Uncalloused

I used to play my guitar constantly. It was to the point where I’d bring it to work with me and play during my lunch hour. I played when I got home from work. I played in the morning before I left for work. I lived in an apartment and my neighbors on the other side of the walls must’ve hated me.



I used to play open mic nights religiously, and that habit was what led to meeting my husband.



Then life got in the way. I got into other things like boat restoration, writing a book, diving, living with a boyfriend who eventually became a fiancé, then eventually became a husband.



Every so often I hear music that inspires me. When I get home I pull the guitar out and strum a few chords and grimace at the pain in the tips of my fingers on my left hand. The thick callouses I had developed had worn away to reveal softer skin underneath.



Then I went to see Willy Porter last weekend, and I am inspired. But I teeter between being inspired to smash my guitar into a wall, or to quit my job and play constantly and get really good. I need to find some middle ground.



On Tuesday Todd came home from work and saw my Gibson Epiphone acoustic draped across the couch and said “I was wondering when that would come out.” Then he noticed my laptop was open to a guitar tablature site and said “Let me guess, you’re trying to learn a Willy Porter song.”



“No” I replied indignantly. “Willy Porter songs are way too good and too intimidating. I learned a few Matt Nathanson songs instead.”



“I can see the fan mail now,” he joked. “Dear Matt Nathanson, I love you. You’re like a dumbed down Willy Porter.



Last night Todd restrung one of our acoustics for me. It looks like I am on my way to becoming a hobby guitar player again.

Tenacious Beej and the Pick of Destiny

We left Club Passim in Cambridge, Massachusetts in a post-fabulous-concert glow at nearly 1 in the morning. As we walked through Harvard Square I held Todd’s hand and he brought my hand into his coat pocket to keep it warm, like he often does.

“I have another surprise for you in my pocket,” he said with a mischievous smile. I couldn’t imagine what else he could have surprised me with, but I pulled out a guitar pick. 

“Ooooh! You grabbed this off the stage for me after the show?” I giggled. “Thanks for not making fun of me for mooning around like a teenager tonight.” I admired the pick. It was the same brand as the one I pulled off of Suzanne Vega’s stage many years ago, but hers was thinner. I wonder where that pick ever went. I never used it.

Back in 1996 was the first time I saw Willy Porter in concert. He had opened up for Toad the Wet Sprocket and The Cranberries. I still love Toad, but am so over The Cranberries. (When I used to perform I did a parody of “Zombie” that went “He’s made of clay-ay. Made of clay-ay-ay-ay. Gumby! Guh-um-by!”) I went to this show with my best friend Sue, her then boyfriend Pete, and the boy who lived next door to me when I grew up in East Windsor, Josh. Pete and Josh were good friends, and Josh is still good friends with my brother Kaz. Willy stood on the stage with his guitar and his fingers flew up and down the fret board as he sang. Josh, who also plays guitar, stood next to me and joined me in my slack jawed stare as Willy played.

Then I sorta forgot about Willy Porter until I recently stumbled upon a song of his on Pandora. It was last fall, when I could still listen to Pandora at work. It was the song “Angry Words” that caught my attention. I turned up the volume and listened closer. His bright sounding acoustic guitar blended perfectly with his slightly gravelly voice. I clicked over to the browser window and saw that it was Willy Porter. “No way,” I muttered out loud. “How on earth did I forget about this guy?” I pulled out my list of must-check-out artists that I had formulated from listening to Pandora all day at work, and scrawled “Willy Porter***!!!” on the very top of the list. Then Pandora was banned at work, and the list of must-check-out artists is growing thin.

But I ran right out and bought “High Wire Live” during lunch that day. And it’s been in the CD player at home, in the car and on the boat for most of the last year. (I took a Willy Porter hiatus in the spring, however, when my recent obsession with Neil Peart erupted and I began to listen to Rush in doses that are probably illegal in several states.) 

Last night we sat down in the very front for the 7 PM show at Club Passim. Luke Doucet opened with a half dozen songs—melodic guitar and gritty lyrics, beautifully executed. Then Willy came on with a full band. He played effortlessly, he sang and joked with his band mates and told hilarious anecdotes between songs. But the thing that struck me the most was his smile. He beamed as he played and sang and made it very obvious that he thoroughly enjoys his job.

At nearly 9 the show ended. We left the club and wandered to the ATM to get some cash for the lot where Todd parked the car. Even though home is an hour and a half away from Harvard Square, I wasn’t ready to leave. I joked with Todd about getting tickets for Willy’s 10:00 show. 

We walked through Harvard Square, Todd leading the way because I didn’t know where he parked the car.

