I put my keyboards up for sale a short time ago and truth be told it was harder to do than I thought it would be.
My gigging days are, for now, over.
30+ years of playing has left me gasping at the changes in the entire music scene in general.
[a post all by itself]
Don’t get me wrong, I still love my piano, my Taylor acoustic, my two didgeridoos and will continue playing them
just not in the capacity I once did.
Yes, I will be playing piano at the house on Christmas Eve.
That’s tradition.
While a part of me is sad looking at the possible end of my performing career another part of me is
thrilled to be home on New Year’s Eve.
I’ve toyed with the idea of getting a group together should I reach the ripe age of 70.
The name of said group would be ‘Comb-Over 7000′. (an idea from a close friend)
We could be sponsored by Geritol, Depends undergarments and Poligrip (a marketing frenzy would ensue, no doubt)
People in wheelchairs would get in for free.
With a cane, half price admission.
Hell, maybe we could offer free blood pressure checks at every show.
The possibilities are truly endless.
And the t-shirts could change the world!
I found this little tome I wrote from many years ago and decided to share it again.
Life is cyclical from time to time as is writing.
The merry-go-round stopped here today.
Enjoy my ‘old’ list . . .
Feel free to add to it . . .

You might be too old to gig if:

Ø Before each gig, you find you’re warming up more parts of your body

Ø It becomes more important to find a place onstage for your boxfan, than your amp.

Ø During the second set, you scream for the drummer to please stop hitting those annoying cymbals

Ø You refuse to play out of tune

Ø Your gig clothes make you look like George Burns out for a round a golf

Ø Your fans have left by 10:30

Ø All you want from groupies is a foot massage.

Ø You love shopping the dollar store because you can sing along to most of your playlist.

Ø You hire band members for their values instead of their talent.

Ø Instead of a fifth piece, your band wants to spring for a roadie with the extra money.

Ø You’ve lost the directions to the gig

Ø Prepping for the gig involves plucking hair from your chin or nose

Ø Most of the hair you’ve plucked from your chin or nose are gray

Ø You need your glasses to see your amp settings

Ø You need help on and off the stage

Ø You’ve thrown out your back jumping off the stage because no one would help

Ø You’re thrilled to have new year’s off

Ø The waitress is your daughter

Ø You stop the set because your bottle of ibuprofen fell behind the speakers

Ø Most of your crowd just sways in their seats

Ø You find drink tokens from last month’s gig in your guitar case

Ø You refuse to play without earplugs

Ø You ask the club owner if you can start at 8:30 instead of 9:30

Ø You want an opening act

Ø You check the TV schedule before booking a gig

Ø High notes make you cough

Ø Your gig stool has a back

Ø You’re related to at least one other member of the band

Ø You need a nap

Ø You eat before the gig, you get heartburn then need the nap.

Ø You don’t let anyone “sit in”

Ø After the third set, you bug the club owner to let you quit early

Ø On the breaks, you now go to your van to lay down

Ø You prefer a music stand with a light

Ø You say you double on bass

Ø When shopping, you consider the instrument’s weight as well as tone.

Ø When in the music store, the hip sales people ignore you even though you have cash.

Ø You don’t recover until Tuesday afternoon

Ø You can’t operate without a setlist

Ø You know all the words to “Hotel California”

~m

Special dedication tonight as I recall a smoky dive from the 50′s called the ‘Waltz Club’  . . .
Long story and definitely not one for this blog.
I knew of one of the patron saints of the place, from what I’ve heard.
Sweet dreams, lady, sweet and smoky dreams
Maybe I’ll see you in them . . .

[11.9.09]

*I find it intensely gratifying (for very personal reasons)
to give you the list of the players on this archaic recording:

Johnny Hartman, vocal
John Coltrane, tenor sax
McCoy Tyner, piano
Jimmy Garrison, bass
Elvin Jones, drums

God must have been engineering.

I hate wearing new shoes and I’m willing to bet that 99.999% of the male population does too.
They never feel right and by the end of the day you’re walking like Donald Duck after
sniffing glue and eating one too many Skittles.
Taste the rainbow of discomfort.
The only footwear that feels right to me the first time I wear them has been (and always will be) sneakers.
I didn’t wear sneakers today.
I wore shoes. New shoes.
Uncomfortable and unbroken-in shoes.
Evil, nasty monster shoes that should be thrown into the footwear abyss where all the bad shoes go.
Actually, they were a pair of Timberland casuals, a gift from my mother-in-law that can’t say no to anything 70% off, although sometimes I wish she would.
I love her anyway.
But my feet felt like two squishy blisters about to pop as I walked to the train.
Even the people driving on Boylston looked at me, concerned, as if to say,
“Hey, man, you look like you gotta take a crap or something!”
As I limped to South Station, I began thinking about walking in my father’s shoes,
not theoretically but realistically.
I would put on his oxblood wingtips that were 6 sizes too big
and waddle around the living room tripping on things while making believe I was him.
Everyone would get their chuckle and it would be bedtime for Mick.
I liked going into my father’s closet in the hallway.
It had all of his ‘stuff’ in it and I could get lost for hours.
In the back of my mind I can see the large glass pickle jar filled with change.
It was in the shape of an actual pickle barrel and it weighed about 200 lbs
(or 90.718474 kilos)
I wonder when he cashed those coins in?
It was probably after I’d lost interest in the closet and moved on to collecting
pollywogs in a rusty pail underneath the back deck.
There was all kinds of stuff in that closet: old army boots, belts that had fallen off their hooks that he forgot he even had, an empty ‘Tootsie Roll’ bank that served no purpose whatsoever and a shoebox filled with brushes, polish and stained rags.
If I could have bottled the smell of his closet, I would have.
The thing I liked best about my father’s closet was the feeling of comfort that it gave me as I sat there surrounded by his stuff. My world was safe as I sat there on the closet floor even when he wasn’t home.
These days I find myself missing the ‘safety’ that was him.
When my mother and father were well I always felt I had that net stretched out below me should ever I fall, not that I would ever use it.
I just liked knowing it was there.
The net disappeared many years ago and I really miss the feeling of calm that it gave to me.
For now, I’ll choose to cherish the memories of that special closet in the hallway that seems light years away.
Maybe it’s not that far away after all.
As I finish writing this post I can see snow falling outside the dark kitchen windows and it’s only October 15th.
Maybe it’s my mother and father’s way of telling me that I now have my own net to tend to.
They always had a way with words . . .

