I was at a show a few weeks ago, one of those ultra hipster things that only the 9 people who've heard the band on MySpace turn up at - the kind I always used to go to when I was thin and single and obsessed with music. As I looked around the room, all I could see were mini versions of myself from the good old days, all kicking like colts in their ultra hip outfits, getting drunk on a Tuesday night because they don't have real jobs to be at in the morning, and it made me feel so tired. Later, looking through a friend's Facebook photos I saw a young girl in a knock-off House of Holland t-shirt reading "Do More Blow". Again, it made me tired.
See, I've already met the coolest person in this city and he's dead now, and these young things just look like paper dolls to me, with their self-referential posturing, looking over their shoulders for the party blogger waiting to snap them into a flash of fleeting hipster fame. Chris transcended "hipster". He never postured, he swaggered. He existed purely in real time, and if you missed it, he was gone. He'd never wear a t-shirt that said Do More Blow. Instead, he had a love-hate affair with an addiction that eventually killed him.
Chris was the spark that flies when a match is struck. He was radiant, incendiary, luminous... he was hyper intelligent, absurdly talented and, like any good icon, he was an arrogant prick who made lots of enemies. He may have, in his darkest moments, been wracked with insecurities like us humans, but in his brightest moments, how like a god.
His brother said to me, after Chris died, "he was two different people - he was Good Guy Chris who'd walk through fire for you, and he was the Animal, who didn't give a shit about anything or anyone." It's true, Chris could be nasty. He'd piss on your front steps if you kicked him out. His laugh was sarcastic and cruel, and he'd say anything that crossed his mind, even if it cost him his career - which it did, eventually. But he could also be the kindest person, the most gentle, the most self-effacing. He was full of constant wonder at the world around him.
There's a line in that Joni Mitchell song that sums it up pretty well: "I'm frightened by the devil, and I'm drawn to those ones who ain't afraid". That's what Chris was for me. I saw myself in him - not the "me" that I am, but the "me" I wished I had the guts to be. We shared 98% of our DNA, but that 2% shoved Chris into the stratosphere, made me feel like a monkey. He never compromised. He was unapologetic. His confidence brimmed like Mick Fucking Jagger. He was ballsy, and I know it's what killed him in the end, that willingness to go over the edge most of us are afraid to even go near, but I still admire him and his kind. They are so rare, like alchemists who actually make the gold instead of just talking about it.
Chris and I only ever had one argument: Exile vs. Sticky Fingers. I have been, since a very young age, a die-hard Sticky Fingers fan. Exile on Main Street was at worst disjointed and at best played out, but Chris sang Sweet Virginia to me one night, and although I was all prickly and 'yeah whatever man, you and the Q107 army ', I can't hear that album now without thinking of him. In my many moments of despair I always say 'scrape that shit right off your shoe' and get on with it, thanks to Chris.
But as much as Exile makes me think of him, Sticky Fingers is the true narrative of our relationship. From the knock-out punch of Can't You Hear Me Knocking, which makes me think of the times Chris wound up drunk and confused in my stairwell in the middle of the night, to Dead Flowers and I Got The Blues, which express what we both knew was inevitable, the arc is obvious. At last, Moonlight Mile says everything my goodbye to Chris should say, from shimmering cymbals to the cello crescendo, at least one of us is on a strange trek home now.
This man was and is my muse in life, and in death. That such a being could even deign to exist almost scares me. Inside this space-shuttle of a human body, there was a fabulous, irreplaceable soul that's gone now. No amount of House of Holland t-shirts could ever add up to the visceral reality that Chris was, and no living person could, in my mind, hold a candle to him. All the tight pants and kefiya scarves in Williamsburg will never be as cool as Chris Rogers. I will miss him for the rest of my life.
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