No Lies, No Regrets, No Apologies

You don’t have to know who Rory Gallagher is to appreciate Bram Hume.  But it helps.

Gallagher wasn’t an Irish blues guitarist.  He was the Irish blues guitarist, a man who lived for and through his music.  He was a master of his instrument, the kind of mastery very, very few obtain.  It’s the gift where one stops being a player and becomes a musician creating pure music that transcends the instrument involved.  Gallagher’s playing wasn’t a string of poses saying look at me.  It was the sound of a man content to be someone whose battered Fender Stratocaster was God’s own voice.  Literally.

Gallagher was a gentle gentleman; someone who had his vices but seemingly never let them have their way.  Sadly, he left too soon; a infection following a 1995 liver transplant necessitated by a combination of extended alcohol abuse and prescription drugs designed to ease his anxiety over flying extracted the ultimate price.  But don’t hold this against him.  Gallagher was an earthly angel, a gift to us whose music will be revered as long as there are those who seek out God’s language expressed with passion and purity.

Rory Gallagher was a man.

I never met Gallagher, but I have been blessed to meet one of his biggest fans.  Bram Hume hails from Scotland.  A blues guitarist in his own right, Bram is also a racer.  He’d driven the fast cars and worked on them; an accomplished and knowledgeable engineer who’s turned wrenches in F1 and NASCAR among other series.  When he speaks about all things auto racing, as I said yesterday you’d damn well better listen if you have the slightest clue about what’s going on or desire to know what’s going on.  Yesterday he spoke up.  And how.

There’s a feeling in motorsports that I haven’t seen in my 30 years around the industry.

Yeah. It’s fear.

Brave faces are being worn, but there’s the smell of implosion in the air.

Atlas, apparently, has shrugged.

And he’s just getting warmed up:

Too many are wanting to play the game of pointing and saying “We don’t like that, it doesn’t suit our vision, our ‘Brave New World’ agenda.”

It’s too American.

Systematic destruction of something loved for so long begins, and the cheers and jeers become decidedly loud and mean as each piece is dismantled.

And finally:

There are those that will say it’s just racing, rednecks going in a circle.

It’s having to be force destroyed by the dismantling of capitalism.

So what do we do? Wait for it to all fall down and wait for to it be reborn like some phoenix from the ashes?

I don’t think the indomitable spirit of those of us that know what, who and why this actually is has been considered here yet.

That’s something that can never be legislated.

In a land where the frustration and anger over what is happening to us at the hands of our political leaders (for they lead in no other sense of the word other than politically) has led to Tea Parties planned for April 15th of a magnitude so great they threaten to overwhelm even the media desperate to keep them at arms length lest they divert attention from their fawning over President Obama, it’s heartening to see a racer stand up to note how the very spirit that created something such as auto racing will overwhelm the forces of political and social correctness that seek its destruction.  You may not care for auto racing.  But if you can’t admire the spirit behind the sport you’re paying far too little attention.

This spirit is at the core of that for which we’re fighting.  It’s a spirit exemplified by people like Bram, someone who tells no lies and for whom regrets and apologies are superfluous for neither are required.  Bram is a man. A Biblical man, the kind who stands up for what he believes and tolerates no nonsense.  The kind who takes charge, works for what he has and doesn’t whine about what isn’t in his possession he feels should be due to entitlement.  The kind who doesn’t demand the spotlight, strike poses to win the favor of others or respond to bootlicking with anything other than the deliverance of a swift strong kick from same.

Bram Hume is a man.

Which is a hell of a lot more than I can say for many.

Speaking of men, here’s a tasty sample of Rory Gallagher’s mastery:

[video http://www.diecast-dude.com/gac/rory_gallagher_a_million_miles_away.flv nolink]