What Would You Do For $112.50?

We were just sitting down to a delicious dinner (homemade soup with crunchy homemade sourdough bread, should you be curious) when the phone rang.
"Let the machine get it," I mumbled, soup dribbling down my chin and on to my lap.
Conversation ceased at the table as we listened to the answering machine, curious about who would be so bold as to interrupt our tasty dinner.
"Hey Marty. It's Steve. So, I'm wondering... What would you be willing to do for $112.50?"
I excused myself from the table, soup still dribbling from my lips, and raced to the phone.
The question really is, "What would I NOT do for $112.50?"
It was actually the precise amount, including that provocative fifty cents that intrigued me so much.
If Steve had asked "What would you do for a hundred bucks?" I probably would have finished my soup before returning his call.
But $112.50?
An amount like that warrants immediate and undivided attention.
As it turned out, Steve was inviting me to participate in a performance he had booked.
For the following afternoon.
My buddy Steve is very kind and generous about inviting me to some of the many musical extravaganzas he regularly performs. My suspicion is that he enjoys watching me squirm when, mid-performance, he turns to me and whispers, "You haven't heard this next song before because I just wrote it this morning. I haven't got all the words or the structure of the song totally worked out yet, but just play along. It'll be fine."
Steve is a hardened, grizzled veteran musician who can easily and competently operate under such conditions. I, by contrast, am a hack who occasionally plays the drums for my own personal satisfaction or to annoy my neighbors.
The gut-wrenching panic I feel during these moments on stage with Steve is generally its own reward.
But now he was offering $112.50!
With only one song in the entire set that I had never played before, the performance was much easier and less stressful than normal.
But that's because Steve was using the performance as a clever ploy.
He had asked me to arrive at his house a few hours before the performance because he had a new song that he was working on and wanted me to play the drums for him.
At the recording studio.
In two days.
A song I've never heard before? At the studio? In two days?
No problem.
We sat in Steve's living room and he went over the song, stressing the fact that it was going to have a sort of Bo Diddly kind of feel to it. Rock and roll with a chunky sort of back-beat.
No problem.
We practiced it a few times and it seemed to go well, which really should have served as a sort of early warning to me.
I dutifully arrived at the studio at the appointed hour, expecting a fun-filled afternoon of pain, suffering, and humiliation.
Possibly followed by pizza.
As it turns out, there was no pizza, but the pain, suffering, and humiliation I had expected were nothing compared to what I actually experienced.
Steve breezed into the studio and cheerily announced, "So, I've been rethinking this song and I think it may be better if we forget about the Bo Diddly thing and go with a reggae sort of feel. What do you think?"
"Did you bring Jamaican rum?" I asked.
Steve chuckled warmly and ignored my plea, evidently imagining that I was joking.
Steve played his new reggae version of the song and I tried valiantly to think of WWBMD?
What Would Bob Marley Do?
Of course, the answer to that is obvious, but was entirely out of the question.
I've never been particularly proficient at playing island beats on the drum set.
I trudged into the recording room and spent the entire afternoon proving that fact to everyone at the studio including the unprecedented tour group that wandered through the studio at the very apex of my suffering.
Seriously.
A tour group.
"What's that whimpering heap over there in the corner?" asked one of the people.
"Oh, that? That's just a drummer. He'll be fine." came the answer before the tour wandered away.
Six and a half hours after we had arrived, my 3 minutes and 30 seconds of drumming was all recorded.
I woke Steve up from where he was having a restful nap on the studio's luxurious leather couch, and we made our way homeward.
Next time, I'll think very carefully about what I might be willing to do for $112.50.
And then I'll pick up the phone anyway.

(The video is actually from a previous recording session with Steve. I couldn't bear to share the pain of this most recent one.)

Fail 2.0

Yesterday was a thrilling day filled with music, laughter, tasty food, and unimaginable personal humiliation.

Steve and I were busy with two performances. Our first gig was at St. Joseph's Hospital in Nashua. The hospital has occasional community outreach programs to let people know that you don't need to wait until you are desperately ill and coughing up internal organs to come to the hospital. You can come for some family fun, too.

After the hospital show, Steve had to grab some milk at the store. True fact: Even Rock & Roll superstars like Steve Blunt like a tall glass of milk now and then. As we were exiting the grocery store, we passed a beautiful young lady entering the store. She saw me and her eyes lit up and she stopped and gave me an effusive greeting. "Hey! How are you?" she asked. Steve was very impressed that I was being greeted by such a lovely young lady.

