Last night I had a number of what some would refer to as 'life-affirming experiences'.
Jerry, Blee Mike and myself got together to jam for the first time in at least a year.
But first, Pizza must be consumed.
Sadly, our ham, pineapple and x-cheese pie arrived sans cheese and pineapple, but with a rapidly -congealing pool of pepperoni grease. Pepperoni, pineapple, it's the same thing, no? No. This affirmed my lifetime of experiencing annoyance at people who insist on fucking up even the simplest instructions. A pizza w/out cheese?
Whatever. At least we've got beer and loud electric instruments. Let's play!
We do- we do the punk thing. The rock thing. Re-arrange some of our old songs to make them better. Suddenly, it's a jazz thing. It all works. At 38, I'm the youngster in the group.
This affirms the following experiences/observations:
a) Three people is the perfect number for a rock-type band. I say this despite the fact that most of my favorite bands were 4-pieces. By were , I mean that they broke up 'cause they couldn't get along. Y'see?
b) Old guys can still crank it. I just sorta let my fingers go on 'auto-pilot' and they flew my guitar into friendly skies. Holy Moley! Who's playing that? Me? Wow.
c) If your amp isn't properly grounded and you touch the PA microphone with your lips while playing an electric guitar, you have completed what brainiac electricians call a circuit. It's kinda complicated, but I think it has something to do with Symphonic music, since I was suddenly elevated to 'Conductor' status. Then I resisted something . Yeah, I know-but why is the CIA trying to kill me now?
"No," explains Jerry, " It's your amp". Then he gets all technical and I lose focus. I can't even think about gravity without getting dizzy, so this 'electricity' stuff sounds like a bunch of bogus
hocus-pocus .
End result: I sing and my first lyrics are:
OOOWWWWCCCCHHH!!!! FFFUUUCCCCK!!! OWWW!!!
It didn't kill me. It made me louder.
Overnight, I change identities...
Like poor Gregor, I awaken to find myself polymorphed into a giant insect, only I'm a Worker Bee and not a cockroach. Hooray for me for being slightly less consumed with self -loathing than Kafka. I slowly bumble towards the Hive, collecting exhaust fumes like pollen . I'm late, but it's OK according to a Fellow Temp, the traffic jam is a 'known issue'. He's being sarcastic- he and I get along pretty well . We both know that this place is so disorganized that no one knows anything about anything.
A woman's voice asks, "excuse me, but you look very familar."
I turn around. It's a bookish librarian type brunette with geek eye-glasses and pinned-up hair.
I don't recognize her , but I'm suddenly in eternal love. Where have we met? I don't know?
She asks me what church I go to.
None.
The torrents of paperwork sweep us apart. I need to find out why she asked me about church. I need to discuss this with her over lunch.
If she comes back to work. Most of us temps quit after a day or two.
No comments:
Post a Comment