I was living in Chicago when I hit my 40’s. And I was getting tired of haunting the same old bars, doing mostly the same old thing with pretty much the same old crowd. So I started taking guitar lessons at the Old Town School of Folk Music (OTSFM). It was a magical place back then. The students were an eclectic group of many stripes and of all ages, gathering weekly in an informal, non-degree based setting with a neo-hippie vibe. It changed my life in ways both large and small and opened me up to new forms of expression. They would run classes in eight week blocks and once you got past the introductory course, you were free to join a wide range of classes for many musical styles and instruments — from singing to banjo to percussion to dance to songwriting. Perhaps the most fun were the so-called “ensembles,” mini band experiences in which you would explore a particular group or musical genre during each block, sometimes running sequentially for years on end. I joined ensembles focused on the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Beck, the Smiths, and the Beach Boys. You learn a lot from playing with other people. My friend Cathy used to say, “know your role!” and that’s pretty good general life advice. With the 70’s ensemble, I got to play an afternoon set on a public stage at the Taste of Chicago in Grant Park. I was pretty off-key that day but it didn’t matter. Nobody died. It was an important lesson in singing. Rather then trying to sing like someone else (i.e. to match the record), learn to sound like yourself. Another generalizable life lesson. One of my all-time favorites, though, was the Mellow Gold class which explored the sock rock hits from the 1970’s by Ambrosia, Bread, the Carpenters, Poco, Seals and Crofts, Elton John, Maureen McGovern, Hall and Oats, and John Denver. “Wildfire” by Michael Martin Murphey became a mock anthem to be worked into a song set whenever possible. Real fun was had. Great friends were made. How could they not? It was telling that after we sang a little Neil Diamond or Neil Sedaka ditty, we would immediately start to laugh, mostly at ourselves. A lush and joyful absurdity is a beautiful thing.
As you look back on life, certain patterns emerge. We yearn for something new, some novel experience or skill, but we also enjoy familiar ritual. It’s finding a balance somewhere between learning a brand new song and telling the same old joke — and sometimes the joke is in the repetition. One classmate in the 70’s ensemble was named Dave, a great dude, slightly older than me. He had this groovy Native American style guitar strap that you might see in a Santa Fe gift shop. I don’t think it had exactly inlaid turquoise but that’s pretty close. And as we’d don our gear at the start of class I used to love calling out, “Hey, Dave, who gave you that strap, Billy Jack?!” I’ve told that joke dozens of times and it still cracks me up. And if he got sick of it, he never let on. New and old. Novel plus ritual. As Guy Clark spoke-sang it, “the stuff that works, the stuff that holds up.”
And in the course of these here classes, you’d naturally meet folks and become friends. And my night being mostly Thursday’s, and being of German-Irish descent, there was a natural tendency to find a watering hole afterwards. For me it started at the Grafton Pub with a guy my age named Eric. We would drink Guinness and shoot the shit. Compare notes on life, the way you do. We all need that so that we don’t stray too far off course. Then after a few weeks another guy joined us. Then one of the gals, and we all eventually followed the crowd up the street to Ricochet’s Tavern, a pretty generic dive bar but with a jukebox. I think that was the key, in the end. Pump in a few dollars and sing along, sometimes even dance a bit (the worse the better!). One of the juke buttons was balky, and I had another running joke that I wore out with my friend Cathy: “if it sticks, you get Styx!” (not sure why but I always hated Styx, even though I more than tolerated cheesier acts like Barry Manilow… life’s funny that way). At its height there might have been 15-20 or more folks there from the OTSFM, just chattin’ and singin’ and a-carryin’ on. Beer and bourbon. Gettin’ to know the bartenders. Teachers would often show up. It was a whole cast of characters, kinda like “The Simpsons.” Stayin’ up too late, anyhow, for a school night. They only had chips and pretzels, no hot food, but the “Tamale Guy” would usually make the rounds selling his grub from a cooler. One night a local butcher came in selling mustards and meats. That felt a little odd but I bought some anyway. You can never have too much mustard.
There was a semi-regular named Andy, terrific guy, who kindly tolerated our antic behavior. For whatever reason, a group of us “regulars,” including Larry, Virginia, Karen, myself and others, decided to encircle and serenade him with Dave Mason’s “We Just Disagree” (his unexcused absences poignantly underscored by the opening line, “Been away / haven’t seen you in a while / how’ve you been? / have you changed your style?”). We took to burying the song deep in the jukebox set and then we’d sneak up on him at the bar, whilst he was immersed in conversation, and hit him with full-throated chorus. His combined physical agitation and good humor at this was like catnip to us, and this scene was repeated in variations many times thereafter. Yet another ritual to stave off life’s madness. I very much look forward to its return someday! And the pay-off was all the better when he conveyed to us this story. It seems he had been shopping at Jewel-Osco one day when the song was suddenly playing overhead. He said that his head instinctively darted back and forth down the aisle, fully expecting to see us peering around the corner. I revel in the idea of what it would take to pull that off — persistently stalking Andy and waiting for the right moment, talking to the store manager, patching an iPhone into the PA system. Alas, it was a mere coincidence. But one that also speaks volumes about the emotional reach of Dave Mason. As if there was any doubt.
Two of the regulars were a set of seemingly inseparable friends, aptly/alliteratively named Janet and Judy. Both very nice but who, for a short spell, adopted the unfortunate habit of sneaking up on you at the bar and slapping you, pretty damned hard, right on your ass! We called them, in those days, the Spank Sisters. For a while I developed a tic that had me quickly checking my shoulder for their presence and angling my butt perpendicular to the bar. It was fairly annoying, honestly, but in a benign way. Anyhow, they had a circle of friends that overlapped mine and they enjoyed camping trips to the Wisconsin lakes, and probably also into Michigan. I have a fairly deep aversion to camping and wasn’t about to find out the exact locations first hand. Janet had made several invitations for me to join in these outdoor adventures, but I assiduously declined using various dodges and filibustering techniques. But as she persisted over the several months, I finally landed on my list of non-negotiable demands for such a camping scenario to unfold, virtually guaranteeing that it would not. They are as follows and with an intended comedic escalation:
- A warm bed.
- A hot shower.
- Cable.
- A bidet.
- An inflatable sex doll with a mouth shaped like “O”!!
Needless to day, I never went camping. Janet was, of course, in on the joke all along and we short-hand referenced these mock conditions as “The Five Things. ” Nuance and novelty against ritual and repetition. Maybe our lives, when optimized, find that dynamic-balance. This static-flux. We are always and yet never changing. Perhaps that’s as it should be: to always dig for new material but knowing sometimes that the humor is in the eyerolls (and that a joke doesn’t get old until the teller gets tired of it!). Things for us to ponder. And feel free to use this list to whatever end you may desire. Meantime, I’ll be at the bar.
Great Exudations 