“Hey, is that Palmer Street?” he asked. “So, we’re back at Club Passim? Wow, I just took us in a big circle,” he said apologetically as we stood in front of the club. “Oh well, I guess we’ll have to go back in and watch the 10:00 show.” He handed me the cash he’d gotten out of the ATM so I could buy every CD on the table that I didn’t yet have—4 Willy Porters and 2 Luke Doucets. Then we sat in the front on the other side of the stage than we had during the 7:00 show.

I got up to use the bathroom, which was in the same hallway as the performers dressing room. Willy walked by, and I thanked him for playing “Angry Words,” which had made me squeal in a vocal range I had no idea I could even produce. I told him how that song had been on repeat in the car a lot lately.  Then I cringed and said "Yeah, that probably sounds psycho," and he just laughed.  We chatted in the hallway for a bit about how I rediscovered him on Pandora. He unlocked his dressing room door and I immediately grew self-conscious about having kept him from escaping the milling fans in the hallway.

“I.. um… just so you know I am actually waiting for the ladies room, and not just lurking outside your dressing room,” I said to him. He laughed and said that he figured that. (Ugh! I am such a dork!)

I sat at the table and systematically opened every CD and read all the liner notes until Todd suggested I get one autographed. 

“I’m not going to do that! How dorky!” I cowered.

“Come on, he’s right over there at the bar. When are you going to get this chance again?”

I batted my eyes at him.

“So, you want me to do it?” he asked.

I batted them again.

“Oh for crying out loud,” he laughed and took my copy of “Dog Eared Dream” to the bar. I sat there chastising myself for not doing it myself. Then I walked over.

“Hey, you made it,” Todd laughed.

“I make my husband do my dirty work for me,” I explained to Willy. “But then I told myself to man up,” I shrugged.

“Yeah, she’s been listening to your CD like it’s her job,” Todd laughed.

“That’s not true, I swap it out for Rush occasionally,” I reminded him.

“You’re swapping me for Rush? I love Rush!” Willy smiled.

“Yeah, I am in a full on Neil Peart obsession right now,” I explained.

“Understood,” he laughed. I told him about how I’d devoured all four of Peart’s memoirs in the spring, “Yeah, he’s got nothing to say, huh?” he joked and signed my copy of “Dog Eared Dream.”

Then we sat down and listened to Luke Doucet all over again. Then we listened to Willy Porter and Co. all over again and watched him drop that orange guitar pick.

Hurt

What is it about a song on the radio that brings back the memory of something I hadn’t thought of in years?

I was driving to work the other day when the song “Hurt” by Nine Inch Nails came on the radio. I sat there with my elbow propped against the door and tapping on the wheel with my thumbs as I listened.

The first time I heard the song was on a mix tape that my first post-college-just-moved-out-of-home-to-a-new-city boyfriend made for me. I met Marcus at one of my favorite bars, and we clicked right away. Marcus was in a “transitional” phase. He didn’t have a job and was living off the savings account he’d had since he was born. We talked on the phone a lot; we spent a lot of time together. Then he randomly ended it after a few weeks. He claimed to be depressed and wanted to be just friends.

I agreed to be just friends, because having him as a friend was way better than not having him at all. He made me the mix tape in a “Let’s be friends” gesture, and he recorded “Hurt” onto it as the ultimate depiction of his depressed and tortured soul. He told me some bullshit story about how he didn’t want to wreck the person that I am by getting me mixed up in his messed up life. He came to see me play at the open mic, where I played “Untouchable Face” by Ani DiFranco, and bravely stared at him through the whole thing.

At the time I ate the whole “I’m so depressed” thing up. I was convinced that he wasn’t depressed when he was with me, and I was helping him somehow. Until I learned about what was really torturing this guy’s soul. He came over to my apartment one night, and I made stuffed shells for dinner. He was telling me about a woman he’d just started seeing after he dumped me.

“The thing is,” he swallowed his mouthful of ricotta, “I don’t really like her that much.”

“Then why are you hanging out with her, then?” In my mind I asked him, “Yeah, here you are having a conversation about life with me, but you won’t call me your girlfriend? But you call that tramp your girlfriend? What the hell is the matter with you?”

“Because she knows how to please,” he replied in his deadpan honesty that I’d gotten so used to.

I rolled my eyes and said “Oh please, that’s not the only reason you’re hanging out with her.”

And I was right. He was a horrible boyfriend and a lousy friend. He was hanging out with that particular sex goddess because she didn’t challenge him to be a better person like I did. This is what caused Marcus’s “depression” and his acceptance of the song “Hurt” as his anthem—he just didn’t feel like working for something worthwhile.

A few weeks later I broke off our friendship. I couldn’t take his confiding in me about other women. I was liberated as I left his apartment. I barged in and said “I can’t be friends with you. I want to be more than friends and you don’t. This isn’t working for me. Goodbye.” Then I stormed out of his apartment just as fast as I’d barged in. He chased me down the stairs and asked me to talk to me. I silently continued down the narrow stairs, my knees were shaking.

