Arrivederci, Maestro!

The brilliant film composer Ennio Morricone has left us with an extraordinary array of music and memories that will live on forever. His work has always filled my heart, soul and imagination with wonder since I first heard him in my formative years and continues to do so to this very day in the process of writing my most recent novel.

Here is an excerpt from my first book IN THE DARK: A LIFE AND TIMES IN A MOVIE THEATER, recalling how the Maestro's music has followed me my entire life, even when I moved here to Portland, Oregon.

The first movie soundtrack album I ever bought was THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY. I’d play it incessantly and discovered the inspirational qualities of music while I wrote my stories as a kid. Many a time, that familiar strangulated cry from the main theme blasted out of the stereo speakers in my bedroom. I often wondered if anyone in my neighborhood thought someone was being murdered in our house. Later, I compiled several tracks from this and other soundtracks to create a mix tape that I used for atmospheric purposes at a western theme park called Pollardville Ghost Town. I was the entertainment director for a couple of years there as well as a cowboy stunt player in the various skits we performed on the town’s main street. (I even wore the poncho I bought ten years before in Tijuana after I’d seen GBU)

Recently, I was in downtown Portland, Oregon waiting for a light rail train nearby what is now known as Providence Park, the stadium home of the Portland Timbers and Thorns soccer teams.. It was near five o’clock on a Friday and I was fatigued by a particularly grueling week. Like everyone else, I just wanted to go home. Music, very familiar music at that, caught my ear. This was a melody so esoteric and personal to me that I began to feel as though I were imagining it, scoring my daily life like music sometimes does. 

But no, it was indeed Ennio Morricone’s music from GBU. The exact track on the soundtrack is entitled “The Strong” and its melancholy tones echoed throughout the streets of Portland. It was coming from the stadium across the street from where I was standing. I walked to the curb and just stared at the ballpark when another cut called “The Ecstasy of Gold” began. In the film, it plays when Tuco (Eli Wallach) discovers Sad Hill Cemetery and searches for the grave holding the buried treasure he seeks.

It was then that I discovered my own treasure. I smiled from ear to ear as I heard the magnificence of Morricone enrich my soul and an actual tear came to my eye in recognition. It was right then that I found that I wasn’t alone in the world. Some one had the chutzpah to play Ennio goddamn Morricone for a sound check at a baseball stadium and that person was just as big of a freak as me. When you’re an eccentric weirdo, you never know when you’re going to run across a kindred spirit.

One final word, Maestro Morricone.

Bravo!