To look at it, you would think it was just another normal boy’s bicycle but I knew better.
It was an off-brand that my father bought at an old store in town and I so loved it.
Can’t remember the name for the life of me but it was mostly fireball red and the fenders
had a bit of white detailing on the tips that made the overall effect one of ‘daredevil’ proportions.
It had a really cheesy gold sparkle banana seat, nicely padded for overall shock absorption.
The highlight was the handle grips which were a neon orange with black tiger stripes and tiger heads on the ends. Yeah, this was one serious machine, to me anyway.

I drove it everywhere: around the neighborhood, into the center of town, to the baseball field, the high school, my multiple girlfriends’ houses, the fruit stand for a classic Coke and a bag of State Line Cheese popcorn -
there wasn’t anyplace this thing wouldn’t go.
We used to build ramps to practice catching a little bit of airtime
and rode ‘sans’ hands whenever there were girls around.
We were daredevils and would try almost anything that gravity would allow.
You were nothing without your bike.
These days, you’re nothing without your FaceBook or MySpace page.
Funny how things change . . .

One day we decided to race down Harvard Street, a road right next to my house.
It had a bit of a downward slope and was an unforgivable gravel with asphalt road, rough as a lizard’s skin.
During the summer days we never had to worry about cars driving down the road because our fathers were all working and our Moms were at home doing whatever it was that Moms did.
We started at the top of Harvard Street and the first one to go all the way down,
around the cul-de-sac and back up to the top was the winner.
40+ years ago, the street seemed to go on for days.
I mean this was one long ass drag strip.
In reality, if I were to drive my truck down and up it today it would take all of about one minute.
At 15 M.P.H.

Someone yelled, “Ready? On your mark! Get set! Go!”

Off I went past the Gilbert’s house, whizzed by the Masterson’s, flew by the Pelletier’s before seeing the cul-de-sac ahead of me.
I was clearly in the lead and didn’t bother to slow down going into the nasty cul-de-sac.
The last thing I remember is hitting a patch off sand as my trusty bike slid out from under me.
My left forearm hit the asphalt as the rough road began chewing off my pieces of my skin.
My bike was wrecked and my left forearm and knee were bleeding profusely.
I left my poor and once awesome bike in the road and ran home in a bloody mess.
Winning would have been nice that day but having the skin back on my forearm would have been much nicer.
This was the day I learned and took to heart the phrase, “Winning isn’t everything.”
I omitted the last half of it for my own psychological benefit.
I did get another bike but it would never be the same.
Maybe that was part of growing up that I hadn’t counted on . . .

It’s always around my birthday that I get somewhat nostalgic and wax philosophic about my younger years. I’m not old by any stretch of the imagination but at a soon-to-be 49, I’m no longer a little boy either.

I have to smile thinking about several lines from an old James Taylor song called,
“I was a fool to care” – (if you know the album title right now, you’re my age)

I wish I was an old man

And love was through with me

I wish I was a baby on my mama’s knee

I wish I was a freight train

Moving down the line

Just a’ keeping track of time

Without all these memories . . .

I have so many sweet memories from long ago: the phone call from my mother asking me what kind of cake I wanted for my birthday (she made many), the apple pie my father would bring home from Ware Pratt (a men’s clothing store, long gone) where he signed me up in their Birthday Club entitling me to a pie every January 10^th until I turned 13.

(and yeah, I’d give my twin sister m~ a slice)

So, so damn sweet.

Sometimes I have to wonder if I wasn’t a fool to care about such things; caring turns into sentimentality turns into heartache and ends with something sad and bittersweet.

Looking back, I realize I did care about those things. Dearly.

These are just words connecting my thoughts tonight, folks, and nothing real deep.

Whenever there’s a pause in my writing routine, I get back to square one by house cleaning and moving furniture; it’s my own personal literary feng shui if you will.
The warmest of wishes I send out to my twin sister, my own flesh and blood.
The rivers we’ve traveled run deep.
Happy Birthday, Moe.
I pray our 49^th year finds us healthy, full of happiness and covered with more love than we both know what to do with.
I guess this post has turned out to be something of a prayer.
And I welcome that . . .

~m

ps. my sister now signs her emails m~ . . .

pps. thanks to my dear friends, Laho & Liho for the cholesterol-inducing breakfast.
It was awesome.

ppps. Happy Birthday, Guinness!!!!!