Our paths crossed a few more times here and there in the months and years after that. We’d swap emails now and then, but it was always the same old thing with him and I quickly grew tired of hearing from him.

One night, after Todd and I moved in together I met him out for a beer. We had a very nice conversation that lasted very late into the night. At the end of the night he asked me if he could kiss me and I said, “Well, I live with my boyfriend. I’ve got a good thing going here. No thanks.” He shrugged and said “Fair enough.”

He tried to stay friends, and I made excuses. He’d invite me to parties at his apartment, and I’d write back with a simple “No thanks, we have plans.” It was after Todd and I had gotten engaged that he wrote to me to ask me how I was doing.

“Hi Marcus,” I wrote. “Life is really good. I am engaged, getting my Masters, and restoring a 41’ sailboat. Take care, Beej.”

After that I never heard from him again. I came across a picture of him when I googled him out of curiosity about a year ago. But other than that, I haven’t thought about that soap opera for more than a decade now. The mix tape has long been lost or thrown away.

But it all came flooding back, just from hearing that song. I wonder if he thinks of me when he hears that song by Ani DiFranco.

Revisiting The Pass

I’ve been waxing nostalgic in my head lately about playing music. I think it comes from my recent re-acquaintance with the music I listened to when I was a teenager. For example, last night on the way home from work I listened to “The Pass” by Rush. I always loved this song, and sang along flawlessly as I drove south on I-95 to words I memorized nearly 20 years ago. When I was a teenager I wanted to be able to play that song in the worst way, but was never really good at playing by ear. I listened to it over and over and dissected the song. I spent hours in my high school boyfriend’s bedroom trying to play the bass guitar part on his guitar. I was not a bass guitar player. Not even close. But I was hell-bent on figuring it out the way that Rush plays it. Eventually he got bored, left me in there and went downstairs to watch TV.

A few times this week I picked up my acoustic guitar, and have been tinkering around with it. I no longer have calluses on the fingertips of my left hand, so each stint with the guitar has been short lived. But I’ll strum out a few songs I’ve written, or a few songs I’ve learned, and scoured the Internet for tablature for songs I want to learn. Last week, for example, I learned to play Matt Nathanson’s “Suspended” and now I just need to tighten it up a bit and memorize it. At that point I will consider it learned.

Over the years I lost that must-play-it-the-way-they-play-it determination. I can play some passable selections by Ani DiFranco, REM, Indigo Girls, Suzanne Vega and Dar Williams. I can sing along to what I am playing, and I can make it sound like the original song. But I know that I am not playing them the way they were composed. And that’s OK. It’s my interpretation of the song, not a regurgitation.

ThursdayI got home from work and picked up the guitar. I have no idea what it’s tuned to. It’s tuned to itself, but not to the correct tuning. My guitar tuner’s battery is dead. I keep forgetting to buy a new one. Thursday I eyed the smoke detector in the hallway and toyed with the idea of removing its 9 volt battery and plugging it into my electronic guitar tuner. I debated the importance of a tuned guitar versus a burning house, knowing that I would never be bothered to go back up there to replace the battery in the smoke detector if I ever took it out.

I thought better of removing the battery and strummed an E minor chord. Then I played a G. I did the progression again, staccato and in time. Then I hopped around to find the root of the next part of that bass guitar riff that had plagued me in my high school boyfriend’s bedroom so many years ago. I played the entire riff over and over again, training my hands to work together.

Then I began to sing, “Proud swagger out of the school yard/Waiting for the world’s applause.”

I placed a capo on the second fret, and played it again a bit higher; to suit my singing voice. I fumbled through the whole song, and had just barely come up with a working version. I strummed, I sang, I held out notes and hopped around on the fret board trying to come up with a chord to match it.

And with that I have a working version of “The Pass.” It’s probably no where even remotely correct. But it’s good enough for me.

The Best Gift Ever

We had an essay contest at work. The prize was Boston Red Sox tickets. While I personally don’t care about the Sox, my nephew is a huge fan. I entered the contest to try to win the tickets for him. The essay had to be about the best gift I received before finishing high school and wanted elaboration about who the gift was from, and what I would do with it if I received this gift today. The winning entrant talked about how she’d been in an accident and lost a great deal of blood. The best gift she had gotten was blood donated her by the community. And now, one of the entries that didn't win.

The best gift I’d ever gotten in that time of my life was music. I am not talking about CDs or concert tickets. I am talking about the ability to release a melody that only exists inside my head into something that other people can hear.

When ever I, or one of my siblings, expressed an interest in learning to play a musical instrument my parents did whatever they could to make it happen. Mom scoured the want ads for used saxophones, then went and haggled the price until it was something we could afford. Then she and Dad tolerated my incessant honks and squeaks as I learned how to play it.

