Music. It soothes,
excites, incites, entices, and enlightens. “It swings, it jives, it shakes all
over like a jelly fish,” oh wait, that is a crazy little thing called love. Singing
songs around the campfire, listening to A.M. radio in your grandpa’s station
wagon, or hearing classics via Bugs Bunny, music is everywhere. “I love it
loud, wanna hear it loud right between the eyes,” and hear it loud I have for
over 40 years. Up front, close and personal, hearing damaging, Marshall amplified.
Long journeys and local bar gigs filled my calendar and
depleted my bank account. I learned to dress on the fly, eat on the run, and
sleep sitting up. Shower in a rest stop bathroom, stretch a few dollars into a
week of gas and food, and communicate successfully with people from the garbage
man to the governor, all in the quest for that high. The one you get when you
get when Keith Richards hands you a guitar pick, when Simon LeBon serenades
you, or when your kid places first at a regional horse show.
Did I just go there? Yeah I did. There is nothing like years
of band-aiding to prep you for the horrors, I mean joys of motherhood. Sure
when your kid is a baby it is all giggles and smiles right? Yeah no. Remember
that time there was an explosive diarrhea event when you were late for work and
heading down the interstate only to smell ooooh that smell and look back to see
something on the back window of the car? The poop that shot right out of the
kid’s car seat? Hello gas station clean up 1985 style.
Remember that time your parent wouldn’t let you leave the
house wearing THAT? You stuffed the goods in a backpack, along with all of your
face and hair gear and did the old presto change-o in the gas station toilet. Fast
forward 30 years. Your kid stinks and is screaming, you are in your coupe, it’s
20 degrees out and you need a fix. You
got this.
Third grade class project? No sweat, those days of making
your own backstage passes out of cassette covers and sharpie markers have
prepared you well. A little bit of scissors and tape and your kid gets front
row, I mean first place. I have carried friends, both ways, uphill, barefoot,
in a snowstorm, or…perhaps that was a Grateful Dead parking lot.
From navigating my daughter through middle school awkwardness
and high school hell, my years as a rock and roller have unintentionally
prepped me for motherhood. “Be cool or be cast out.” It isn’t necessarily the “Dr.
Spock Rock” version of parenting, but having such a rich tapestry of
experiences to draw from gives me a particularly free and open way to raise my daughter.
We buck convention, yet we accept everyone. We treat strangers as friends, like
at a rock show. I have encouraged her to arrive early, seek out those in charge
and treat them with respect. You might be one of a crowd but you are an
individual. Live your life with passion and enthusiasm for the things you love.
And if you get up at four A.M. and drive five hours to see The Darkness, I mean
compete at a horse show and you step in it, Sweet Virginia, “you got to scrape
that shit right off your shoes.”
