Cars, Guitars and Playing In Bars

I think the type of guitar you play says something about you. It’s not the absolute final word on the entirety of a musician's personality. But it’s a pretty good indicator. Guitars come in all shapes and sizes, and the one you choose might tell the audience that you’re a badass, a metal head, a bluesman, a blue eyed soul man, a redneck country chicken-picker or a jazz guy. Just one look at the stage and you’ll have a pretty good idea of who the guy is that’s strumming those six strings.

NOTE #1 for the non-guitar playing amongst us. Here’s what I’m saying in a way you can easily understand: The guy driving a sensible sedan is not trying to show off his money or sexual prowess. He’s just a dude driving a car.

The guy who pulls up on a motorcycle is and always will be cooler than you. Maybe he’s not, but that’s the message he’s trying to convey.

The guy who pulls up in a Hummer is compensating for something. I won’t say what. You can guess.

The guy driving the 1987 Chevy Sprint is saying he’s been so beat down by life he just doesn’t care about your opinion anymore. The world has taken his self-respect. You know this because a man with self-respect would never drive a three cylinder vehicle that runs on a gas/oil mixture and sounds like a weed-eater on a hot summer day.

What you choose tells a story. But sometimes, you don’t have a choice…

The issue about guitars came up on St. Patrick’s Day. SugarSmaX, my band, had a gig. I packed my car during my lunch break, returned to work, hit the road at 5 p.m. without stopping by the house, drove the hour and ten minutes to get to Monroe and arrived pretty much on time. I walked into the club, found the stage, looked at it and froze. Oh damn. I stepped forward carrying my acoustic guitar, my gig bag and nothing else. I had a problem. It didn’t look like everyone was setting up for an acoustic gig. They were setting up for an electric show. I thought this was an acoustic gig. Hence, my arrival, armed with only my acoustic guitar.

NOTE #2 for those non guitar players amongst us. The acoustic guitar is hollow, made of wood, and is great to have around a campfire. Think of James Taylor. An electric guitar (the one I didn’t have) is played through an amplifier (something else I didn’t have), is very loud and made rock and roll what it is today. Think of Slash, the guitar player for Guns and Roses.

I was “James Taylor” arriving at a gig when “Slash” was expected. Think of Axl Rose hitting a primal scream, followed by the opening guitar strains of “Fire and Rain.” They go together like chocolate and pickles, which is to say, not at all.

This was one of those really bad moments you have when you realize that you have screwed up, there’s no one else to blame and you’re going to have to live with the fact that you’re going to make everyone else’s life a little more difficult.

Which is what I did…

NOTE #3 for those non guitar players amongst us. Stick with me. I’m not going to get too technical here…

Our bass player Mick typically sets up an electric guitar on a stand, which is plugged into a piece of electronics that make it sound like a synthesizer, piano, horn section, etc. We pulled that guitar for my use, forgoing the syth/piano/horn sounds during the first set.

Mick has a very nice Strat that’s seen a lot of use. It’s still in good shape and sounds sweet. The club happened to have an amp (miracle of miracles) and I was set to go with an ad hoc rig.

We also called our regular soundman (who wasn’t working this gig), Butch, who is an incredibly nice guy. Proving it, he brought one of his guitars to the club so I could play it during the second and third sets, allowing Mick to use his guitar again (you know, since he actually brought it to the club and didn’t forget that this gig was electric like some other horse’s ass who we won’t mention. Oh yeah. That was me!)

Butch’s guitar worked great and allowed us to finish out the gig in fine fashion. My only issue was the paint job. His guitar is an Ibanez – a good guitar with a good sound. But the paint job is more suited for heavy metal/hair metal bands where the guitar player is wearing leather pants, lighting those pants on fire and receiving sexual favors from willing groupies in between sets (see pic…the pic of the guitar, not the groupies, you horn dog!)

But that wasn’t who was playing this guitar. It was me. The guy who’s married, has a day job and is lucky if he can get the attention of the bartender in between sets to get a refill of Diet Coke.

