Lazy Afternoon

The past few days have been stressful, but I didn't expect anything less. Dahn injured her knee, and asked me to cover for her. This meant doing my regular Wednesday night, then the next three nights in a row. On Friday and Saturday, I started at 7pm and went until well past midnight, and took a break only on Saturday. I earned those tips, all right. It's not "playing" music, it's work.

How does one work a Johnny Cash tune into a repertoire of R&B/soul, blues and rock, especially when another person requests a Prince song at the same time? Simple. Do an imitation of Johnny singing "Purple Rain". A guy's gotta be on his toes.

My throat was a little sore Sunday, and I was so tired I had to back out of the jam session at the coffeehouse. I spent most of the day in bed, watching the shows I missed (Monk, Psych, last week's Dead Zone). By the time I got out of bed, it was almost sunset.

Funky Broadway

I live in a town that tries so hard to capture some of the "flavor" of NYC, they name some of their streets after the ones in downtown Manhattan: Broadway, Park Avenue, Wall Street, streets with numbers, the list goes on.

The problem: they could never get the flavor of New York, because that flavor is always changing. Whatever racial or ethnic group moves into the New York area, to try and get some economic leverage by moving away from a disadvantaged area, brings their culture with them. One could ride a subway train from Harlem in the north, all the way to Battery Park, and encounter every different language that's ever been spoken in John F. Kennedy International Airport. That's just in Manhattan, mind you; there's four other city boroughs to consider, not to mention the suburban counties and two other states in the immediate area.

This is where I come in, where I come from, and where my wife and I are going, for a return visit in September.

"September in New York" may send chills through some, considering the unfortunate place in history that phrase has now been given. I'm not afraid. I was born a New Yorker in autumn, and once I had a job in one of the buildings selfishly taken away by the terrorists. If I allowed fear to have a place in my life, I'd have never made it down the block of my old neighborhood, never mind getting from New York to Kentucky, and now back again.

Speaking of Kentucky, Jeremiah's has been a really sweet place to work. Ms. Dahn Scott(piano/vocals) is the one I sit in with on Fridays and Saturdays, supporting her on electric bass and vocals. However, some of my homies have been walking in unannounced on Wednesdays. They think it's a jam session. I don't mind them sitting in on a few songs here and there, but I'm not sure how to impress upon them that it's a gig. They want me to hand over my guitar and take a break; If I've got to work from 7 to 11 without a break, that's my problem. I can't split tips with them, because it's not a band gig. When I get a band rolling, they'll be the first ones I call.

I'm writing lyrics and changes in a fake book, so I'll have something to help me cover songs. Currrently, my word processor file has 55 pages of song lyrics, and it's not enough. At approximately 3 minutes per song, a four-hour evening has about 70 songs, give or take. Doing the same things over and over could grind my spirit down to a nub, so I have to stay vigilant -- for example, if I start singing a song in the shower, I try to write the title down, so I can research the tune.

What my friends don't understand is that I can't bill this act as "... and friends", because the guy that owns the bar/restaurant across the street is doing that already. He's got more space, more musicians, better sound equipment, and he's making a killing selling drinks and food. For right now, I'll work with what I've got: me.