Ear Plugged
Posted on November 15, 2009 with 0 comments
It was a quiet morning on the Chelsea hilltop, huge soft wads of mist weaving through the November trees and a tentative brightness after days of rain. It was also quiet because my left ear was plugged with earwax and the mix session cancelled for the weekend. Scott Davis was extremely gracious as I talked to him, my right ear pressed securely to the phone as to a piece of life saving driftwood. This was a first, I explained: auditory impairment due to poor use of hydrogen peroxide. My attempt to clear my ears had turned the tables on me for the short term, and shaken loose years of accumulated flotsam. I could not, in good conscience, venture to mix this complex stereo field in mono: Scott’s fantastic landscapes of rushing, leaping, tinkling, thrumming, rolling, ringing, thundering, clashing and scratching percussion. We would postpone for a week, giving me time to unglue the jam and return clear eared, even eager to put one last stroke of sparkle onto his creation before releasing it to find it’s audience.
A little depressed by my condition, I turned to bookkeeping for consolation. The rain had returned and as I sat hunched over my computer, I listened absent-mindedly with my good ear to the slow and steady plopping drops. “You used to play your guitar”, I thought wistfully, condescending to myself in the usual way. “Now you run to your desk and flip on the power strip when the chips are down. Wouldn’t be surprised if the next time you unlatch your case you find something missing. Remember them? The ‘56 Martin D-28, the Froggy K guitar? Those old friends who never gave up on you even when you were hopelessly disheveled and unfit for social interaction? When no one else cared or noticed that you were about to fall into an abyss?” Just at that moment, QuickBooks went “ding”, as another thousand-dollar credit card bill checked off as “paid”. I settled deeper into my chair, somewhat comforted by the reassuring sound of an orderly world where there was a place for me, punching numbers with no real end in sight. A “guitar” – is that what you called it?
I remembered then my reaction many years ago, upon hearing the rumor that my old guitar teacher, Jon Miller, had moved to the west coast and become an insurance salesman. Whether or not it was true was not important; the mere idea of his defection gave me the opportunity to be self-righteous, indignant and aghast. To think he would do this shamelessly practical thing, and, because it was done by white men in suits, an undeniably unethical thing. Why would he want a steady income for god’s sake? What did he think he was doing, selling some piece of paper to people, instead of playing a-tonal guitar instrumentals based on Emily Dickinson poems? How dare he!
How far the distance. Now, almost twenty years later, in the humming light of a sleek, silver, MacBook Pro, I was hanging with The Man, readying like a nubile bride for her perfect day - with the IRS. My pride at having mastered the financials of the guitar shop (to a point), able to generate profit and loss statements at a moment’s notice – it made me puff up and swivel in my chair when any mere guitar maker craftsman walked near my desk. My filing skills were at an all time high; I was surrounded by an army of fresh, colorful post-it notes and high-lighter pens. All the warranty cards had a proper position in the file box and it was because of me. I deserved another cup of coffee right now and maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to take that accounting class after all.
On the other hand, the accumulated years of wrapping myself around guitars and my picking up along the way a guitar maker husband did have its payoffs, I had to admit. It was a secret guilty pleasure of mine, nay just fun, to walk around town, most recently my old hometown Ithaca NY, as a returning ambassador-ress from the Northern Kingdom of Acoustic Guitar Paradise. Strolling the concourse of an indoor café, just a few doors from the famous Moosewood Restaurant, I had literally bumped into my old, childhood friend Charlie Shew talking on his cell phone. He motioned me to return with him to his table; “I want you to meet my friend Sherman”, he said and here was Sherman with a nice smile, a psycho-therapist evidently with some kind of past in music. ”What’s going on in town this weekend, guys” I said, “are there any good bands playing?” They reviewed their mental calendars and mentioned a CD release at a scummy bar that in my day had been called “The Salty Dog”. “I used to go there all the time as a teenager, it was one of my hang-outs”, I said nostalgically, “when the house band was “Orleans” – before they got famous, of course.” Charlie looked over at Sherman. “Sherman wrote “Dancing in the Moonlight”, he said.
