I Call That A Bargain, The Best I Ever Had

I Call That A Bargain, The Best I Ever Had

I hadn't even played the damn thing at all in two months, but for my solo spot I whipped out Chuck Berry's Maybelline, for the first time onstage. I chumped a couple lyrics, and my guitar tone was SHIT ON A RANCID FUCKSTICK, but it was fien enough. I think half the audience was off changing their Depends at that point anyway.

A VERY drunk woman, probably in her 60s, came up to me after the gig raving about how good we were, how she'd seen us a couple weeks ago too, on and on. Very cool. Then she asked me if the guitar player was married. Damn, I can't even get groupies among the dried-up grandmas.

Fun day with Katie. She played with my sister this morning, out on the driveway with chalk, laughing at the cats as they played with each other. I went off to video-document a few more cemeteries, then cmae back to take her over to my grandma's for her early birthday party.

Her cousins were thrilled to see her, she got a lot of presents, and I got part of it on video. The look on her face while everyone sang Happy Birthday to her was pricless. If that wasn't a "man, I'm cool" look on her, I don't know what is. Sometimes I think we over-compensated with Katie - we've tried very hard to give her confidence, and it sometimes comes out as a certain kind of arrogance that she needs toned down a coupel notches, but hey, I've got a really happy kid. She sang all the way out there for me, making up songs about cats and breakfast.

After the party, I drove her out to the big cemetery and showed her where my cousin Stevie is at. the one who killed himself seven years ago. (Though I didn't tell her that.) Then I showed her where my friend mike is at, near Stevie, and told her about the ten days I played with Mike in Southern California, and how I met her mommy two weeks after I came back to Indiana. I also showed her the neighborhood my mom grew up in, where I spent time as a kid at my grandma's, and my great-grandmother's house she lived for years before dying when I was in 7th grade, the house which is about to fall over any day.

Mommy herself called, and it sounds like yet another outrageous Keneally show last night. Lots of old stuff. And he - the goofy bastard - played a Judas Priest tune. God, I need to see him again soon. Of course, I'm so totally gay every time I get within 12 miles of him, he's probably going to book his next tour in Outer Mongolia just to not play anywhere near me. Mike, that bit I said last year about having a direct line of sight to your cock was METAPHORICAL.

OK, maybe I'm full of shit there too. That sexy bitch.

Who's Next in the van tape deck. (The van that is going back to Indy tomorrow. So much for me and my bright ideas. I guess i won't have to implant memory chips in my Mom's head detailing every single inch of a trip back from Indy in order to satiate my father's psychosis after all.) We do Behind Blue Eyes, which is one of my favorites, but that whole album is a thing of godlike proportions. I was singing (OK, screeching, I think I blew a fuse towards the end of the gig and my oice went to fuck) along with Bargain and Baba O'Riley when I left the gig. Goddamn, I love me some Pete Townshend.

Went to the bar we played last week and got a PBR and sat there looking at the empty barstools and listened to the Sheryl Crow somebody had put on the jukebox. Then I walked back to the car and ran into the guy who took my place at the music store in town when I left for SoCal the first time. His band was playing down the street. We talked about our bands and gigs, and it hit me very hard just what it is I do for a large percentage of my income now. The drunk woman back at the gig went on and on about how "professional" we were. And we are. Even with a multitude of things i'd really like to change about us, we've got this shit DOWN, and we do it damn near every week. Add in my students and...it's really difficult to use the term "professional musician" about myself, but it's half of what i do now. Finally. Fuck knows I've got so much fucking work to do to get to the point where I can really FEEL I deserve that title, but here we are, playing regularly, starting to develop an actual following, making enough money from it that it would fuck my ass NOT to be doing it.

I made $170 this weekend playing my bass. Even with all the extra bullshit involved, I call that a bargain.

I sit looking 'round
I look at my face in the mirror
I know I'm worth nothing without you
And like one and one don't make two
One and one make one
And I'm looking for that free ride to me
I'm looking for you

I know what Pete meant, but I know what it means to me, I know what it feels like to lock into that when I'm pulling notes from my bass. I've been a shitty excuse for a disciple, I've been distracted, I've even turn away from it, but music has not ever let me down. PEOPLE do every goddamn day. Music never has.

Onward.

Love,
Dougie