“Between set sexual favors” vs. “between set Diet Coke refills”. You get my point?

That guitar really wasn’t me. I couldn’t play it regularly, despite the fact that it sounded and felt good. Don’t get me started on how happy I was that Butch brought it and how much of a life-saver the thing turned out to be. But would I own it? Nah.

I’ll stick with my Epiphone Les Paul Black Beauty (see pic..stop looking for a damned horse, it’s a guitar!). It’s a classic design, created by the man who invented the solid body electric (RIP Les Paul). The paint job is jet black and calls attention to the notes coming from the guitar, not the long haired, leather pants wearing, groupie scoring guy who’s playing it.

That guitar is much more my style. And yes, I drive a Nissan Altima – a sensible sedan, thanks for asking.

And by the way...Thanks again, Butch!

Semantics

This is one of those blogs that breaks a cardinal rule – Have a point. The problem is, I don’t have a point. I have two. But they are linked by a common thread. Stick with me. It will all come together as you read.

Daylight Savings Time
I hate Daylight Savings Time. I don’t think it’s the fact that I lose an hour each Spring, gaining it back each Fall. Of course, when you lose something, only to gain it back later, you should be paid interest. And as valuable as sleep is for me, I should be gaining more interest than a teenage boy has in his dad’s Playboy collection.

Nope, it’s the way everyone refers to Daylight Savings Time. Ask someone who likes DST why they’re a fan. They’ll almost always answer, in a perky little voice: “Because you gain more daylight!”

My response: “No you don’t! There’s exactly the same amount of daylight. We just changed the clocks! Don’t you realize that we can’t change the sun! We can’t change the amount of daylight! Something far bigger than you, me, or Jimmy Carter is in charge of this little issue – the earth’s orbit around the sun!”


“I Taped It”
I hate it when Nicole says, “I taped it.” It irritates me beyond any reason. She used to tape things all the time. That was before we had DVR. Now, she doesn’t “tape” things. She “records” them. That’s because with DVR, there is no “tape”. There are 1’s and 0’s and computer hard drives and…and…well, I don’t know how it works, but it’s digital, not analog, and that means there is no tape!

There are lots of tapes in our house and we can still “tape” things – on the VCR is the bedroom. But she’s talking about the DVR and it irritates me.

And now that she knows how much this irritates me, she keeps doing it, just to dig in the needle every once in a while. I think she’s trying to irritate me half the time, and the rest of the time she just says “taped” out of habit. I’m still irritated, because she hasn’t changed what she says to reflect the fact that we have digital technology in our house.

The Reason This Irritates Me
I spent eight years as a radio show host. It was a talk radio station. In addition to the talk segments, I was also the news director. That means I was writing two 3 to 3 ½ minute newscasts each day. Using Microsoft Word, Times New Roman, 14 Point, that’s about three and a half pages each day. You would think that would have made me a Grammar Nazi. If I had been writing for print, it might have. I was writing for radio. Grammar wasn’t as much of an issue.

So end your sentences with a preposition, leave the “-ly” from adverbs and speak in run-on sentences all you want. I’ll notice, but I can keep that to myself.

The thing that irritates me is “semantics”. I admit it. I am a “Semantics Nazi.”

The Dictionary.com definition of semantics is, “the study of meaning.” Semantics refers to what words mean. I think our language should reflect our meaning. The correct words should be chosen. When incorrect words are used, it’s a problem.

So when people say there’s “more daylight,” I feel compelled to be the jerk that points out that daylight is a function of astronomy. Not of clocks.

It also bothers me that we’re now living longer on Daylight Savings Time than we live on regular time. Because we want “more daylight.” Grrrrrrrr. Just typing it pisses me of. We couldn’t have just gotten to work an hour earlier and left an hour earlier? That way, we would be enjoying more of the daylight that was already there. There have been arguments that DST doesn’t save the money or energy it’s supposed to save. That’s here. And there have been arguments made that DST has real life and death consequences. If you’re interested, those arguments are here.

