Hanging onto Madness

The concert shell in the park looked like a giant clothed in granite, swaggering into the morning mist, daring the musicians to climb aboard and try to tame it.
This was going to be the band’s finest Fourth of July concert, because it was so well rehearsed.  Everything was just fine, but sadly though, the young lead guitarist arose from his restless night with a ruptured appendix.  Before the ambulance took him to the hospital, his grandfather told him not to worry.  He was going to sit in with the band for him.  It was O.K.  He knew all the  arrangements by now.  The rest of the band had nothing to worry about.
When it came time for the first guitar solo, his eyes got bigger and his heart caught on fire.  His nimble fingers slid up the neck of the guitar screaming at the Gods, and his dexterity was like a finely tuned engine that wouldn’t stop.  His melodies were with the music and above it at the same time.  His energy pushed the band to new heights.  The music climbed inside the audience and the frenzied girls were throwing their garments upon the sweaty stage.
After the final chord was sounded and the band finally floated back down to earth, the press asked the old man where he got his energy from.  He replied, “I never let it get away from me.  Youthfulness is all in the mind.  Some of us let our mind and energy wander off into an uncontrolled madness and use music to sedate themselves.  I see beauty in the fury of the music and I put it into my playing, as madness becomes a driving force.  It is the energy that supports the beauty of effervescence.  As long as my heart keeps churning, my music rides with it.”
After his grandson’s convalescence, the old man gave his job back to him.  Because the concert made such a hit, the band got a record contract with a major label, thanks to grandpa for hanging onto his madness for all these years.