As it turns out, there are times when music and mid-life crises must take a back seat to the mechanical obligations of the hard-earned real life that makes my fantasy world possible; the job that pays the mortgage, buys groceries, equips my oldest daughter with a bass guitar and puts gas in my car (provided I remember to stop by the gas station in time), with some dollars leftover for guitar lessons, Mac laptops and copious purchases from iTunes. On occasion, this job requires that I travel to some spot or another for some reason or another, though it usually involves paper fights, also known as litigation. As a result, I've had the good fortune to see the jaw-dropping wonders of a two-week trial in the Bronx, to compare and contrast the differences between mediations in San Francisco and San Diego, to ask the upright people of College Station, Texas to fairly compensate my employer for the consequences of a taking by eminent domain and to go toe-to-toe with elected officials in Topeka, Kansas. And, on occasion, I get a boondoggle to some resort destination that lures winter-abused Northerners down for conferences so they can swap temperatures in the 30s (or worse) for temperatures in the 70s (or better) in the name of continuing education and networking.
So, I found myself attending a retail law conference at a Marriott in Clearwater, Florida last November that conveniently came equipped with a sparkling ocean out front, less sparkly development for miles on either side, and some pretty awesome bridges across which a Minnesota runner could run and take it all in without need of Thinsulate. One afternoon after dutifully attending both general and break-out sessions in Conference Rooms That Could Be In Any Hotel Anywhere and before the scheduled dinner event, I laced-up my running shoes and headed south towards one of the high-arcing bridges I had spotted on the way into town. Having successfully located the bridge and hauled myself up and over it, I was pleasantly rewarded with a small park and public-access beach area waiting for me on the other side. It had preserved native wetlands, indigenous vegetation and included, I soon discovered, a small but peaceful bird sanctuary. The boardwalk trails beckoned, so I headed in to see what I could see. Before long, I encountered an observation area with a few benches, a view of the remaining wetlands and a lone old woman. I slowed to do some of the recommended observing and noticed the cranes, herons and other water fowl scattered about like motionless plastic lawn ornaments, (though in this case it would be a lawn that had been badly over watered and turned into a pond.) As I slowly passed the old woman it became evident that she was no tourist or retiree come to spend a few minutes with the birds. Rather, the over stuffed plastic bags nestled on either side of her and incongruous layers of tattered clothing betrayed the fact that, in all likelihood, the bench or some nearby make-shift shelter was what she called home. She and I were the only human visitors in the park from what I could see. I sat for a few minutes a couple benches down from her and took-in the refreshing island idyll that was managing to keep its metaphorical foot firmly planted between the rapidly closing double-doors of neighboring condos and hotels. I watched the birds, then the old woman, who, I found, was also watching the birds.
After a few moments, I was up again and on my way, but now with a shiny new marble of a song idea rolling around in my head. It struck me as a worthy parable of sorts that the homeless woman with so many wants and needs was the one with the time and interest in taking-in what little natural beauty was still left to be found while the tourists and retirees hurried by barely noticing the scruffy-signed park with few modern amenities.
Back in Minnesota a few days later, I cursed the declining weather to no effect. Winter and band practice, apparently, must go on. At the end of our next practice, Jim and Andy were energetically working on one of Andy's latest guitar bits that had set Jim in motion on the keyboards like a whirling dervish but with maybe slightly less whirling, though I'm pretty sure there was still some amount of whirling that did occur. As they discussed the structure of the music and how the keyboard piece and guitar would work together, I sat on the floor with my notebook, listening to the progressive iterations of the melody being born. I thought back to the homeless woman in Florida and my pencil suddenly got moving, words pouring out on the page like stale beer spilling from a bottle kicked across the floor at First Ave. after a show. When I could get a word in edge wise, I informed Jim and Andy that I might have just come-up with the lyrics to the song. Not too long after that, we recorded the following, again as insurance against the probability that our aging and overly-taxed brains would not remember what we had done from one practice to the next:
I won't repeat the disclaimer referenced in an earlier post because if you are still hanging around reading this blog you either have no common sense and therefore warnings are of no avail or you are of hardy enough stock that really you can take just about anything, no matter how egregious. So, we shall proceed then and get straight to the final version of the song which, if you like it, is to be credited to Jim and Andy and if you dislike it, well, then you're computer isn't working right and you should probably take it in for a tune-up and while you're there pick-up a nice set of headphones so that you can really appreciate the art involved here:
As for Clearwater, I'm thinking if our band ever makes it big, we might have to include a stop in Clearwater on our first tour. I know some conference rooms in a hotel there that really need something interesting to happen to them before they die.
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