Heath Ledger RIP

Sweet Talk

From the brain flow of Paste's Editor At Large:

Some nefarious music hounds from Decatur twisted my outsized ego into creating a dialogue littered with opinionated recommendations and myopic rants. Therefore, to put a smidgen of decency back into nepotism, I have stolen the title "Sweet Talk" in homage of my father who had a weekly sports and leisure column of the same in the early 70's that was syndicated in several small town newspapers in the land the gods made great, New England (sans Connecticut of course). Luckily this space will focus more on sporting leisure, my favorite kind.

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I’m taking a break from the quad burning treks up Main Street in Park City to write a few words about the unfortunate passing of Heath Ledger. Before the tabloids and rags rip this young man apart with tales of demons and drugs, I wanted to share my memory of meeting this very unique and original person.

I was standing off to the side of ?uestlove’s drum riser during the Roots cover of Dylan’s “Masters of War” at the I’m Not There fundraising concert last fall when Ledger came up to me and started playing air drums with utter abandon. With no worry about appearances, no worry about knocking into the other two dozen actors and musicians crammed into the same small space on the side of the stage “coolly"watching the band tear the roof of the mother, Ledger started a full whole hearted head bang. Emboldened by his sincerity, I did what anyone else would do, I started ripping my air Gibson and stomping my foot. After the show finally ended we went outside into the alley with a bunch of smokers and reviewed the show like true music geeks. When I offered him a ride to the after party he looked down at the ground and after a full dramatic beat looked back up and delivered a line with the power and emotion that made him such an exceptional actor, “Nah man, I’m going to go home and see my loved ones.”

Rock Steady and RIP