And eventually, I’ll break Nicole down. I’ll keep making the point that there is no “tape” involved in the recording process until she changes. I’ll be successful, because I’m more irritated than she is committed to saying something incorrectly. As least I think so.

I just had another thought…

We really shouldn’t say “rewind” anymore when the DVR is being used, because there is no “winding” in the recording or playback process. It would be more proper to say “review,” which, by the way, is what my newest remote control says. Oh boy. I’m not sure that I’ve got enough fortitude to break the wife down on that one. Wish me luck…

February doesn't think much of us, and the feeling is mutual

Let’s just give February a kick in the ass on its way out the door.

That’s right, as we close out this first day of March, I’m still focused on the second month of the year. There are a lot of articles about why February sucks (Google: “February is the cruelest month”), but I’ll throw my two cents into the public domain anyway.

This was the most miserable month of weather we’ve had in a while. It’s been the coldest in this region in 30-some years. There were three hits of snow in three weeks. Well, the first actually happened during the last days of January, but we were still dealing with it Monday, Feb. 1st.

Here’s some irony. We brought my daughter home from the hospital right before it snowed—just over a week before Christmas. Shelby has now seen four snow events in her two and a half months of life. Four! It took something like six years of my childhood before I snow four separate snow events. And she’s not even big enough to make a snowman, have a snowball fight, or even make snow angels. But I was big enough! And I didn’t get any snow.

Not that I’m bitter.

Skies seemed to be overcast for most of the month. My daughter, the poor girl, will be shocked when she realizes the sun typically comes out every day, rather than making one measly appearance each week.

I typically like to see some snow in North Carolina during the winter. But one really good wintry event each year is enough for me. Having four hits of icy weather in is enough to make you wonder if they moved the Mason-Dixon line. It’s a damned Yankee conspiracy, some will say. Then they’ll spit tobacco and crank up the Skynard.

I had a special reason this year to be pissed about the weather. I had three gigs called off due to weather. Only one of them, in the end, was rescheduled. The lesson: Don’t count on gig money until “last call” has been called, staff is putting the chairs on the tables, and kicking the last pitiful drunk out of the bar.

And then the holidays:
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. I have no problem with this one. As a state employee, I had the day off. Cool.

Valentine’s Day: It’s a reason to spend money. It’s also a day when passion is the expectation, rather than just a hope. This year, Nicole and I were both sick. So, I got to spend the money and had no pay off. Excellent!

President’s Day: This is the most useless holiday we have. Okay, Arbor Day might be even weaker, but banks and federal offices are actually closed on President’s Day. I had to work. Most people had to work. But we couldn’t get our money into or out of the bank, which just makes work that much more frustrating.

You know what the main purpose of President’s Day has become? It’s an excuse to put cars on sale. I heard a commercial several times that called to mind the freedoms provided by Washington and Lincoln, and then urged us to take advantage of those freedoms by buying a Jeep.

LINCOLN FREED THE SLAVES!!! (History buffs, please don’t parse that statement, just work with me.) Does Jeep really want to put buying a car on the same level as freeing a race of people from the bonds of slavery? Really? It shocks me that no one in Jeep’s Advertising Department said, “Hey, uh, boss…maybe that claim is a little over the line. Maybe we ought to pull that back just a bit?”

And this year, just to throw something else into the mix, the Olympics mangled my television schedule. It wouldn’t have been so bad if my wife wasn’t such a huge fan of the Olympics. But she is. So now we’re backed up on a number of television shows and we have to close our eyes every time a promo comes on the TV. We also talk loudly so we won’t hear any plot points that are patiently waiting in the DVR.

You know, as I look back on this writing, it really doesn’t seem like there was anything monumentally bad about the month. I realize I’m a blessed individual if I’ve got time to bitch about car commercials and weather and my prime time TV schedule.

I have a friend who lives in Philly and the snow she got would make a southern boy weep.

