So nice to be sober in the afternoon. However the alternatives do offer an abundance of avenues. Aside from the heat and the sweat that is basically telling all the fans in the room to take a hike. So this begs the question, where are we in the journey? The last jam was pleasant – but again as my Jewish Buddhist friend said – the joy is in the playing. Have we played it out, are we still liking what it is we do? I personally still like the feeling when we get it right. I am still enough of a narcissist to like to sound of my own voice and enough of a music lover to cringe when I hear my self play. The distance from where we are and perhaps to where some of us want to go seems vast. I enjoy playing on the occasional Friday night, but I am not sure I have the energy currently to take this further. I do understand that playing a guitar is different and all have you have been playing guitar for a long time. I am a writer, that is what I enjoy doing most. When one of my creations comes to life in the basement – it is because of the band. Certainly not because of my playing. There is no coincidence in that some of my favorite moments have come with someone else on the drums. I am grateful that the band tolerates my playing. I guess that is what I am trying to say here is that what we have may not be world class – at least by rock god standards but I think we need to ask ourselves is that the goal here? As my Jewish Buddhist friend said – the joy is in the playing. Shalom.
Unbeknownst to old Ronnie as he sat typing his wispy missive in a distant internet cafe, was that Mickey was dialed-in at the very same moment from a remote BC forest-fire lookout tower, and reading the blog post in virtual real-time. As the tired old sailor withdrew back from his craggled wooden pipe, he wondered aloud whether Ronnie was right. Had the band become a worn out waist-band that had lost its will and abilty to snap back into form? Or worse, a waste band, a vortex of creative doom that sucked the life juices from all who dared to enter its inescapable event horizon?
The crusty sailor switched over to his new fangled nicotine vapourizor he had just charged from the ACME solar panel baking on the tower roof, and puffed a plume of Cotton Candy Banana Creamilicious into the hot July sunbeam filling the room. Was there to be no more deep sea diving in Scandanavia? Would Gregg never come back? Captain Mickey leaned to his guitar case and pulled out his Schecter semi-hollow body and strummed the opening cords to a new tune he’d been working on and wondered if this was a 13 Channels tune or was it time for a new musical chapter?… Then “ping!” went the email alert. It was Ronnie. (To be continued…)
(continued…) It was Ronnie alright, Ronnie Runion from the record label. He wrote”Give it up Mick, the band want to all do solo careers now. What do I care, with the fan base of the Channels, they’ll each do double platinum. I’ll make millions! Keep in touch”
With that, Mickey put down the guitar and stood up. “Change is in the air, and I’d better be gettin’ on”. In a moment the lookout tower was shuttered into darkness, and the moaning oak joist silenced. The curious old crow who had beeen coming by each dusk to check up on the old sailor would find a new curiosity, but not another source of roasted peanuts.
With guitar case and pack on back, old Mickey sensed a path opening up where before had only appeared as untamed bush. The parched and brittle timberland would go unpoliced for the remainder of the day, and for many days to come.