It’s a black-and-white photo that I took when I actually went to Renton, outside Seattle, to visit the grave site. It has the lyrics to “Angel” scrawled in Jimi’s recognizable handwriting—recognizable to anyone who’s a Jimi Hendrix fan—and then somehow transferred onto marble. To me it’s a beautiful reminder of talent and recklessness and how sadly they often go hand in hand. A reminder to share your gift, whatever it is, while simultaneously not being an idiot. The grave itself is pretty monumental—which is only a recent development, because apparently when Jimi died from an accidental overdose in London, his family barely had the funds to bring his body back to the States. For more than twenty-five years Jimi’s grave was nothing to speak of, but after a drawn-out legal battle, Jimi’s father finally regained the rights to Jimi’s musical legacy, and the first thing he did with the money was build a beautiful memorial for Jimi—a resting place fit for a legend. When I walk back into my apartment after the trip I’d like to forget, I find myself staring at the photograph, looking at Jimi’s handwriting, taunted to rejoin the land of the living by the lyrics “Today is the day for you to rise.”
What do You think about With A Little Luck: A Novel?