I have another friend with Seasonal Affective Disorder, and she’s been more miserable than I can fathom this month.

So it looks like maybe I should keep my complaints to myself.

But that’s the trick February plays on you. It doesn’t bring it all at once. It operates in stealth. It nibbles away at you, piece by piece. It pisses you off just a little at a time. Then a big, fat snowstorm comes along and kicks you in the knee.

We’ve endured our 28 days of bleakness, though. February is over. March is here and warmer weather is on the way.

Well…not yet.

We’re all watching the forecast for this next winter storm. Yep, it’s the fifth such storm in the region this winter. If it actually turns out to be a significant event, it will hit North Carolina March 2nd.

But the damned system formed out west in the waning days of February.

It’s February’s middle finger, extended for all, as we get one final reminder of the bleak existence granted to us during the second month each year.

Thanks, Old Facebook Friend

First off, I type these updates in Microsoft Word, then copy and paste into Blogspot. When I type the word “Facebook”, the little red squiggly line comes up underneath. In other words, my Word program doesn’t recognize the word “Facebook”. Word thinks I misspelled something. (I’ve found that Word sometimes has funny ideas about grammar, but that’s a whole other blog.) Still, it’s another way to show how something so pervasive is still so new. Facebook is still a very young entity. It’s new enough, at least, that the term hadn’t been invented when my version of Word was created. But it has quickly become a fixture in my life – you know, like oxygen and food and Star Trek and zombie films.

Now, on to the blog…

“I found a new friend today.”

That’s what I would tell my mother coming home from pre-school, when I met someone I though was kind of cool or had a better collection of GI Joes than me. These days, thousands (tens of thousands? hundreds of thousands?) of people say the same thing, “I found a new friend today.” They say this to those people they actually see in person when they log off from the virtual “friend” gallery we know as Facebook.

What’s funny is that I’ve never actually met someone “new” through Facebook. There are a couple of friend requests I’ve approved after meeting someone in a bar during a gig. But I did see those people in the real world first – you know, the world that has oxygen and trees and plants and real flesh and blood human beings. Facebook’s success isn’t in helping to find new friends. It’s helping to find the old friends – those that we’ve forgotten over the years.

Today, I had the chance to rediscover someone I had forgotten. Not only was it someone from my past, but this person also continues to have a profound effect upon my present. It was pretty serendipitous how I found person, too. And yes, I’m going to tell the whole story and make you wait to find out who it is. (It’s my blog, and I’m trying to create some freakin’ suspense, so play along…)

See, I’m Facebook Friends with a guy at work, who’s actually in a totally different city. We were both on a conference call this morning, and since he and I are Facebook Friends and I didn’t want him to see me updating my Facebook status during the conference call, I was just looking, not posting. Ironically, my Facebook Friend had fewer reservations about using Facebook during the call.

Now this Facebook Friend, outside of his day job, is a really, really good banjo player, which means a lot of his friends come from the music world — fans and fellow musicians, etc. As I was listening to the conference call, I saw that the banjo player had approved a new Facebook friend. It amused me that I was being a good little employee and he wasn’t. So I gave a closer look at the entry that announced his new friend. His new friend turned out to be an old friend of mine. What are the odds?

It was someone I knew from age 11 to 13, when my mother forced me to take up a musical instrument. She wanted me to take piano lessons. I wanted to play guitar. She was happy as long as I was playing something, so guitar it was. She signed me up for lessons at a place called Pearson Music in Winston-Salem. Pearson Music no longer exists and it’s no wonder. Even to my 11 year old eyes, the place seemed way overpriced.

The man who gave lessons in the back room of the store was named Richard Matteson. It was a name I thought of only very occasionally over the years and had nearly forgotten. It was Richard who the banjo player had just friended. (By the way, "friended" also has a red squiggly line.)

Forgetting all thoughts of workplace propriety, I immediately clicked the name, saw a very familiar face, and hit the “Add As A Friend” button. How cool. My old guitar teacher was on Facebook. The man who first told me which frets to fret and which strings to pluck was suddenly right in front of me…online anyway.