Over the years my brother, Kaz and I amassed a veritable arsenal of musical instruments. From age 5 to 18 I collected a menagerie of guitars, saxophones and keyboards from under Christmas trees. However, I claim no ownership of the accordion--a standard fixture in the average Polish-American household. Our house was filled with constant musical creation, with never a “Would you stop that racket?” from my parents. We were loud. Kaz’s electric guitar blared in the room above where we watched TV. Somehow neither of us expressed interest in learning to play the drums. I wish I had asked for a set back then, just to see what my parents would say.

While I dabbled in every music-making device I could get my hands on, Kaz became an amazing guitarist. His flying fingers nearly melted the neck on my Gibson SG electric guitar. We didn’t get along so well when we were kids, but it was our love of Pink Floyd, Ozzy Ozbourne, and Queensryche that kept us in the same room together playing for hours on end. Kaz could hear a scorching guitar solo once and replicate it perfectly note for note. I played chords to accompany him, however to this day I could never convince him that I am the better singer. It was all those hours spent playing that made him my friend now that we’re grown ups.

Eventually life got in the way. I haven’t performed for at least 10 years. I still can pick up my guitar and strum a few clumsy chords, and I can still play saxophone parts I learned in high school from sheer muscle memory. I have fragments of lyrics scrawled on random slips of paper. Now I just need to give myself the gift of time to play more, and to get those random lyrics to fit into a full song. Overall, I am an angry songwriter, and haven’t had much to be angry about in the last decade or so. I fumbled my way through writing our wedding song as a surprise for Todd, and I wrote some gut wrenching songs after Mom died. But other than that, the songwriting well has run dry and I have changed to blog writing and fiction writing to get my creative outlet.

My parents’ gift of music is not about receiving anymore. My niece Rachael played my alto sax at school for a little while. Kaz’s daughter, Maggie, plays my tenor sax in the school band. Kaz’s son, Krystian, will get my Gibson SG for his13th birthday this summer. At Christmas every year I buy Kaz a CD he’s never heard of and say, “You really need to hear this, it’ll blow your mind.”

Haunted

Just back yesterday from a mini vacation to Orlando and while on the trip I read Neil Peart’s “Ghost Rider.” I devoured 200+ pages on the flights from Providence to Orlando, in approximately 4 hours of flight time. Then I finished the rest while lounging by the pool at the hotel on Monday. This is one of those books that has kept me up at night with my mind racing for the last two nights.

See, I was a Rush fan when I was a teenager. “Presto” was in my car’s tape deck for some ungodly amount of time that can only be measured in months. “Hold Your Fire” was in my walkman, and got me through my jogs and psyched me up for field hockey and basketball games and track meets. I memorized every word, and Neil Peart wrote almost every one of them. Then when I’d learned that he’d written this book, I saved it for a time when I’d be in a “forced inactivity” situation, like in an airplane, so I could focus in larger chunks at a time. (As opposed to my normal lunch hour and before bed reading times.)

The book was about how Peart rode his motorcycle all over Canada, the western US, Mexico and Belize in the year or so after his teenage daughter and wife died just months apart. It’s an honest, yet guarded, account of his travels. He wrote about every thing he’d seen, hiked and ate with a slight taste of his grieving process.

And it was just that—his grieving process. I read the reviews of the book on amazon.com, and read the critiques which said that he “wrote the book for himself and not for his fans.” And now I pose the question, why does everything he does have to be for his fans? Yes, he’s made a name for himself as a fantastic drummer in a very successful rock band. But this was a book a man wrote about what he needed to do to get over a massive loss. It was personal for him, just like any grieving process is for anyone.

The first six months after I lost my mom, I was a useless, spontaneously sobbing mess. It didn’t help that I’d been laid off from my job the week before she died, so I didn’t have anything in my life that forced me into a routine. In those months, getting out of bed often took a Herculean effort. Lying in bed and staring out the window always seemed a more compelling way to spend my time. I shopped for a house as a way to give myself some purpose, because searching for a job and grad school weren’t enough to get me vertical every morning.

When I lost Mom, I lost my link to my past. I also lost the link to that one person that I could ask “So, what were you doing when you were my age? What did you think of life and the world then?” I am 35 now, and I would love to ask Mom, who had 4 children at the age of 35, her youngest not even a concept (surprise!) and ask her how her life was compared to how mine is now. But I can’t. And that’s the part of my loss that haunts me. And that’s the loss that I still grieve for nearly 8 years later—that I never really got the chance to experience Mom as a fellow woman, and not as just my mom.

But Peart lost his link to his present and his future when he lost his family so many years ago. I can live without being able to discuss history with Mom. I still have a future that I can look forward to. What did he have? His life as he knew it ended, and he didn’t know what to do next.

I look at my life now, and the concept of losing my husband or even one of my dogs scares the living hell out of me. And if I had a motorcycle and the means, I sure as hell would take off on the bike too.