Enjoy Every Sandwich

When I made my monthly "discretionary income" purchase from Amazon.com this month, I bought two things -- one was Lies by Al Franken, and the other was Warren Zevon's album, 'The Wind.'

The last month or so, quite a lot of Zevon fans have come out of the woodwork, praising him as a maverick musician who they have always loved. I've been somewhat bemused by the attention he's gotten in the mainstream rock press, which has gone out of its way to ignore what he's done since 'Excitable Boy.'

I saw Warren in the mid-'90s in Dallas, at a relatively small show (couldn't have been more than 500 people there). Some moron was screaming for "Werewolves of London" halfway through the set, and Warren went into a monologue that I will always remember.

"You know, a musician halfway hopes for, and halfway dreads, the Big Hit. No matter what music they produce after that, they'll always be known for the Big Hit. I hope that in 20 years, Alanis Morrissette will still have to play the song about the blowjob. That would bring me no small amount of comfort."

VH1 ran a special on the making of 'The Wind,' which I finally got around to watching today. I hadn't realized Zevon was only given three months to live following his diagnosis of mesothelioma, a rare type of terminal lung cancer. As soon as he got the news, he got to work on 'The Wind,' with no guarantee it would be finished by the time his ride arrived.

Not only did he finish the album, he got to hold his twin grandchildren, and the three-month prognosis passed over nine months ago. (In an interview with CNN, Warren's son Jordan vented some of his disgust with medical culture. "Human beings have no right to tell other human beings how long they have to live unless they have some kind of firearm in their hands," he said. "Thank God he didn't take it and use it as an excuse to throw everything away and give up.")

One of the segments on the VH1 making-of focuses on Zevon's appearance on "The Late Show with David Letterman." Dave, a long-time supporter and friend, asks Warren if he now knows something about life and death that he didn't before. His response will stay with me, and it should with you, as well.

"Not unless I know how much you're supposed to enjoy every sandwich."