Every week, we’ll be posting a new illustration by David Lester. The Mecca Normal guitarist is visually documenting people, places and events from his band’s 40-year run, with text by vocalist Jean Smith.
I noticed a middle-aged indigenous guy coming our way, crossing the park after shopping on the Drive, most likely, but he seemed to be coming closer than necessary to us. We were possibly right in his usual path.
I felt self-conscious and weird enough singing outside with the way-too-faint sound of Dave’s guitar, and, additionally, we were right at the part in “Are You Hungry Joe?” where I sing, “Almost worse than the pain in my stomach is knowing that nobody loves me/I could live or die and nobody loves me.”
Beautiful spring day, blue sky, wind rustling the fresh green leaves of the tree above us, and what do we have here? A couple of old white people on the ground playing a song about how nobody loves them. The guy kept his eyes lowered as he passed 10 feet from us, which isn’t far in a gigantic, wide-open space.
“Are You Hungry Joe?” from Mecca Normal (Smarten Up!, 1986) (download):
