Workin' For A Living

Huey Lewis & the News. A cute little 80's pop tune. Here's a vid for ya.

My first job outside of working for my grandfather (as a clerk/stock boy/ad hoc security in his store) was at a pizzeria. I was 13. I haven't worked every day since then by any means, but I've busted my ass at some jobs & there have been a lot of jobs. In the past I've been a:

Dishwasher
Cook
Bus boy
Office cleaner/janitor
Landscaper
Painter
Well driller's assistant
Catering plant worker
Fast food restaurant prep worker
Plastic factory machine operator
Bakery packaging line worker
Cassette tape factory machine operator
Telemarketer (for the local symphony orchestra)
Delivery driver

Those all happened in between gigs as a musician, & a few of those occupations I've engaged in more than once. But a guitarist was what I was the most often & most consistently. It wasn't a job; it was a career. Not much of a career or a particularly lucrative one at its best, but a career nonetheless.

Now I am without it. It started off as taking an unexpected break from the music biz when my guitar was stolen. But it's turned into almost 6 years as being something other than a professional musician. At times this isn't so bad; the music business is truly fucked up. But I do miss the playing. I used to hit open jams every now & then to get my stage fix but lately I haven't even been doing that. Hell I haven't even touched my guitar in over 3 months.

I always told people I felt close to that it was a good thing I was working a lot in the music biz because when I wasn't gigging I was a real asshole. I thought I was kidding but it turns out there was some truth to that.

Playing isn't just a means of paying rent, it's an emotional release. I'm fairly stoic by nature. Not that I'm emotionless with everyone but I usual don't let folks in to how I feel unless I feel close to them or think it's important to do so. When I was playing I had my emotional release. I could let other people feel what I was feeling & that satisfied that need that most humans have, albeit not in the same way most humans have it.

When I'm not playing I don't have that release, so things build up internally. It's not that I reach some point where I explode with emotions so much as that I just don't know how to express some emotions any other way. So I internalize things that I'd have vented through playing & it makes me a little harder to deal with. Or understand. Or something.

But that's not the main reason I play (although it's an important one). I need a cause; something bigger than myself as it were. In my world there's nothing more important than a love interest (assuming things are reciprocal & a few other things fall into place). But during those times when I didn't have anyone to care about the playing filled that need in my life to have something other than my own desires to live for (even though playing was a desire of mine - I think I felt I gave as much or more than I got through it).

By the time I was with KS I wasn't gigging much. I handled things okay to some degree because she filled that need that playing did. Not perfectly but enough that not playing didn't bother me as much as it did when I was alone. But I think it had some effect on our relationship. I wasn't resenting her for my not gigging or anything, I just didn't have a vent for my emotions other than her, & with her I internalized a lot of things I shouldn't have.

Funny; she's seen me play about as much as any lady I've ever been involved with (some have only heard me play unplugged in my house for example) but I don't think she ever got me. Playing wise I mean. Granted I wasn't always playing in a situation where I could really do my thing when she was around, but I think she didn't really appreciate what I could do. I don't brag about my playing as I know too many folks who are better than me but I was & have the potential to be a hot little guitar player. Not just that I can do technically complex things (my "little Mikey-Vai" impression as one band called it) but I can be very soulful. I can make folks feel something when I play. One fellow told me at a gig that I reminded him a lot of Neal Schon (from Journey) not because of what I played, but the effect it had on him. He heard catchy melodies that conveyed something deeper than just a catchy melody & that was what I was trying to project so I felt that it was perhaps the best compliment I ever received from playing. Well, it ties with that one stripper who walked up to me in her tight little skirt & said that the way I played made her dick hard. But that's probably not an apples to apples comparison.

But KS never got that I don't think. VA never heard me play outside of our bedroom. JAG - I only played for her once & that was brief, again in my house & unplugged. where I really shine is with a band, with a decent vocalist doing a song I think has merit.

The tune "Rainy Night In Georgia" is a good example (here's Tony Joe White's version). I was doing it once with this doo-wop band & it came to the second verse. The verse has a line that says, "...the distant moaning of a train seems to pass a sad refrain through the night". The chords change from the root chord to the subdominant chord in between the words "train" & "seems" so I always throw in this bended interval which serves as an alteration of the subdominant chord as it resolves to the 11th & 6th of the subdominant. I lower the volume when I hit the bend & increase the volume as it resolves downward which gives it an effect which sounds almost like a train moaning in the distance.

The first time I did that little trick the guy singing the tune (who was an old veteran of the music biz) turned around kind of surprised & smiled at me for a few words of the verse. I ha d impressed him, partly because he didn't think a skinny little white kid with long hair who was barely old enough to drink could do something so tasteful in an old standard.

But that was an example of how I tried to highlight the song's meaning when I played. When I soloed it was more direct but I went with the same goal in mind - make folks feel what the song is supposed to make them feel. There are a few tunes where I'm better at this than others, but in general that was my philosophy when playing.

But now I'm not playing. I don't have that release nor do I have that part of my life to be proud about.

When I was with KS I started writing on my other site. That did something for me similar to music but in a different way; it gave me something to work for that I felt was bigger than myself but this time in an intellectual way rather than an emotional one. I got to show off my mind instead of my heart. & that's been a cool thing but it hasn't been as good for me as playing was. Not just that I've never made money at it but that intellectual venting was never that much of a problem for me. Emotional venting has been.

So where I am now is that I'm not playing at all, even at home. In part I'm doing this purposefully so I can deal with some emotions that I otherwise would just play away. I admit I understand more about my emotional side & how that works than I ever have before, but this kind of introspection is very draining.

For work I'm delivering fucking pizzas. It's not bad work as far as it goes but it grates me that I'm doing something requiring such little skill when I should be playing. I used to tell folks that the most important lesson I learned from working in the pizzeria when I was 13 was that you should never work in a pizzeria. It's hard to follow my own advice though.

Maybe one day I'll get off my ass & play again. Or maybe I'll go back to school (I've been toying with the gunsmithing program at this one school - it's a hobby of mine). For now I'm just working & trying to feel things without my favorite crutch.