Prime & Primer Numbers

Chicago. Electric. Indivisible.

Numbers are said to be Prime if divisible only by themselves and by the number 1. For example: 29. Both 29 and 1 guzzinta 29 but no other Numbers, Prime or otherwise, guzzinta 29. In short, a Number that can't be fucked with, too much. Prime Numbers can be hard-nosed integers and also bad-assed acts, and I witnessed one such bad-assed act this week at Blue Chicago, a fine bar in windy, snow flurry-y, Chicago. There played electric bluesman John Primer, Prime, certainly, on some level, but by definition, Primer, and singing, too. Behind him: drums, bass, harmonica, and keyboards, and beside him for a few songs: another singer, Peaches, belted it out a bitteen like Koko Taylor. Prime Numbers frustrate many possible solutions and Primer Numbers beat back the cold. One only gets divided under certain (like, default) conditions and the latter clobbers your def jam. The bar fills. The Harvey Wallbangers change hands. "I got my mojo workin'," sings Peaches, "but it just don't work on you." Clearly a song about the frustration of long division, although Muddy Waters, himself, would know best, and his ghost presided during that Primer Number. Bad-assed Chicago Electric Blues takes $10 at the door, and rattles the inertia of our sorry, cookie-cutter, mis-managed, mass media, gross airport country. Thank the lord some people & some Numbers have the basic decency to stand apart. Divide that.