Alpha Blondy & the Solar System.
And the End of Chapter 1.
Professor Finder's smile was incredulous; he had patiently absorbed my entire pitch, and was now leaning back in his office chair -- surrounded by books on Zionism and the fate of postwar European Jews -- as he pondered a response to such an unorthodox request. Reggae? Rastafari? Jerusalem? Behind the front of skepticism, I could see an inner core of intrigued amusement; that was all which was keeping him from rejecting my idea out of hand.

Old enough to have a thick beard full of gray streaks, yet still young and open-minded enough to even contemplate granting permission to an idea as far outside of the box as an uncoiled jack, I could tell my Jerusalem: From Antiquity to Present HIST 401 seminar instructor was teetering between "No way" and "Why the hell not?"

"So, Mr. Parsley, you think you can write a 30-page thesis on Jerusalem's role in reggae music and Rastafare-ee-uh-nism?" the consummate Jewish professor asked, pronouncing the last word almost solely through his nose. By his tone, I got the feeling that this true academic first wanted clarification that yes, he had heard me correctly.

"Pretty much, yeah," I said with faux assuredness -- in truth, I had no idea whether or not a few superficial links between "the music of the heart" and the City of David would materialize into anything worth reading.

And though he didn't admit it outright until months later, neither had Professor Finder.

He could tell how adamant I was about getting a chance to prove myself, and so after the obligatory warnings that I not take this lightly, that it was a serious academic paper we were supposed to be researching, and that if I discovered early on that it wasn't feasible, to make sure and find another topic ... he shrugged his shoulders, raised his eyebrows and took a flier.

"I'll be very interested to see how this turns out."

And trust me, so was I.
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As I walked out of Randall Hall that morning in February 2005, into the cold Charlottesville air that pierced through a thick layer of unkempt hair covering my ears but was repelled by the black Bob Marley hoodie insulating my torso, I legitimately did not know if I would be able to pull this one off.

Mount Zion, "By the rivers of Babylon," Stars of David painted red, gold, black and green, the Conquering Lion of Judah that could supposedly break every chain, a band called Israel Vibration and some guy who loved to moan "Oooh, ohhhhhh, the Israelites" ... that was pretty much all the framework I had in mind for the massive undertaking which I had just talked my way into.

I gulped. Question marks swirled. The can-do spirit I took into Professor Finder's office suddenly began to devolve into one of Can-I-do? self-doubt.

"There better be something out there a little more concrete than what I've got so far," I thought to myself, so preoccupied with when's and where's and what's and how's that I had ceased to even hear the words coming forth from the little white headphones jammed into my ears.

Little did I know that my research would lead me to Alpha Blondy, and later, to the Reggae Sundance Festival in Eindhoven, NL.
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"Let's see..." The cursor was developing quite a rhythm as it waited in the Google search bar for a little push to the right. "How about 'jerusalem reggae singers?'" Enter.

0.07 seconds later, I had the answer to my prayers.

"Alpha Blondy? I've heard of that guy before."

I started to read.

"Hmmm, a reggae singer from Côte D'Ivoire who has an album -- and a song -- called 'Jerusalem,'" I said aloud, plopped down in the turquoise, disco-era couch providing a modicum of comfort in my drafty, unheated room.

"Jackpot."

I remember the day we met clearly, as I do with all my love affairs. Immediately after the (very) fruitful Google search, my web browser was routed to Amazon.com, where I purchased a package deal of Jerusalem and Apartheid is Nazism, Alpha Blondy's signature album.

Those two discs were used and abused over the next few weeks -- the most fun I ever had doing my homework. Even a short jaunt over to Shady Grady to get beer wasn't possible unless I first grabbed one of them by the doughnut hole, ready to be eaten by the CD player in Jamison's late-model Explorer before being ejected less than two songs later. Politiqui, Sebe Allah Y'e, Come Back Jesus, Apartheid is Nazism, and of course...

"Jeeeeehhhrusaleeeeemm, here I am." A place where "you can see Christians, Jews and Muslims, living together and praying, 'Amen. Let's give thanks and praises.'" A place holy "from the Bible to the Quran. Revelation in Jerusalem. Shalom, Salamalekum."

