221. People are People

The bed felt really empty when I was trying to get to sleep. Which turned into an endless loop of “The Bed’s Too Big Without You” by the Police in my head. Which turned into me turning the light back on and jotting down some notes for a song, which turned into the writing out a staff by hand and making actual musical notes, which I rarely do, but it seemed to make sense at the time, which turned into me grabbing the acoustic guitar nearest the bed (the orphan Yamaha) and working something out.

And by the time I was done with that, I was too tired to notice if anyone was in the bed or not.

I was woken at the crack of one in the afternoon by the phone ringing.

It was Digger. “So, how’s rehearsal going?” he asked.

“Um. Um.” My brain still wasn’t really awake yet. Well, no, actually, my brain was quite awake, but my lips and vocal cords weren’t. “We’re not really starting until tonight,” I finally managed.

“I thought you started last week?”

“Didn’t you know? I thought it was you who sent Zig to New York for a press junket. He’s not coming back until today.”

“Oh, right, right. Yeah, I did. I thought you’d started before that, though.”

“Not really, and it’s just as well given that he had to leave.” I yawned. “You’re up early.”

“What? It’s ten in the morning here.”

“That’s what I mean.”

“You’re my first call of the day.”

“I’m honored. But was that it? Asking about rehearsal, or are you working up to something?”

“What, your old man can’t call you up to find out how you’re doing?”

I cracked myself up thinking: How I’m doing? I’ve had so much sex this weekend I’m sore from it, that’s how I’m doing. I didn’t say that, of course. “Pretty good. The usual. There’s not that much to tell, honestly. Unless you want to know about the Yard Sale we had.”

“The what?”

“Garage sale, except here they call it a Yard Sale since nobody has garages. Come to think of it, most of the houses don’t have yard either.”

“Sure thing, kiddo, whatever you say.”

“How about this, daddyo, I’ll call you later in the week after we’ve rehearsed a little and I might acually have something to say.”

“Daddy-o, where’d that come from?”

“I just now decided I’m going to call you that every time you call me ‘kiddo.'”

He started to laugh. A real laugh, not a fake one. When he got himself under control, he said, “You know what? You turned out okay, kiddo.”

That made me laugh. “Thanks, daddyo.” I laughed pretty hard, actually. The whole thing was pretty ridiculous. And I had no idea how to feel about the comment. What did he mean, I turned out okay? Whatever.

I wrote not one, but two, sappy love songs that afternoon. I mean, why not? It’s not like I ever had to show them to anyone if I didn’t want. You never know when a pop ditty is going to come in handy, though. Or when you’ll find that ironic twist that makes it into something more. It was just so novel to be able to write something like that, though, with zero angst, that I figured I better do it while I could. I just felt good about Jonathan, just… happy. I wasn’t used to that. I kept expecting the other shoe to drop.

I noted some ideas about “the other shoe” to work into a song later. Then I worked a little more on “Infernal Medicine” to keep busy until it was time to go to rehearse.

—

(By the way, this video is an outstanding example of what a good lighting tech does, or did in those days, anyway. Which will be relevant in a future post.)