You see, my old guitar teacher was (and is) a man of many musical styles. I saw him play some beautiful flamenco music once. He gave me one of the blues tapes (yes, back in the days of tapes) he made. He taught me rock, pop, blues, jazz (only a little) and even heavy metal tunes. These days, it seems, he’s doing a bit more with bluegrass—which is how he and the Banjo Player Facebook Friend From Work Who’s Actually In A Totally Different City got to know each other.

This is despite the fact that Richard now lives in Louisville, KY.

Driving home the serendipity angle, the banjo player approved seven or eight other friend requests in a few minutes, so my guitar teacher’s name was only listed for a short time before the listing changed to “(Banjo Guy) is now friends with (some other dude) and seven other people.” I was looking at just the right place at just the right time.

It was also cool because it gave me the chance to shoot Richard a quick message. While I’ve only thought of him rarely these past few years, when he did come to mind, there was something I hoped I’d be able to do.

You see, my mother bought the guitar, signed me up and paid for the lessons. For that, I've thanked her and will continue to do so. Richard, however, taught me to play, showed me the path to teaching myself, and is just as responsible for the joy and the friends and the cash and the therapy that music brings to my life.

I can’t imagine how my life would be different when I think of the people the guitar has brought into my life. I love the sound of the instrument, I love to play it, and I love to call myself a guitar player. Richard was a big part of that.

Finally twenty one years after my first lesson, I was finally able to say to Richard, if only through a private Facebook message…

“Thanks”.

It’s not a big enough word sometimes.

I hope he realizes that. I hope he has a clue of the effect he’s had on my life. And I hope that someday my playing or teaching or recordings will have a similar effect on someone else.

Again, Richard, “Thanks.”

The Roads We Choose, and the Detours We're Inclined To Take

I guess one of the most hackneyed, overused and ridiculous things to say is, “I didn’t think life would end up this way.” Well, of course it didn’t end up like you planned it. That’s what living is. You pick the road you want to travel. You start your journey. Then a big 18-wheeler comes along and forces you down a detour you didn’t expect. Maybe you find your way back to the road of your choice. Or maybe that detour never leads back to your original path.

I say this as I sit in a very quiet house at 2:54 a.m. I got home about an hour ago, having played a gig in Charlotte tonight. I’m still awake, because Shelby should be fed in a few minutes and I’m just the man for the job.

Still, being awake at this lonely hour leads me down this line of thought…

I am not on the path I chose for myself.

At age 18 I decided I wanted to be a radio DJ. My thought was, “I’m a pretty good guitar player, but there aren’t too many job openings for rock star, so what other job in the music industry could I take?” I took the radio route.

The problem with radio…well, actually, there are a lot of problems with radio:

—The industry is shrinking. There just aren’t as many jobs as there once was.
—In order to really advance and really make good money, you’ve got to be willing to move. Nicole and I were into that at first. Then we weren’t into it as much. I ended up working at the same small station for eight years.
—Music radio these days is boring. I worked at a music station for a few months. It was the most boring job I’ve ever had. Play a song, run a liner, play a song, read from the script, repeat until a commercial break is scheduled.

So, I got out of radio, took a good job for the good benefits and here I am, right?

Nope. There’s another part of my life that keeps me awake and typing at 3 a.m.

I started playing in a band a couple of years out of college. It was a small band with a high school friend and surprisingly (neither of us realized this until I walked into the first practice) my cousin! Marble Alley is a good band that I still play with sometimes. Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett and all the blues you can handle. I really like playing a lot of that music.

Other opportunities arose though, and the need for money and more gigs led me to another band. Locked and Loaded was (and still is) a southern rock and country band. That was good music, too, though it wasn’t anything I listen to on a regular basis. Still, it was really fun to play with a bunch of really good guys, and extremely talented musicians.

