Billy Joel's atrocious rendition of the National Anthem at the Super Bowl reminded me of this -- one of my favorite stories ever about Jason:

Between our hectic schedules, I feel like Jason and I get such little time together. So on the weekends, I hate for any of that time to be wasted on sleep. I want to be awake NOW, not wasting one single minute.

I was leaping on the bed, shaking Jason, even prying his eyelids apart with my fingers. "Wake up!" I shouted.

"Why should I wake up?" he said.

"Because!" I said. "It's nine o'clock on a Saturday!"

Jason, with his eyes still closed, said:

"It's nine o'clock on a Saturday,
the regular crowd shuffles in,
there's an old man sitting next to me,
making love to his tonic and gin.

He says, 'Son, can you play me a memory?
I'm not really sure how it goes
But it's sad and it's sweet and I knew it complete
Back when I wore a younger man's clothes.'"

I grabbed my journal from the nightstand and handed it to Jason with a pen.

"You need to write this shit down," I said.

Since I'm not a Billy Joel fan, I'm not familiar with the lyrics of "Piano Man" outside of the chorus.

Instead, I thought Jason was some sort of sleepy genius poet.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 05, 2007 at 4:43 PM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.