Imagine pretending that this is a listening experience just like the usual ones, only that the photo you see is making sound. “Love me two times,” to be precise.
Taken in 1985 during a concert organized by the “Road Riders” (can you guess the target audience present at the time?), it was sent to me a few days ago by someone I’d never heard of before who had found it— in the form of a trial shot, among several hundred other snapshots of the event— in some forgotten archive of his. Having somehow recognized me from the profile of a well-known social media platform that I won’t name except to say it starts with an “f” and ends with “b,” he thought it would be a good idea to break my heart by sending it to me.
If you want, I can explain why.

Premise: no self-indulgence.
I’m a person completely devoid of vanity, self-esteem, and testosterone, and my only ambition has always been to mind my own business. Preferably in good company; even if it’s just with a couple of equally good bottles.
But I hated being photographed. First of all, because I’m not Dorian Gray, and then because of those things you have in your head when you’re young: Native Americans saying that photography steals your soul, memories that should remain in the heart, that from the moment of the shot, I am no longer that person, and so on.
And so here I am, old and alone, with few sparse photographs and a couple of videos that, by the way, I don’t even possess.

So it’s quite touching to see myself again at not even thirty, with my regularly out-of-context outfit— as is my nature— playing rock and roll!
Even if that’s not me.

Ah: I know the piece was “Love me two times” because of the position of my left hand, executing the famous “trill” G/G# on the E chord in first position.
Guitarists will understand.