And this is a reggae song, sung by a black dude with dreads?


As they say in Côte D'Ivoire, "Oui. Pourquoi pas?"

I came to find out, during the course of the research which lasted an entire semester, that this guy also had albums called Masada, Yitzhak Rabin and Elohim, which sure weren't words being taught in the French 105 class I was taking in addition to my Jerusalem seminar.

What eventually became my favorite Alpha Blondy tune is the title track from Masada. In it, the artist formerly known as Seydou Koné sanctifies the plateau by that name situated on the Dead Sea. In 73 C.E., Masada served as the final outpost of the Great Jewish Revolt -- a mass uprising that reached a flashpoint in 70 C.E. with the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, but came to its tragic, bloody conclusion when a group of Hebrews known as the Zealots committed mass suicide on top of the elevated fortification, in lieu of submitting to the Roman forces below.

When the Solar System band kicked into the opening chords of Masada at the Sundance, all the fatigue I had been feeling -- all the aches and pains and thirst and hunger -- it just disappeared. Happy to be alive is what I was; like Izzy Vibe would want, I gave thanks to Jah I was still around. And so, inspired by the words I was hearing, I made a promise to myself that, should I still make it to Israel on this trip, I would do my best to imitate Alpha Blondy: "I'm gonna sleep by the Dead Sea, and rise up with the birds from the hills, and clean up my sins, while the birds sing. I'm gonna walk up to the top, of the rock of sacrifice, cause I know now, that life ain't no dice. Yes I know now, that life is a sacrifice. I'm gonna witness Jah rising sun from Masada."
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The entire day -- from the bus driver in Utrecht who decided that he just didn't "feel" like picking me up at the 41 stop, to getting on the wrong train en route to Arnhem, to the locker fiasco, to meeting Max, and then Chris, to the great performances put on by Izzy Vibe, Don Carlos, Steel Pulse and finally Alpha Blondy himself -- all I could think about was this sense of closure I felt within me.

Though I knew I would be returning to the home base in Switzerland the next day, no longer with a Eurail Pass and without an exact plan as to what would come next, I knew that the first chapter of my journey was coming to a close there in Eindhoven. What was to come in Switzerland would be like that transitional page between acts in a Shakespeare play: A respite, a time to earmark the corner, get up and stretch your legs. Chapter 2, whenever it was to begin, would only come once I made it out of Western Europe, and into a part of the world in which I felt a lot less ... comfortable.

Once the sun began to set on that park in Eindhoven, and the sweltering August heat gave way to a cool, night breeze, the energy around me exuded a culmination of sorts. The day was finished, as were the nine weeks spent backpacking across Western Europe. As was the summer. As was the third and final European reggae festival I had been to since that magical night in Abenberg, when, alongside Hunter, Chase and Jamison, I finally saw Gentleman.

As I scanned the crowd through the fog of ganja smoke hovering in the air like the guest that just won't leave, I felt the culmination of years spent researching this music, and the Rastafarian faith that serves as its very foundation. Funny that a white, non-Rasta kid from Texas probably knew more about the meaning behind the music than any other baldhead for miles -- no matter how natty their "designer dreads" were, or how ubiquitous the image of Haile Selassie I throughout their wardrobes of red, green and gold.

It was then, during Alpha Blondy's final song, that our love affair came full circle. Alone on stage, with nothing but the voice given to him by Jah, he began to sing: Barouh Atat Adonai, Barouh Abba Yeroushalaim...

Jeeeerusaleeemmmm, here I am. Jeeeerusalemmmm, je t'aime.


The song that introduced me to Alpha Blondy -- the one that helped me get an A on a UVa thesis paper that blew away all expectations Professor Finder, and myself, ever had -- was the song he used to bid me adieu. Culmination, indeed. I don't know if the story could have a better ending.


But a culmination doesn't necessarily mean the end. As the sun sets, the moon rises. And then the sun, it comes up once again. Life goes on. And so, as college has ended, my life goes on -- and that doesn't mean I have to put on a tie and start listening to talk radio all of the sudden. I may soon temper the lifestyle that I have been living for the past four years, but I will never change the way in which I live my life.

And I will never, ever stop listening to reggae music.