Paul Pena, RIP

Most people only know Paul Pena from his appearance in Genghis Blues, the excellent documentary about Pena's travels to Tuva in order to sing with the Tuvan throat singers. And that's fine since that's where I know him from. He also wrote "Jet Airliner" which Steve Miller made a hit of. Despite the fact that Steve Miller was involved, it's really not that bad of a song. What I am interested in on Pena's death was not his own music, which was a kind of laid-back West Coast hippie version of the blues, nor even the Tuvan singers which were interested. I'm not even really going to talk about the complex issue of Pena going over there and winning the big Tuvan throat-singer competition, which I'm sure he won because the audience was amazed he was over there rather than him being significantly better than the other singers.

What I am interested in is the Paul Pena in the film. Never before have I seen such powerful evidence on what blindness does to your emotions and your psyche. Pena lived on his own thanks to his royalties from "Jet Airliner" but his movement was highly restricted as you can imagine. But his blindness, in addition to other illnesses that eventually killed him, sent him spiraling into deep depression that was sad to watch on the film. So may Paul Pena rest in more peace that he did in life.