now playing: paul mccartney and wings, “with a little luck”
…yeah….we’re back to the old shit again….
jayda and i went for a long drive last night…for a while, i thought i was lost. we saw, almost simultaneously, signs for shanesville and earlville…which, i mused, were founded by the famous explorers and woodsmen, shane and earl – which sparked one of my all-too-common dual conversations (conversations that i hold for people who couldn’t have them themselves, with me taking part in both sides of the conversation):
shane: dude…i like it here.
earl: me, too, dude, but i like it better over there.
shane: so what, dude? it’s major cooler over here. i’m gonna stay here, yo.
earl: whatEVER, dude. i’m goin’ over there. that’s gonna be my crib.
shane: righteous…can you hear me NOW? GOOD!
earl: DOOOODE! i can, like, TOTALLY hear you now!
shane: dig – i’m gonna call my crib…uh….shanesville.
earl: aaaaw, dude…i was gonna call MINE earlville.
shane: dude – you’re wiggin’. you’re only sayin’ that ‘cuz i already said my plot was gonna be shanesville, man. that’s just wrong, yo.
this faux-conversation goes on for about five minutes, with jayda laughing so hard that i would assume tears are coming down her eyes…i don’t know this, obviously, ‘cuz it’s dark. she remarks that her friend devena has to come on a ride with us sometime.
this conversation was followed later by another similar conversation that i made up in my head and had with myself between firefighters at the Stonersville Fire Company.
i won’t even get into that one. you can probably figure that one out for yourself.
anyway, i thought that after dinner on tuesday, the subject of nashville might have come up, but neither of us mentioned it. i’ve talked to jim, the musical director for this guys’ band, a number of times this week, and we exchanged some emails as well, and the consensus has become that they’re going to use someone local for the time being, as they’re on the road almost constantly, and they have some really important gigs coming up. i had hoped to be in town this past week to audition, but no ones’ schedule allowed for it. there’s only two days between their shows this weekend and leaving for the southwest on wednesday, and it would have ended up being the end of the month before we’d have actually been able to pull this off. and, under the circumstances, that’s just too long.
i think i was dreading the audition process, because i was somewhat afraid of succeeding. because if i have, it would have thrown my whole life into chaos for the rest of the year. even if you discount the fact that i have a wife and kids at all, it would have meant leaving my job, finding another job to tide me over until the summer work kicked in hard, finding a place for us all to live, setting up the move, and trying to determine what kind of lives my kids would have for the next three to five years.
now, if this sounds like resignation, then maybe i’m leaning too hard on all this. because this ain’t over yet.
i’m probably gonna try to give charlie a call later tonight to talk about this some more – the one thing i keep hearing from people i’ve spoken to, in terms of checking with folks about using them for references and what have you – is that i should be on a bus within a few weeks of arriving in town, because of all that i have to offer. while i find that flattering, and i appreciate the encouragement, i just flat out refuse to believe that there is a drought of musicians in nashville that do what i do. it can’t be that thin there.
charlie made the point, the last time that we talked, that i already had a foothold simply by virture of the people i know in town, and that may be true to some extent, but i don’t think it pushes me that much farther toward the top of the “call first” list. i’ve been around too long to be that willingly naive.
but i do think i can compete. i think that there are certainly gigs that would have my name all over them. marlene baker told me, when i spoke with her recently, that she thinks i should have done this ages ago, that it’s a great idea…she talked about how things only really started falling into place for her most recent client (mary gauthier) after she moved to nashville, and made the point that if this is what i want to do – the sideman thing – that i really need to be there to make that happen. certainly, everything that is happening in my life lately seems to be pointing in that direction…but i have to do this in a way that makes sense.
what i have to figure out now is…well, exactly what is it that makes sense about all this? how, at this point in my life, do i go about it in a sane manner?
two or three more years and i’ll be too comfortable to do anything about this.
it isn’t gonna happen tomorrow, but if it’s gonna happen at all, it’s gonna have to be soon.
charlie…is that your phone ringing?
...from the rear view mirror 