But there came a time (January, 2008) that I looked at our schedule, saw one gig in February and another in May and realized that I was counting on money from gigs that weren’t there. I went searching.

It’s a longer story (and a good one, I’ll tell it sometime) about the path it took me to join SugarSmaX, but suffice it to say, that’s where I landed. It’s where I remain. And I’m happiest in this band.

Performing music with other people and getting paid takes some work and involves some late nights. At most bars, we’ll start playing at 10 p.m. and end at 2 a.m. Now, I’ve always been a night owl, but keep in mind, I’ve got a 40 hour work week, going 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Suddenly, on the weekend, I’m supposed to play on Fridays and Saturdays until 2 a.m., pack up the equipment, return home between 3:30 and 4 a.m. and work my sleep schedule back to normal by the time Monday morning rolls around?

Yep. That’s exactly what I’m supposed to do. I feel just as natural with my guitar strapped on as I do in my favorite pair of blue jeans. I’ve played in front of 5 people and I’ve played in front of 700, and as long as they’re getting into to it, I’ll take either one. (Though I would prefer the 700, obviously.)

I had written music and dabbled with some recording in Locked and Loaded, but we never really got that project off the ground — probably because I left the band. Still, SugarSmaX has been recording, I think the songs are really good, and I’m interested in what a record company might have to say about what we’ve gotten down.

So, do you get the irony? I’ve come full circle, from deciding that being a rock star wasn’t realistic and choosing another path, all the way back to recording music with the back-of-the-mind hope that there might be a little room in the rock star world after all.

Our recordings may never do a thing. We could sell the songs and have someone else record them. We could have a massive hit on our hands. There are lots of options and the worst one is that I’ll have some good recordings of some good musicians, including myself. I can pull it out and let the grandkids listen to it someday!

So that’s how I landed in front of a computer, early on a Sunday morning, typing out a few thoughts about the roads we choose and the detours we’re inclined to take.

Now. It’s late and the baby needs her food.


Mark

Called Off Due To Snow

I turned 32 Saturday. I’ve had better birthdays.

The plan had been to play two gigs on the weekend. Friday, SugarSmaX was scheduled at Wild Wings Café in Winston Salem. It’s been a month since we’ve done a gig and I was really looking forward to playing again. Saturday, I was going to do play with Marble Alley, a band I play in from time to time, at the High Rock Boat and Ski Club. It’s a beach, soul, and R& B band that I’ve played in for five or six years now, so I was looking forward to playing that one, too.

The fact that my birthday was going to be mixed in on the weekend worked nicely. The better partiers are in SugarSmaX, but Nicole said she’d drive home Saturday (with the club only a few minutes from the house), so I figured that we would have fun both nights. That’s the really cool thing about playing in a band. You have a extra job and extra money, but you always have a place ready for you and your friends to celebrate.

A family gathering was scheduled for Sunday at my parents’ house to finish up a weekend’s worth of celebrating.

“The best laid plans of mice and men…”

The forecast looked daunting from about Tuesday. It improved a little Wednesday and then went to hell Thursday. Friday, it was just a matter of watching what I didn’t want to happen, happen. Snow, ice, etc. And the forecasters, despite the way everyone complains that they never get it right, got it just right.

So, the gigs were cancelled. Money was lost. Nicole and I were stuck at home. Nicole was just as disappointed as I was, because she’s not able to get out of the house that much. Even my parents and Nicole’s dad and stepmother were disappointed, because all of these plans had been contingent on the baby staying with her grandparents over the weekend.

It made me think how strange it is that we celebrate birthdays at all. I suppose someone, somewhere, decided that they needed an excuse for a party. The inventor of the birthday party was fairly self-centered one, I guess. Think about it. It would have been easy to come up with a reason for everyone to celebrate—the fall harvest or Christmas or New Year’s or Halloween or St. Paddy’s Day or Columbus Day or even freakin’ Arbor Day. \

But this inventor of the birthday party didn’t want everyone to just celebrate. He wanted everyone to celebrate him.

