3 Chords & the Truth: As real as you can stand

It's a strange thing to try to talk -- via Facebook, alas -- someone through a horrible loss, telling him that what he could not control was not his fault. Me and more than a few others, actually. 

It's stranger yet -- sick-making, actually -- to learn the next week that this Facebook friend, someone who graduated from your high school a year or two after you did, was found dead in his house a few days ago. One's mind draws the logical conclusions.

And then you think, "Jesus, the abyss is so much nearer than we'd like to believe." 

And then you have to do another edition of 3 Chords & the Truth that night. I had figured the theme, such as it is, of the show would be all about "real." Little did I know. 

So, this edition of the Big Show is a strange agglomeration of "real" -- really real -- and fake it till you make it. You have to do what you do. One foot in front of the other and all that rot.

So there you go. Fittingly, it's pouring rain right now. How "real" of it. 

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.