Here’s a photo of Aventura Mall. The holiday masses are gone. A mixed day of stifling sun and muggy downpours, I set to transferring VHS movies to DVD. That is, as much as permitted by lightning strikes which have an unworldly ability to know just when an hours-long process is about to finish. These are old tapes from the thrift, often three to a T-160 so the quality is blah. Dave, the guitar man. We had an orientation meeting on the phone. I had to make a management decision to continue without the correct equipment. It was that or take a chance on missing the New Year’s window again this year. Although I’ve been tricked before, he seems sincere in his understanding about rhythm guitar, that I place no restrictions on what else he plays as long as that rhythm is always present. He’s recovering from an arm injury that affects his playing—exactly the type of injury that Worker’s Compensation will not help with, and worse, are reputed to hold against people. Ask Wallace.
The usual apprehensions apply with the new guy. Music is a demanding hobby and requires domestic adjustment, something people over twenty are generally not very good at. Doing it right also means planning ahead. Most people never lose the ability because they never had it. But music is special. Count toothpicks and people smirk you’ve got time on your hands, but play the same guitar riff for twenty years and you’re their hero. Sad.
Thus, I found myself giving the same pep talk as I did when I was starting my first band at age 12. You know, I myself never needed any encouragement of that sort. I fought against all odds to get that band together. I didn’t merely meet resistance, I had to actively confront small-town mentalities, as well as ingrained and inbred prejudices. Once I beat all odds and got the first band running, within eight years (they were kind of slow) there were bands all over town. I called them the “Born Followers”. At that time, how was I to know my brother was the worst of the lot.
You’ll find that followers are a permanent component among the uneducated. They will sit around doing nothing for years. The minute you commence a project, they all jump in and start doing the same thing, even if they are woefully ignorant of the process and don’t stand a chance. This behavior used to confound me, particularly at home. At least until I recognized the ulterior motive, which I will now explain for the benefit of born followers.
Their plan is to use up available resources so you cannot succeed by yourself. No way were they gonna let you get away with taking credit for being first at something. It is a peasant tactic that works extraordinarily well, particularly when coupled with the lie that it was really their idea and there’s five of them. I’ve got probably 30 or 40 major projects in my childhood that had to be abandoned for this reason. At one point, I wanted to build my own airplane, but the sheer impossibility of keeping it a secret was too daunting. The plans required stockpiling and aging of spruce wing spars and you don’t need to be a shrink to figure out what people like my family would do the instant they saw anything of the kind.
Oddly, during the gear setup, Theresa expressed interest in what I was doing. Imagine my surprise as she not only recognized every song, but sang along and gave compliments. My constraint is that I feel I am not ready to do a four hour bass solo act in front of strangers. I would not hesitate to play it at Jimbos, but that is a trained audience. Theresa does not think I need the guitar player, but I must factor in that she may have earlier heard me practice some of the tunes, a chance new people don’t get.
While I ran through 24 tunes, I can only claim to know around half that many. I still lack the resources to have the lyrics on stage, since an old-fashioned music stand merely gets in the way of the swinging bass neck and the right-handed microphone boom. I’m working on this problem very intensely. My bass neck swings regularly through 115 degrees as I keep an eye on the PA, the stage, and any other musicians as part of ensuring my show consistent, which I consider important.
[Author's note 2015-02-04: in the end, my solo act was never quite strong enough to take in front of strangers. But I did find the audience is okay with it if I have a guitar player just standing there. Not even playing.]
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