The softest fireworks in town
I spent the Fourth of July blasting a friend’s yoga playlist while I played along on a digital saxophone. I’m sad that #YOLO isn’t a viable punchline anymore.
In 2020 and 2021, I wrote and recorded a couple dozen songs, some of which would fit just fine middle of side two on your favorite alt-dad album, although marred by poor production values. They were briefly on Bandcamp to share with friends, but I came to my senses and cleared them out in 2024 because 2021 seems long enough ago that it’s officially a different era.
Music has always been one of my missed speedruns. I was such a natural on the recorder in fourth grade the teacher reached out to make sure my parents pushed me to choose an instrument for sixth grade. (I skipped fifth.) In high school, I played in a local all-star band as second tenor sax, but never advanced because I had this very Frank Zappa mindset that every solo should be unique and unplanned, not some amalgamation of stolen Charlie Parker and Michael Brecker riffs. (It was 1990; the Brecker Brothers were huge.)
I resented the hell out of the star soloist, the first alto, who played the same fucking solo every time, memorized, tweaked and refined. I told him, “That’s not improv.” But no one told me that that’s how soloing worked, that Mark Knopfler plays the same version of “Telegraph Road”.
I didn’t realize that some people make plans. So when I wasn’t capable of sounding like Eric Dolphy, no matter the vibe or key, I came to the conclusion I was a failure as a musician. I went to college to study Chemical Engineering, but I did try out for the symphonic program at U of Illinois. I even made the band, but it was the third tier of symphonic bands, so I didn’t enroll, thinking that everyone who tried out was dumped in that band. I was 25 before I realized that most didn’t make any of the bands at all.
There’s something gratifying about a hobby you’re bad at. I kicked off my Independence Day with an absolutely torturous hip-and-pigeon focused Katonah yoga session, playing the role of the person in class who helps everyone else feel better about themselves. I’ve periodically considered taking yoga teacher training for the academic interest — to “deepen my practice” as the literature says — but I don’t think I could credibly teach anyone anything when I still can’t touch my toes.
After class, I spent a few minutes hanging with the teacher and a couple students. One had a migraine, another suggested ketamine since she worked at a ketamine facility, the former had done a series of treatments at that facility but they hadn’t met before. If I make it to August 8th, I’ll be sober five years, and I’m not touching anything new, not psylocibin, not even CBD, much less THC, but I didn’t mention that. Somehow I have zero thoughts on ketamine, which is the same way I feel about God: it’s not for me to know.
I checked my phone and saw 16 new messages on the family group-text, everyone lauding my younger brother, 48, as he detailed the day’s CrossFit workout. It involved one-armed burpees and heavy biceps curls. It was dedicated to the military somehow, which is a thing CrossFit types like to do to elevate exercise above the level of a hobby. Given my mother’s obsession with diet and fitness, it felt like he was asking for his mother’s love. A second cousin of mine was killed in Fort Hood shooting in 2009; somehow that came up.
Today I’ll hit up my favorite AA meeting, one that’s hard to make on a Friday workday. My favorite thing about meetings is the redirection, how you have to take the topic as it comes. Maybe I’ll go in wanting to talk about self-abasement, but instead we’ll talk about the Fifth Step Promises (“We can look the world in the eye. We can be alone at perfect peace and ease. Our fears fall from us.”) and I’ll have to think about my Higher Power again.
Because I skipped fifth grade, I was 17 when I was making decisions about my future, dipping out on the saxophone. (Chemical Engineering didn’t work out either.) It also means I was 10 when I entered middle school, where some of the eight graders were bigger then than I am now.
I did join the band. Forty years later, I added a digital saxophone track to the instrumental version of D’Angelo’s "Brown Sugar”.