote them. This music is like pornography; it can deliver some small pleasure without demanding any input. John Stuart Mill said people should be educated to enjoy the higher pleasures. Music by artists is one of the higher pleasures, and demands some input (education). Retail music is barbarian in its simplicity. When the Visigoths were listening to Hits 106 radio, the Greeks were going to small outdoor concerts to hear artists. Jonny Lang is an artist and fittingly I saw him at a small outdoor concert in Austin.

The concert was incredible but that’s not where I leaned about successful people. That was after the concert. We stood inline to meet the band and get autographs. Now Jonny Lang is not a huge name. He is not the Rolling Stones, and I know that, but he was a thousand or so miles from home and a thousand or so people paid money to see him play. He has a big nice tour bus, one that you would not be surprised to see Mic Jagger step out of, so he is a successful musician.

My party was at the end of the line so when we got to him there was no pressure for us to move on. He was a normal person physically, this did not surprise me, flesh and blood, but he was really a normal guy. He was the kind of guy that I could have had a class with or met at church or the gym. We visited for 10 or 15 minutes. He ask if we enjoyed the concert and we said we did. We visited about music and told him he was very bold to be so open with his Christian faith in a largely secular arena. We visited about Austin and explained the rivalry between the University of Texas and Texas A&M. We ask him if he wanted to get a cup of coffee but he said he needed to hit the road (he was opening for Steve Miller the next day) so we said by and left. It wasn’t that strange to ask him if he wanted to get a cup of coffee and I would not have been surprised if he had accepted.

I don’t know any of these guys personally. For all I now C. S. Lewis might have broken out in hives the day The Screwtape Letters was published, for fear of rejection. The difference between them and me isn’t that they are demigods. Its that they didn’t let the fact that they weren’t demigods keep them from their work. Hemmingway and Lewis published their books and Lang has recorded 5 albums to date. The Truth is I don’t answer to Stranger and if he doesn’t understand my metaphors its his loss, and that’s why I’m sitting on my keister writing now.