So it was okay to play guitar. Yeah, it’s better than okay. Why couldn’t I turn off the computer and look for one of my pink flat-picks, this being Sunday and all. And the next time one of my guitar–playing buddies like Bow Thayer asks me to pull the thing out – assuming it’s still there – to go play a gig (like he did yesterday), well…I think I’ll say yes.
A little depressed by my condition, I turned to bookkeeping for consolation. The rain had returned and as I sat hunched over my computer, I listened absent-mindedly with my good ear to the slow and steady plopping drops. “You used to play your guitar”, I thought wistfully, condescending to myself in the usual way. “Now you run to your desk and flip on the power strip when the chips are down. Wouldn’t be surprised if the next time you unlatch your case you find something missing. Remember them? The ‘56 Martin D-28, the Froggy K guitar? Those old friends who never gave up on you even when you were hopelessly disheveled and unfit for social interaction? When no one else cared or noticed that you were about to fall into an abyss?” Just at that moment, QuickBooks went “ding”, as another thousand-dollar credit card bill checked off as “paid”. I settled deeper into my chair, somewhat comforted by the reassuring sound of an orderly world where there was a place for me, punching numbers with no real end in sight. A “guitar” – is that what you called it?
I remembered then my reaction many years ago, upon hearing the rumor that my old guitar teacher, Jon Miller, had moved to the west coast and become an insurance salesman. Whether or not it was true was not important; the mere idea of his defection gave me the opportunity to be self-righteous, indignant and aghast. To think he would do this shamelessly practical thing, and, because it was done by white men in suits, an undeniably unethical thing. Why would he want a steady income for god’s sake? What did he think he was doing, selling some piece of paper to people, instead of playing a-tonal guitar instrumentals based on Emily Dickinson poems? How dare he!
How far the distance. Now, almost twenty years later, in the humming light of a sleek, silver, MacBook Pro, I was hanging with The Man, readying like a nubile bride for her perfect day - with the IRS. My pride at having mastered the financials of the guitar shop (to a point), able to generate profit and loss statements at a moment’s notice – it made me puff up and swivel in my chair when any mere guitar maker craftsman walked near my desk. My filing skills were at an all time high; I was surrounded by an army of fresh, colorful post-it notes and high-lighter pens. All the warranty cards had a proper position in the file box and it was because of me. I deserved another cup of coffee right now and maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to take that accounting class after all.
On the other hand, the accumulated years of wrapping myself around guitars and my picking up along the way a guitar maker husband did have its payoffs, I had to admit. It was a secret guilty pleasure of mine, nay just fun, to walk around town, most recently my old hometown Ithaca NY, as a returning ambassador-ress from the Northern Kingdom of Acoustic Guitar Paradise. Strolling the concourse of an indoor café, just a few doors from the famous Moosewood Restaurant, I had literally bumped into my old, childhood friend Charlie Shew talking on his cell phone. He motioned me to return with him to his table; “I want you to meet my friend Sherman”, he said and here was Sherman with a nice smile, a psycho-therapist evidently with some kind of past in music. ”What’s going on in town this weekend, guys” I said, “are there any good bands playing?” They reviewed their mental calendars and mentioned a CD release at a scummy bar that in my day had been called “The Salty Dog”. “I used to go there all the time as a teenager, it was one of my hang-outs”, I said nostalgically, “when the house band was “Orleans” – before they got famous, of course.” Charlie looked over at Sherman. “Sherman wrote “Dancing in the Moonlight”, he said.
So it was okay to play guitar. Yeah, it’s better than okay. Why couldn’t I turn off the computer and look for one of my pink flat-picks, this being Sunday and all. And the next time one of my guitar–playing buddies like Bow Thayer asks me to pull the thing out – assuming it’s still there – to go play a gig (like he did yesterday), well…I think I’ll say yes.