I got a couple of books about the Grateful Dead out of the library this week--I'm not a big Dead fan or anything but I have to admit, Festival Express is enough to make anyone fond of them. (Seriously: check out that movie.)

Anyway, Long Strange Trip is wonderfully detailed, and in the course of reading through it I've discovered the cop-defending Bob Weir of Festival Express would make an ideal story character, if I was in need of a perpetual innocent who couldn't seem to stay out of trouble. I have no time to get into it right now, but I'm familiar with the complimentary term "old soul." Which is a cool image and everything, but I have to confess that, as someone who was much too mature and in fact uptight for my own good as a kid (I have begun to loosen up in recent years, thank God) I have a pronounced soft spot for those who see the world as perpetually new and surprising. It's endearing, and it makes me look at things differently as well.

My personal experience with this type of person is pretty much limited to actual children, mind you, and I think a character of this sort (Jordy, really, has a touch of it) would almost have to be young or he'd be very difficult to write. But if you pulled it off it'd be worth it.

Anyway. To the barn, and then I'll do some of my own writing and see what happens.