Who is Grover Norquist that more than 270 members of Congress, and nearly all of the 2012 Republican presidential primary candidates, signed his pledge promising never to vote to raise taxes? I pondered this and it reminded me of the story by Robert Johnson, the blues player who met the devil at the crossroads and sold his soul so that he could achieve his musical goal.

“Prepared for what, Devil-man?”

“You know where you are, Robert Johnson? You are standing in the middle of the crossroads. At midnight, that full moon is right over your head. You take one more step, you’ll be in Rosedale. You take this road to the east, you’ll get back over to Highway 61 in Cleveland, or you can turn around and go back down to Beulah or just go to the west and sit up on the levee and look at the River. But if you take one more step in the direction you’re headed, you going to be in Rosedale at midnight under this full October moon, and you are going to have the Blues like never known to this world. My left hand will be forever wrapped around your soul, and your music will possess all who hear it. That’s what’s going to happen. That’s what you better be prepared for. Your soul will belong to me. This is not just any crossroads. I put this “X” here for a reason, and I been waiting on you.”

Robert Johnson rolls his head around, his eyes upwards in their sockets to stare at the blinding light of the moon which has now completely filled tie pitch-black Delta night, piercing his right eye like a bolt of lightning as the midnight hour hits. He looks the big man squarely in the eyes and says, “Step back, Devil-Man, I’m going to Rosedale. I am the Blues.”

It seems to me, the soullessness of many politicians has been the results of a similar contract. Dotted Line is a song which I wrote sitting on the beach pondering the strangeness of the political dramas unfolding in Washington.

James