A Tall Tale Told

OK, I’ll admit to having an incredible weekend of fantasy around the idea of my music aired nationally on the radio.

Locked away in my lowly cave, I practiced for hours to get the notes and fingering just right for today’s session. I played sitting down, standing up, leaning back and thrusting forward, changing tempos and reworking phrases. Because, living so long unplayed in its case, my guitar needs serious adjustment, I borrowed my friend’s handmade beauty to better caress the perfect action in hopes of playing the Perfect Tune.

More to the point, I reveled in an emotional bliss, ecstatic, I confess, that my star feels to be rising after so much troubled dark times. Music has always been an outlet of pleasure for me, but beyond gigs in smokey bars and local festivals years ago, never have I truly imagined music as a seriously mountable stage professionally. These last 20 years, I hardly played at all, so this opportunity coming so quickly upon the revitalization of my voice was just too exciting to remain humble.

I let it get to my head.

Imagine then my disappointment when the engineer’s Email arrived to say they were all set for the interview, but would not be recording any music. POOOOOOOF!! I could hold onto the last gasp of hope that no recording was necessary because they were satisfied with the songs I had dispatched after our conversation on Friday, but I knew this was wishful thinking. This is National Radio, afterall. Last week they played Dave Mason on the program, while I am just an out-of-practice amateur from Vermont.

A deep breath of release, and I regained my composure, recognizing that it is honor enough to speak my version of the sub-prime mortgage fiasco. I had a pretty fancy soapbox from which to emphasize the truth that our humanity, our connections to ourselves and each other, is more important than any elevated interest rate or the erratic swings of the stock market.

And, for the sake of drama and good writing, I exaggerate the span of my ego and its deflation. In actuality, I had already been sobered all weekend by the bravery and good humor with which my son has endured the pain of a knee damaged seriously in a soccer game also on Friday. Whatever levels of fortune we may attain in pursuit of our own self-absorbed lives, all falls quickly into perspective when told our child may need surgery and six months of rehabilitation.

I have already handed one drugged and limp toddler over to a surgeon’s care. No matter how grown is my son, that vulnerability of a parent so helpless is no less of an incapacitation. A mighty pen can fall silent contemplating the surgeon’s sword, and no amount of musical accolades could really distract me from the worry.

Still, I exhaled that deep breath of relief and drove to the studio. Dick Gordon of “The Story” patiently asked pertinent and probing questions that stimulated my tale of transformation into this new life. In a sound proof booth, isolated with headphones, surrounded by the reds and greens of the equipment’s blinking lights, I answered his distant voice, and learned more about myself and what really matters in this strange, terrifying and glorious world.

Still, the show must go on, and the story continued.

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