Or her. Either way, it was brilliant. And I suppose it’s nice for everyone to have a day dedicated to himself or herself, even if the concept itself is, by definition, wholly self-centered.

So, instead of focusing on the fact that my birthday, like our gigs, was essentially cancelled this year due to snow, we’ll find a way to stretch the celebration into next week. The fact that we’re celebrating is an arbitrary thing. The day on which we celebrate doesn’t have to be any less arbitrary.

So, pick a day. Let’s have some fun.

Rock (and roll) a bye baby

The other day, I walked in on Nicole exposing our child to something I really disapproved of. It’s nothing that will harm little Shelby – at least, I don’t think it will. But it was something I wish my wife would have discussed with me.

We know that Shelby has been hearing music since before she was born. While pregnant, Nicole would go to my band’s gigs, and the volume of my guitar certainly made it to the little one’s developing ears in utero.

The band plays a lot of different types of music, from hard rock to classic rock to some dance and rap tunes. The variety works for the crowd and makes it more interesting for the band members.

That variety has always been reflected in the family CD collection, too. Nicole and I each have wide-ranging taste in music. When we combined our CD’s more than a decade ago, the mix became even more diverse. Barbara Mandrel was just a few slots above Metallica. When Nicole added ABBA to the collection, my Aerosmith CD’s ceased to be first in alphabetical order. That hurt.



We each have favorites that the other hates. But more often, our tastes cross over, mainly when it comes to rock and roll. AC/DC was always part of both our collections. Aerosmith, Guns and Roses, the Rolling Stones, Van Halen, the Eagles, and Motley Crue are bands loved by both husband and wife, now mother and father.

When Nicole got pregnant, we joked about having a “rock and roll baby”. Me being a guitar player, in a band, and our musical tastes being what they are, it just made sense. Nicole even purchased two “onesies” for Shelby – with AC/DC and KISS across the front. They’re really cute.

Lately, while spending time on the computer in the afternoons, Nicole has taken to exposing Shelby to music. Later, Nicole will tell me which tunes Shelby liked (slept through) or didn’t like (cried). Shelby apparently has an affinity for Soundgarden (Outshined), Aerosmith (Rag Doll), Staind (It’s Been A While), Guns and Roses (Welcome to the Jungle), and even Price (Let’s Go Crazy). She didn’t like Queen, which is strange, because it’s not like Nicole played “Bicycle” or anything. Still, I like the idea that my daughter is getting a solid dose of rock and roll.

Friday, however, I found Nicole playing something truly offensive—at least, to my ears.

As I walked into the house after a long day at work, streaming from the computer speakers were the unmistakable harmonies of The Statler Brothers. The Kid’s Last Fight. Whatever Happened To Randolph Scott? I’ll Go To My Grave Lovin’ You. Flowers On The Wall. It was an ugly scene. Even worse, Shelby seemed perfectly content to listen.

Nicole needs to understand. Shelby’s not going to like music I disapprove of. She’s my daughter and will obviously like what I like. She’ll always dislike the things that I hate, right? Right?!?

(sigh) Okay. I realize that kids have minds of their own. And I realize my daughter is probably going to, at times, enjoy things that Mom and Dad don’t—only for the simple fact that Mom and Dad don’t like it. Maybe it’s good that Lady Gaga is doing her thing now. It’s my hope that she’ll burn out before Shelby has control of the radio dial.

Still, it’s not fair for Nicole to undermine my dislike of the Statler Brothers when I’m out of the house. I have two choices. I can either move the offending Statler Brothers CD’s to a safer place (the trash) or take some proactive steps of my own.

I have instituted KISS listening parties each Thursday night. Me and my daughter are gonna rock out to the hottest band in the land. The mighty KISS. And after a few hours of Paul’s vocal, Gene’s bass, Peter drums and Ace’s rockin’ guitar, my baby girl will scream bloody murder and cry her eyes out when she hears The Statler Brothers.

Just like her Dad.