I totally panicked. I didn't recognize her and I mentally scrambled for a few desperate seconds trying to place her and not wind up looking completely foolish. I failed.

I feel that I must offer some feeble excuses and explanations for what happened next.

Excuse #1 - I was with Steve, at an unfamiliar grocery store in Nashua. I was out of my element.

Excuse #2 - When I'm with Steve, we tend to talk a lot about visits and performances we have done. From that mindset, I assumed that she was a teacher at one of the many schools I have visited. It happens on rare occasions that people will come up to me in public places and say hi, explaining that I had visited their school. It's always flattering, but I visit a lot of school. Try as I might, I can't remember everyone.

Excuse #3 - I am a dork.

She continued to chat amiably and comfortably for a few more gut wrenching seconds. When it finally became clear to me that I was not going to be able to figure out who she was in time to save any shred of self-respect, I broke down and said, "I'm so sorry. You're going to have to help me out. Where do I know you from?"

She stared at me, aghast. She cocked a hip to one side and gave me an incredulous look. "You've got to be kidding," she said, "I'm related to you."

Excuse #4 - It has been quite some time since I've seen my cousin, Christine.

So, the beautiful young lady was my cousin. I got it then, and I feel the need to emphasize the excuses I put forth before. I had not seen her in some time. I have been old and ugly for a long time, but these kids grow up and change and, doggonit, it's hard to recognize them sometimes.
She was not in her usual habitat (so, really, as she was not in a place where I expected to see her, she should have worn a name tag that said "Hello, I'm Marty's cousin, Christine.")

So, properly humiliated, I introduced her to Steve - who, I might mention, thought this amazing social gaffe on my part was one of the funniest things he's ever seen - and we chatted for a few more minutes and went our separate ways.

Steve and I drove off to his house where we ate sandwiches and contemplated what a total bozo I am and whether Christine might ever be able to forgive me. The sandwiches were tasty, but the forgiveness is still somewhat up in the air.

Our next big show for the day was at WERS, the radio station at Emerson College in Boston. with the taste of sandwich and humiliation still in my mouth, we drove down to the studios and started setting up.

Last year, Steve invited me to perform on the same radio show and it was a lot of fun. We were to be on the air for about 15 minutes, during which we would play a few songs and shamelessly promote our music, books, and upcoming events. While we were setting up and doing sound checks, one of the students who run the station came up to me with a paper and a pen. "You've got to read this and sign it, please," he said.

It was a sort of contract, assuring the station that I would not use any foul language while on the air. Considering that we were on a family show called "The Playground", and cutting loose with a barrage of obscenity would be a sure invitation to commercial and professional suicide, the contract seemed somewhat superfluous.

My favorite part of the contract was that fact that it not only warned against foul language, it provided dozens and dozens of specific examples of unacceptable vocabulary. The scope and specificity of the list was breathtaking. As a result, the contract I was was signing to prevent me from using obscenities, was full of more foul language than any printed document I have ever seen in my life. It had words, phrases, and combinations of words and phrases so exotic that they seemed to be a foreign language at times. It was really a good read and I should have asked for a copy, but I didn't think of it in time.

After we had assured the lawyers that we had no intention of filling the airwaves with naughty words, the host of the show, Andy, came into the studio and we went on the air. We chatted for a few minutes then went into our first song. Steve, I have mentioned in previous posts, likes to keep me on my toes by adding new songs to our sets mid-show and changing songs during performances. Things were rolling smoothly during our first song, Steve was strumming and singing, and I was banging on the djembe drum. As we neared the end of the song, Steve evidently decided that things were too easy for me and I was having too much fun. He made the executive decision to change the ending of the song. As a result, he suddenly stopped playing while my drumming continued for a measure or two until I realized that the song had ended.
"Hey, nice ending, there, Marty." Steve pointed out.

I was sad that I had signed the language contract then, because it had given me much verbal ammunition that I could have fired at Steve at that point. "Ha. Ha." I laughed, "I was having so much fun, I didn't want it to end."

After the show, we scorched our digestive tracts with some delicious Indian food and made our way homeward. Our next gig together is also in Boston. We'll be at the Read and Romp on November 14th. If you see us, come up and say hello.

If you are related to me or are someone I should know, please wear a nametag.