Now That I'm Forty...


Born in New York and now going to die in New York. Someday.

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Now That I'm Forty...

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Monday, May 03, 2004

And The Mystery Begins
I may have done 45% effort. And I was loud! I think 45% of all the keys I hit were flat and sour. I can't imagine what happened. Driving to Jersey, I wasn't terrified. I even found the place my brain needed to be in order to get through this. I figured, I am a fellow musician coming to jam with the band. I was to be their biggest fan, propping up their talent with my own. You know how the singers, like say Pat Benatar or Stevie Nicks would play air-guitar along with the real guitar players? They are supporting the instruments and jamming out on stage. I figured that's what I should do. And overall, have fun!

When I saw the Cat Poop Girl today on the way out, I told her where I was going and why. I figured I'd volunteer some personal info since she hadn't shown much interest on her own. I wanted to see her expression when she heard that I, too, was a singer. She gave me the face I was expecting--that one you'd think. "Oh! Have fun!" she said. That's what cued me in. I should be going to have fun. This was a hobby, not a job interview. And gol dangit, I can sing!

People. I tanked. You know when you get to the point where you feel like you're doing such a bad job that nothing can help you improve it, but you can't stop? Those poor guys, trying to put on brave faces for their drummer's sake. I mean, I didn't go running screaming out of their basement in abject embarassment because I kept thinking--"I'll get better! My next line will sound much better!" Noooot so much. And I suspect I wasn't AS bad as I remember it, but I do know that they were expecting much better than what I gave them. I was the guy that the drummer talked up, (him being my biggest fan and whatnot) and here I was coming from NYC to do this. Surely I HAD to be good!?

No. I was not good.

So now the mystery begins. WHY was I not good??? Am I so delusional that what I hear myself do in the car alone really doesn't have the slightest scintilla of ability whatsoever?

There's only one way to find out. I must go to the karaoke booth and record myself. You'd think I'd have done it already but something inside must have known that I'd not like what I heard. So I've now GOT to know what. The. Deal. IS.

Me, I think I can sing. I may have a near-phobic nervous reaction to performance in public. I may not be able to sing with loud live music (but those guys were really great and talented. There was a guitar player, bass player, violinist, and my friend the drummer, God bless him!). I may not be able to sing anything but R&B. I may not be able to sing at all. But I'm ready to hit this puppy head on and find out what is what.

If I like what I hear, I will find a way to get it online and link it here. If I don't like it, I'll just tell you--but I won't punish you with the sound of it the way I did those poor people this afternoon.

Still, I'm glad I did it. I got to hear some good live music, got enjoyed by a friend who likes me, and found my fuel for getting this singing thing out of my system. It's been there like a virus for the last, maybe, thirty years. I used to sit in my room listening to WABC-AM Radio, back when it was all-music (and Harry Harrison was a Dj), drawing my own comics on ditto paper with black Bic pens and pencils, coloring them with magic markers, and singing along with Steely Dan, Boz Scaggs, Fleetwood Mac, Chicago, Kim Carnes--all the Soft Rock stuff before 1980-for literal HOURS. Night after night. No homework, no outside friends, no sports, no television. Just that. No mother and her drunk boyfriend. No mother's cigarette smoke. No roach-infested section 8 suburb apartment in 'upstate' NY.

I learned to love the sound of harmony then. So when I went to church, and a few years passed, and my Church Love introduced me to Integrity's Hosanna, I figured I knew what I needed to do. I already stated that going out to Bible school was an attempt at following the dream of singing as much as it was a religious calling on my life. (Or did I?) I haven't yet fulfilled either.

But it's never too late, right?

I'll have to leave the religious calling up to God. I'm not sure he still wants me to be a preacher.

But I can do something about the music. Not going to give up after all this time. Music's been the one constant in my life. The ONE constant. I knew it before I knew God. It's lasted longer than my mother and father's lives.

I feel like I owe it some kind of loyalty for sticking by me and pulling me through so so much.

Music is going to have to kick me out before I leave it.

Me at 5/03/2004 12:00:00 AM